It records that earlier this year at a Vancouver conference seeking business solutions to environmental problems and attended by nine of the committee’s senators, the hall erupted with enthusiastic applause when a woman participant said: “What we really need is a Canadian energy strategy”.

If a vast country endowed with such natural energy gifts, not to mention its vast coal reserves, needs an energy strategy, how much more is one essential for Britain? Our coal industry – if not our coal – is nearly no more and our oil and gas reserves are shrinking fast. Yet we do not have what might remotely be called an energy strategy.

We say this after one of the greater non-events in the short life of our ConDem coalition government – Energy Secretary Chris Huhne’s annual energy statement on July 27. This was not by any stretch of the imagination an energy strategy. It was a strategy to combat climate change. It is a moot point whether as such it holds water. But one thing is clear – energy is subservient to the coalition’s preoccupation with reducing carbon emissions apparently at any old cost.

So what’s new? you may well ask. If the truth be told, nothing – not even the Government’s determination to be the “greenest” ever. That was Labour’s ambition , too. The result is that energy policy is driven by our supposed environmental needs, not our energy needs. This is the short route to national disaster.



YOU CAN’T BUILD AN ENERGY POLICY ON WINGS AND PRAYERS

It is true that the annual energy statement sets out in its second paragraph the Government’s “mission” - to support the transition to a secure, safe, low carbon, affordable energy system. No member of SONE would quarrel with that objective. Nor, we suspect, would they quibble over the second half of the mission sentence – “and for the UK to mobilise commitment to ambitious action on climate change internationally”. Since the problem, if it exists, is by definition international, it were better dealt with globally.

But the order of the two related missions is belied by, on our calculation, 22 of the 32 actions listed in the annual statement being directly linked with carbon suppression and its consequences through energy efficiency, renewables, microgeneration, “smart” technology and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).

Nowhere is there an analysis of what is needed to equip Britain in a currently practical, reliable way with a secure, low carbon energy supply at an internationally competitive price. At every turn political correctness in the form of the familiar Greens’ agenda drives the policy, even to the extent of pursuing in Europe the so far rejected and costly rise from 20 to 30 per cent (on 1990 levels) in the carbon reduction target by 2020.

The coalition’s route to the holy grail of a low carbon economy lies through unpredictable, unreliable and heavily subsidised renewables, energy efficiency (which experience shows is unlikely to deliver economy in use), unproven microgeneration, unproven smart technology (in the sense that it permanently changes human behaviour) and unproven CCS.

Nobody can build energy security on flights of fancy, wings or prayers. In practice, the weakness of the official approach is tacitly acknowledged by the drive for bioelectricity and measures to increase gas security – neither of which, incidentally, will eliminate carbon emissions.



Nuclear still an optional extra, not a spearhead

Far from nuclear spearheading – as it could and should – the mission to provide “a secure, safe, low carbon, affordable energy system”, its consideration comes at the tail end of the action list. And the four nuclear actions – Parliamentary ratification of a new nuclear National Policy Statement next Spring, a decision on the regulatory justification for new reactors, committing resources to complete the generic design assessment for reactors by next June, and arrangements for nuclear operators to set aside money for handling waste and decommissioning – are mere confirmation of what we knew or expected.

We have to face the fact that as things stand nuclear is not regarded as a necessity but as an optional extra if private investors want to go down that route. For all the rhetoric – and there is not much of that in support of nuclear – the safe, clean, secure, reliable and cost-effective fuel SONE has promoted these last 12 years is probably OK if private capital is prepared to invest in it. In soccer parlance, our success is to be measured by getting nuclear promoted to the substitutes bench, but with no guarantee that it will ever play.



SECRETARY HUHNE SINGS (SLIGHTLY) DIFFERENT TUNE

Having said all that, what is striking is that Secretary Huhne is slightly changing his nuclear tune.We fear this is more because of the needs of political presentation than the pressure of logic because logic would have dictated an entirely different annual energy statement. But let us be fair.

On August 9 Huhne responded immediately to impatience at the CBI over the coalition’s drive for nuclear with a BBC interview. He said: “I believe that investors will go ahead and that we will have a new suite of nuclear power stations.We are on course to make sure the first nuclear power plant opens on time in 2018”.

As usual, he tied any majority vote in Parliament in favour of new nuclear build to there being “no specific public subsidy”. This constant harping on unsubsidised nuclear development is, we fear, destructive of credibility – not because nuclear is not seeking a subsidy but because of the extent to which the coalition is continuing heavily to subsidise renewables and other developments through the consumer.

At the same time, we need to understand Huhne’s delicate position. His earlier opposition to nuclear was, he claims, not doctrinal but economic. He simply did not believe that nuclear would be able to stand in the market unaided on its own two feet. By constantly repeating the “no subsidy” mantra, he holds on to consistency.

The CBI’s testiness is also understandable. John Cridland, deputy director general, said: “The Government’s first few months in office have been rightly dominated by sorting out the fiscal deficit, but it must not let the timetable for energy and planning reform slip further. Energy companies are unable to get the ball rolling on new infrastructure projects when it is unclear how the future planning regime will work. Uncertainty on plans for electricity market reform, slow progress on clean coal and nuclear power, as well as the cost of renewable energy, are adding to the mood of caution among investors.We need investment from companies, not delays from Government”.

PRESS MUCH MORE TESTY

Three newspapers did not mince their words over the national energy statement. The Sunday Telegraph, on the eve of its delivery, sounded rather like the Canadian woman we referred to earlier. “What Britain needs now is a farsighted policy that is capable of delivering energy self-sufficiency and security in both the short and the long term”, it said. “Both the Conservatives and Labour…have espoused modern nuclear power as the best available option. The Lib Dems, the party of which Mr Huhne is a leading member, have consistently opposed it.

“It must be admitted that the history of nuclear power in Britain has not been covered in glory…The new generation of nuclear reactors, however, is considerably cheaper and more efficient and has won advocates from across the political spectrum. Mr Huhne has admitted that the existing plans for ‘new nuclear’ set in motion by Labour will probably go ahead, although he explicitly rejects any suggestion of public subsidy. Yet by making nuclear power the poor relation among energy sources, Mr Huhne is making a strategic error.”



No urgency, just stubbornness and madness

After the statement, the Daily Telegraph said: “Gone is the sense of urgency, gone is the unequivocal commitment to nuclear power (it can go ahead, said the Lib Dem Energy and Climate Change Secretary, with a ringing lack of enthusiasm, so long as there is no public subsidy) gone is any sense that Labour’s obtuse refusal to take key strategic decisions means that we face an energy shortfall just a few years from now. In their place is plenty of trendy jargon (what exactly are ‘2050 energy pathways’?), yet more reviews and consultations, and a starry-eyed faith in the magical efficacy of renewables, notably off-shore wind farms.

“It is a source of wonder that a minister charged with ensuring energy security places so much faith in a non-fossil fuel source that is wholly dependent on the vagaries of the weather. Mr Huhne’s stubborn unwillingness to embrace nuclear could cost the country very dear in the decades ahead”.

Finally, the Daily Mail lost its rag: “Unless we build new nuclear power stations – and fast – we’ll face a massive 40 per cent shortfall in our generating capacity as antiquated plants are forced to close. Isn’t it madness, therefore, to leave Britain’s energy policy in the hands of Lib Dem Chris Huhne – an ecofanatic who shows he is blind to logic and basic maths by putting his faith in financially unviable and hugely inefficient wind turbines? Plunging the nation into darkness is too high a price to pay for assuaging the Lib Dems’ sensibilities”.

The moral of this tale is that it is not just Secretary Huhne but also the Prime Minister who needs to get a grip on energy policy. There will be no mercy if things go wrong on the energy front, as well they might. History tends to show that governments are as secure as the country’s power supplies.



THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF WHITEHALL THEORY

Nothing perhaps illustrates the insubstantial, theoretical nature of the coalition’s policy than its estimates of the price of going “green” – at a time, incidentally, when the economy is sluggish, debt-ridden and the recovery likely, in the words of the Bank of England, to be “choppy”.

Secretary Huhne admitted in his annual energy statement that the proposed measures would raise the cost of electricity by 33 per cent by 2020 and the cost of gas by 18 per cent. That works out at a total of £277 on the average domestic bill, over and above the £84 so far ascribed by uSwitch, the price comparisons website, to EU “greenery”.

But Huhne pointed out that his Department’s central estimate of the net effect on overall gas and electricity bills would be one per cent – or £13 – compared with what it would have been but for the coalition’s “green deal” for the installation of energy saving measures in homes. By contrast the figure for industry is a 26 per cent rise, which will do no good to our competitiveness.

Let us leave aside the fact that, whatever the subsidies, householders will have to speculate – i.e. to invest – in energy saving equipment in order to accumulate savings – a fact that Consumer Focus said would discriminate against the poor. Instead, let us acknowledge that all sorts of assumptions lie behind these calculations, not the least of which is that savings will actually flow in full expected measure from the investment. Our experience of energy conservation tells us that that is a very big assumption.

But what really floored us was Huhne’s letter to the Daily Telegraph on July 29. Only a theoretical economist could have written it. He revealed that the central forecast of a net one per cent rise in domestic consumer bills was founded on an almost unchanged oil price of $80 a barrel in 2020. If the price were to rise to $100, as projected by the IEA, British households would break even, thanks to his energy saving measures. They would actually be five per cent better off than they might have been (though they would not feel it) if the oil price reached $150pb.

For his next trick, Mr Huhne will prove that 2=1.



DRIVING OUR INDUSTRY ABROAD

The Energy Secretary will have his work cut out convincing the Energy Intensive Users’Group and the TUC who have just published The Cumulative Impact of Climate Change Policies on UK Energy Intensive Industries. It says climate change policies are imposing significant costs on energy intensive industries. If they are not reviewed urgently, some companies could leave the UK for good.

Steel, ceramics, paper, cement and lime, aluminium, basic inorganic chemicals and others, currently employing 225,000 people, produce products essential to a low carbon economy. Yet the forecast increase in their total energy bills, taking electricity, gas and emissions reductions schemes together, is as high as 141 per cent by 2020. The Government needs, they say, a better balance in its emissions reduction policy between economic sectors. According to some, its policy is “seriously out of line with other countries’more pragmatic approaches”.



BRAINWASHED INTO ACCEPTING IMPOVERISHMENT

The only conclusion we can draw from all this is that the nation – or at least its political class - has been so brainwashed about the need to combat global warming that politicians feel they can do things that only 20 years ago they would have thought pretty suicidal. Lack of value for money does not seem to be a deterrent, still less the potential consequences for reliability of supply.

Take, for example, the Government’s new wheeze, following its feed in tariff for domestic generators, to promote microgeneration. Secretary Huhne has now lifted the ban on local authorities selling renewable electricity to the grid. “For too long”, he said, “Whitehall’s dogmatic reliance on ‘big’ energy has stood in the way of the vast potential role of local authorities in the UK’s green energy revolution”. His inducement is the prospect of their earning a total of £100m a year from wind turbines and solar panels on council buildings, hydro-electric plants on rivers, anaerobic digestors, waste incinerators and wave or tidal power schemes.

The chairman of the Local Government Association’s environment board has even held out the prospect of all this microgeneration cutting council taxes. And if you believe that, you will believe anything.

As mere council taxpayers we would like to see in black and white the economics of all these money-making ideas. Otherwise, we could see householders and councils trapped for a generation into expensive scams.What return on capital, net of subsidies which we have to fund, can we be guaranteed? And, taking everything into account, how much cheaper would it be just to build new nuclear power stations on sites waiting to receive them?

All this underlines the need for the Government to give consumers independent and authoritative value-for-money estimates for all power generating systems. Perhaps the reason we never get them is that nuclear comes out cheapest of all both in terms of actual power and carbon reduction.



THE FIRST LAW OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS - DISCOUNT

We have long taken the view that we should take with a pinch of salt claims that the latest environmental mess has brought irreparable damage to the planet. We live in a world determined to terrify us into conforming with the new “Green” religion.

Now two incidents make our point. BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico should not have occurred, but the idea that it was a mega-disaster has evaporated as nature has once again aided the oil’s dispersal. Then we have had Russia’s awful forest fires. This was too good a chance for the anti-nuclear alarmists to pass up, even before anything had been consumed by flames in areas affected by Chernobyl’s radioactive contamination.

The French Institute of Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety said any fire on contaminated land would not pose a health risk either locally or in Europe. The air would be contaminated with caesium-137 and strontium-90 but the level of radioactivity would “be the same as natural radiation due to the presence of radon gas in the air”.

One of the wonders of the age is the magical effect of the word “radiation” on news values, even though X-rays, scans etc are routine in our hospitals and put 140 times more radiation into the environment as the entire nuclear power industry. Nuclear’s problem is keeping things in perspective.



NUCLEAR BUSIER

Last year nuclear power met a larger proportion of the nation’s electricity demand – 18 per cent – thanks to stations returning from outages. The Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2010 says this compares with gas 45 per cent, coal 28 per cent and renewables, as defined by the Renewables Obligation, 6.7 per cent.

Overall, final energy consumption fell by 6.7 per cent, reflecting the recession. All sectors consumed less – industry 13.1 per cent; transport 4 per cent; domestic 5.2 per cent, and services, public administration 8.5 per cent less.

The most striking figures in the Digest relate to the comparison between 1990 and 2009. As a nation our final energy consumption actually fell by 2.3 per cent over the last 20 years.What is more, we seem to be using energy more efficiently which has implications for the Government’s hopes from its energy efficiency drive. Energy consumption per unit of output fell by 27 per cent for all industries.



WHY SHOULDN’T NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS LOOK LIKE CATHEDRALS?

We have always wondered why so many industrial developments have to look, well, industrial.Why could nuclear power stations, for example, not be the architectural and aesthetic wonders of the 21stC? The obvious answer is cost, bearing in mind those imposed by a belt, braces and safety pin approach.

We are now delighted to report that theWorld Nuclear Association, together withWorld Nuclear News are going into all this. To stimulate creativity in improving the appearance of nuclear power plants, they are collaborating to gather and display “innovative architectural proposals designed to convey the technological and professional excellence in nuclear power that is inherent in nuclear power and the profound opportunity this technology offers for a global clean energy future”.



ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING – October 26

SONE’s annual general meeting is to be held this year on Tuesday, October 26 at the Reform Club, 104 Pall Mall, London SW1 from 1.45-4.45pm. The change of time has been dictated by our failure for the first time to secure a sponsor for the meeting. This means that we have had to dispense with a buffet lunch as an economy measure. Tea and coffee will be available from 1.30pm.

The speakers will be Humphrey Cadoux Hudson, leading EdF’s nuclear development in the UK, and for the last hour Charles Hendry, Minister for Energy. In this way we shall secure both an industrial and political view of prospects for the UK’s nuclear renaissance.

The Reform Club enforces conservatism in dress, requiring a jacket and tie for men. Those wishing to be present should inform the Acting Secretary on or tel: 020-8660-8970. Who is to be the Sir Christopher Wren of the nuclear age?