News | Headlines India boosts its nuclear expansion India Nuclear power
India aims to add 18 new nuclear power reactors with a capacity of 13 800 MWe by 2031-32, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has announced after the country’s prime minister Narendra Modi dedicated two 700 MWe reactors at Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS) in Gujarat. The additional 18 units will bring the total share of nuclear power in India’s energy mix to 22 480 MWe by 2031-32. Currently, NPCIL operates 24 reactors with a total capacity of 8180 MWe. Modi dedicated KAPS units 3&4 to the nation on 22 February. KAPS 4 was connected to the
western power grid two days earlier. KAPS 3&4 are the largest indigenously designed pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), and the first to have advanced safety features. Construction cost more than INR225bn ($2.7bn). “These reactors have been designed, constructed, commissioned, and operated by NPCIL, with the supply of equipment and execution of contracts by Indian industries and companies, reflecting the true spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat,” NPCIL said. Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, the Self-reliant India campaign was launched by Modi in 2020. At Kakrapar, Modi said the role of nuclear power
BBC report alleges that Drax is still burning rare forest wood
UK Emissions abatement A recent report by the BBC’s long standing current affairs ‘Panorama’ programme stated that Drax, a power company that has received £6bn in UK green subsidies to date since it converted units from coal plants to pelletised wood, is still burning wood sourced from some of the world’s ‘rarest’ forests. Panorama obtained documents from the Ministry of Forests in British Columbia, Canada, that show the company took more than 40 000 tonnes of wood from so-called “old-growth” forests in 2023. The TV programme focused primarily on the burning of ‘rare’ or of old wood from forests that are outside the criteria used to determine what kind of forest growth can legitimately be harvested as being truly carbon neutral. Following the BBC investigation, Drax denied taking wood from primary forests but said it would not apply for further logging licences in the province. In 2023, said the company, only 2.5% of the material burned at the power station came from British Columbia.
Drax and UK policy
In 2023 Drax produced about 5% of the UK’s electricity and is a key part of the government’s drive to meet its climate targets. Drax receives payments because the electricity produced from burning pellets is classified as renewable and treated as emission-free. In fact, the power station emits about 12 million tonnes of carbon a year, but under international rules covering biomass sustainability and carbon neutrality the UK does not have to count these emissions. The 6.5 million tonnes of wood pellets burned by Drax each year are all produced overseas, many from Drax’s 17 pellet plants in the USA and Canada.
In 2022, the BBC revealed that the company had obtained logging licences in British Columbia, and filmed logs being taken from what the BBC said was primary forest to a
pellet plant owned by Drax. ‘Primary forests’ are natural forests that have not been significantly disturbed by human activity. In its official response, Drax says its wood pellets are ‘sustainable and legally harvested’. It stated that at least some of the BBC’s information comes from old reports that are no longer pertinent and its practices have been brought up to date. It further stated: “We are confident our biomass is sustainable and legally harvested and meets the requirements of our 2019 sourcing policy.
“The document the BBC has referred to was published in 2017, was not a policy and is now obsolete. As a responsible business we keep our sourcing policy and practices under regular review so that that they take account of evolving forest dynamics, legislation, policy, and science. “In October 2023, Drax made the decision to stop sourcing wood fibre directly from harvest sites which overlap with Old Growth Deferral Areas, in response to policy changes introduced by the government of British Columbia. Work to implement this decision through the supply chain is ongoing. As a direct consequence of our decision, deliveries to Drax from the fourth harvest area originally cited by the BBC were stopped.
“The BBC has also stated that since our October 2023 decision, Drax took material from 12 harvest sites that include or ‘overlap’ with Old Growth Priority Deferral Areas’. This statement is misleading because Drax’s policy is to no longer directly source wood fibre from within these harvest sites where there is overlap with Old Growth Deferral Areas. “Fibre that Drax has sourced from publicly owned forests in British Columbia have been designated as being available to harvest legally and sustainably by the government of British Columbia, alongside First Nations. We do not own forests or sawmills and are not responsible for the licensing and harvesting of forests.”
8 | March 2024 |
www.modernpowersystems.com
in electricity generation will increase in the 21st century and it was a matter of pride that India was self-reliant in this advanced technology. Currently four 1000 MWe NPPs are being built at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu with Russian assistance. Four 700 MWe indigenous PHWRs are under consruction at Rawatbhata (RAPS 7&8) in Rajasthan and Gorakhpur (GHAVP 1&2) in Haryana. Ten 700 MWe PHWRs have been approved for construction at GHAVP (3&4), Kaiga Generating Station (5&6) near Karwar in Karnataka, Chutka in Madhya Pradesh (CMPAPP 1&2) and Mahi Banswara in Rajasthan (MBRAPP 1-4).
GE and Dragos to develop grid protection USA Grid security
GE Vernova’s Grid Solutions business and Dragos Inc have announced a technology partnership to offer holistic cybersecurity solutions by combining their respective areas of expertise in grid automation and operational technology (OT) cybersecurity. From this partnership GE will provide its global grid automation customers with Dragos’ cybersecurity solutions such as the Dragos Platform, Dragos Worldview threat intelligence, and incident response services, aiming to provide a holistic approach to safeguarding their critical infrastructure and other OT environments.
This initiative is intended to enhance the defence mechanisms of the electric grid by providing comprehensive OT cybersecurity solutions developed from what the two companies believe is their extensive experience in the field. As part of this agreement, both companies will collaborate on product and technology integrations to offer more advanced functionalities, including comprehensive asset visibility (that is, visibility into OT assets within various industrial energy environments – the ability to inventory and monitor assets, track vulnerabilities, and use network monitoring to investigate issues and incidents); proactive threat detection via Dragos’ OT threat intelligence, combined with its real-time monitoring system: rapid incident response, provided by combining Dragos’ incident response expertise with cybersecurity offerings: and global threat intelligence by making use of Dragos threat intelligence offering, backed a large team of cybersecurity experts, conferring visibility into adversary threats, malware, and vulnerabilities impacting industrial sectors.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47
