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Article image Germany's clean energy plans founder on dirty coal

Germany's planned transition to green energy has taken a knock with the announcement in late April that coal-fired plants produced 6% more power in 2012. Most of the coal burned in German power stations is lignite, or brown coal, a dirty and heavily polluting fuel source. Industry association Debriv also said the country mined 5.1% more brown coal in 2012 than in the previous year. Brown coal has a CO2 intensity of 1,153 grams per kWh versus 428 grams for natural gas, according to figures from the OekoInstitut, Germany's institute of applied ecology. Germany's green energy policies subsidise renewable wind and solar energy, and following the Fukushima disaster last year, the government said it would close all its nuclear...

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UK nuclear new-build: no realistic alternative

EDF Energy announced on April 23 that “as part of good project management, and to control costs”, it had taken steps to refocus activities at its proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, which would mean a reduction in the number of people working on the project. EDF wants to build two new plants at Hinkley and Sizewell in Suffolk for about £14 billion, but needs assurances that it can recoup its investment with a government guarantee to support energy prices, the so-called ‘strike-price’. Those close to the negotiations between EDF and the Treasury say an impasse has been reached, with EDF holding out for far higher prices for Hinkley C-generated electricity than government is prepared to agree to. It is understood that EDF wants at...

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Fukushima's continuing problems

In early April, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the Japanese utility that runs the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, said that three out of seven underground storage tanks were leaking radioactive liquids, confirming the country’s continuing difficulties in cleaning up after the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. The plant, devastated by a tsunami two years ago, uses the underground tanks as primary containment for contaminated water. Tepco managers say they are ‘losing faith’ in the tanks, but have nowhere else to store the water. The company has stepped up construction of sturdier above-ground tanks, but does not yet have the capacity to empty the underground storage pools.  Hundreds of thousands...

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When pipeline is safer than rail

The recent leak in the old Exxon Mobil Pegasus pipeline near Mayflower, Arkansas, is being used as a stick with which to beat supporters of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which if built would deliver oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Opponents of Keystone say that Pegasus was delivering heavy crude from the Canadian oil sands to Texas, similar to the oil Keystone will transport. These opponents say that oil sands crude is more corrosive to pipelines than is other oil, and that this made the Pegasus leak (and future Keystone leaks) inevitable. Oil experts refute that claim.  The Wall Street Journal points out that Pegasus was built in the 1940s, and about half of America's 2.3 million miles of pipeline were built...

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