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2005 Jul, Newsletter No.83 |
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Written by SONE
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Friday, 01 July 2005 |
Now is the time to order your stand-by generator
Another Parliamentary session has come and gone without much action to
keep the lights on. Outwardly, complacency rules. Progress over the
political year has been measured by Alan Johnson and Margaret Beckett,
the custodians of our environment-dominated energy policy, by the
establishment of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, carbon trading
and a single British electricity market and grid, an extension of the
renewables obligation and the signing of a treaty with Norway to
facilitate the Langeled gas pipeline.
With the exception of the pipeline, none will bear upon our security of
supply. As Malcolm Grimston, a SONE member and associate fellow at
Chatham House, says in a new Economic Research Council paper,
Electrifying Britain, the political risk of presiding over power
outages or environmental devastation has not looked so credible for
many years.
The National Grid, in a new consultative document, reckons we shall be
OK for gas and electricity if the coming winter is mild. But the colder
it gets the more questions arise and the more likely it is that those
on interruptible contracts will have their supplies cut off. Even the
G8, with a majority of participating states positive about nuclear
(France, USA, Russia, Canada and Japan) ducked the issue of Western
security through nuclear power. The best we got was a low carbon future
that covers a multitude of possibilities, including nuclear’s
development, but is conveniently inexplicit. The only glimmer of hope
for a more rational British energy policy has come with hints – as
distinct from an announcement – that the retiring Cabinet Secretary,
Sir Andrew Turnbull, will chair a review of nuclear power. But that,
combined with the various other reviews, could merely be a further
delaying tactic. How can they write a new energy White Paper without a
report from Turnbull, even if next year’s promised report from the
discredited Committee on Radioactive Waste Management was never crucial
to sensible nuclear progress? We are in danger of running into the
political cycle. By 2007 we shall be approaching the paralysis of
mid-term. On this basis, a lively trade in stand-by generators should
be developing.
If it isn’t mild, it could be bitter
This year National Grid Transco (NGT), instead of publishing an energy
supply outlook for the winter ahead, has produced two gas and
electricity supply scenarios for consultation. The scenarios are based
on average temperatures and on a 1 in 50 winter last experienced in
1962-63. For both, it says that, with Britain increasingly dependent on
gas imports, security of supply will depend on the commercial
arrangements for imports and the response from consumers.
Last winter was the sixth warmest in the last 77 years. Yet NGT was
notified of modest gas interruptions by shippers on 69 days, four times
the level of the previous slightly colder winter. It has therefore
marginally reduced its assessment of maximum beach availability
In spite of the mildness of the weather, electricity demand last winter
peaked at 54,100MW, slightly higher than the previous year. The safety
margin was 22% but seven notices of insufficient margin were issued –
described as “a typical rate”. The NGT is no longer assuming full
availability from the interconnector with France because last winter
the flow was significantly reduced by high electricity prices on the
Continent.
So, NGT reckons that with average weather we should be OK for gas and
electricity.But in colder weather substantial demand reduction will be
needed from larger industrial users to maintain balance between supply
and demand. In a very cold winter, it’s fingers crossed and hold on to
your hats, it seems, even if customers reduce their demand
significantly.
No wonder larger energy users are getting restive over winter supplies
with gas prices soaring in summer and doubts about enough gas reaching
our shores.Stuart Chambers, chief executive of Pilkington, is quoted as
saying: “The one thing industry can’t do without Government help is
embrace alternatives like nuclear energy. The one issue I think that
the Government has underestimated is the capacity of the public to
embrace nuclear”.
So why are not big energy users combining with the power industry, as
in Finland, to develop a nuclear power station consortium? We expect to
hear more of this.
Government’s role
Nuclear may be the power whose name the Government dare not speak. But
it remains the thinking man’s obvious contribution to our longer-term
needs. We are gratified by the number of people who say so. That has
been the theme of an intensive series of chairman’s lunches so far this
year with politicians, electricity generators and distributors,
industrialists, trade unions and financiers.
SONE’s message on these occasions has been plain. It is not enough for
the Government to say we need more nuclear power. To make that
possible, it has at least six other things to do:
1 – facilitate the licensing of reactors
2 – identify sites for new nuclear power stations
3 – clarify market access, especially in view of the Ofgem regime, and insurance responsibilities
4 – end discrimination – eg climate change levy – against nuclear power
5 – stop the manipulation of the planning system to prolong public inquiries
6 – end Governmental procrastination over a site for longer-term disposal of radioactive waste.
This underlines the time factor and the political cycle mentioned above.
Sone expects
Before the G8 summit, we wrote to the Prime Minister pointing out that
the world’s existing 440 nuclear power stations avoid the production of
more greenhouse gases than is expected to be realised by the Kyoto
protocol, even assuming the USA were committed to it.
In view of this, we said, any Gleneagles communiqué on climate change
that did not commit the developed world to an expanding nuclear power
programme would be viewed with incredulity and scorned for its
irresponsible humbug.
Well, it didn’t commit the developed world explicitly to the
development of nuclear power but it did place emphasis on low carbon
technologies. It could be argued that the nuclear door has been opened.
So what really did happen at Gleneagles?
The gleneagles shift
Lord May, president of the Royal Society, said Gleneagles was “a
disappointing failure”. No doubt the Greens agreed. Yet Margaret
Beckett, Environment Secretary, said it was “absolute rubbish” to say
it had made no progress on climate change. We incline to Mrs Beckett’s
view, though for reasons she may not yet understand.
The evidence suggests that, while nuclear was downplayed, President
Bush won hands down and that there has been a major shift in approach
to tackling global warming – from the vastly expensive and economically
damaging mandatory limits on emissions of the partial Kyoto method to a
technology-based global attack embracing the developing world.
It is certainly true that Bush conceded CO2 is a man-made component of
global warming. He could hardly do anything else since it is a
greenhouse gas. But the scientific uncertainty about the extent of its
effect was recognised in the communiqué. This saw climate change as a
“serious and long-term challenge” with the “potential to affect every
part of the globe.”
It said secure, reliable and affordable energy sources were fundamental
to economic stability and development and that reducing pollution
protected public health and ecosystems, especially in the developing
world. So it embraced the developing world where 2bn lack modern energy
services, pledging to work with them to enhance private investment and
transfer of technologies.
Technology and adaptation
Its line of attack will be first to “promote innovation, energy
efficiency, conservation, improve policy, regulatory and financial
frameworks, and accelerate deployment of cleaner technologies,
particularly lower emitting technologies”. And, second, to make
adaptation to climate change a high priority – an approach urged by a
House of Lords’ committee just before the summit.
You can see where Bush was coming from when, immediately after the
meeting, the White House issued a fact sheet claiming that G8 leaders
had agreed to promote the use of nuclear power for “a cleaner future”.
This went much further than the G8 were prepared to go publicly.
Collectively, they merely noted the efforts of those G8 members who
would continue to use nuclear energy and to develop more advanced
technologies that would be safer, more reliable and more resistant to
diversion and proliferation.
All this mightily pleased Claude Mandil, director of the International
Energy Agency, who had urged G8 leaders not to “idealise or demonise”
any single energy source. Gleneagles’ potential, he said, was “immense
and fully consistent with our mission to promote energy security,
economic growth and a cleaner energy future through energy efficiency
and technology co-operation”.
The july clean-up
July is a frantic month when politicians clean up for the recess. This
year it has produced a spate of reports bearing on energy policy.
Together with papers from independent inquiries, it has kept nuclear
energy in the forefront of debate.
The Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by a SONE
member, Lord Wakeham, a former Energy Secretary, called for retention
of the current level of nuclear capacity. He also urged the Government
to give the Treasury a more rigorous role in examining the costs and
benefits of climate change policy and presenting them to the public.
The committee’s report on The Economics of Climate Change found the
science of climate change left “considerable uncertainty” about the
future and that UK energy and climate policy “appears to be based on
dubious assumptions about the roles of renewable energy and energy
efficiency”. The costs to the UK of achieving the policy’s objectives
were “poorly documented”
It expressed “serious doubts” about the extent to which energy
efficiency and wind could get Britain on the path to a 60% cut in
emissions by 2050 and surprise that the Government’s Energy White Paper
2003 placed such emphasis on just wind technology.
“In our view, it would be unwise to close the nuclear energy option”,
it added. “It is prudent to maintain as wide a portfolio as possible.
We argue that the current capacity of nuclear power, before further
decommissioning occurs, should be retained”.
What energy efficiency?
Another report from the Lords’ Science and Technology Committee on
energy efficiency put the boot into the Government. It concluded that
trying simultaneously to meet four policy goals – reduction of carbon
emissions, improvement in security of supply, improving business
competitiveness and reducing fuel poverty – was bound to cause
problems.
Geoffrey Greenhalgh, of Nuclear Issues, and Paul Spare, a SONE
committee member, each submitted evidence to show that improved energy
efficiency increased consumption and had done so for the last 250
years. Others, such as (Ian) Fells Associates, reminded the committee
that energy efficiency had been a top priority for 30 years yet
electricity consumption had increased by 60%.
Paul Spare comments: “The cat at least has its paws out of the bag but
SONE members know already that the four policies conflict. Carbon
emissions are increasing. Energy security is getting worse because
intermittent wind farms cannot replace firm output. And electricity
costs are rising with all the scares over oil supply.”
Another roasting
The Council for Science and Technology added another roasting for
Government policy in a report An Electricity Supply Strategy for the
UK. After exposing the limitations of wind in terms of emissions
reduction, connection costs and integration with the grid, it said: “It
is not possible to meet the challenging CO2 objectives in the medium
term without large scale technologies which do not add to the carbon
burden”.
Nuclear, it said, was one large-scale technology that did not have the
disadvantages of poor grid connection or low availability. It went on
to echo SONE in listing action required by Government – licensing,
identification of nuclear sites and training. It also said attention
needed to be paid to all major CO2 emitters, such as transport, where
developments might lead to dramatic increases in demand for electricity
through fuel cell and advanced battery technology.
Time is running out
In the previously mentioned Research Paper 21, Electrifying Britain,
from the Economic Research Council, Malcolm Grimston states bluntly
“time is running out”. He summarises the position as follows:
“Evidence is growing that renewables are no more able to fulfil the
fantasies of their early evangelists than nuclear energy was. Fossil
fuels cannot last for ever, are geographically concentrated (at least
in the case of oil and gas) and offer enormous and possibly insuperable
environmental challenges. Energy efficiency, while clearly a good
thing, tends to result in increased economic activity as much as
reductions in demand and in any case is hardly going to contain the
energy requirements of massive development in the less developed world.
“Climate change looks ever more threatening. Nuclear energy, even with
the traditional designs, has a track record of delivering an
alternative to fossil fuels that can offer dramatic reductions in
greenhouse gas emissions. It can’t do the job on its own but delivering
secure, economic and environmentally acceptable electricity will be
much more difficult without it. It will take political courage to
create the environment in which nuclear investment can flow, though not
as much as many people assume”.
Three pwrs now
Calling for a start on new nuclear build now to the Parliamentary and Science
Committee, Sir Donald Miller, a SONE member and former chairman of Scottish Power, listed four actions required:
1 – a firm commitment from Government to the earliest construction of not less than three PWRs
2 – reinforce NII resources to allow an immediate start on licensing
3 – establish satisfactory market conditions, in consultation with the regulator and major generators, for new reactor output
4 - reinforce those areas of R&D that cannot be funded from normal commercial recoveries.
Have we got it wrong?
While all this was going on Martin Morland, a SONE committee member,
attended a Westminster Energy Forum all-day examination of nuclear new
build. He writes: “Apart from a vituperative Greenpeace presentation,
almost all speakers accepted the need for nuclear as part of the
solution. The debate centred on how to achieve new build. There was a
surprising concern expressed by several speakers
about the uncertainties in cost and timescale of decommissioning.
“But the main difficulty was lack of Government support for nuclear
energy and facilitating new build - sitting on the sidelines waiting
for proposals from the industry which would not come as long as the
energy and regulatory regime was unfavourable.
After several speakers had made this point, Clive Bates, an adviser to
the Prime Minister, intervened indignantly to complain that the
industry was asking for hand outs. But towards the end he asked,
apparently not merely rhetorically, whether the Government had got its
policy wrong.”
More on “too cheap to meter”
Steuart Campbell, a Scottish member, reveals that the American, Dr
Lewis Strauss, chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, who for 51
years has caused no end of trouble with his quote that nuclear would
generate “electricity too cheap to meter”, was merely a copy-cat.
He says C P Steinmetz, of General Electric Company (US) prophesied 20
years earlier that electricity would become “so cheap that it is not
going to pay to meter it”. It is only fair to point out that nuclear
power had not been discovered when Steinmetz spoke, so copy-cat Dr
Strauss remains the cross we have to bear.
Published by: Supporters of Nuclear Energy, c/o BNES, 7 Great George
Street, PO Box 25124, London SW1P 3ZS. Tel: 020-7665-2046, Fax:
020-7665-2269 Web site: www.sone.org.uk
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 11 January 2007 )
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