LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) – Britain’s recently-installed
coalition government will reconsider the nation’s nuclear power
plans, it said on Thursday, surprising the nuclear industry, but
added targets for first power generation by 2018 remain intact.

The nuclear plan issued by the previous Labour government
was widely consulted on by the Department of Energy and Climate
Change, but the new coalition government says it wants to look
at it again in the autumn to see if it is sustainable.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s hydrogen fuel cell car fleet may hit top gear within five years, but only if there is enough investment in filling stations, the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Association (UK HFCA) told Reuters on Friday.

Fuel cells convert hydrogen into electricity, with heat and water being the only by-products, with a number of car makers including Toyota, Ford, and Hyundai, pushing to commercialize the low-carbon hybrid fuel cell vehicle by 2015.

LONDON (Reuters) – The cost of building Britain’s offshore wind farms remains high due to rising supply chain development costs and is threatening to derail carbon reduction targets, the body in charge of UK coastal seabeds said. The Crown Estate, responsible for issuing tenders for offshore wind farms, said that the government should find a mechanism for underwriting the risk of developing new technologies, such as bigger turbines, in order to hit its targets in reducing emissions.

“I don’t think it should be a subsidy or grant, but the government could take some of the risk from a technology developer who is trying to accelerate its programme to match up against the government’s target,” Rob Hastings, director of marine estates, said at the sidelines of the Renewables 2010 conference on Wednesday.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is walking a carbon floor price tightrope: too low and it fails to encourage much-needed low-carbon energy investments; too high and it could raise power prices, sending manufacturing abroad.

With carbon reduction targets and a number of coal and nuclear power plants scheduled to close, Britain plans to introduce a minimum price for emitting climate-warming carbon to encourage investment in clean energy and draw in billions of pounds of investments needed to keep power flowing.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is walking a carbon floor price tightrope: too low and it fails to encourage much-needed low-carbon energy investments; too high and it could raise power prices, sending manufacturing abroad.

With carbon reduction targets and a number of coal and nuclear power plants scheduled to close, Britain plans to introduce a minimum price for emitting climate-warming carbon to encourage investment in clean energy and draw in billions of pounds of investments needed to keep power flowing.

OSLO/LONDON, June 29 (Reuters) – Gas production at the Troll
A, Kvitbebjoern and Visund platforms in the North Sea are down
after a gas leak at the giant Troll field early on Tuesday,
Norwegian oil company Statoil (STL.OL: Quote, Profile, Research) told Reuters.

Output from the Troll B and Troll C platforms was also
reduced, Statoil said without specifying volumes.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s lights will stay on even without new nuclear power plants replacing the aging reactors which are set to close in the next few years, energy secretary Chris Huhne said on Thursday.

Reiterating that the government will not block new nuclear builds, Huhne said that nuclear’s contribution to power generation could fall below the current 20 percent level with no risk of an energy gap if there was sufficient investment in other sources.

LONDON (Reuters) – The British car market is expected to slow for the rest of the year and annual sales to shrink marginally, offsetting a strong start to 2010, the head of Toyota UK said on Monday.

The Japanese car maker also said the new Plug-In hybrid Prius car would be launched in early 2012.

LONDON, June 21 (Reuters) – The British car market is
expected to slow for the rest of the year and annual sales to
shrink marginally, offsetting a strong start to 2010, the head
of Toyota UK (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday.

The Japanese car maker also said the new Plug-In hybrid
Prius car would be launched in early 2012.