THE KEY TO THE FAILURE OF COPENHAGEN: DUCKING ISSUES

Two events have dominated this month – the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen and the mysterious leak of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia suggesting that global warming evidence has been fiddled.Conspiracy theorists saw the leak as designed to wreck the summit.

In fact, it never seemed likely that the conference in the frozen north,with its stage army of pressure groups and militant stormtroopers queueing up to be clobbered by the police,would achieve anything worthwhile with 192 nations represented.Nor did it – as the subdued hype from the likes of Barack Obama and Gordon Brown confirmed.

Nor was it ever likely that the leak of e-mails, containing such apparently compromising material that the director of the unit has stood down pending an investigation,would destroy the summit.The messianic belief in man made global warming is too deeply entrenched.

In any case, even if dirty work is proved,we are still left with two conundrums: are rising levels ofCO2 actually warming the planet and, if so, to what extent can man be held responsible and can do anything about it? The summit ignored these fundamental questions and took as read man’s responsibility for imperilling the Earth.

For the rest we saw lots of grandstanding with tax payers’ money, the usual haggle over emissions limits and the most explicit demonstration yet that theseCO2-producing events are about a transfer of resources from the “guilty”West to the “innocent” developing nations.

We mention all this because it is becoming evermore apparent that setting targets for holding the increase in global temperature at a certain level by means of evermore ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions is entirely divorced from expert advice and realistic possibility.

A rational conference would have examined whether a range of targets was achievable and the means to hit them.

Had it done so, it would have discovered that the surest way of reducing the developed world’s carbon emissions would be to go nuclear, yet nuclear power never seems to have been officially discussed.

This identifies the key to the failure of all the global warming summits.Tackling carbon emissions is primarily a political problem. It requires winning public acceptance on the basis of open, honest debate for many things from changes in lifestyle to the futility of renewables and necessity of nuclear power.That requires real effort. Prancing on the world’s stage, setting targets for which you can never be held personally responsible, is much easier than the grinding business of persuading people to change their ways and attitudes.

Yet nuclear power should be an easy sell. It has been manifestly safe in the UK for 50 years during which it has handled its waste effectively, it emits next to no greenhouse gases, it has been proved reliable and it is the cheapest form of power on offer.We wish you a happier New Year and an end to political palsy.

THE CASE FOR NUCLEAR

As a result of a lunch for SONE patrons, hosted by Damon de Laszlo on November 25, we produced an A5 card The Case for Nuclear Power, which was enclosed with the November Newsletter.We hope members will deploy the 10 points in arguments and will ask the Secretary (see address at the bottom of page 4) for more copies if they need them to stimulate discussion at meetings.We also hope the card will be instrumental in galvanising politicians.

Newsletter No. 135 Dec. 2009 IMPLICATIONS OF COPENHAGEN What our political leaders in Copenhagen seemed to be saying is that we have to put on a show but we know we haven’t a future if we introduce the measures required to match our rhetoric. That also goes for such defective democracies as China, which has to keep a wary eye on its aspiring proletariat.

Instead, they operate by stealth and in the UK may well already be beyond the limits of public tolerance when the people wake up to what is being imposed on them. Of course, Ministers say tackling global warming does not come cheap (though cheaper than its consequences). But the burden steadily grows.

The Taxpayers’Alliance claims that taxes on energy and air and motor travel now total £26.4bn – nearly six times more than UN system of measuring the cost of global warming caused by human activity, On top of this are the cost to the consumer of the Renewables Obligation which results in households paying up to five times more for wind power than for nuclear power.

But we ain’t seen nothing yet, given that an infamous EU deal requires the UK to find 40 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 or face daily fines for failing to do so.

Indeed, Ofgem, the energy regulator, has said that energy bills could rise by as much as 60 per cent by 2016.

Last summer uSwitch.com, the price comparisons firm, reported the average annual household energy bill had doubled in five years to £1,243. It could reach £4,185 by 2020 if the trend continued. But that did not count the likely cost of the massive investment required, adding £548, so that by 2020 bills could have quadrupled to £5,000 a year.

We shall all be in a state of fuel poverty by then.

It can’t go on. The case for nuclear strengthens by the hour. As we write another £9 has been added to power bills to pay for the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

IMPLICATIONS FOR SCIENCE

It has not been a good month for scientists. The leak of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit in Norwich is far from conclusive proof that manmade global warming is a science-based political conspiracy. But there are some serous questions for scientists to answer.We hope they will take them seriously.

Essentially, the claim is that some of them have been rigging the evidence and getting it through a similarly rigged peer-view system and that that is driven by big money in the form of research grants. The most virulent critics of the science behind global warming present Copenhagen as serving only one purpose: to keep the gravy train on its Kyoto tracks.

We have no idea what the investigations into the alleged scandal will come up with, though the investigators had better be able to demonstrate their independence and objectivity. But we have always been concerned about the determination by the anthropological global warming lobby to close down the science and argument. Let’s hope that East Anglia ushers in a new openness in science. All of us on this planet will benefit from that.

THE CURRENT INCREDIBILITY

Given the leisurely approach to nuclear’s development, it is clear that uranium cannot significantly increase electricity supply by 2020.

We therefore need to get a grip on how we are going to survive let alone reduce carbon emissions. Professor Michael Laughton, Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering at London University, has demonstrated the unreality of current targets in the October issue of New Power.

He concentrates on renewables, as the major nominated contributor to power supplies over the next decade. The gap between where we are now and where Europe requires us to be in 2020 is frightening. Current renewables capacity is 5,700MWbut needs to increase eight-fold to 47,800MWby 2020.

Basing his calculations on the definition of renewables accepted by the EU, he estimates where we are supposed to be or might possibly or theoretically be in 2020, with a bit of luck. In summary, he reckons we need 32,300MW from wind, nearly 3,000MW from non-wind and 10,600MWfrom marine power of which a Severn Barrage might supply 8,600MW.

Any grounds for optimism? In engineering circles the prospect of providing 32,300MWof wind power by 2020 is regarded as impossible. The potential of non-wind renewables (now providing 1,683MWand encompassing everything from hydro to biomass to sewage sludge digestion) is clearly small and a Severn - 2 - Barrage is not even on the horizon. It seems we shall fall far short of what Brussels requires.

This raises the question whether Ed Miliband, Energy Secretary, can justifiably be optimistic about meeting demand to 2020. He may have approved another “dash for gas” with some sanctioned coal-firing, subject to retrofitting of unproven CCS, providing 20,000MW - 2,000MW more thermal plant than is due to close in the next decade. But no one has yet explained how we shall find enough stand-by plant even if there is no Severn Barrage and wind power falls far short of projections.

If they win the election in May, the Conservatives may sound suspiciously like Victor Meldrew as they take over. We doubt they have any idea what would hit them, especially as David Cameron is determined to be so damned cheerful this happy New Year.

No doubt he is thanking his lucky stars Copenhagen did not take up the Prime Minister’s offer to double the target cut in carbon emissions to 42 per cent by 2020. The Taxpayers’Alliance said this could only be achieved by shrinking the economy by 30 per cent.

TALKING OF BARRAGES…

Superficially, a Severn Barrage is an attractive energy idea generating, say, 7.5 per cent of UK electricity, though it would not be competitive with nuclear. But Dr Graham Daborn, of Acadia University Centre for Estuarine Research in Nova Scotia, claims it would be a disaster. This is because, unlike La Rance in France, it is highly silt-laden.

He says silt arrives in the Severn from both directions leading to choking mud downstream of a barrage and silting of the ‘head pond’ above it. This could lead to slime on the beaches of Wales and the South West and flooding. He compares the Severn to the Moncton Barrage in New Brunswick, Canada, which was “an unmitigated disaster” and questions whether barrages are “proven technology” because so many have failed.

This raises the question, if Dr Daborn is right, why we should waste our money on a barrage when we could get at least four proven nuclear power stations for the price.

ZAC’S SUBSIDIES

Zac Goldsmith, the Tories’well-heeled environmental guru who is seeking to enter Parliament, doubts, of course, whether any nuclear stations will be built, given the political consensus against subsidising them. He repeatedly claims that not a single nuclear power station across the world has yet been built without subsidy.

This depends on what you mean by subsidy.

Already Greens have claimed that a floor under the cost of carbon would subsidise nuclear. No doubt so would in their eyes any overdue removal of the climate change levy which simply cannot be justified as a charge on nuclear power.

The difficulty of saying Goldsmith is wrong so far as the UK is concerned is that nuclear grew out of defence needs and all existing nuclear power stations were ordered by a nationalised industry whose costs were not transparent. Hence the difficulty initially in privatising nuclear power.

SONE members directly concerned with the ordering of those power stations swear they detected no subsidies. Another, with direct experience of Sweden, states categorically that Sweden’s nuclear power stations – almost entirely Swedish-designed BWRs generating about half of the country’s electricity - were developed by ASEA in collaboration with a group of private utilities. Far from being subsidised, they subsidise the Government through a special tax on nuclear electricity.

We are seeking subsidy information on Finland, Switzerland and Belgium, which also have private utilities. All contributions gratefully received.

GLACIAL MOVEMENT

You will recall that earlier this year four prominent “Greens” came out, if not exactly shouting for nuclear, at least accepting the need for it. This did not presage an avalanche of conversions along the road to Copenhagen. In truth, we had not expected any such seismic event.

But things are moving, as the Washington Post has noted. It has recently carried this quote from Mike Childs, head of climate change issues at Friends of the Earth UK: “Because of global warming, most of the big - 3 - groups have become less active on their nuclear campaign, and almost all of us are taking another look at our internal policies.

We’ve decided not to officially endorse it, in part because we feel the nuclear lobby is already strong enough. But we are also no longer focusing our energies on opposing it”.

If Stephen Tindale, former head of Greenpeace UK and one of the four 2009 apostates, is any guide, it is a question of the greater evil – nuclear waste or climate change. “There is no contest any more”, he says. “Climate change is the bigger threat and nuclear is part of the answer”.

It is good to know the nuclear lobby is felt to be strong enough. But climate change can’t be much of a threat if it is compared with that from nuclear waste. The test of Green intentions will come if and when the new planning quango approves an application to build a new nuclear power station.

STATEMENTS OF INTENT

We are aware of a certain “We shall believe it when we see it” feeling among SONE members over nuclear’s renaissance. After all, no reactor has yet been licensed for use in Britain by our notoriously belt, braces and baling band nuclear inspectorate, no application has been made to build one, the new planning quangocracy is untested and the more they chuck billions at wind power the less capital there may be for nuclear.

Yet there is a lot in the nuclear companies’ argument that they would not have invested about £500m in some of the provisionally approved 10 sites if they were not dead serious and did not think they could make an unsubsidised profit.

Yes, they say to the sceptics, we could build anything on those sites but it would be a pretty poor investment if, in the end, we had paid £100m-300m for the site for a gas-fired power station or a supermarket.We have to pay a heavy premium because of the limited number of nuclear sites.

We are also aware that the companies have always proclaimed a certain attraction for building in the UK. If they can get things off the ground in unsubsidised Britain, they will have a much stronger case in other countries. Indeed, we have heard it said that they see the UK as the way in to the European market. Let’s hope they find that way in soon.

THE VATICAN’S BLESSING

Our opposite numbers across the water in Ireland, BENE (Better Environment with Nuclear Energy) are struggling mightily to get the law banning nuclear power in the Emerald Isle repealed. They haven’t a lot going for them, given the hysteria in the Republic over Sellafield. Latterly they have had the RC bishops ranged against them.

The Archbishop of Cashel recently claimed 95 per cent of Irish bishops are against nuclear energy.

BENE has been able to point out that this doctrine does not have the Vatican’s support.

When Pope Benedict XVI addressed the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency on July 27, he pointed out that the Holy See had been a member of the IAEA from its foundation and continued to support its activity. He added: “To support the use of peaceful and safe nuclear technology for authentic development, respecting the environment and ever mindful of the most disadvantaged populations, is always more present and urgent”.

SPINNING ZWENTENDORF

Greenpeace has just hailed the replacement of a nuclear power station with a solar one – at Zwentendorf in Austria. The $1bn nuclear power station there never opened because of opposition.

A Euros1.2m project has now turned it into the largest solar power station in Austria.

What Greenpeace failed to say was that the nuclear station was rated at 700MW. Its solar replacement will generate on average just two KW. It is calculated that scaling it up effectively to replace the nuclear station would cost €350bn.

The story of our times.

OBITUARY

We regret to record the death of Vernon P Koller, of Carnforth, Lancashire, a keen long-term Published by: Supporters of Nuclear Energy, c/o 45 ChurchWay, Sanderstead, CR20JU Tel: 0208 657 3479 Web site: www.sone.org.uk E-mail: sec:sone.org.uk - 4 - member of SONE.