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2003 Jul, Newsletter No.60 |
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Written by SONE
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Wednesday, 02 July 2003 |
A FUTURE FRAUGHT WITH RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES
Well, no one can say that the Government has not been warned if there
are power cuts or gassupplies continue to be interrupted. It is not
just SONE that is playing Jeremiah.
Professor Michael Laughton, of London University, has called for an
urgent review ofmeasures to avoid major blackouts, given that wind
power cannot be relied upon to maintainsecurity of supply and Britain’s
knife-edge gas supplies.
An
article in the Spectator of July 5 regarded the Institution of Civil
Engineers’ warning of athree-day week by 2020 as unduly optimistic. It
quoted Professor Ian Fells as saying there isa 20% chance of power cuts
this winter and Nial Trimble, of the Energy Contract Company,that they
are a racing certainty for the 2005-6 winter without urgent action.
But what urgent action? The Government is reducing the diversity of
our energy supplies.Coal is being eliminated as an economic source of
energy by environmental laws. Nuclear isbeing allowed to wither on the
vine, with the loss of core skills in both reactor technologyand
regulatory licensing. And the NETA system of electrical price
regulation has broughtnew investment in electricity generation to a
halt - without, incidentally, delivering lowerprices for most domestic
consumers.
It is true that the Government aims to replace coal and nuclear
with renewables (wind) andmore gas. It is also reported that President
Putin signed a memorandum of understanding fora new gas pipeline from
Russia across the Baltic during his recent state visit to Britain.
ButDr Jonathan Stern, of the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies, told
the Spectator that there islittle chance of its being built because no
UK company could afford it and the Governmentwon’t permit the long term
contracts which might make it viable.
As for renewables, Prof. Fells says the Government’s targets of 10%
of our electricity fromthem by 2010 and 20% by 2020 are “preposterous”.
We shall be lucky to get 10% fromwind by 2020 - requiring 20 2MW wind
turbines to be built every week for the next 17years. And, we would
add, no one knows what the cost will be.
Such is Mr Blair’s urgency that in his recent reshuffle he
downgraded the post of EnergyMinister. Stephen Timms, successor to
Brian Wilson, has responsibility for e-commerce andpostal services as
well. There are rumblings of discontent in the energy industry about
“apart time Energy Minister”.
No wonder. However you look at it, the British energy situation is
fraught with risks anduncertainties. And in this computer age we are
more dependent on continuous electricitythan we ever were during the
strike-enforced three-day week in 1974. Now, on-off electricityspells
economic and social disaster.
In these circumstances, Jeremiahs or not, we have a responsibility
to keep voicing ourconcerns and we hope our members do so at every
opportunity. Your Secretary did so in atalk to passengers on a cruise
liner in the middle of the North Sea on July 26.
PLAYING DUCKS AND DRAKES
Dr Lisa Woolhouse, an independent energyconsultant, has taken the
lid further off theGovernment’s Energy White Paper (EWP),supplying
chapter and verse. In a presentationin the House of Commons, reported
in BNFLWorld, she said a 60% reduction in CO 2emissions by 2050 implied
a cut of 83mtCarbon on the estimated pollution of 145mtCby then.
One clear message emerged from work doneby an inter-departmental
group of analysts andwith the least-cost optimisation computermodel
called MARKAL: “without nuclearpower even a 45% cut in emissions cannot
bedelivered, even with increased efficiency andrenewables.”
MARKAL investigated the combinedexclusion of nuclear power and
carbon capturewhile achieving a 60% cut in emissions. Itshowed that the
target could be met but at anenormous cost - increasing the total
discountedabatement cost from £41bn to £138bn - almost250%
“This conclusion is somewhat misreported inthe EWP”, Dr Woolhouse
said. “It suggeststhat ‘while nuclear power is currently animportant
source of carbon-free electricity, itscurrent economics make it an
unattractiveoption for new generating capacity. However,we do not rule
out the possibility that at somepoint in the future new nuclear build
might benecessary if we are to meet our carbon targets’
“But”, Dr Woolhouse added, “ according toMARKAL, nuclear power is absolutelynecessary to meet the EWP target”.
In short, the Government’s position is to forgetnuclear - and to
hell with the cost. That’s foranother government to worry about.
IGNORED ALL WAYS
The much abused MARKAL model was notmerely ignored when inconvenient; it was alsoconveniently ignored when it was useless.
This point has been made by Professor MichaelLaughton who says it
is useless as a tool forindicating the practical availability of
windpower. It is unsuitable for power systemplanning and operation
because it cannotsimulate the operational constraints ofintermittent
supplies of wind power and howback up capacity to cover for them is to
bemaintained in a liberalised market.
The EWP does not just seem irresponsible andincompetent; it is beginning to smell like ascandal.
STUDY IN HUMBUG
Long before the recent spat over dodgydossiers, the BBC accused the Government ofexporting CO 2 emissions.
The text of a Newsnight programme which hasjust come our way quoted
Mr Blair as sayingthat Britain had reduced CO 2 emissions by12mt by
closing down the bulk of its coal-firedpower stations. It went on to
report that theGovernment’s Export Credits GuaranteeDepartment had
since 1997 put £1bn behinddeveloping coal-fired power stations abroad:
£500m for Malaysia; £200m for China; smalleramounts for Zimbabwe
and Turkey; and£300m insurance cover for coal fired powerstation deals
generally.
“The UK saves 12mt of CO 2 emissions whilesupplying 40mt of them elsewhere”, Newsnightcommented.
And to think we are talking about globalwarming.
CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME
Rome wasn’t fiddling while it burned duringJune’s heatwave; it was reduced to twiddlingits thumbs.
The Times of June 28 noted that while Francesought electricity
supplies from the UK (atmore than treble the normal wholesale price)the
Italians experienced blackouts and blamedthe French. It was a little
more complex thanthat.
The heatwave exposed the fragility of Italy’selectricity supplies.
Normally, it needs toimport 6,700MW but low rainfall in the Alpsreduced
hydroelectric supplies and left Franceunable to cope with its own and
Italy’sdemand. Low river levels and rising watertemperatures added to
generation problems.And these natural phenomena were exacerbatedby
French power workers striking againstGovernment plans to make them work
longerand pay more for their pensions.
So the Italians went short. Let that be a lessonto those who gaily
contemplate Britain relyingfor 90% of its energy in the form of
importedgas. Charity begins at a home in a crisis. Thoseat the end of
the supply line are liable to be cutoff.
A DIRTIER, WILDER WORLD
Meanwhile the weather goes haywire. TheWorld Meteorological Organisation in Geneva,quoted by the Independent, cited:
• record temperatures in Southern France inJune, 5-7C above average;
• the hottest temperatures in Switzerland inJune for at least 250 years;
• 562 tornadoes in the USA in May, causing 41deaths, compared with the previous record of399 in June 1992; and
• peak temperatures in the pre-monsoonheatwave in India of 45C,
causing 1,400deaths, and flooding and landslides in SrLanka, killing
300.
It says that new record extreme events occurevery year somewhere in
the globe, but inrecent years the number of such extremes hasbeen
rising. It adds:
“According to recent climate-change scientificassessment reports of
the Joint WMA/UNIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,the global
surface temperature has increasedsince 1861. New analyses for the
northernhemisphere indicate that the increase intemperature in the
20thC is likely to have beenthe largest in any century during the past
1,000years.”
...BUT GREENER, TOO
The weather might be getting hotter, wetter andmore violent but the
Earth is greener for it,according to a NASA/US Department ofEnergy
study of the past two decades.
Global changes in temperature, rainfall andcloud cover have given
plants more heat, waterand sunlight in areas where climate
conditionsonce limited growth. Between 1982-99 the netamount of CO 2
absorbed by plants increasedby 6%, mostly in tropical zones and
highlatitudes in the northern hemisphere. But thestudy also found that
while plant growthincreased it was far outstripped by the growthin
human population who ate a lot of the plantgrowth and emitted CO 2
themselves.
HAIL GREATER REALISM
Professor Roger Clarke, chairman of theInternational Commission on
RadiologicalProtection (ICRP), hinted at SONE’s annualmeeting two years
ago that he was looking atacceptable dose levels. This was his
responseto members critical of the LNT theory whichargues that no
exposure to radiation is withoutrisk.
Now the IRCP is proposing to simplify itsrange of protective limits
and to focus onsources in setting them rather than on doselimits which
are described as being of lesspractical value. The new limits are thus
doselevels tolerated from a single source.
For the general public, this is 1 millisievert ayear, previously
the total dose limit, instead ofthe 0.3 ms/y canvassed last year. One
ms/y ishalf the average annual UK dose of radiationfrom natural
sources. The changes will havelittle effect on public exposure to
nuclearindustry operations. But they will enablenuclear sites to be
decommissioned andcleaned up more realistically without having topurge
them of trivial levels of radionuclides atvast expense.
The USA has calculated that this will save$50m in decommissioning
costs for everynuclear power station in America - or a total of$5.15bn
for the country as a whole.
The UK now needs to look again at the highlysuspect and no doubt
“gold plated” £48bnwhich is given as the total cost of cleaning upour
current military and civil nuclear legacy.Far too much has no doubt
already been spentto minimal benefit because of the irrationalresponse
to the word “radiation”.
THERE IS A NUCLEAR NOVEL
What the nuclear industry lacks, you will recallProfessor James
Lovelock CH advising us, is agood, sympathetic blockbuster novel.
Well,Geoffrey Greenhalgh, joint editor of NuclearIssues, has found one
in the London Library. Itis Le bon Leviathan by Pierre Boule,
whotrained as an electrical engineer and is theauthor of Bridge on the
River Kwai and ThePlanet of the Apes.
It features a nuclear powered supertanker, LaGargantua, which is
doubly feared byenvironmentalists who stir up oppositionamong fishermen
and the populace. Theopposition is led by an embittered womanlamed in
an industrial accident and an eminentprofessor.
The woman leads a flotilla of small boats toobstruct the
supertanker and is knocked over aby a jet of water from tanker hoses
trying torepel boarders. Her fall somehow immediatelycures her before
the very eyes of hersupporters. This is widely regarded as amiracle and
La Gargantua becomes a shrineand object of pilgrimage.
The professor regards the idea of a miraclewith contempt. In trying
to harass LaGargantua in the equivalent of Greenpeace’sRainbow Warrior
he is caught in a severe stormin the Bay of Biscay. In danger of
sinking, hebegs the tanker to pour oil on the troubledwaters and has to
accept full responsibility forthe damage caused by pollution. Oh,
thehumiliation of it all.
M.Boule’s books have a technical andphilosophical background and in
Le bonLeviathan he examines the motives andmethods of environmentalists
and how publicopinion might be changed.
The only problem (apart perhaps from thesheer ingenuity of the
plot) is that the book isin French. We need a translator, a
filmproducer with access to brass and a publicist.
DAILY TELEGRAPH CORRECTS
David Erskine, a Knutsford member, hasextracted via the Press
ComplaintsCommission a somewhat graceless correctionfrom the Daily
Telegraph over Chernobyl (12lines, bottom of Page 9, July 5).
It admitted that in a report on May 8 it wronglysuggested thousands
had died within days ofthe 1986 disaster and gave the WHO/UNcorrect
figure of 45. In a letter to the Secretary,Charles Moore, editor, said
they should nothave suggested thousands of deaths and shouldhave given
the official death toll.
It’s been a busy summer so far. Your Secretaryhas fired off letters
over the past month to theDaily Telegraph (again), Sunday Express,
theIrish Times (without result) and The Guardianover their treatment of
nuclear issues.
The Secretary and Professor J H P Watson, aSouthampton University
member, separatelyhad a brisk passge of arms with CharlesClover, the
Telegraph’s environmentcorrespondent, over his front page report
aboutthe discovery of tiny amounts of technetium insupermarket salmon.
Even the anti-nuclearDEFRA described them as being of no risk tohealth.
“Scaremongering”, we cried. TheSunday Express published the Secretary’s
letteron the same issue under the heading “Fishybusiness”.
Not surprisingly, The Guardian did not publishthe Secretary’s
attack on its “witless” leader ofJuly 5 which said “Britain must plan
for energyshortages” (sic).
The Secretary said the people wouldreasonably argue that we should
plan forenergy sufficiency. Otherwise, they could seetheir jobs,
prosperity and lifestyle going downthe drain. “Instead”, he added, “you
reject theonly means by which we can have as muchelectricity as we
require and clean up ouratmosphere. The British public will want toknow
why when rejecting nuclear means‘planning for energy shortages’. We
lookforward to you recovering your wits”.
ANNUAL MEETING
Please note that SONE’s annual generalmeeting is to be held on
Wednesday, October22, 2003 from 12noon-3pm at the offices ofour
chairman, Sir William McAlpine at 40Bernard Street, London WC1
(opposite theentrance to Russell Square Tube station). Therewill be a
buffet lunch.
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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