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2003 Feb, Newsletter No.55 |
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Written by SONE
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Monday, 03 February 2003 |
THE GREEN DEMENTIA OF A TRENDY GOVERNMENT
Well, you can’t say the Newsletter didn’t warn you. We pretty
accurately forecast in January what sort of Energy White Paper the
Government would produce. And lo, on February 24, it came forth:
all-gas-and greenery. In essence, because it cannot rule out the
development of nuclear power, the Government has produced a political
fudge to get it past the next election without upsetting the so-called
Greens who dangerously infest its corridors.
They
will still be there if there is no change of Government in 2005 when
the next election is most likely to occur. So this does not mean that
this Government – or, for that matter, any alternative – will launch a
nuclear programme in 2006 or in, say, five years’ time. There is a
tremendous battle for reality rather than green fantasy still to be
fought and won. That is the challenge to organisations such as SONE.
But – and this is our only consolation on the morrow of a dangerously
irrelevant and incompetent White Paper – we can confidently state that
within a few years the need for nuclear power will become pressing and
irresistible. There is no telling what damage will be done in the
interim to what is left of our nuclear industry and its skills and
expertise. But we can be sure that, on present and foreseeable
technology, Friends of the Earth will not get their way and see off
nuclear power. Instead, they are ensuring its future. They are also
probably ensuring that its future will be secured by a crash programme
to develop it.
Let us consider the facts. Currently, renewables, including hydropower,
produce less than 3% of our electricity. Hydropower’s potential is
severely limited. Wind, the only other going concern among renewables,
produces a tenth of that (0.3%). Faced with fierce opposition on
environmental grounds, even though the DTI proposes to rig the planning
laws still more in wind’s favour, the idea that intermittent,
unreliable wind can fill the gap left by a declining nuclear industry
is risible. In any case, the Government has retreated from its
ludicrously optimistic “target” of 20% from renewables by 2020.
By then, if nothing is done, Britain will have lost 20% of its
electricity generating capacity by the closure of all bar Sizewell B
and will be pouring more pollution into the atmosphere. Good bye Kyoto.
A huge gap is opening up in electricity – and clean electricity –
supply. Filling it with halfclean natural gas, 90% which would have to
be imported from volatile states, will serve only to render us
vulnerable at best to fierce price increases when those volatile states
find their foot firmly planted on our windpipe.
In short, to keep the militant Green minority on side, the Government
is gambling with our economic future. Everything is at risk when a
nuclear programme could ensure a secure Britain. In these
circumstances, the function of SONE is unchanged. It is still to hasten
the dawn of reality. But with every passing year the need for the
dawning of enlightenment becomes more urgent if the national interest
in having clean, safe, reliable, continuous and economic supplies of
electricity is to be served.
SOME MEDIA REACTIONS
Your officers and members mounted a big effort to get over to the
public, via the media, the irrelevance of the White Paper. Your
Secretary seemed to be issuing statements on the hour, every hour. Our
voice was certainly heard – and sometimes heeded. Here are some media
reactions:
Telegraph:
Citycomment – “Set our sails for wind power and it will drive us on to
the rocks”. Feature page – “Wind farms are Tony Blair’s revenge on the
countryside”.
Mail:
Feature – “The answer isn’t blowing in the wind”. The Government must reconsider nuclear energy.
Sun:City comment: “Crisis to end in blackouts?”
Times:
Patience Wheatcroft, in Business, under heading “Empty aspirations on
energy policy” said nuclear power, the one proven, large-scale green
power source, has been condemned to a slow death. The main Times,
having gone green, had a leader “Hot air. Britain should set bolder
targets for renewable energy”.
The Guardian’s
leader was headed “Big thinker Blair. But his energy plan is writ too
small”. And the Independent, congratulating Patricia Hewitt for
dampening the DTI’s “traditional passion for nuclear energy”, said the
White Paper was “Fine green words but, without a curb on car use, the
policy is unsustainable”.
Well, we have supporters, but that just shows you what a battle we still have on our hands.
BE POSITIVE
The Government cannot say that it lacked forthright advice on what to
put in its Energy White Paper. Its chief scientific adviser, Professor
Sir David King submitted a pro-nuclear argument to Cabinet.
The Royal Society, fearing that it might not be listened to, then
intervened at the last minute with a statement from Lord May, its
president, and four vice-presidents, which urged the Cabinet to “show
political courage” by taking an actively pro-nuclear stance. He and his
colleagues said: “If the White Paper extends the present moratorium on
constructing new nuclear power stations until, say, after the next
election, it is difficult to see how this could be described as
‘keeping the nuclear option open’. Even with a commitment to continue
planning and with the moratorium lifted after this period, no new
nuclear stations would be in operation in the UK within the next 15
years, by which time our nuclear capacity will be halved”.
It was unrealistic to expect renewables to fill the gap. It advocated
stronger fiscal penalties on CO2 producers through a carbon tax or
system of tradeable emissions permits to encourage nuclear and
renewables.
The message from BNFL this month was “to get off the fence and back
nuclear” as it prepared a joint report with British Energy on the
feasibility of replacing the current generation of nuclear reactors
with AP1000 plants, details of which have been reported in this
Newsletter.
In an intervention on the Queen’s Speech debate in the Lords in
November, Lord Gray of Contin, a SONE member and former Minister for
Energy, foreshadowed the Royal Society’s “be positive” call and made
the following points:
* Security of supply is essential and can be guaranteed only by
additional nuclear power; nuclear should be replaced by nuclear.
* The Government are being wildly and dangerously optimistic in setting
targets for renewables of 10% of electricity by 2010 and 20% by 2020.
* The Government should be more even-handed in supporting renewables
and remove the penalty of the “iniquitous” climate change levy from
nuclear power.
* We have not the remotest chance of meeting our Kyoto obligations
without keeping our nuclear contribution at least at its present level.
Patrons letter in FT
To add to the pressure, the New Year opened with the FT printing the
letter to the Prime Minister, signed by nine SONE patrons and members,
including the environmentalists Professor James Lovelock and Professor
Sir Frederick Holliday. It set out an eight-point action programme to
secure “safe, clean, continuously reliable and economic electricity
supplies”, including a “very substantial” nuclear industry.
The letter was copied to all Cabinet Ministers, some other members of
the Government, its chief scientist, and to the CBI, TUC and the
European Commission. Five Cabinet Ministers have made routine responses
as well as the TUC and CBI. After all this, Westminster and Whitehall
have said they know best. We shall see.
ALL PARTY NUCLEAR GROUP
The question is where do we go from here. Well, SONE, manifestly a
group of all political parties and none – just look at our list of
patrons – has sought from the first to secure an all-party
Parliamentary group on nuclear energy.
After several years’ of apparently unavailing effort, things have
suddenly come together. The British Nuclear Industry Forum (BNIF) is
now to assist the Labour MP for Stroud, David Drew, to develop just
such a group of Parliamentarians – ie drawn from both the Commons and
Lords. We wish the initiative well and will offer whatever help is
within our capabilities.
A preliminary meeting took place on February 27. More than 20
Parliamentarians signalled their intention to attend and more indicated
their interest. The BNIF says the group is intended to “encourage and
facilitate discussion among MPs and peers from across the political
spectrum with an interest in nuclear issues and to provide a forum for
the exchange of information and views between Parliamentarians and
representatives of the nuclear and energy industries”.
We hope that an all-party group will have a decisive influence over the contents of the next Energy White Paper.
PUBLIC OPINION THE PROBLEM
Looking beyond the extensively leaked White Paper, your Secretary told
the 2003 Global Nuclear Energy Summit in London on February 21 that it
was no use blaming politicians for the “palsied” White Paper. The
nuclear industry – ie nuclear managers, scientists, engineers,
technologists and workers – should blame itself. For 29 years, to his
certain knowledge, they had not robustly stood up for their industry.
They had not been seen day in and day out taking on their mortal
“Green” enemies in the trenches of the press and the studios of radio
and TV. They should have been mowing down distortion, misrepresentation
and downright lies with hard facts. The result: nuclear was thought to
be unsafe, expensive, storing up problems in the form of waste for
unborn generations and, in the context of terrorism, a bomb waiting to
be detonated. It was even considered “unethical” in the City of London.
Only the nuclear industry itself could change these perceptions and
give the politicians the courage to do the right and necessary thing.
It had to be seen regularly – ie daily – standing up for its industry
and its fuel. No one would take it seriously until it did. Management
could not delegate the effort which needed to be planned like a
military operation. It was management’s responsibility to eliminate the
one thing – public perceptions – which stood in the way of nuclear’s
development.
FACTS ALONE WON’T DO
In a provocative note, our old friend, Geoffrey Greenhalgh, joint
editor of Nuclear Issues, agrees that the way forward must be to change
people’s attitudes. But how?
He says we live in a society in which an inability to arrive at an
agreed consensus on controversial issues is driven by the appeals of
contending social groups to sets of rival and conflicting convictions,
based on the assertion or counterassertion of alternative and
incompatible beliefs. Disputed questions cannot be resolved through
rational judgement based on factual evidence when this is clouded by
uncertainty, whether intrinsic or engineered.
The nuclear industry has to try to gain public acceptance where
uncertainty is rife and every statement can be contradicted with
supposed factual evidence or unprovable assertion. Against this
background, plying the public more and ever more detailed factual
information merely raises the level of controversy. The way forward
must be to change people’s attitudes and this can only be done by
concentrating on the broader issues.
“Powerful and simple images carry more weight than scientific and
technological minutiae which can be difficult to comprehend and subject
to dispute. Nuclear opponents, with perhaps better intuitive
understanding, have been more successful in exploiting negative images
– mushroom cloud, two headed frogs, weapons fallout, the Sellafield
nuclear dustbin and Chernobyl children tugging at our heart strings.
“These negative images...can only be countered by positive images. The
emphasis must be on the wider problems of living in a low growth, low
energy society. Changing attitudes is the first step. Without this,
information on radiation and accident risks will either have a negative
impact or be rejected”.
MANY THANKS TO DONORS
The Chairman and Committee wish to thank all those who have generously
responded to his appeal both at the AGM and in the January Newsletter
to help improve SONE’s finances. Up to February 25, the Treasurer had
received 26 donations totalling £1,770. This will be a tremendous help
in the hard slog facing us after the Energy White Paper. Please don’t
forget to recruit at least one other member this year.
WORLD NUCLEAR UNIVERSITY
SONE has been invited by the Institute of Energy to a meeting to
explore a proposal by John Ritch, Secretary General of the World
Nuclear Association (WNA), for a World Nuclear University.
This concept is a joint effort between the International Atomic Energy
Agency, WANO and the Eisenhower Institute to celebrate, embody and
promote the Atoms for Peace philosophy propounded by President
Eisenhower 50 years ago. It would seek to preserve knowledge, globalise
academic curricula and standards and meet the industry’s impending
shortage of critical skills by helping to educate a new generation of
nuclear professionals.
How it might be achieved, whether as a standalone university or as a
faculty of an established and internationally recognised science/
engineering/ facility, is for discussion. One idea already floating
around is to broaden a World Nuclear University to include all
clean-energy technologies and associate it with an institution focussed
on sustainable food production. Such an amalgam would lead to a World
University of Sustainable Technology.
Mr Ritch says clean energy (for electricity, hydrogen and desalination)
and food are the critical components of sustainability and both require
the widespread application of advanced technologies which face a
combination of legitimate public concerns and widespread irrational
fear.
Nuclear growth
The WNA’s perspective for 2003 reports considerable success in building
a world community of nuclear professionals. Its membership has grown
from 60 members in 16 countries to 100 in 30. It has also advanced out
of its OECD leading industrial countries’ base into Brazil, South
Africa, India and China.
It also claims success for India embracing nuclear power as a central
component of sustainable development and the same country for blocking
an EU attempt to interpret last year’s Johannesburg Earth Summit’s
endorsement of “advanced energy technologies” as excluding nuclear.
ADVERTISEMENT
For some years now we have been racking our brains how to help a senior
member, R H Searle, of Guisborough, with his Ziggurat invention which
he sees as a valuable and profitable promoter of nuclear power. SONE’s
finances do not provide a sound base for entrepreneurial risk taking
and the nuclear industry, never very flush, is now ever more under the
Government’s essentially anti-nuclear thumb. So Mr Searle suggests we
should carry this, our first, advertisement:
WANTED
– Management with business expertise and the necessary funds to produce
and market an innovative artefact which will not only be profitable but
will also educate the public into the advantages of nuclear energy.
Interested? Details from R H Searle, SONE membership No 0381, Tel:
01287-280048.
DIARY DATES: One of our patrons, Dr Gordon Adam MEP for the
North East, is organising an “Energy Choices for Europe” conference at
the European Parliament in Brussels on March 5. Another patron, Giles
Chichester MEP for the South West, is a sponsor. Among the many
speakers are John Ritch (WNA) on fission; and Professor Sir David King,
Government chief scientist, on fusion.
CALLS FOR PAPERS: The WNA is calling for papers for its 2003
annual symposium in London on September 3-5; and so is the COGER
conference on environmental radioactivity at Lancaster University on
April 7-9.
SPEAKER: Your Secretary is to speak on “Let’s get real, the UK
can’t do without nuclear power” at a QMW Public Policy Seminars
conference on taking forward the Energy White Paper in London on March
20.
SELLAFIELD: meeting of members, Visitor Centre, April 28, 12noon-3pm, speaker, Professor Ian Fells on energy policy post-White Paper. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 09 September 2005 )
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