A power plant operator in southern Japan has restarted a reactor - the first to begin operating under new safety requirements following the Fukushima disaster.
Kyushu Electric Power said it had restarted the No 1 reactor at its Sendai nuclear plant in Satsumasendai, southern Japan, as planned.
The restart marks Japan’s return to nuclear energy four and a half years after the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in the north east following an earthquake and tsunami.
National broadcaster NHK showed plant workers in the control room as they turned the reactor back on. Tomomitsu Sakata, a spokesman for Kyushu Electric Power, said the reactor was put back online as planned without any problems.
Plans to expand one of Aberdeenshire’s biggest windfarms have been lodged.
The owners of Glens of Foudland, near Huntly, first unveiled plans to add another nine turbines to their existing 20-mast development last year.
After a public consultation revised plans for seven 328ft turbines have now been submitted to Aberdeenshire Council.
Italian energy group ERG is to buy German utility E.ON's Italian hydroelectric power plants for about 950 million euros ($1 billion), expanding its renewable portfolio which mostly comprises windfarms.
E.ON's Terni Hydroelectric Complex, which has 527 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity and produces about 1.4 terawatt hours of electricity a year, was put up for sale in late 2013 along with other assets in the country.
ERG currently operates windfarms in Europe with a total capacity of 1.38 gigawatts, including 1.1 gigawatts in Italy, as well as a gas-fired thermal plant in Sicily with a capacity of 480 MW.
When a power company wants to build a new windfarm, it generally hires a consultant to make wind speed measurements at the proposed site for a period of time.
Dundee University is to lead a major research project to determine whether cheaper, more environmentally responsible and more effective foundations can be developed for the offshore renewables industry.
Natural gas, once seen as a clear winner in President Barack Obama’s push for cleaner power, isn’t looking like much of a champ these days.
That so-called bridge that gas was supposed to be, leading America away from dirtier fossil fuels such as coal and toward renewable power, just got a lot shorter under the final Clean Power Plan released by the US Environmental Protection Agency on Monday.
The agency will reward early investments in wind and solar power to get the nation generating 28 percent of its power using renewables by 2030, up from a previously proposed 22 percent.
The more aggressive goal weakens natural gas’s role in America’s energy future in favor of a quicker transition to zero-carbon sources of electricity. It’s yet another blow for gas producers who’ve seen prices for their fuel slide amid a glut of supply from shale formations.
Scotland’s summer may have been a washout, but the wet and windy weather has proved to be a “belter” for renewable energy, with the amount of electricity produced by wind turbines up by more than 50% on last year.
Wind power alone supplied 660,117.23 Megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity to the National Grid in July, which is enough to supply on average the needs of 72% of Scottish homes - the equivalent of 1.75 million households.
That is up by 58% from the same month in 2014, according to environmental campaigners at WWF Scotland.
Count bikers, boaters and, to hear some say, even God, among those who oppose the US law that forces refiners to use corn to make gasoline.
In more than 413,000 public comments to the Environmental Protection Agency, ethanol opponents are battling it out with big oil producers and farmers in a bid to reshape the 2007 law. The agency, which in May proposed lowering the amount of ethanol refiners must use in gasoline, is expected to release final targets Nov. 30.
The plan drew passionate responses from both sides.
President Barack Obama will release on Monday a final version of the Clean Power Plan in what he calls the nation’s most important step to combat climate change.
The administration has been working with states and power companies to ensure they have the flexibility needed to cut pollution while lowering energy bills, Obama said in a video released in a White House Twitter post.
The first U.S. rules to curb greenhouse gases from power plants are the centerpiece of Obama’s fight to combat climate change, an issue he’s made a priority of his final two years in the White House. The regulations are among the most sweeping and complex in the Environmental Protection Agency’s history and they promise to revamp the way electricity has been generated and distributed for a century.
Controversial plans to build the first UK nuclear power station in over 20 years have taken a huge step forward with an announcement of which companies are set to be involved in the giant energy project.
The former chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co., Tsunehisa Katsumata, and two other executives may face indictment over the 2011 accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, according to an independent inquest by the Tokyo Prosecutors Office.
The Scottish Government has refused planning consent for a controversial windfarm proposed for the edge of the Cairngorms National Park.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney concluded that the 31-turbine Allt Duine plan, for the Monadhliath Mountains near Kincraig, did not represent “sustainable development.”
He said it would result in “significant and unacceptable landscape and visual impacts on the park.”
A plan for a 31-turbine wind farm near one of Scotland’s most picturesque mountain ranges has been refused.
The proposed Allt Duine wind farm, near Kincraig on the edge of Cairngorms National Park, has been vetoed by Scottish ministers who ruled that it would have a significant impact on the landscape.
The Scottish Government said it is committed to generating 100% of Scotland’s electricity demand from renewables by 2020 but it will not permit wind farms that have an unacceptable impact on the local area.
A leading political figure has called for greater deployment of solar energy in Scotland.
Energy minister Fergus Ewing said more work needed to be done to help homes and businesses generate their own supply of electricity.
The call comes after the Department of Energy and Climate and Change (DECC) made moves to reduce the Feed-in –Tariff and Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) subsidies in the UK and set proposals to reduce the renewables obligation support.
The decision to remove renewable energy sources from the Climate Change Levy (CCL) exemption will have a negative impact on the country’s renewable sector, according to a research and consulting firm.
GlobalData said that while the move is expected to generate around £490million by 2016 and up to £1billion per year by 2020, the energy sector will suffer as a result in the short term.
However this negative affect is likely to help growth in the long term – but areas such as the UK’s wind sector the hardest in the immediate aftermath of the decision.
