A report from a House of Lords committee suggests consumers across Britain face an extra £80 a year on their energy bills as a result of the Government's commitment to source 15% of the UK's power from renewables by 2020. In Scotland, that target is higher, with ministers pledging to source 50% of the country's electricity from renewables by that year.

The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee said it was "sceptical" that a UK Government's 20% target could be met by 2020 and warned that the plans could lead to an over-reliance on "intermittent sources" such as wind. Other sources of energy would be required to back up wind, it warned, meaning costs of electricity production would rise to £6.8bn a year – or some £80 a year more on annual fuel bills.

The Economics of Renewables Energy  comes amid disagreement between UK and Scottish ministers over energy generation. It comes with the EU demanding that all member states boost the amount of energy they source from renewables sources over the coming decade. Scottish ministers have ruled out nuclear energy, insisting it can rely on wind, wave and carbon capture storage.

The House of Lords committee has now warned that even the UK Government's less ambitious plans are a cause of concern. It declared that the full costs of wind power "remained significantly higher" than coal, gas or nuclear energy. It also warned that wind power "cannot be relied upon to meet peak demand".

It backed carbon capture and storage – where carbon emissions from coal powered stations are pumped underground to ensure they do not escape into the atmosphere. Lord Vallance, the committee's chairman, said: "We are concerned that the dash to meet the EU's 2020 targets may draw attention and investment away from cheaper and more reliable low carbon electricity generation.

"Current policies would take the UK into uncharted territory, with a dependence on intermittent supply unprecedented elsewhere in Europe. To guard against power shortages, wind turbines would need to be backed up with conventional generation. Together with the requirement to replace almost a quarter of the UK's older generating capacity by 2020, this represents a massive investment programme. Whether it is achievable in the time available is open to doubt."

A lot can change by 2030
Meantime French utility giant EDF  has not given up hope of building a second nuclear reactor at Torness in East Lothian. The facility (right. courtesy: www.rosslyntemplars.org.uk) is due to be decommissioned in 2023. Bernard Dupraz , director general of production and engineering at EDF – which recently bought nuclear operator British Energy in a £12bn deal – said that he believed the current anti- nuclear political stance north of the Border could change dramatically by 2030.

"Energy is a business and nuclear energy is a political business. We respect different governments's views on nuclear energy. However, we believe that to have Torness as part of British Energy is something which could create a great opportunity for us in 20 years time or so in terms of building a new plant."

"In the short-term, we are giving priority to England, where we can build immediately. However, long-term in Scotland, we don't know what's going to happen as far as the government is concerned. Things could change."

The Scottish Government's anti-nuclear stance has sparked fears that the jobs of some of British Energy's 1,400 Scottish staff may be in jeopardy following the acquisition by EDF.

"We have no plans to move British Energy's headquarters away from East Kilbride," says Dupraz, "It is not any more difficult for us to have British Energy's headquarters in a place where the government is opposed to nuclear power, than it was for British Energy."

EDF plans to build a total of four new nuclear plants in England over the next decade, creating thousands of new jobs. It also wants to create a centre of excellence somewhere in the UK to train British engineers to work on new nuclear reactors.

Dupraz said: "It is too early to say where all of these jobs will be or whether any of them will be in East Kilbride. Some of them will have to be at the power station sites, but we have not yet decided where the others will be located."

Power plant sites put up for sale
Land next to three nuclear power sites is being put up for sale, raising the prospect of new operators entering the energy market by building new stations. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority yesterday said four separate lots will be disposed of, at Wylfa in North Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire, next to operating Magnox stations, and at Bradwell in Essex, next to a Magnox power station currently being decommissioned.

Two plots of land are up for sale at Wylfa, including one owned by EDF. A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "We want to see more than one new nuclear operator in the UK and this sale has the potential to make that a reality. The land on offer will be highly attractive to power companies interested in new build, alongside separate plans from EDF for four reactors on British Energy sites."

EDF said it supported the UK government's objective to have more than one participant in new nuclear build in the UK. It added that the announcement marked the start of the disposal process and said that the commencement of the auction process was conditional upon EDF's offer for British Energy becoming "unconditional in all respects. The offers are subject to final regulatory approval and sufficient British Energy shareholders accepting the offers."

Nuclear goes small & modular in the US
The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion Power Generation, a New Mexico-based company which has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. "Our goal is to generate electricity for 10c a kilowatt hour anywhere in the world,' said CEO John Deal.. "They will cost approximately $25m [£16m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $2,500 per home."

Deal claims more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, and is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities with the "leapfrog technology." Hyperion wants to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. 'We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and we are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.'

The first confirmed order came from Czech infrastructure company TES specialising in water plants and power plants. "They ordered six units and optioned a further 12. We are very sure of their capability to purchase," said Deal. The first  would be installed in Romania. "We now have a six-year waiting list....and in talks with developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas."

The  small, modular, non-weapons grade nuclear power reactor invented by Dr Otis 'Pet' Peterson at the  Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are a metre and a half in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry, and buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years.  An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.

Renewable must be deliverable, but not at any price
On the Isle of Lewis, at the northern tip of the Outer Scottish Hebrides, a battle over a planned wind farm holds lessons for investors and industrialists seeking to meet alternative energy targets for Europe. The island's 859 square miles, or 2,225 square kilometers, are home to about 20,000 people and 12 protected bird species that include black-throated divers, golden plovers and white-tailed sea eagles.

Under plans submitted in 2004 by Lewis Wind Power, a joint venture between British Energy Group and Amec, the energy engineering services company it could become home to one of the world's biggest wind farms. A complex of 181 turbines, connecting cables and support facilities, the proposed farm could contribute the equivalent of 6% of the British renewable energy target for 2010. Follow-up proposals for a further 64 turbines could turn Lewis and neighboring islands into a major power-generating hub. The project received approval from the local authority, the Western Isles Council, early in 2007 despite fierce opposition from local campaigners.

Then, in a surprising reversal, the Scottish government rejected the project in April this year on the grounds that enough planning applications already existed to meet Scottish renewable energy targets and that the project would do serious damage to peat marshes, designated as a Special Protection Area under European Union bird and habitat directives.

The government is now compiling a study of renewable energy resources in the Western Isles, to be published early next year. The study aims to clarify the role of renewable energy in sustaining Scottish economic growth and what else Scotland needs to do to achieve its target of supplying 50%of its gross electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2020.

Lewis Wind Power, however, is drafting another proposal to put forward after the study is published, believing "that the government's assessment of the scheme is flawed," says a project manager David Hodkinson. In addition to the energy benefits, "the proposals would have enhanced tourism" on the island, he said. "Currently there are a very limited number of hotels on Lewis, which are reliant on a very short tourist season. The wind farm would have potentially helped create a more sustainable tourist industry."

The British Wind Energy Association say that a more robust planning policy is needed if Britain is to meet its 2010 renewable energy targets. The average time for applications to be processed is now 11 months, despite government guidelines stating that major proposals should be decided within 16 weeks.

This year Britain has seen 32 proposals refused, 50 approved and 24 built, according to the association. Even after approval, energy companies have to overcome multiple barriers including turbine-order backlogs, compliance with British aviation radar regulations, and connection to the national electricity grid. These can stretch construction and commissioning delays up to two years for large wind farms, the association said.

The global wind market is growing fast: from $30.1bn in revenues last year, it is likely to reach $83.4bn in 2017, according to a report this year by the research firm Clean Edge, of San Francisco. But as industry grows, so does opposition from local communities and environmentalists.

Nearly 11,000 Scots signed a petition against the Lewis project, arguing that the proposal would have created a development zone of turbines, roads, quarries, transmission lines and other forms of infrastructure stretching almost continuously for 40 miles, or 65 kilometers across the Lewis moorland, threatening populations of protected species and peat lands.

Martin Scott, the Western Isles officer for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said areas of natural beauty should not be destroyed in the name of cutting carbon emissions. "Developers seem to be going for remoter areas where there are less people," he said. "Obviously, if they were built near to big cities, there would be far more complaints.  A wind farm on the Smola Islands, off the coast of Norway, kills four or five white-tailed eagles every year, a potentially devastating toll considering their "incredibly slow rate of reproduction."

On Lewis, bird-watching is one of the major attractions for the thousands of visitors who come to the island every year. According to Moorland Without Turbines, a local protest group, 143,402 recreational visitors came to the Western Isles in 2006 - the equivalent of five times the permanent population - supporting around 1,000 jobs and injecting more than £36m, or $54m into the islands' economy.

So eagles still soar over Lewis, to the relief of many islanders and environmentalists. "Government has made it clear, in repeated statements on this issue, that renewables must be delivered, but not at any price," the Bird Protection Society said.

Report: http://tinyurl.com/6fenkp
Sources: http://business.timesonline.co.uk
http://www.scotsman.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk
Web: http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
Source:http://www.iht.com