The comment of the shadow energy secretary most nearly reflects our feelings. Gregg Clark said that: “Every one of the measures contained in this statement should have been brought forward ten years ago.” Now we are facing a delay of at least eight years before we have any new power. We designed and built the first nuclear power plant at Calder Hall in 42 months. We had no computers then to make calculations. And yet the plant operated safely and efficiently for 47 years and could have gone on but it was considered a bit too small to be economic. Each of its four reactors produced the same amount of power as 80 large wind turbines, occupied a fraction of the space and was not dependant on the weather.

We could simply build another Calder Hall. But we can do so much better today with pressurized water reactors which have thousands of years of good operating experience around the world. We even have two options. A French designed 1600MWe plant similar to those being built today at Olkiluto in Finland and Flamanville in France. This would be an evolutionary design based on existing plants with safety features further enhanced. Or we could build the US designed AP-1000 with an 1100 MWe PWR with passive safety features. Both would be perfectly satisfactory. The complete designs of these reactors can be sent to the safety authorities at up to a giga byte per second. They can pull up any nut or bolt and find out what it is to be made of and by whom. They could simulate normal operation and operation under extreme accident conditions. The computers on our desks would be powerful enough to check the reactor physic or complex shielding calculations.

Anyway, the ten sites are mostly existing sites. Only Braystones and Kirksanton on the Cumbrian coast near Sellafield (and Calder Hall) are new locations. The others are Bradwell, Hartlepool, Heysham, Hinkley Point, Oldbury, Sellafield, Sizewell and Wylfa. One site near Dungeness was excluded because of concerns about coastal erosion. The Scots, who have in the past obtained up to 80% of their electricity from nuclear energy, have been left alone because the Scottish National Party is in power. One would like to say good luck to them with the alternative of many thousands wind turbines, but we believe that a lot of people who live there have found nuclear power perfectly satisfactory.

Mr Milliband said that nuclear was one of a "trinity" of future fuel options, alongside renewables and clean coal, which would help to secure the UK's energy security and reduce its dependence on imported gas. Why does he have to drag up renewables and clean coal in a nuclear statement. It would require over 30 000 wind turbines to produce the same amount of power as ten nuclear reactors and it would still be dependent on variable weather conditions. Clean coal has yet to be demonstrated and is a very questionable technology.

Greenpeace were, of course, widely quoted by the press. They claim: "You can't justify building more nuclear power stations when there is no solution to radioactive waste.” Why not? We have stored both military and civil waste safely for the past sixty years. But the greater part of the socalled waste is the spent fuel discharged from the nuclear reactors. Over 96% of this is unburnt uranium or fissile plutonium which could be recycled as fresh nuclear fuel after reprocessing. The opponents cannot at the same time raise scares about impending shortages of uranium while at the same time throwing away our largest energy reserve. The government must state a firm policy on recycle. All the technology has been proven and has been shown to be feasible by the French. With the future third generation plants that are being proposed the whole core of the reactors can be loaded withMOX straight away. The earlier PWR at Sizewell B only needs minor changes and the AGRs have also demonstrated that MOX is possible. The long lived radioactivity in MOX used fuel would be no more than the activity of uranium today.And yet the government hangs on to its 100 tonnes of separated plutonium which is the least proliferation proof option.



Fusion/fission friends

Fusion and fission scientists have always been a bit sniffy about working with each other. The fusion people do not want to be contaminated by fission waste and fission people have been sceptical about ever increasing timescales and costs of fusion. A company called Tokamak Solutions UK Ltd based at the Culham fusion research centre has recently proposed a scheme where a low power fusion machine could produce large amount of fuel for fission reactors and also get rid of long lived radioactive waste.

We have reported in the past on the prolific flux of high energy neutrons that will be produced in a fusion reactor and questioned whether these could not be used in breeding fission fuel and burning wastes. There is no question that such an arrangement could produce abundant plutonium from the huge stockpiles of depleted uranium (U-238), could breed U-233 from thorium and could burn long lived radioactive waste products to short half life.

So far the largest machine – JET at Culham – only produced 16 MWof fusion power for a second or two back in 1997. The next stage is ITER which has required international collaboration on the widest scale to raise the necessary funds and years of argument before eventual construction started at Cadarache in France. ITER will not be fully operational at 500 MW before 2020. The cost is currently estimated at 10 billion Euro.

But Tokamak Solutions claim that their low power fusion device – a small spherical Tokamak, with fusion power of under 50 MW – can now be built with existing materials and technologies, although some components need to be upgraded from laboratory models to production units for steady performance and long service. But one wonders why fusion laboratories in other countries who have been trying to get a few seconds of fusion power for years can not do so now.

If Tokamak Solutions know something the rest of us don’t then they should built and test a machine asp. The problem however is that having sold off or thrown away all our nuclear research and development capability and most of the technology it is difficult to see who in the UK could undertake this task. The obvious choice would have been British Nuclear Fuels – now owned by the Japanese. Is this to be another case of a British idea developed and put to use by overseas interests?



SMP maintained

At last some common sense on the Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP). The Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA), which has been reviewing the unfortunate plant, has now given the go-ahead for continued operation. The plant which had cost about £470 million to build is said to have been of concern to NDA since it was formed in 2005. An announcement in the House of Commons by Malcolm Wicks said that SMP had only produced 5.3 te ofMOX fuel in five years instead of the design capacity of 120 te per year. Now the NDA says that there have been recent improvements and the operating company, Sellafield Ltd – which includes the French company Ariva – recently completed eight fuel assemblies for a European customer.

But the real task is to change the UK government’s policy on recycle. In a recent consultation document the NDAsaid this option is excluded because it is not currently UK government policy. Well, as we have repeatedly said, it should be government policy. We have nearly 100 te of separated plutonium waiting to be converted into MOX. It needs to be recycled in a reactor as soon as possible to make it absolutely safe from diversion into bombs. It will have to be a British reactor because we will not be able to sell it to anybody else if we are not using some of it ourselves. So that means loading MOX into Sizewell B, which is a suitable PWR, or the AGR plants in which MOX recycle was demonstrated quite a few years ago. It was not then judged to be economically attractive but economics has now been turned on its head and a new study would probably show it to be quite favorable. The alternative is to wait until we have built some new reactors but as that seems to be nearly ten years off it is too long to be holding onto separated plutonium.

Above all the government will be able to state in reply to critics of its waste policy that we are recycling. Even though there is a little bit that will still need to be disposed of at least it is a better solution than storing separated plutonium as waste.



Peak oil

The 2009 report of the IEA, World Energy Outlook, has been overshadowed by the controversy it aroused over the peak oil debate with claims from a whistleblower that it has, largely under pressure from the US, deliberately underplayed a looming oil shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

A report from a study group in the university of Uppsala in Sweden supports this and puts the world production in 2030 at only 76 million barrels/day against about 100 mb/d suggested by the IEA; reducing both the amount of oil yet to be found, and the production from fields yet to be developed, from the figures assumed by the IEAprojections. It concludes that it is most likely that the world has passed the peak of global oil production and has now entered the descent phase to reach the “Peak of the Oil Age”. With the link between GDP growth and growth in the consumption of oil, it concludes that if future growth in GDP is to continue society must be dependent upon fuels other than oil. An obvious, but unmentioned solution would be to turn to nuclear power.

The growing concern that world oil production may soon reach a peak and then, after a bumpy plateau, slowly decline is also reinforced by theAugust report Global Oil Depletion, by the UK Energy Research Centre. The UKERC is an authoritative body established in 2004 and funded by three research councils: the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Its views cannot and should not be lightly dismissed or disregarded by the Government in determining future energy and economic policy.

From a wide range of assumptions about the global URR (Ultimately Recoverable Resource) of conventional oil and the shape of the future production cycle, the date of peak production is estimated to lie between 2009 and 2031, with a significant risk of a peak before 2020. The report comments that “forecasts that delay the peak of conventional oil production until after 2030 rest upon several assumptions that are at best optimistic and at worst implausible”. It urges both improved understanding and much greater awareness of the risks presented by global oil depletion; early investment in low-carbon alternatives to conventional oil is of considerable importance – but again without referring to the urgent need to develop nuclear power output.

It is a matter of concern that the Government and in particular the DECC which is responsible for setting energy policy, continues to ignore the problems that will arise, and in particular, the effect that growing oil shortages will have on the future price and availability of gas, and on electricity demand and production. A report for Centrica points out that, with an increasing oil price, the cost for the UK of attracting gas away from other markets will be linked to oil prices resulting in increasing wholesale gas prices and volatility.With both growing demand and the decline in gas production from the North Sea the National Grid estimates that gas import requirements are set to reach 46% by 2010 and 67% by 2013/14. BP estimates that by 2020 up to 80- 90% of the UK’s gas could be imported.



World energy outlook 2009

Despite these accusations of deliberately underplaying the future for oil the WEO report is far from optimistic. In its executive summary it proposes two alternative scenarios: one of these, a reference business-as-usual scenario it itself dismisses as leading to completely unacceptable increases in carbon dioxide emissions to levels in the long term of 1000 ppm CO2 equivalent with a rise in global temperature of up to 6oC: the second, the 450 scenario, based on keeping carbon dioxide levels to no more than 450 ppm with a corresponding increase in global temperature put at less than 2oC, rests on what can be considered implausible and largely unproven assumptions. There is no fallback position if both scenarios fail.

In the reference scenario, primary energy demand increases at 1.5%/year from 2007 to 2030 to give an overall increase of 40% by 2030. Fossil fuels remain the dominant primary energy source accounting for 75% of the increase, but oil takes the largest share growing at 1%/year from 85 million barrels per day in 2008 to 105 mbd in 2030. Transport accounts for 97% of the increase in oil use. Electricity grows at an even faster rate of 2.5%/year to 2030 with 80% of growth in the non-OECD countries, most notably in China. Nuclear power grows in all regions except Europe, but its share in total generation falls. The share of alternative energies (mostly wind power) increases from 2.5% in 2007 to 8.6% by 2030.

There are however problems. The present financial difficulties have led to cuts in investment – reduced drilling for oil and gas, and with refinery, pipeline and power station projects slowed, postponed or cancelled – which could have serious and far-reaching consequences for energy security and energy poverty.Arenewed surge in energy prices could be a restraint on economic growth and undermine the sustainability of an economic recovery. In addition to a continuing rapid rise in energy-related carbon emissions which could eventually result in temperatures rising by up to 60oC there are also concerns over the security of energy supply. Gas imports into OECD and developing Asia rise and oil prices rebound to $100/barrel by 2020 and $115/barrel by 2030.

For these reasons it proposes the alternative 450 scenario in which, to limit to a 50% probability a global temperature increase of up to 20 C, the concentration of greenhouse gases is stabilised at around 450 ppm. Primary energy demand grows by 20% from 2007-2030, at 0.8%/yr (almost half the rate of the reference scenario). To achieve this an increase in end-use efficiency is seen as accounting for more than half the total savings (in our view this is implausible; increases in efficiency could be more likely to lead to increases in usage, NI October). More realistically decarbonisation of power supply sees the share of nuclear and renewables increasing from 19% in 2007 to 32% by 2030, but this still leaves fossil fuels as the dominant energy source.A70%reduction in oil usage is seen as coming from an increase in electric vehicles, but despite this expected increase the hoped for efficiency improvements is seen as leading to a 40% reduction in electricity demand.

This assumed reduction in electricity demand seems unrealistic. Under the reference scenario the main increases in electricity demand is seen as coming from countries outside the OECD - China, India, theMiddle East, S. Korea and also the 10 countries of the ASEAN nations; as the report points out this latter group makes up one of the world’s most diverse and dynamic regions with an economy as large as Canada and Mexico combined and a population greater than the EU. The expected economic and population growth in all these countries will require increases in electricity generation far outstripping any supposed efficiency gains. They are unlikely to hold back. There is also the matter of rural poverty. The report refers to the 1.5 billion people who still lack access to electricity. The reference scenario sees that number reducing to 200 million. Such a steep fall could be an idealistic over-estimate but there must surely be some significant increase in electricity demand as access to supply grows.

The changes detailed in the 450 scenario will require an enormous investment in energy infrastructure and energyrelated capital stock (detailed in trillions of dollars) although these costs could to some extent be offset by health and energy security benefits and the reduction in energy bills as energy usage falls.



Dependence on gas

TheWorld Energy Outlook also has mixed views on the role of gas. It starts by expressing concern over the inexorable rise in consumption of natural gas – a critical factor in both scenarios. In the reference scenario gas demand increases from 3 trillion cubic metres (tcm) in 2007 to 4.3 tcm in 2030. Over 80% of this increase is taken by the non-OECD countries. In the 450 scenario the share of gas is 17% lower than in the reference scenario, but this is still an increase of 17% between 2007-2030.

More optimistically it goes on to declare that the remaining resources of natural gas are easily large enough to cover any conceivable rate of increase through to, and even well beyond, 2030. But then it points out that over half of these reserves are in just three countries, Russia, Iran and Qatar, and close to half of the world’s existing production capacity would need to be replaced by 2030 as existing fields are depleted. Despite these concerns it foresees a looming gas glut; yet gas prices are expected to rise because of indexation to oil prices in long-term supply contracts, although spot prices could slide.

Finally the IEA ends by calling for a permanent shift in investment to low-carbon technologies to curb the growth of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, but fails to refer specifically to nuclear power, the cheapest, most reliable and proven source of electricity.



The rise of the East

Throughout theWorld Energy Outlook there are references to the dynamism of the countries outside the OECD where the greater growth in energy and electricity demand can be expected, with a growth of nuclear power output in all regions except Europe. This can already be seen as the response of the rapidly developing countries to expected falls in oil and gas supply.

This contrast is highlighted in a challenging news release from the republican Senator, Lamar Alexander, who asks: “what could happen if we don't adopt nuclear power as a more important part of our energy future – if Russia and China and a lot of other countries go ahead with nuclear – as they are now - while we get left behind. Are we going to be able to compete with countries that have cheap, clean, reliable nuclear power while we're stuck with a bunch of windmills and solar farms producing expensive, unreliable energy or, more likely, not much energy at all?”

And in a comment which could equally well be applied to the situation in this country he points out that - “By 2008 the Chinese had shovels in the ground. The first four Westinghouse reactors are scheduled for completion by 2011. They also bought a pair of Russian reactors, which should be finished around the same time. They started talking about building 60 reactors over the next 20 years and just recently raised it to 132. They're in the nuclear business.

What have we accomplished in the meantime? Well, people have been talking about a "nuclear renaissance" in this country since the turn of the century. In 2007, NRG, a New Jersey company, filed the first application to build a new reactor in 30 years. They're still at the beginning of what promises to be at least a five-year licensing process before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. No one really knows how long it will take, since as soon as the licenses are issued opponents will file lawsuits and the whole thing will move to the courts. If they're lucky, they might have a reactor up-and-running by 2020. Other companies have followed suit and there are now 34 proposals before the NRC, but nobody has yet broken ground. So it isn't likely the Chinese will be coming to us any time soon for more tips on how to build reactors. In fact we'll probably be going to them.”

To elaborate on this he then points out that – “There are 40 reactors now under construction in 11 countries around the world, none of them in the United States. In fact, only two are inWestern Europe – one in Finland and the other in France, both built by Areva. All the rest are in Asia. Although we haven't gotten used to it, Asia may soon be leading the world in nuclear technology. Japan has 55 reactors and gets 35 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, almost double the 19 percent we get here. The Japanese have two reactors under construction and plans for ten more by 2018. They are finding they can build a reactor, start to finish, in less than four years. That's less time than it is taking to get oneAmerican reactor through licensing at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

South Korea gets nearly 40 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is planning another eight reactors by 2015. So far they've bought their reactors from the Japanese but now they have their own Korean Next-Generation Reactor, a 1400-megawatt giant evolved from an American design. They plan to bring two of these online by 2016. Taiwan also gets 18 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is building two new reactors.”

The adoption of carbon-free nuclear power will enable the countries outside the OECD to continue their economic growth at a time when Europe and the United States may be slipping into recession. Does this ‘Rise of the East’ imply a corresponding ‘Decline of the West’? Is Oswald Spengler to be proved right some 90 years after he first published his prophetic book?



Finland

Those opposed to nuclear power take every opportunity to emphasise the difficulties of cost-overrun and delay now being experienced in the construction of the Olkiluoto-3 nuclear station in Finland, and to suggest that this discredits nuclear power as a reliable cost effective electricity source. Let them name any large construction project which has not overun in recent years. But in the case of a nuclear project such an overun becomes insignificant in a few years time. It is well known that nuclear costs are mostly up front and when it is just fuel and maintenance costs the plants become highlt competiitive. This is more so if the plants perform well.

Not surprisingly, given the world beating performance of the four exiting Finnish reactors at Olikluoto and Loviisa, which since they began operation between 1977-1982, have achieved load factors of over 90% and now generate nearly30% of Finnish electricity, things are seen quite differently in Finland.

The Helsinki Times (22-28 October) reports that plans by Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO), now building Olkiluoto-3, for a further nuclear station have been approved by the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK). Two more Finish utility companies – Fortum and Fennovoima – have also submitted plans to STUK for the construction of new nuclear stations. They are not afraid of the cost of nuclear. Fennovoima is 34% owned by the German utility E.ON.