UP TO OUR EARS IN DEBT BUT VALUE FOR MONEY STILL HAS NO APPEAL
Well, now we know how much Chancellor George Osborne is committed to value for money in energy policy. Not much. True, in his autumn statement he halved subsidies for solar panels but only because their cost has come down substantially. He also brought in £250m energy cost relief for intensive energy users who are supposed to be a prime target for reducing carbon emissions, thereby complicating energy policy still further while usefully helping to retain heavy industry in the UK.
At the same time Energy Secretary Chris Huhne announced, in the face of a continuing dismissal of wind power (see below), we needed thousands more wind farms to meet green targets. He admitted one scenario would require 32,000 more turbines on- and offshore but said the more likely figure was 10,000, given the increased use of larger machines. That is just throwing money away.
But wherever you look – in Scotland and in wider Europe, with its new energy road map to 2050 – you have undiminished political enthusiasm for expensive renewables and precious little push for cheaper, cleaner nuclear power where it is still acceptable.
This enthusiasm contrasts with the failure of the UN’s 17th conference on climate change in Durban. Yes, the world has promised to come up with a binding plan by 2015 but won’t implement it, assuming anything is agreed, before 2020.
We fear Europe’s and Huhne’s position is effectively to transfer wealth – and industry - to the developing nations under the pious cloak of avoiding what the rest of the world does not take very seriously: global warming. The Chancellor has certainly not put more urgency behind the development of the cheapest and most secure source of low-carbon electricity: nuclear power.
Happy New Year.
NUCLEAR PROGRESS OF SORTS NONETHELESS
Before we depress you unduly, we should remind you that, according to Mark Higson, head of the Government’s Office for Nuclear Development, 2012 is the year when industry takes over from Government in developing nuclear power. As the old year passed away there were some positive moves that we should record:
• The Government announced “interim design acceptance” for Areva/EdF’s EPR reactor and Westinghouse’s AP1000, satisfied with how the companies’ plan to resolve remaining issues before granting licensing.
• The Government took the preliminary view that our large plutonium stocks should be converted into MOX fuel; it is now examining whether to build a new MOX plant, presumably at Sellafield. At least it is not prepared to chuck energy away just like that.
• At the same time General Electric/Hitachi offered to build two of its Prism fast reactors at Sellafield to eat up the plutonium over 60 years – an option described as more expensive but which would, unlike MOX, dispose of all the plutonium.
• The Government published guidelines for new nuclear power operators on the need for insolvency-proof funds to cover decommissioning and waste management to protect the taxpayer and provide certainty for investors.
• NuGen, owned by Iberdrola and GDFSuez, christened the coastal site near Sellafield for their proposed new 3,600MW plant Moorside; they plan site investigations this year leading to a decision in 2015.
• Nuclear offers a bright future for young people – some estimates say the workforce will increase by 68% before 2025.
• The Government’s new carbon plan envisages, among other much less sensible things, building a new nuclear power plant a year from 2019.
• George Monbiot, the environmentalist, and Fred Pearce, an environmental consultant to the New Scientist, came out strongly for nuclear in The Guardian and the Mail on Sunday respectively.
And finally the bad and the good news: while EdF declined to be definitive, the Government, in its new Carbon Plan, saw the completion of the proposed new Hinkley Point plant drifting to the end of the decade. But it also conceded that tripling the UK’s nuclear power capacity would be the cheapest way of tackling climate change by reducing emissions.
If only value for money drove the Government instead of securing a diversity of energy sources regardless of whether they work or what they cost. If it did, it would be a nuclear not a windy government.
CASTING OUR BRASS TO THE FOUR WINDS
After the events of December, it is very difficult to believe that politicians across Europe ever have contact with Doubting Thomases such as SONE or listen for one moment to serious engineers. We refer to:
• Huhne’s 4th carbon plan.
• Vincent Cable’s new UK Green Investments (UKGI)
• the Prime Minister’s call for investment, pension and sovereign wealth funds to join Britain’s “renewable energy revolution” and invest in large offshore wind projects
• The European Union’s “Energy Roadmap 2050”.
• Alex Salmond’s absolute certainty of running Scotland on renewables alone.
The first point to be made about all this nonsense is the scale of the gamble. In committing Scotland, the rest of Britain and Europe to giving the world a low carbon lead they are risking the entire economy, which depends on competitive power. Second, with the exception of nuclear power, they are doing so with expensive tools that either don’t work or are unproven. Never in the history of the developed world can so few have gambled so much with such large odds against them.
To be fair, the European Road Map is purely a range of scenarios since the EU does not have an agreed energy policy. It also, like the Huhne plan, includes nuclear as a large-scale low-carbon option to the extent that member-states take it up or run away from it like Germany and Italy. But it makes energy efficiency and renewable energy critical to the decarbonisation of Europe’s energy system and it does not expect nuclear to account for more than 20% of electricity generation by 2050.
Messianic and unreal
Huhne’s 4th Carbon Budget is perhaps inevitably more messianic and unreal, seeking a 50% cut in carbon emissions by the mid-2020s, which will see “the mass deployment of new technologies”. For the current decade it’s insulating cavity walls and lofts, improving vehicle fuel efficiency by a third and replacing coal plant with gas and renewables. For the 2020s its heating half our buildings with low carbon sources, halving carbon emissions of new cars and decarbonising power supply with nuclear, three to five times more renewable power than currently installed and CCS technology on 10,000MW of fossil fuel plant. Huhne may be alone in believing that all this could cost less than doing nothing. What if it doesn’t work – as it seems unlikely to do?
As for Cable’s UKGI, forerunner of the proposed Green Investment Bank, it has £775m to waste on offshore wind projects, though about £200m of it is likely to go on non-domestic efficiency and small waste projects. Again the wrong priority.
And one wonders whether the Prime minister lives in an hermetically sealed No 10, given the assault on wind power this month, when he told potential investors: “I see offshore wind as a significant energy and industrial opportunity for the UK and one that I am determined to seize”. That should ruin lots of pension funds if they are daft enough to put their trust in Government subsidies.
SALMOND BLISSFULLY IGNORES THE EXPERTS
We shall leave Alex Salmond to the tender mercies of one of SONE’s leading members in Scotland – Sir Donald Miller, chairman of Scottish Power 1982-92. Salmond has just been made Best Politician of the Year by the Scottish Green Energy Awards. This is not surprising since he told them: “I am absolutely determined that this country of ours, just as it powered and invented the industrial revolution, is going to invest, design, engineer, fabricate, construct, maintain and install the great energy machines that are going to dominate this coming century. I know there are sceptics and folk who say it can’t be done, but of course it can be done”.
All this was said in the face of regular advice to the contrary from Sir Donald that the Scottish Executive’s concentration on so-called renewable sources of energy to the exclusion of more reliable and economic sources, such as nuclear, is little short of disastrous.
In March of this year, Sir Donald took the trouble of sending Salmond a personal 15-point factual briefing on wind, wave, tidal, CCS, vehicle electrification, costs, reliability of supply, economic and environmental consequences and the closing of options on a rational and balanced energy policy. We can only conclude that Salmond is either deaf or daft. Unfortunately, he is not alone.
ADAM SMITH INSTITUTE TAKES SHOT GUN TO RENEWABLES
We wonder whether these hard of hearing loonies in high circles will take heed of the Adam Smith Institute, which followed up all these reports and initiatives with a blistering report on December 12 on renewable energy.
Its staccato attack reminded us of a shot-gunner picking off crackpot notions on the wing.
This is a sample:
• as renewable energy sources produce power intermittently, they cannot replace gas, coal and nuclear generation, even with further development.
• as solar and wind energy have no prospect of becoming economically competitive in an unrigged market, Government intervention will lead to higher energy costs and jeopardise energy security.
• increased investment in wind turbines will do little to reduce carbon emissions and fossil fuel consumption.
• to achieve current targets for wind turbines for 2020 almost five turbines must be installed every working day, with the majority offshore; this is unrealistic.
• solar power is high cost and inefficient at our high latitude; the focus for subsidies has been on small scale, domestic installations, which are intrinsically less cost effective.
“It is difficult not to conclude”, it adds, “that the official enthusiasm for renewables has more to do with the power of the green lobby than economics and energy security. Consumers have a right to expect government to place high priority on a secure, affordable energy supply. It seems that Ministers have not yet realised the need to invest in more nuclear and gas generating capacity if the electorate is not to be badly let down”.
Remember this when it all goes belly-up.
YOU HAVE TO GO NUCLEAR TO GO GREEN
A few days earlier your Secretary, Sir Bernard Ingham, was telephoned by the Press Association for his thoughts on wind power after the December gales had laid one wind turbine low, caused another to go up in flames and shut most of the capacity down.
The Sunday Times reported him as saying “They are no good when the wind doesn’t blow and they are no good when the wind does blow. What on earth is the point of them?” He added: “You have to go nuclear to go green”, but they dropped that little bit.
HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET THERE, THEIR LORDSHIPS ASK
This leads us to the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, which is mightily brassed off about the state of the nuclear programme. Lord Krebs, chairman, put it this way: ”It is though we’re setting off on a long journey without a map, without a driver and without anyone to fix the car if things go wrong. We are in danger of placing ourselves in a position where we will be unable to ensure a safe and secure supply of nuclear energy up to 2050”.
In essence the Committee points out that the Government has assured the country and nuclear industry that nuclear power must be one of the key energy providers to secure a low carbon economy, security of supply and protection of consumers. Currently it provides almost all the country’s secure, low carbon electricity and is far more cost effective than its nearest renewable competitor, wind. Yet it provides only 2% of total energy supply. In these circumstances the Government’s ambition to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 seems “like fiction”.
Argosy catalogue approach
Looking beyond 2025 when Government policy sees nuclear delivering 16,000MW, Lod Krebs says there is no framework, coherent planning mechanism and no coordination of what limited R&D is going on to secure a projected 40% of power from nuclear by 2050. Yet because the reactors to be built up to 2025 will be in operation for 60 years, so we must look beyond 2050. Among its 14 recommendations is a road map, much more effective coordination of nuclear R&D and a board of policymakers, academics, industrialists and others to ensure that the strategy is implemented.
Lord Krebs said: “Even if Government policy is what I refer to as the “Argos catalogue” policy of buying it off the shelf …it is not the case that you can buy something off the shelf without having the capacity to understand what you’re buying and what the safety and legacy issues are”.
Which would suggest there is indeed a bright future for youngsters in the nuclear industry if only the Government gave us all the impression it was serious about it.
ENVIRONMENTALISTS GET BEHIND NUCLEAR
Judging by the public prints, there is more enthusiasm for nuclear now among some environmentalists than among our windy Ministers who are leaving nuclear development to the market.
First, George Monbiot, in The Guardian, who has made no secret of his conversion to the merits of nuclear power, even if he hates the industry. He had two blasts at so-called environmentalists. The first was in November when he went for Dr Christopher Busby, a well-known nuclearphobe, for “wild allegations” about the follow up to Fukushima and claims of a leukaemia cluster in North Wales. Monbiot said all this was “baseless scaremongering” and the Green Party, which Busby advises, should oppose him.
Then on December 6, Monbiot used his Guardian column to claim that the environmental movement had done more harm this year to the planet’s living systems “than climate changer deniers have every achieved”. The German retreat from nuclear would produce an extra 300m tonnes of CO2 between now and 2020, with more to come from countries that followed Germany.
He again blasted Busby for promoting anti-radiation pills and tests to Japan that scientists had described as “useless and baseless”. He then went for anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott for repeating the already discredited claim that close to 1m people have died from causes linked to Chernobyl. And finally he extolled the potential of the Integral Fast Reactor on grounds of efficiency, safety and reduction of waste and of the risk of weapons proliferation.
In deciding where they stood on the offer of GE Hitachi to build a fast reactor at Sellafield, he said environmentalists should use science, not superstition, as their guide.
Get with it, Huhne
The second turn up for the book occurred a few days earlier in the Mail on Sunday. Fred Pearce, described as an environmental consultant at the New Scientist, began an op-ed article with this: “I never thought I’d say this – but the future is nuclear. Or it should be. And I urge Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Chris Huhne – who like me has been an opponent of nuclear power – to embrace that future. Our energy bills depend on it. And so may our climate”.
He ended his article like this: “We need a new generation of power stations urgently. We will need renewables and nuclear. Will Huhne bite the bullet? His website contains abundant evidence of his past opposition. ‘Nuclear power not needed to meet climate targets’ is the headline on one item from 2007. But it is needed. If Huhne doesn’t make it happen, he will indeed be guilty of squandering our green taxes”.
If only our Ministers and nuclear industry were as forthright as these sinners come to repentance.
LET’S HAVE A NEW PUSH FOR NUCLEAR
All of this shows SONE how important it is to keep battering away at politicians. Arrangements have already been made to send this Newsletter and Nuclear Issues by pdf e-mail to all members of the SONE committee so that we can spread the word among our various circles. We can also undertake to e-mail the two publications to any member who wishes so to receive them and then circulate them more widely. All you have to do is to e-mail the Secretary on
and, hey presto, you have another means of educating the wider public.
A wonderful example has been set by Ian Currie, a very active member in the North West, who includes the two publications on his extensive e-mailing list.
We have also arranged to circulate the Newsletter and Nuclear Issues much more widely among politicians, starting with the major Select Committees and allparty groupings operating in the energy and value for money fields.
At its last meeting the SONE committee also asked the Newsletter to urge all members to make a new effort to promote nuclear power through their media by intervening with a letter to the editor at every relevant opportunity. To this end, we should remind you that there is a fund of downloadable briefing on the SONE website and we are to update the four A5 briefing cards on the case for nuclear power, waste management, electricity supply and energy facts which are freely available in hard copy.
BBC ACCUSED OF UNETHICAL BEHAVIOUR
The BBC has come in for a terrible hammering over recent weeks mostly over allegations of bias about global warming and its closeness to the controversial climate change unit at the University of East Anglia.
Nor do we expect they welcomed a fierce letter from a member of the SONE committee, consultant Paul Spare, accusing it of “unethical behaviour” in a “World Tonight” programme on Fukushima on December 7. This suggested the Japanese authorities were being reckless in their attitude to radiation safety.
The technical opinion invited to contribute was not a nuclear medicine or radiation safety specialist but – wait for it - an academic osteopath from Wisconsin, USA, who is apparently well known for his curious views on radiation protection. Mr Spare told the BBC: “It is unethical to the point of being dishonest to utilise one individual as an ‘expert’ without stating that his experience is not relevant to the issue being investigated”.
WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THIS?
A Norwegian-led study involving the University of East Anglia claims that global CO2 emissions have nearly doubled in the last 20 years. Last year they rose 5.9%. In the UK they were up 3.8% but still 14% lower than in 1990. But when emissions from goods and services produced in emerging economies and consumed in the UK are taken into account, British emissions since 1990 are up 46%. Energy Secretary Huhne, launching his 4th carbon plan on December 1, said UK emissions had already been cut by 25% on 1990 levels.
OBITUARY
We regret to record the death of Con Allday at the age of 91, an outstanding leader at the old BNFL. SONE was well represented at his standing-room-only funeral at which his achievements were reviewed.
