Lightbulb takes design of the year top prize

PA


Tuesday, 15 March 2011

A sculpted low-energy lightbulb by a British designer scooped an international design prize today.



Samuel Wilkinson and product design company Hulger fought off competition from more than 90 entries for the title of Brit Insurance design of the year 2011.


The Plumen 001 energy-saving bulb was picked as the judges' overall favourite from seven category winners after its stylish, innovative appearance impressed the panel.


Jury chairman Stephen Bayley is due to present the award at a ceremony later today at the Design Museum in London.


Praising the winning entry, he said: "The Plumen lightbulb is a good example of the ordinary thing done extraordinarily well, bringing a small measure of delight to an everyday product."


The bulb uses 80% less energy and lasts eight times longer than an incandescent one.


Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum, labelled it a worthy winner that was both "beautiful and smart".


He said: "It's a bulb that doesn't need a shade and so goes a long way to make up for the loss of the Edison original."


Panel member Will Self said: "If you'll forgive the pun, they are definitely a light leading the way... We felt these bulbs were neat, appealing and covetable in the right, affordable way."


The winning and shortlisted designs will be on show at the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum until August 7.

Obama's Energy Policy Faces Pressure

White House Resists Calls From Democrats for a Review of Nuclear-Plant Safety; Official Cites Rigorous Regulations.
By JONATHAN WEISMAN And STEPHEN POWER
WASHINGTON—Japan's nuclear disaster is putting new pressure on President Barack Obama's energy strategy, which has relied on calls to expand nuclear power to win support for a broader effort to promote alternatives to coal and oil.

On Tuesday, the White House resisted calls from Democratic congressional leaders for a special review of U.S. nuclear-plant safety in the wake of the Japanese nuclear crisis—a move similar to one ordered by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) on Tuesday called for reviews of U.S. nuclear-plant safety. Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.), a key Obama ally on environmental issues, demanded information on seismic safety features, including power plants' abilities to sustain cooling functions during a total power blackout, the situation that has crippled reactors in Japan.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday to discuss the Japanese nuclear crisis with Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko.

White House officials held their ground on Mr. Obama's pro-nuclear energy strategy. Mr. Obama requested the NRC do a "lessons learned" study of the Japanese disaster and to incorporate the findings into the agency's safety reviews.

But, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, "He doesn't have to order a review because they're constantly going on."

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, testifying before a congressional panel Tuesday, said "the United States has rigorous safety regulations in place to ensure that our nuclear power is generated safely and responsibly" and played down fears that dangerous levels of radiation from Japan could reach U.S. shores. Such concerns have led to runs on stocks of potassium iodide pills, which are used to ward off radiation poisoning.

"There's really no concern in terms of the health effects on American shores," Mr. Chu said. "I think they really shouldn't be doing those things, quite frankly. But it's a free country."

The Japanese nuclear crisis is the latest setback for Mr. Obama's energy strategy, the only piece of his original five-part domestic agenda that hasn't become law.

Mr. Obama has tried to stake out a middle ground on energy between environmentalists whose top priority is attacking climate change and conservatives who chanted "Drill, Baby, Drill" during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Mr. Obama embraced certain Republican priorities, such as using federally backed loans to revive the U.S. nuclear-power industry and expanding offshore oil drilling.

In return, the president hoped to win bipartisan support for expanded renewable-energy programs and limits on the emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

But so far, a combination of political setbacks and unforeseen disasters have derailed Mr. Obama's plans.

Mr. Obama shelved his plan to expand offshore drilling after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last summer. Republican leaders have rejected climate-change legislation, and are pushing instead bills to prevent Mr. Obama from using regulatory agencies to enforce greenhouse-gas limits.

The administration's proposals to support nuclear power haven't spared it from Republican criticism that its energy policy tilts too heavily against coal and oil—the fuels that still power most of the U.S. economy. They cite the slow pace of issuing new oil-drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico since last summer's oil spill.

On Tuesday, the State Department said it will require an additional environmental review of a proposed 1,700-mile TransCanada Corp. pipeline that would bring up to 1.1 million barrels a day of crude oil from Canada's oil-sands region to Gulf Coast refineries. The requirement could delay the project, which has drawn fire from environmental groups critical of oil-sands development.

Now, the Japanese disaster is reinvigorating liberal objections to nuclear power.

Eben Burnham-Snyder, a Markey spokesman, said the disaster will only raise the cost of financing new nuclear plants and require more federal subsidies, something even Republicans will balk at.

"We don't need nuclear," he said.

White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro distinguished between the Deepwater Horizon spill, which pointed up regulatory gaps and prompted a drilling moratorium, and nuclear power, which has its own independent regulatory agency tasked to constantly police the safety of plants in its jurisdiction.

He said incident response plans already exist to deal with radiation leaks from nuclear-power plants, accidents involving nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons production plants and laboratories, or attacks using nuclear devices or "dirty bombs" designed to disperse radiation.

Per Peterson, chairman of the nuclear-engineering department at the University of California, Berkeley, said the events that have caused the accident now challenging one of Japan's nuclear plants are unlikely to befall the U.S. for several reasons.

While the U.S. does have some nuclear plants in earthquake zones—as in the case of California—they are near "slip-strike" fault lines that lack the potential to cause very large tsunamis as the Japanese "thrust fault" has, he said.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Dr. Peterson said, the government required nuclear-plant owners to ensure that their facilities could accommodate portable diesel pumps to provide electricity to the facilities.

—Corey Boles contributed to this article.
Write to Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com

Japan nuclear crisis puts industry revival in doubt

Disaster described as a colossal setback for industry at a time when climate change is sparking a renaissance

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington, Fiona Harvey and John Vidal guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 March 2011 20.43 GMT
Events in Japan could kill the last chances of revival for an American nuclear industry struggling to emerge from the shadow of its own disaster at Three Mile Island, experts have predicted.

Renewed fears about the technology may also snuff out a nuclear renaissance worldwide that had been sparked by fears over climate change and a need for low-carbon energy.

"This is going to be a Three Mile Island moment – maybe not a Chernobyl moment, but a Three Mile Island moment that is going to give people pause for at least several years," said Alan Madian, an energy analyst at the Brattle consulting group. "There is no question that the public is going to be rightfully concerned."

So far, the White House and Republicans are united in saying it would be premature to rethink plans for the first expansion of nuclear power in America since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.

In Europe, a meeting of EU energy ministers in Brussels on Tuesday agreed a series of "stress tests" for European nuclear facilities in response to the Japanese alert to check they could withstand a variety of different shocks, from earthquakes to terrorist attacks.

However, even as the crisis in Japan unfolds, investors appear already to be turning away from the technology.

"Shares in renewable energy industries yesterday rose while most other energy stocks fell," said Clare Brook, fund manager of leading green investment group WHEB, in London. "This tragedy comes on top of the oil price rise, the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and unrest in the Middle East, all of which has made renewables more attractive. We would expect investment in renewables, especially solar, to increase. Nuclear has become politically unacceptable."

The revival of nuclear energy had come partly on the back of fears about climate change and a need for reliable low-carbon energy sources. That revival may now be in doubt, but leading environmentalists who have backed the technology as a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels said the accident should not slow new nuclear investment.

The scientist James Lovelock said: "There is a monstrous myth about nuclear power. I would make a strong guess that of the tens of thousands of people killed in Japan, none of them will be from nuclear power."

He said people were unreasonably prejudiced against nuclear power. "It is very safe," he said.

Mark Lynas, another environmental campaigner who has espoused nuclear power as a way to limit climate change, was pessimistic about how nuclear power would be perceived after the Japanese experience.

"It's too early to make a final diagnosis of what is happening in Japan, but what is obvious is that this will be a colossal setback for the nuclear industry at just the moment at which climate change is sparking a real renaissance," he said.

In Europe a new caution towards nuclear power was led by Germany, which said seven reactors that went into operation before 1980 would be offline for three months while Europe's biggest economy reconsiders its plans to extend the life of its atomic power plants.

The European Union's energy commissioner called for a reassessment of what role nuclear power should have in the future. "We have to ask ourselves: can we in Europe, within time, secure our energy needs without nuclear power plants?" Günther Oettinger told ARD television in Germany.

He invited non-EU countries to join the initiative, including Switzerland, which announced on Monday that it was halting plans for new reactors.

Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, accused other European governments of "rushing to judgments" over the safety of nuclear power and took a public swipe at "continental politicians" hours after the German announcement.

Nevertheless, he insisted he was right to order a UK safety review amid warnings from MPs it could hit investment in a planned new generation of domestic nuclear power stations.

Elsewhere, a commitment to a nuclear future was affirmed by the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said he had no plans to suspend a deal with Russia's Rosatom agency for the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant.

Dismissing questions on possible dangers, Erdogan said all investments had high risks.

"In that case, let's not bring gas canisters to our homes, let's not install natural gas, let's not stream crude oil through our country," he said.

Russia also signed a deal with Belarus to build a nuclear power station there. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin said the facility would be safer than that threatened by meltdown in Japan.

In the US, political proponents of nuclear power also remained steadfast.

Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who has called for building 100 reactors in the next 20 years, called on America to cling fast to the nuclear dream.

"We don't abandon highway systems because bridges and overpasses collapse during earthquakes," he said in a speech to the Senate. "The 1.6 million of us who fly daily would not stop flying after a tragic plane crash. We would find out what happened and do our best to make it safe."

One pro-nuclear congressman, Devin Nunes, a California Republican who has called for 200 new reactors by 2040, went so far as to suggest that the crisis in Japan demonstrated the safety of nuclear power.

"The facts, as we know them today, are not an indictment of nuclear energy safety," he said. "Quite the reverse is true. The survival of the 40-year-old containment systems under such extreme conditions helps to prove the safety and durability of nuclear power." In reality, America's nuclear industry has been in a state of suspended animation since Three Mile Island.

The economics of energy production in the US - which has cheap fossil fuels and has resisted putting a price on carbon - have made it difficult to plot a comeback Now industry's efforts to extend the life of a generation of ageing reactors - once thought a sure thing - could be in doubt. Some of those reactors, such as the Vermont Yankee, have a history of safety lapses and face growing local opposition.

Nuclear regulators gave the plant an additional 20 years to run on Thursday - just a day before the quake. The plant has the same containment design as the failed reactors in Japan. Now Vermont's governor, Peter Shumlin, says he will push to close the plant on schedule in 2012.

"We act as if they can be run beyond their design life, when the engineering is primitive compared to what one would build today,'' he told reporters. "I think the tragedy in Japan should awaken a re-examination of our irrational exuberance about running our aging plants beyond their design life."

The Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the Japanese power company and other industry interests, had also been fighting hard to convince the public that reactors could help get America off imported oil.

According to Opensecrets.org, which examines the influence of money in politics, the NEI has more than 20 lobbyists on staff. It has spent more than $6 million trying to influence Congress in the last three years.

Individual power companies have also expanded their lobbying spending. Southern Company, which has a project to build two new reactors in Georgia, has spent $10 million a year on lobbying since 2004.But - so far at least - the industry has little to show for its efforts. Aside from Southern Company's two reactors - which have yet to get final approval from regulators - there are only two other new nuclear reactors in the works, in South Carolina in 2020.

Another project, in Maryland, is in peril after a French company EDF pulled out.

"A nuclear bubble is what I've been calling it," said Peter Bradford, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "It was dead in the water even before the events of the last week and of course it's worse off now."