Now that only one possible demonstration CCS coal plant remains in the Government programme, three have dropped out, the DECC has announced that the scheme is to be extended to gas-fired plants, with the admission that “the UK looks set to rely on gas for years to come.”

Capturing carbon will not only be very expensive but consume a substantial part of the energy originally generated, perhaps up to one-third or so more coal will have to be burnt, in turn generating more carbon dioxide to be captured. Collecting this gas and piping it to away to storage, supposedly in the North Sea, will also be expensive and energy consuming. To have any impact the quantities separated and stored would have to be enormous. In recent years the coal for electricity generation has amounted to between 40 million to 50 million tonnes/yr – generating over 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, a 1000 million tonnes in 10 years!. The practicality and indeed safety of such storage – supposed to be for ever – is far from certain. Any significant leakage would cause deaths by suffocation. The planning and implementation of a pipe network linking several coal or gas stations will be a major public relations and planning problem; with even one minor leak, there would be total opposition.

It is astonishing that those who protest so vehemently against the storage of relatively tiny quantities of solid radioactive waste, (that will slowly decay into stable isotopes), the threat they believe this might pose to future generations, now support the burial of a potentially lethal gas, soluble in water to form a weak acid which will slowly attack the enclosing rock formations. A successful CCS scheme would create a catastrophic time bomb that could explode at any time in the ever-continuing future.

No one expects any successful demonstration of separation to be achieved before 2020 and it would be another 10 years or more before CCS could be applied on a sufficient scale to make any significant reduction in carbon emissions. In the meantime we will have no option but to go on burning coal and gas – seeking exemption from the EU limits on carbon emissions. The £1 billion to be spent by the Government is nothing more than an attempt to convince the EU (and also perhaps itself) that while we have no immediate means of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels we are at least making some effort to see how carbon emissions might be reduced in the future. But even if successful CCS, would only add to the insecurity of our fuel supply; coal and gas are now having to be imported in increasing quantities and at increasing cost.

Instead of throwing away £1 billion in an attempt to ease their conscience over burning more coal the Government would do better to promote the use of mixed oxide fuels in UK nuclear power stations, as well as contributing to the development of advanced nuclear reactors and methods of reprocessing which would offer complete energy independence by utilising the 95% of unused uranium and the longer life actinides and other radioactive elements which are now vilified as nuclear wastes – to be buried at high cost - rather than as valuable new sources of energy. The potential of new fusion reactors specifically to burn up our existing stocks of depleted uranium which could support an all-electric Britain for 500 years should not be ignored. By starting a firm programme now, without the seemingly interminable consultations and delays which characterise all attempts to expand nuclear activity, we could make substantial reductions in the amount of fossil fuel burnt to generate electricity in 10 and 20 years time.

Burying coal would be a much cheaper and safer alternative to CCS.



Energy and the economy

The consequences of the close link between energy and the economy are not always appreciated. The figure shows that oil production and world GDP have moved in lockstep

World GDP growth & World oil production growth have tracked for decades

When the supply of energy is unconstrained energy usage is driven by and follows economic growth, but positions are reversed at times of energy shortage or high prices. Although it is generally believed that the recent recession was triggered by the sale of the notorious ‘subprime’ mortgages in the USA, the high price of oil and fears of oil shortage would have been the underlying factor. Banks lend money – even on dubious mortgages – in the belief that with continued economic growth these will ultimately prove profitable; a rising tide floats all boats. The spectre of peak oil and the soaring oil price pricked this bubble.With the consequent recession the demand for and price of oil fell but with signs of a consequent economic recovery the world seems set to repeat the cycle.

Attempts to speed this recovery by injecting money into the system, as support for banks, as quantitative easing, or as Keynesian capital projects with government spending, will only succeed if the increasing amount of energy that will be required is available. Growing fears that oil production has already, or may shortly, peak will once more threaten the economic recovery. World oil output has remained stationary since 2005/6 suggesting that it is now on a bumpy plateau and will inevitably begin to decline. The always optimistic IEA in its latest report acknowledges that crude oil output is on an undulating plateau of around 68-69 mb/d but may never regain the peak of 70 mb/d reached in 2006. New discoveries are expected to be increasingly expensive to produce and may not be available in time. There could also be increased production of natural gas liquids, tar sands, and more doubtfully, of biofuels.

The only solution is to develop alternative energy resources to supplement the oil supply. Natural gas will eventually follow the decline in oil supply even though output may be temporally boosted by shale gas. Increasing use of coal will increase carbon dioxide emissions to which CCS is unlikely to provide a relief. Biomass is suspect as an energy resource with the inevitable competition with land over food supply. Tar sands require almost as much energy to extract the oil as the energy of that oil itself. The renewables, wind, solar, wave are all low density energy sources and will always remain expensive and their largely unpredictable intermittency will require back up from coal or gas plant. Hydropower is only available to a favoured few. This leaves nuclear power as the only alternative available.

It seems that this has been understood by the developing countries of the Middle and Far East andAsia. China, India , S Korea , Indonesia the UAE, Jordan , SaudiArabia and also Russia have all commenced or announced extensive nuclear programmes and Latin America is not far behind.With the possible exception of those countries with substantial hydropower resources, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Austria, and France with its nuclear programme the rest of Europe and also the USA seem to be willing their own economic and political decline.

We do not have much time left.



Why subsidise the wind

Since the subsidies for wind power are paid, not by the Government but ultimately by the electricity consumer, Chris Huhne the Secretary of State for Energy could conveniently ignore them, when in the Annual Energy Statement on 27 July he told parliament that it was wrong to assume that the only reason for building on-shore wind turbines is for the subsidy as windpower “is competitive in a free market with other sources of energy”. (Hansard 27 July; col. 875). This is quite clearly wrong and the claim has since been modified to the meaningless assertion that on-shore wind is competitive with the subsidy. Huhne’s original claim was however seized upon by Lord Reay who in the debate on energy policy in the Lords (3rd November) asked why, if wind was now competitive, were continuing subsidies required. Needless to say no answer came, but Lord Reay continued with a powerful denunciation of wind power. His views should be more widely known and appreciated by all electricity consumers on whom the costs will fall. Some of his key points are given below.

So-called wind farms are not wind farms; they are subsidy farms. Developers are promised that they can sell all the electricity that they can produce at about twice the market rate and, if they are offshore producers, at three times the market rate. That is what the ROC system is paying for, or rather what the electricity consumer is paying for, at an annual cost of well over £1 billion. That cost is expected to rise to £6 billion by 2020 or until the Treasury intervenes, whichever moment comes first. Why should the Treasury intervene? It is because those subsidies are effectively a tax on the electricity consumer, both business and private, the proceeds of which go not to the Treasury but to developers, including energy companies, to enable them to carry on an otherwise uneconomic activity. From them, they go to landlords, including the Crown Estate. They remove a taxable opportunity from the Treasury and, in time, will reduce the tax base by making industry less profitable. They will undoubtedly drive parts of it out of the country altogether.

The Government are also fond of saying that wind power contributes to our energy security. The logic of this claim is equally incomprehensible since, as wind is not available on demand, there will always have to be sufficient power available from other sources to meet peak demand, just as there would have to be if we had no wind power.…. The wind industry is a subsidy-driven farce, a distraction from the serious pursuit of energy security and a complete negation of what the Government insist is another of their priorities – the promotion of economic growth. The subsidies will cost far more jobs in the rest of the economy by raising the cost of energy than they will ever produce in the wind power industry itself. It is deeply depressing to see the Government still feeling obliged to keep in existence this green albatross.

In addition to these subsidies from the consumer the Government is also supporting the wind industry with direct aid. Up to £60 million is to be spent on creating the infrastructure at ports to provide facilities for the construction and maintenance of offshore wind farms and on the electricity transmission.



The necessity of nuclear power

It is not widely realised that energy imports into the UK are now becoming a serious financial burden. The change has been dramatic. In 2000 energy exports mostly of North Sea oil and gas contributed 6% to the UK trade balance. By 2008 this had reversed to a 19% deficit – a swing of 25% in just eight years. In 2009 the deficit had fallen slightly to 16% largely due to the lower energy usage in the recession and a fall in oil prices. Prices of oil and gas are now rising again with oil expected to reach over $100/billion litres, and with the accelerating decline of output from the North Sea, oil and gas imports can only increase in quantity and cost to the point that they will become a burden at a time when the country is trying to reduce its indebtedness.

Coal which was once the UK major energy source is now all but finished. Not only has the total consumption fallen steadily over the past years but the share of coal imports has now risen to 78% of supply; coal still fuelled 28% of electricity generation in 2009. Coal is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions at a rate of nearly three tons of carbon dioxide per tonne of coal burnt. The Government’s plans to subsidise the development of CCS for power stations are unlikely ever to be put into practice. Even if the technology can be technically developed the energy penalty of an additional 20-30% would require that much more coal to be imported, producing more carbon dioxide to be captured and buried.

Renewable energies - hydro, wind, solar, biomass - are at least generated within the UK and will reduce energy imports. But their contribution is small. In 2009 total renewable supply to amounted to 7% of electricity supply of which only 2.4% came from wind, on and offshore. With generous subsidies (from the consumer) wind output will certainly increase but Government plans for up to 30% of renewable energy generation to meet EU targets by 2020 seem impossibly optimistic, while the low load factor of wind plants, around 30%, would require substantial back up from fossil plant and increase the import of coal or gas.

All we will have left to sustain the economy is nuclear power. On this the Government attitude can only be characterised as half-hearted. They have sanctioned the construction of new stations on eight sites but insist that no subsidy will be given and that the decision to build rests with the major, foreign owned, electricity generating companies. This is an appalling abrogation of their responsibility for the future prosperity and economy of this country.

At the same time Government policy also discourages the proposed new nuclear development. Generous subsidies for on and offshore wind encourages the electricity companies to invest in the wind farms, reducing the capital they have to spend or borrow to build new nuclear stations. Given the choice between quick and guaranteed returns from investment in subsidised wind, or a greater initial capital outlay and longer build time for a new nuclear plant for which the profits earned from the lower generating costs will come much later, it cannot be expected that they will put the needs of this country before that of their shareholders. In a similar fashion the companies will get a quicker return on their investment by building gas-fired stations, as indeed they are now doing. They will not be deterred by increasing prices for imported gas as this is recognised as legitimate cost to be passed on to the consumer, as indeed has been the case in the past weeks.

Nuclear power can provide a greater energy security. By reprocessing spent fuel and reusing the recovered plutonium and uranium our future energy independence can be assured. But this will require that reprocessing and the manufacture of MOX fuel at Sellafield is continued at least until new reprocessing plant is available.

Unless the Government takes a more positive attitude to nuclear power and acts on behalf of the country we are faced with an inevitable and indeed rapid economic decline and loss of international credibility and prestige. Vietnam, for instance, which plans to build 13 nuclear stations by 2030 could overtake us.



Too much talk

The urgency of an early start on the new nuclear build programme becomes ever-more obvious, yet time is still being wasted on seemingly interminable consultations and discussions.All the arguments for and against nuclear power were exhaustively examined at the Sizewell Inquiry of 1983-1985 and the decision taken to proceed with the construction of Sizewell B. The continued excellent performance of that reactor clearly demonstrates the wisdom of that decision. The same conclusion in favour of the nuclear station was again confirmed at the Hinkley Point C inquiry in 1990. There is little new that has emerged in the past 20 years that can be said on either side. It seems however that continued discussion is the preferred alternative to actually taking a decision.

The latest example is the meeting organised by the Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum (27th October) with the optimistic title “Nuclear energy: moving closer to new build.” The problem with such meetings is that in an attempt to show impartiality the organisers feel obliged to invite contributions from declared opponents. This gives continued publicity to all the doubts and innuendoes which were rejected 20 years ago. It only strengthens opposition within the public, who presented with conflicting opinions on matters on which they have no expert knowledge, will tend to accept those that conform with and support their own prejudices. These meetings are positively harmful. The nuclear industry should refuse to take part.

An example from the recent meeting was a contribution by a Profesor Boxall claiming that, with the commitment to new projects to double the present world capacity, known uranium resources could be exhausted within 40 years. This is clearly nonsense but it will be seized upon by the doubters to support their views that nuclear power has no longterm future.Yet the cost of raw uranium is only a minor part of the cost of nuclear power. New resources and the exploitation of ever-lower grade ores and even the world’s oceans will continue to provide a sufficiency. There is also the folly of the once-through fuel cycle which treats spent fuel containing some 95% of unburnt uranium as waste and proposes to bury this valuable energy source. The technology for reprocessing the spent fuel to recover the uranium and plutonium to reuse it as MOX is available now and is being widely adopted in other countries. It is the obvious course to follow here and should be a requirement for any new reactors. It is then astonishing that the NuclearWhite Paper of 2009, from the previous government, assumes that there will be no reprocessing of spent fuel. Future reactors now being developed (but not in this country) including the fast reactor (which we abandoned at Dounreay) would have sufficient fuel for thousands of years.




The power we need

When wind power enthusiasts talk about the latest wind farm they invariably say that they can supply so many thousand homes. But domestic use only account for about one third of the electricity we need to support our way of life. Industrial use accounts for another third and transport and service industry for the rest. So in general you can cut the number of people satisfied by a wind farm by at least a factor of three.

In practice it is more because the demand that must be met is that on a cold winter evening which is about twice as much as on a warm summer day. Then the grid likes to have a reserve of capacity available. At present they try to maintain about 20% reserve. With the brief periods of shut down for fuelling a nuclear plant it can be scheduled for a period of low demand. But no such luck with the long period when the wind is not blowing at the right speed.

Putting some figures into the situation – which can be quite difficult to find – we see that the total supply for the UK is just under 400 000 GWh each year. The population is about 60 million so each individual on average needs about 6.67MWh a year. That would be a continuous supply of 0.76 kWh so one large wind turbine, at 20% load factor, might supply 526 people except that it would not because of the variability of the wind preventing it from having a supply when it was needed.




Ireland

The collapse of the Irish banks provides a text book example of what happens to a country enjoying a substantial economic growth without securing a corresponding sustainable growth in its energy supply, on which the expanding economy depends. Collapse is inevitable.

Estimated economic growth in Ireland is given as 2003 – 5.2%; 2004 – 1.4%; 2005 – 5.1%; 2006 – 5.5%; 2007 – 6%; 2008 – 6% before collapsing to -3% in 2009 and -7.6% in 2010, but Ireland is reliant on fossil fuels for 96% of its energy and of this 90% are imported. The Irish dependency on fuel imports – the 4th highest in the EU, after Malta, Cyprus, and Luxemburg – at a cost of over €6 bn/year – became a point of weakness with the increasing doubts about the future supply and cost of oil and gas and the added costs of carbon pricing.

Ireland had high hopes and plans for a rapid development of wind power, on and offshore, but the problems of excessive production – development of storage batteries or plans for the export of surplus – and the opposite problem of back-up at times of low wind were not convincingly resolved while the higher cost of wind would seem an intractable burden. The alternative of nuclear power was never considered. Measures to remedy Ireland’s problem by promoting further economic growth may only make matters worse if plans are not also made to generate the additional energy they require.

Can further countries in the EU be affected? In terms of dependence on imported energy after Ireland come Italy 86%; Portugal 83%; Spain 81%; Belgium 79%;Austria 70% and Greece 72%. The EU(27) average is a not too healthy 54%.

There is a message here for the UK.We are still in the fortunate position of being a net energy exporter, but this will change within the next ten years as the output from the North Sea declines and the existing nuclear stations are withdrawn from service. Unless a significant new nuclear capacity can be in operation in time to relieve the energy shortages that will occur the economy is in danger of collapsing. This is a serious threat; the Government cannot stand passively by and leave the future of our economy to decisions of foreign owned electricity companies.




European union discover fast reactor

An initiative was recently launched by the European Commission, European research organisations to look at the development of a fast reactor. Formed under the Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform (SNETP; which puts in place a technology roadmap for European nuclear energy to the year 2050), ESNII is intended to speed up progress towards a prototype sodium-cooled fast reactor by around 2020.

But wait. Did we not have prototype fast reactors in Britain and France? In France they even had a commercial sized fast reactor.

Well this initiative will also look to a longer-term alternative of either lead-cooled or gas-cooled demonstration reactors by 2025. It cites the year 2040 as an overall target for fast neutron reactor deployment.

Fast neutron reactor technology has the potential to multiply by a factor of up to 100 the energy output from a given amount of uranium, compared with Generation II and III reactors. The ESNII roadmap consists of four projects: French sodium-based fast reactor prototypeAstrid; the Belgian-ledMyrrha reactor; a lead-cooled fast reactor demonstrator Alfred, and; the gas-cooled fast reactor projectAllegro, a joint project between the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.




Green for nuclear

The message from the BBC programme in which a prominent green, Mark Lynas, declared that he had changed his mind on nuclear is clear. It is the implied message that wind can not possibly fill the gap. Although the greens still love them to death they are supporting nuclear as the only way of providing a large enough base load, carbon free capacity to meet our energy needs.