Now that Britain is back at work after the holidays, let us take stock.
So far this year we have had soaring fuel prices associated latterly
with minor panic at the pumps; rising concern about the consequences of
the Government’s energy policy for security of supply and costs; a
continuation of the trend for rising carbon dioxide emissions; and a
steady stream of reports asking awkward questions about the future of
nuclear power.
After reports from the Commons’ Public Accounts committee, the Lords’
Science and Technology and Economic committees and the Council for
Science and Technology, the message would be clear to a blind man. Our
economy is not underpinned by secure supplies of clean and reliable
electricity at competitive cost and will not be for some years to come,
given the time it takes to build power stations and especially the
nuclear variety. This is a vulnerable nation short, medium and longer
term, particularly in the light of the National Grid’s draft scenarios
for the coming winter.
It would be comforting to know that the Government has seriously
grasped these nettles and is going to do something about them, PDQ. We
cannot rule out the possibility that there is a great deal of thrashing
around in Whitehall, but that is not what it looks like. Security of
supply and rising greenhouse gas emissions may be under review but
there are only two leisurely undertakings: a report from the Committee
on Radioactive Waste Management on handling longer term radioactive
wastes by next July and a Prime Ministerial promise to reach a
conclusion on nuclear power in this, his third, Parliament.
We do not believe this approach serves the national interest, even if
the working life of Dungeness B power station has just been extended
for another 10 years. That is merely buying 1100MW of uncertain time.
The situation smacks of the wait-and-see policies of the much more
leisurely eras of Asquith and Baldwin.
As The Times leader put it on September 14: “If Mr [Gordon] Brown were
brave, he would embrace nuclear power as the safest, cleanest, most
efficient alternative to fossil fuels”. Our message is getting through
to some places.
TWO SPEAKERS FOR AGM
This is the final notice to members of SONE’s annual general meeting on
Wednesday, October 26 at the Royal Academy of Engineering at 29 Great
Peter Street, London SW1, courtesy of British Energy.
We have two speakers: Lord Wakeham, former Energy Secretary, on the
impressive July 6 report from the Lords’ Economic Committee, which he
chaired, on The Economics of Climate Change. Professor Sir Chris
Lewellyn Smith FRS, director of UKAEA, Culham, on the outlook for
nuclear fusion which, just as oil reserves seem to remain constant at
40 years, always seems to be 30 years away from supplying us with power.
The chairman, Sir William McAlpine, will open the meeting at 12noon
(coffee from 11.30am). We intend to deal with SONE business, notably
the annual report and accounts, up to 12.30pm. Lord Wakeham will speak
and take questions for the next hour until a short buffet lunch at
1.30pm. Professor Llewellyn Smith will then address us from 2pm and
lead a discussion until 3pm when the meeting is scheduled to close.
Those members who have not indicated their intention to attend should,
for security and catering purposes, inform the Secretary as soon as
possible on T 020-8660-8970; or by e-mail –
PEERS’ SCEPTICISM By way of background to Lord Wakeham’s talk, his
committee included leading industrialists, economists, former Ministers
and two former Chancellors (Lawson and Lamont).
It expressed concerns about the objectivity of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Some of its emissions scenarios and
summary documentation had apparently been influenced by political
considerations.
More particularly, it said the IPCC appeared to have played down the
positive aspects of global warming. It should reflect in a more
balanced way the costs and benefits of climate change.
G8 echoes
Since global warming would continue, regardless of action now, a more
balanced approach was required, with far more attention to adaptation.
This thinking was reflected in the G8 Gleneagles communiqué which came
out at about the same time.
The committee added that the Kyoto Protocol made little difference to
rates. The Government should take the lead in exploring alternative
“architectures” perhaps based on agreements on technology and its
diffusion – another idea echoed by the G8 summit.
On UK energy and climate policy, the committee said it appeared to be
based on dubious assumptions about the roles of renewable energy and
energy efficiency and the costs of achieving its objectives had been
poorly documented. It looked for a much stronger Treasury involvement
in reviewing and substantiating cost estimates and conveying them in
transparent form to the public. Current nuclear power capacity should
be retained and a carbon tax should replace the climate change levy.
COSTLY WAY TO CLEAN AIR
We sometimes wonder how much more battering Government policy can get
before somebody bestirs themselves. Take, for example, the report from
the Commons’ Public Accounts Committee. We can do no better than report
its chairman, Edward Leigh MP in full:
“Renewable energy comes at a price. The Government’s target is to have
10% of our electricity generated from renewable sources by 2010. But by
then the scheme for rapidly expanding the supply of renewable energy,
the Renewables Obligation, will be adding £1bn to electricity prices
and will have cost consumers at least £5bn. The expansion of
distribution and transmission capacity required to meet the 10% target
will add another £1.5bn – also to be shouldered by consumers.
“Consumers are providing a massive subsidy to the renewables industry.
But, unlike public expenditure, this subsidy does not receive annual
scrutiny by Parliament. This is unacceptable”.
Four times as expensive
What Mr Leigh did not say in presenting his report is that it claimed
the Renewables Obligation is at least four times more expensive than
other means of reducing CO2 – the climate change levy, paid by
non-household consumers, and carbon trading. It also said about a third
of RO support exceeds the extra cost of renewables generation because
its flat rate is applied to all eligible technologies and sites
regardless of their costs or CO2 potential.
To add insult to injury, the RO has produced a windfall for the
Treasury from consumers worth anything from £550m to £1bn by 2010
because the surpluses arising from higher prices under generators’
contracts go to the Exchequer.
In other words, the system of encouraging renewables costs the consumer
a bomb, is uncompetitive, badly targeted, a cash cow for generators and
Treasury and beyond Parliamentary scrutiny. The bigger scandal us that
the Government can still be heard claiming that nuclear is uneconomic.
Ye Gods!
SO WHY ARE WE DOING IT?
You could have knocked us down with a feather when, after all this, we
read of some prognostications by Sir Jonathon Porritt, Mr Blair’s
resident environmentalist as chairman of the Sustainability Commission.
In his report, Windpower in the UK, calculating how much carbon wind
power is likely to displace, Porritt says (P 42): “It would be
unrealistic to assume that wind energy would displace any nuclear
capacity, and it is most unlikely that it will displace coal in the
short to medium term.
“However, the actual CO2 displacement in 2020 is hard to estimate and
so, for the purpose of this report, it has been assumed that wind
output will displace the average emissions resulting from gas-fired
plant”.
We have never heard of a dodgier assumption when a) the public begin to
appreciate the cost of renewables (ie mostly wind) and are reinforced
in their aesthetic opposition to wind by the way they are being soaked;
b) CO2 reduction is the sole justification for wind’s development; and
c) when gas is forecast to carry such a heavy load of electricity
generation, assuming the nutters continue to put the country at risk
through massive imports from unstable countries.
Somebody, sooner or later, will ask the question: why are we doing all this?
NUDGE, NUDGE, WINK, WINK?
The answer to the previous question would seem to be “Because we can’t
summon up the blood”, as Shakespeare put it. This is the conclusion to
be drawn from an article in the Financial Times of September 5,
featuring the Energy Minister, Malcolm Wicks.
It told us precisely nothing except that Mr Wicks recognised the
problems caused by costs, prices, climate change, future energy supply,
the difficulty of hitting renewables targets and the controversial
nature of replacing ageing nuclear power stations. But the writer,
reporting Mr Wicks as “genuinely open-minded” on nuclear new build,
said his programme hinted at the way the Government is leaning.
He is looking to learn lessons at the USA’s Yucca Mountain radioactive
waste disposal facility, and from the French and the Finns who, he
thinks, “engaged public opinion in a very grown up way”. We hope you
feel encouraged.
A WORLD OF CONTRASTS
All this has to be contrasted with the dynamism of China, India, Japan,
Korea, Russia and, of course, France and Finland. The Americans have
not, however, built a nuclear power station for 30 years. What are the
chances?
In this month’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology
Review the power companies seem to be waiting for subsidies. A briefing
says the renaissance will also be a delicate task if they get them. But
at least they have prepared the way. That is more than can be said in
the UK.
Seven utilities and suppliers met in Atlanta in 2003 and formed a
consortium – the Atlanta Seven. They produced a consortium called
NuStart, now nine power companies, plus Westinghouse and GE. This has
revived the US approach.
The consortium is sharing with the Government the $400-500m cost of
developing two watercooled designs from Westinghouse (1000MW), already
licensed, and GE (1500MW), both incorporating passive safety features.
It has six potential sites – and five others are earmarked by various
companies – and is promoting itself as the pathway to the hydrogen
economy.
Westinghouse reckons that if they can get a new plant started within
five years it will open the door to other nuclear technologies and will
have a profound impact on nuclear development around the world. Is this
what the UK is waiting for?
LOOKING AT THE COSTS
SONE is planning a robust response to the Nuclear Decommissioning
Agency’s consultative document on its expensive strategy, costed at
£56bn – a figure, it seems, designed to put people off nuclear for life.
Whatever validity £56bn has – and you can be sure it has been
gold-plated and diamond studded – it has no bearing whatsoever on the
costs of cleaning up after nuclear power stations yet to be built.
Those wastes will be much less in volume – perhaps a tenth – and much
easier to manage than present and past wastes because of technological
advances.
Many nuclear people think the costs canvassed by the NDA are “absolute
fantasy”, even on the basis of back-of-the-envelope calculations, and
“absurd”. This means we shall have to explore the NDA’s assumptions.
Are they idealistic or hard-headedly economic?
On present evidence, they seem to be based on the assumption that
nuclear is finished and that the sites have to be returned to a state
of greenfield perfection. But, unless the nation is completely off its
head, those sites will be needed for new nuclear power stations. In any
case, does it make sense to flatten everything regardless of cost, as
is implied by the decision to accelerate Magnox clear-ups to 25 years.
Is “Expense no object” the motto of both the NDA and the Renewables Obligation?
CHERNOBYL’S OFFICIAL TOLL
We hope for more accurate reporting of the consequences of the
Chernobyl disaster after the latest report from the Chernobyl Forum
drawn from eight UN specialised agencies and the Governments of Russia,
Belarus and the Ukraine.
Nineteen years after the event hundreds of scientists report in
Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts
that only 56 people have so far died directly as a result of the
disaster.
The details were set out in a very balanced article by Bronwen Maddox in The Times on September 7.
They are:
• 28 emergency workers within four months from radiation and thermal burns
• 19 more by 2004
• 9 children from thyroid cancer.
It is estimated that deaths due to radiation could eventually reach
4,000 – a vast reduction on earlier speculation. This projection is
based on estimated doses but the scientists say that “as about a
quarter of people die from spontaneous cancer not caused by Chernobyl
radiation, the radiation-induced increase of only about three per cent
will be difficult to observe”.
Our hopes of better reporting died with the thought. A number of
newspapers ignored the 56 established deaths and concentrated on the
4,000 forecast.
GLOBAL WARNING
The usual suspects were fast on to Hurricane Katrina that laid waste to
the Mississipi Delta with a dramatic advert “Global warning”. To be
fair, the Greens’ first words in their advertisement were “We can’t be
sure Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming.But”, they added,
“without urgent action to slash greenhouse gas emissions we can expect
hurricanes as powerful as Katrina to occur more often”.
It quoted the Government’s Chief Scientist, Sir David King, as saying
“the intensity of hurricanes is related to sea surface temperature and
we know that over the last 15-20 years sea surface temperatures in
these regions have increased by about half a degree C”.
We wish scientists would sort themselves out. The USA’s National
Hurricane Centre says the peak for major hurricanes was 1930-50; the
IPCC in 2001 reported no significant trends over the 20thC; and the
Tropical Meteorological Project at Colorado State University, that
issues hurricane warnings, says hurricane activity since 1995 has been
similar to that from the mid-20s to the mid- 60s when many more major
hurricanes struck the US East Coast and Florida.
SONE STEPS IN
Katrina provoked a lively correspondence in The Times over the need for
investment in alternative sources. Two SONE members joined in the fun.
Paul Spare, a member of SONE’s committee and a former energy
consultant, pointed out that tidal, solar and wind energy are
vulnerable to severe weather and when the weather is calm and dull
renewable sources can all collapse at the same time. “However morally
desirable these new technologies may appear”, he added “their technical
deficiencies are irrefutable”.
Robert Freer, of Dulwich, said global warming, higher energy prices and
our increasing reliance on imported gas should now persuade the
Government to address the problem of replacing our ageing nuclear power
stations. With the same benefits given to other forms of carbon-free
generation, we could look forward to a new set of power stations with
reduced emissions, greater security of supply and more stable prices.
Government lethargy and procrastination risked our being left behind in an industry we once led.
THE FOLLY OF OFGEM
They didn’t want to know about reputedly the most efficient and
cleanest coal power station in Europe – Drax in Yorkshire – three years
ago. NETA, the regulator, Ofgem’s, method of running the industry,
drove it nearly to the wall. Now it is considering a £1.9bn takeover
bid. What a charade the Government’s “rescue” of British Energy,
bankrupted by the same hands, now looks.
SIR HUGH COLLUM
We regret to record the sad death of Sir Hugh Collum, former chairman
of BNFL and a life member of SONE. He died on August 29 after a fall at
home. He was 65.
