Opportunities and Threats of Re-Using Decommissioned Offshore Renewable Energy - Essay Example

Opportunities and Threats of re-using decommissioned offshore renewable energy Under the Energy Act 2004, sections 105 to 115 conforms reusing decommissioned scheme for offshore marine and wind installations, for which a single person would be responsible for carrying gout the entire process for installation. This Energy Act would support the installations for UK renewable energy zone areas and territorial waters in or adjoining England, Scotland and Wales. The offshore renewable energy installations which would incur in the electric lines would support used connections, connections which are permanently adhered to the water beds and those connections that are neither permanent nor are they connected to dry areas. Decommissioning solutions in accordance with the UK legislation concerns about safety and security of the environment, legitimate uses of the sea and support all the economic considerations whenever required. By definition, renewable power sources are those that do not require any fuel as their energy is replenish naturally. There is no constraint on their siting, therefore, because of any requirement to transport fuel rather, the location of the power unit is usually determined by natural features (DoEn, 1988). A basic constraint underlying some of these limitations is the impracticability of storing electricity on a large scale. However the renewable sources require nuclear fusion and fission power plants for the small masses of fuel required, so they can be conveniently sited on the coast with direct cooling for their steam condensers from seawater. Coal-fired power stations, on the other hand, require the transport of very large quantities of fuel and therefore tend to be near coalfields, with air-cooling towers for steam condensation and with makeup water from rivers. Tidal and wave power schemes must of necessity be on the coast or at sea: wind systems, because of their large area requirement, may well be sited offshore. Geothermal plants will probably not be economic for power production but may supply hot water for community heating; this is unlikely to be economic over long transmission distances and so the schemes will be confined to local 'hot dry rock' regions. Solar heating would probably not involve distribution, but would be constrained to direct production and use in buildings in the south of England where there are more hours of sunshine (Peak Energy, 2006) Decommissioning Standards Opportunities Reusing Decommissioned installations is an opportunity in itself that conforms with technicalities like sea-bed clearance, removing installations as and when required, dealing with wastes, observing and analysing remains and monitoring and maintaining a decommissioned site. The Decommissioning Program instead of removing or doing 'from the scratch' installation, abides to the rule of removing partial installations which not only saves time and efforts of the developer but also helps him maintaining a particular standard. In this context the Government is providing full technical support to the renewable energy installation sector by not enforcing any excessive burden onto those who have been declared liable to protect the users of sea and environment. Government provides opportunities to the renewable energy sector to support IMO (International Maritime Organisation) to get along with a standard that conforms to the Removal of offshore installation and structures the Exclusive Economic Zone. In order to protect the Marine environment, the Government is keen to provide full guidance for the offshore oil and gas installations in compliance with the OSPAR Convention (December 2006, Guidance Notes for Industry) which includes support in the form of documents on offshore wind farms. Cost Reduction Reusing decommissioned offshore renewable energy has enabled the BPEO (Best Practicable Environmental Option) to provide least damage to the environment by cutting down the excessive costs in the long and short run. In this way risk is reduced using safety standards of navigation. The renewable energy regulates certain industrial activities including emissions and discharges setting a higher level standard of protection against environment. It also enables the usage of BATS (Best Available Techniques) so that it balances the cost against environment imbalances. A plant required to provide power to a given programme will naturally receive an income from electricity sales which is unaffected by the type of its energy source. An economic comparison between systems can therefore be obtained merely by consideration of the costs of the systems, regardless of the unit price of electricity. Such costs include investment outflow, which must be paid out as each construction stage is completed, expenditure due to operations through the useful life of the plant, and further costs which are incurred as the plant is decommissioned (Burton, 2003, p. 184). Wastes Storage for a long term Two arguments for the long-term storage of nuclear waste are (a) more time for the development of improved methods of disposal, and (b) the simplification of disposal caused by substantial decay of radioactivity during storage. Such potential benefits must be balanced against the additional radioactive operations of storage and the associated extra costs. Further, a hold-up period of several decades raises questions as to the ability of the original equipment to handle waste packages after such a long time. Expensive materials, such as stainless steel to provide resistance against corrosion, may therefore be necessary for both equipment and storage containers (Burton, 2003, p. 56). Welfare Regulations 1996 Regulations that are involved in decommission energy ensures safety for construction sites by choosing only safe places to work, training and other welfare concerns. The decommissioning program adheres to the customs of sea-bed clearance, ensures that appropriate bodies like UK Sea Fish Industry Authority and the IMO must be notified of any removal or remains. In case of any remains are discovered, the program provide proper aids to installation. Disadvantages Disadvantages are there when reusing and operating energy without firm trading guidance from governments, leads to sorts of emissions reductions which have the highest probability of government recognition. Those participants that invest in reusing decommissioned offshore energy generation independent of any other party and demand-side management face hurdles similar to those present in existing markets. The main problem in this regard is that of issues like ownership or transfer of ownership, as in case developers want to transfer decommissioning liabilities to the new owner, they are unable to do so according to the Energy Act until it gets transferred by the Secretary of State (Science and Technology Policy Institute, 2001, p. 267). LLW arises from discarded operating materials such as tissues, plastic coverings, etc. Much of the ILW in Magnox reactors, AGRs and PWRs, is produced from sludges and the resins used to clean up reactor circuits and the fuel storage ponds. Components discarded after service within the reactor can have high induced cobalt-60 activity; these are stored in the reactor vaults to become much lower activity ILW by the time the vaults are emptied when the reactor is decommissioned (Barnaby, 2008). Technical Difficulties The first guidance point concerns the possibility that, after disposal, waste may be inadvertently disturbed; a small number of persons may then be irradiated from outside the body or inhale radioactivity. A so-called 'intrusion barrier' of at least one metre of concrete or its equivalent has therefore been recommended for land burial of most types of waste except LLW (DOE, 1986). A second point arises because, in many concepts, leaching of radioactivity from packages may eventually occur due to circulating water under the land or in the sea: transfer of this activity is then possible to the biosphere. The UK DOE stated in 1984 that 'the site should be chosen and the facility designed so that the risk or probability of fatal cancer, to any member of the public, from any movement of radioactivity from the facility, is not greater than one in a million in any one year.' An approach arising from this is that a 'multi-barrier' system is lacking (Flowers, 1984). Examples of successive barriers to migration of radioactivity are low-leach forms of waste, a thick container of corrosion-resistant material and a disposal location of low permeability to surrounding water. It is worth noting here that the 'multi-barrier' criterion is not a normal requirement in general waste disposal, where one satisfactory barrier is considered adequate. The multi-barrier requirement is overtly more to alleviate public anxieties over nuclear waste. Cynically, it might be said to be an attempt by nuclear organisations to increase profits through more complicated operations. A third point is that low-probability events such as earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. should be considered in the design specification; however, it has been found in studies to date that such events are unlikely to affect disposal arrangements in or around the UK. Despite the fact that the pipeline discharges have always been well within regulatory limits and an infinitesimal addition to ocean radioactivity, there has been much dispute over the corresponding environmental effects. A complicating feature is that, though the great majority of the radioactivity is swept away within a few days, a small proportion of discharged nuclides can be returned to shore via wind-blown spray or through pickup on sediments eventually deposited on the beach. However, on the whole, such activity attached to solids is transferred away naturally from the Sellafield area over a period of years (RWMAC, 1985). The discharged activity can be tracked through the North Channel of the Irish Sea and northwards off the West Coast of Scotland past Cape Wrath. Statements in the media suggesting large accumulations of plutonium near Sellafield therefore have no substance. Hazardous Effects An investigation into average number of cancer deaths suggest that the cause is not necessarily connected with the pipeline discharges. Nevertheless, a new treatment plant has been installed to clean up discharges still further; this was followed by an even more stringent and detailed regulation enforced from 1.7.86. Overall, annual discharges have been reduced in general terms about tenfold since the early 1970s. Though these reductions have been greeted as a victory for anti-nuclear bodies and a defeat for BNFL, the latter will have made a satisfactory profit on the new cleanup plants, the costs being eventually borne by the electricity consumer (Burton, 2003, p. 76). The renewable energy along with various types of radiations are no doubt hazardous for the human health. Of these, neutron radiation effectively occurs only in a reactor: the various decay processes of radio-nuclides discharged from a nuclear site either routinely or by accident contain few neutron emissions. It is perhaps also worth emphasising that, for all practical purposes, decay radiation does not induce radioactivity in other nuclei: the decay merely involves a particular nucleus undergoing changes before it achieves stability, the associated radiation interacting either occasionally by elastic collisions with other nuclei or more often displacing electrons outside the nuclei, thus changing chemical characteristics. One of the important consequences of decommissioned energy is that the packaging round nuclear waste or backfill during disposal does not itself become radioactive. On the other hand, the physical transfer of activity, by leaching of radionuclides from waste into backfill or the pickup of reprocessing chemicals on equipment, can occur contamination. Radioactivity is also brought into contact with man by coal-fired power, not by its creation by fission, but by redistribution of natural radionuclides excavated with coal and either emitted with stack gases or dumped with fly ash or spoil (Burton, 2003, p. 123). Zonal Uncertainty There is considerable uncertainty in the rates of mixing between zones at different depths, but the calculated safety factors against significant hazards to man are so vast that such inaccuracies in the estimates are irrelevant (Camplin, 1986). No alternative calculations suggesting significant hazards have been put forward. In spite of this, strenuous opposition to sea dumping has come from both anti-nuclear bodies and many foreign governments. In fact a majority of signatories of the London Convention on Disposal of Wastes voted to have sea dumping of nuclear waste stopped. Though the UK continued dumping for a while after the vote, the seamen's union blacked the ships and dumping has ceased, at least temporarily. Though many countries have smaller nuclear programmes than the UK and a smaller population density, but their dumping systems are at least better than what the UK have. It is easier for such countries to find alternative disposal systems and, at the same time, gain a useful political bargaining point against the UK. Problems arising in Disposal of solids under the seabed Technical doubts exist in the free-fall method in being certain that there are no hard obstacles in the sea-bed, causing possible rupturing of the packages and sediment cover. In disposal at the great depths of the ocean bed, the operations of excavation, emplacement and sealing are difficult, and their reliability and the feasibility of remedial action after a fault are uncertain. These difficulties still occur, though somewhat reduced, when drilling is done in shallow coastal waters, as in the 'ENSEC' approach (Richards, 1985), where a jackup platform, commonly used for drilling for oil beneath the sea-bed, replaces the ship. There could still be international opposition to ocean bed disposal and perhaps also in offshore waters, where regional opposition groups would no doubt be organised. One factor which determines the contribution that a power system may make to the overall electricity supply is its reliability. This can be considered from several angles like firstly, the availability of plant operating a proven process depends on the frequency of breakdowns and repair times. Secondly, external factors, such as the effects of miners' strikes on coal supplies, or renewable systems being unable to operate under natural cycles of calm or stormy weather or the state of the tide, may be important. Thirdly, in the long term, supplies of uranium for a 'Once-Through' nuclear cycle could become very costly or politically difficult to obtain as coal-fired power may be curtailed by realisation of the serious effects on health or sudden increases in Acid Rain and Greenhouse effects. The development of new systems, too, can affect forward planning. At this point in time, the assumption that nuclear fusion can be developed to a successful commercial system in the next 50 years would not appear to be a sufficiently certain basis for inclusion in current planning of future power mixes. The same conclusion can be drawn for other developing systems with the possible exception of wind power, whose contribution to the overall UK power supply could, in any foreseeable scenario, be relatively slight. References Barnaby, 2008 Accessed from < http://www.mapw.org.au/conferences/mapw2000/papers/barnaby.html> Camplin W.C. and Hill M.D., (1986) 'Sea dumping of solid radioactive waste, etc.', Rad. Waste. Mgt. and Nucl. Fuel Cyc., p.233, Vol.7, No.3 December 2006, Guidance Notes for Industry "Decommissioning Offshore Renewable Energy Installations under the Energy Act 2004". DOE, (1986) Assessment of Best Practical Environmental Options (BPEOs) for Management of LLW and ILW Solid Radioactive Wastes. DoEn, (1988) Renewable Energy in the UK: The Way Forward, Paper No.55 (HMSO, 1988). Flowers R.H., (1984) British Nuclear Energy Society Conference on Radioactive Waste Management (BNES, 1984) Peak Energy, 2006 Accessed from < http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2007/01/urge-to-use-renewably-generated.html> Richards H.J., (1985) Radioactive Waste Management, Technical Hazards and Public Acceptance, p.117 (Oyez Scientific Technical Services). RWMAC (Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee, Sixth Annual Report HMSO, 1985) Science And Technology Policy Institute, (2001) E-Vision 2000: Key Issues That Will Shape Our Energy Future Analyses and Papers Prepared for the E-Vision 2000 Conference: Orgname: Rand: Santa Monica, CA. Burton Bob, (2003) Nuclear Power, Pollution and Politics: Routledge: London. Read More