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2003 Oct, Newsletter No.63 |
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Written by SONE
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Thursday, 02 October 2003 |
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING – YOUR SUMMARY AT A GLANCE
SONE’s AGM on October 22 brought recognition of the mountain that
nuclear has to climb in the UK, a suggested strategy to pursue in the
years immediately ahead and some optimism for the future. About 40
members attended and there were 71 apologies for absence. SONE has 271
members, a net increase of 15 on the year, and £10,260 in the bank.
The
guest speakers were Tony Cooper, chairman of the Nuclear Industry
Association (formerly the British Nuclear Industry Forum) and David
Wild, director of corporate affairs at NIREX. A paper was read for Rick
Wylie, of the Westlakes Research Institute. The report and accounts,
showing SONE’s first profit in five years’ operation - £3,780 - due to
donations from members, were accepted on a show of hands. The following
officers were formally re-elected: Directors: Sir William McAlpine
(chairman), Sir Bernard Ingham (secretary), and James Corner
(treasurer). Committee: The directors plus Robert Armour, Neville
Chamberlain, Ken G Jackson, Dr J Dickson Mabon, Keith Parker, Professor
J A Simmons and Dr W L Wilkinson. Auditors: Gary Sergeant & Co,
Swanley, Kent.
It was decided that subscriptions should remain at £5 and £25 a year
for students and ordinary members respectively, with a single payment
of £125 for a life member.
POINTS FROM THE DISCUSSION
-
While donations from members, totalling some £4,000, had repaired
SONE’s finances, it had been a disastrous year for nuclear with British
Energy dismantled as an international nuclear company and effectively
renationalised on confiscatory terms; BNFL being dismembered; and
publication of an “incompetent, irresponsible and irrelevant” Energy
White Paper which described nuclear as uneconomic (Secretary)
- A four-pronged strategy for the nuclear industry required the
Government to resolve the waste management issue, reform the planning
system and change the design of the energy market by reforming the New
Electricity Trading Arrangement (NETA), reflecting the external costs
of carbon dioxide production in energy prices and eliminating the
climate change levy en route to a carbon trading system; and for
nuclear supporters to start engaging openly with the people in simple,
direct language (Tony Cooper).
- Research across different national cultures showed that it was
vital to offer retrievability in any ultimate disposal of nuclear
waste, even though it was not technically necessary. Total costs for
managing UK waste (as distinct from decommissioning and clean up) were
estimated at £7bn and could be as low as £3bn (David Wild).
- The challenge confronting the nuclear industry nationally is to
make a connection with the key values of the mass of the public. In
this age of self interest, we must ask not what the nuclear industry
can do for UK plc but what it can do for individuals and how those
benefits can be credibly and effectively communicated (Rick Wylie).
NUCLEAR’S BAD YEAR
In presenting his annual report, the Secretary said that, apart
from moves to tackle the issue of nuclear waste, 2002-3 was a bad year
for the nuclear industry. It began with SONE’s resources down to just
under £8,000 and British Energy in a state of collapse.
SONE had repaired its finances during the year through the generosity
of its members who had contributed some £4,000 over and above normal
annual subscriptions. But the industry’s prospects had gone from bad to
worse. This had not been for want of advice from SONE.
The 2002 AGM wrote to the Prime Minister making four points - security
of energy supplies was just as important economically as their price;
security could not be achieved with the New Electricity Trading
Arrangement (NETA) or by massively importing gas and through renewable
sources of energy and energy conservation; Kyoto obligations could not
be met if nuclear was allowed to wither on the vine; therefore the
Government should end market discrimination against nuclear and
encourage a new nuclear power station ordering programme.
This message was rapidly reinforced by a meeting of the energy
institutions convened by SONE’s chairman, Sir William McAlpine. BE,
BNFL, NIA, BNES, InstNucEngineers and Nuclear Issues attended. SONE’s
patrons also wrote to the Prime Minister calling for a new approach to
energy policy which included a substantial nuclear element. SONE’s line
was also substantially supported by the Royal Society, the Royal
Academy of Engineering and the Government’s own Chief Scientist,
Professor Sir David King.
EWP – A STEP BACKWARDS
The Government’s answer in February in the form of an Energy White
Paper (EWP) represented a step backwards from the meaningless platitude
of the Government’s Performance and Innovation Unit’s earlier view that
the nuclear option should be preserved. While not absolutely writing
nuclear off, the EWP dismissed it as “uneconomic”.
The EWP was widely seen as a political device to get the Government
beyond the next general election. SONE criticised it as “incompetent,
irresponsible and irrelevant to the nation’s needs. The Select
Committee on Science and Technology said it had ducked the issue of the
need for new nuclear power stations. Lord Walker, a SONE patron,
writing in Parliament’s House Magazine, said no strategy meant no
energy in the longer term. And Neville Chamberlain, a member of SONE’s
committee, told a British Energy Association meeting that the DTI
should not base its energy policy on environmental requirements but on
securing supplies which, given environmental objectives, should be as
clean as possible.
Worse still, Professor Ian Fells, at a well-attended meeting of members
at Sellafield in April, revealed that the DTI had ignored its own
market model in reaching the conclusion that nuclear was uneconomic.
That model showed that renewables could, in certain circumstances, be
250% more costly than nuclear. At the same meeting, Keith Parker, a
member of SONE’s committee, disclosed that the nuclear industry had
made a big effort to provide a substantial chapter for the EWP on what
needed to be done to preserve the nuclear option but this had been
reduced to two paragraphs.
The Secretary said the EWP was thus an entirely political document
which revealed the grip of the “Greens” on the Government. It had,
however, been followed by the sacking of both the Ministers for Energy
(pro-nuclear Brian Wilson) and Environment (anti-nuclear Michael
Meacher). Now Britain had a very part-time Energy Minister in Stephen
Timms since he was also responsible for sustainable development,
ecommerce, the communications and information industries, the
Radiocommunications Agency, postal services, the Post Office and
corporate social responsibility.
NEW ISSUE: RELIABLE POWER
Meanwhile a new issue - reliable electricity - had arisen following
serious interruptions in supply in the USA, UK and on the Continent,
largely because of distribution or weather problems rather than
shortages of capacity. Professor Fells argued there was a 20% chance of
power cuts this coming winter since demand had increased and spare
capacity fallen from 20 to 17.5% compared with last winter when Britain
came within a whisker of interruptions in supply.
With Britain no longer self-sufficient in gas, which generates 40% of
our electricity, NationalGridTransco had warned of a difficult winter
in 2005-6 before new undersea pipelines could be brought into use. And
the Institution of Civil Engineers had forecast the near certainty of
power cuts by 2020 if we persevered with the EWP policy of
gas/renewables/conservation while allowing coal, oil and nuclear to
cease generating electricity.
BE RE-NATIONALISED
At the same time, British Energy had been emasculated as an
international energy company and effectively renationalised on
confiscatory terms, and BNFL was being broken up by moves to deal with
the nuclear waste legacy, decommissioning and clean up. In these
circumstances, the Secretary said, nuclear needed all the supporters it
could get. Members had not by any means recruited an average of one new
member each during the year, though a few had done much better than
that.
To try to increase understanding of the need for more nuclear power,
SONE’s chairman had held 17 lunches in the course of the year. Guests
included two leading Liberal Democrats, three Tory Shadow Ministers,
Denis MacShane, a SONE patron and Minister for Europe, and the CBI and
NationalGridTransco. Members had sought to press home SONE’s argument
through newspapers and the committee were grateful to all who had done
so. They had also secured corrections to claims about the Chernobyl
disaster from the BBC and the Daily Telegraph.
...AND NOW THE GOOD NEWS
Against the odds, the Secretary had won debates in Dublin and Ipswich -
in the latter case with Alan Shaw, a Norfolk member - on motions that
Sellafield should be shut and that renewables were the answer to East
Anglia’s energy problem. The Secretary had also spoken at a number of
other events, including the Electricity Association’s annual dinner,
attacking the EWP and explaining the precarious nature of UK
electricity supplies.
SONE had offered its help to the Adam Smith Institute which was seeking
to formulate an energy strategy that would win public and Parliamentary
acceptance of nuclear. After much effort by SONE and the NIA, an active
All-Party Parliamentary Group on Nuclear Energy had been formed with
more than 100 supporters. As well as having held meetings to explore
issues, it had toured Finland and was planning to visit the US
Department of Energy and Sellafield. A World Nuclear University, under
the umbrella of the World Nuclear Association (formerly the Uranium
Institute) in London, had been formed in September with 23 subscribing
academic institutions across the world. The Far East, India, Russia,
Finland, France and the USA were either building or gearing up for
nuclear power station programmes. In conclusion the Secretary sai there
was also some evidence of pressure for a rethink about nuclear in
Germany and Italy, but little evidence of it in the UK beyond SONE.
NEW WEBSITE SOON
In the course of the AGM, Jim Corner and Keith Parker reported that the
revamp of SONE’s website was nearly completed. Thanks were extended to
the NIA and its website company for their generous help. While
promoting nuclear energy and SONE, the website would seek to keep SONE
members up to date with nuclear developments and provide links to a
wide range of other like-minded organisations. Close liaison was being
maintained with the NIA to ensure that nuclear promoters spoke with one
voice.
THANKS
The Secretary moved a vote of thanks to BE, BNFL, BNES, Nuclear Issues
and the NIA and its website advisers for their help during the year and
especially to the chairman and his staff for his generous hospitality
and their organisational assistance. It was approved with acclamation.
With AGM business completed, the meeting had presentations from Tony
Cooper, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, and David Wild,
director of corporate affairs, NIREX, followed by a discussion.
WHY IS NOBODY LISTENING?
In presenting his paper on a future strategy for nuclear supporters,
Tony Cooper said that he was a former member of the TUC general Council
and had a degree in wildlife management. He acknowledged the support in
the trade union movement, noted during the AGM, for safeguarding energy
supplies from diverse sources, including nuclear, and maintaining
technological capacity.
Experts were forecasting a doubling of the requirement for electricity,
excluding any move from oil to hydrogen for transport. That doubling
could not be achieved by a combination of gas, renewables and greater
energy efficiency. Indeed, it was patently absurd to believe any such
notion when one of the wind power companies had reported an
availability of turbine output of just 1.5% this summer. So, Mr Cooper
asked, why was nobody listening to those who promoted the nuclear
cause.
He cited four reasons - the Government being responsible for three of them and the fourth down to the nuclear community itself.
REASON NO 1 – WASTE
The waste legacy, a liability projected to cost £50bn over 30 years,
made nuclear vulnerable to environmental arguments; created very
substantial investment uncertainty; and generated concerns about
storage requirements. Yet the waste arising from any new generation of
nuclear power stations would add only 10% to the present waste
inventory and therefore could be classed as a marginal cost. At last
there were Government moves to deal with decommissioning, clean up and
waste management.
REASON NO 2 – PLANNING
The present planning system provided almost infinitely for challenges
if those appealing had plenty of cash. This meant that development
programmes could take 15 years from conception to completion. The
British system had to be contrasted with the French where the planning
system was “not challengeable at all”. The problems flowing from it
were exacerbated by a lack of nuclear licensing arrangements where,
without pre-licensing or an international licensing system for
reactors, any chosen system had to undergo detailed inquiry scrutiny.
Mr Cooper suggested the Government should come together with allies to
solve the issue.
REASON NO 3 – MARKET
He said it was inconceivable that a wholesale spot market for
electricity designed to cut prices to the bone could be reconciled with
security of supply. The market needed to be redesigned, with the
external costs of carbon dioxide emissions internalised - ie reflected
in the price of electricity. That could lead to a carbon emissions
trading system (which would kill off the climate change levy) and in
turn produce a mix of technologies, including nuclear.
Mr Cooper then issued a warning to SONE about a trap. All too often
nuclear supporters argued for Government intervention and, like wind
power supporters, sounded anti-market. But a carbon trading system was
a means of guiding the market. Fortunately, some Parliamentarians were
aware of the dangers of trying to attach regulatory control to carbon
trading.
REASON NO 4 – OURSELVES
Mr Cooper said nuclear suffered from a long history of ineffective
communication - of experts talking only to experts or to the committed
and of arrogance and secretiveness - instead of engaging with people in
simple terms about their fears. Changing public opinion was the nuclear
industry’s problem. It was also resource intensive but it needed to
tackle it. The NIA had a young persons’ programme concentrating on
training them on how to address the public.
The point was made in discussion that, given the reluictance of
politicians to take decisions unless they were forced on them, power
cuts could act as a forcing agent. Indeed, one patron said: “We need
power cuts - instruments of national torture”.
OVERCOMING THE PAST
David Wild outlined the expected re-organisation of NIREX, currently
owned by industry shareholders, into a waste management body
independent of the industry. It had to operate against the background
of a history of failure to find a site for a repository and a lack of
policy since the Government’s rejection of the Sellafield rock
laboratory in 1997.
Since then, NIREX had conducted an extensive dialogue across the
country and had amassed a large amount of background material and
international evidence. It believed there was a solution provided the
lessons of history and international experience were learned.
To make a solution legitimate in the eyes of the people - a situation
the militant “Greens” could not cope with - he cited the need to
convince them of your fairness, competence, efficiency and transparency
and accountability. Most people knew little about radioactive waste but
they were willing to be involved in a discussion with an independent
body about how to handle it.
THE AGE OF RETRIEVABILITY
Mr Wild stressed that NIREX’s extensive consultation had underlined the
importance of offering a store with retrievability of the waste as an
option. Technically, this might not be necessary, but its importance
was confirmed across national cultures. People seemed to be reassured
if they knew it would be possible to get at the waste in the event of,
for example, a seismic shift or future generations finding better ways
of dealing with it. Professor Sir Frederick Holliday said his research
confirmed the importance of offering retrieval.
Mr Wild clearly did not rule out the possibility, if handled properly,
of communities volunteering to host vaults - as had occurred in
Finland. And he canvassed the idea of the vaults being open to public
monitoring through the internet.
HOW TO CHANGE PUBLIC IDEAS
Rick Wylie, of the Westlakes Research Institute in West Cumbria, who
has been researching public attitudes for some 15 years, was unable to
attend as planned and a summary of his talk was read for him. He said
that one of the key problems with opinion polls probing public
attitudes to the nuclear industry was that few actually engaged with
the nuclear industry as an issue and gave considered responses to
questions about it.
Among the mass public, the nuclear industry was a low salience issue
and public opinion polls merely reflected what was in the media. This
gave the industry its politically and commercially crippling opinion
profile.
There was some evidence that increased salience might guarantee public
support. In the most recent poll in the Sellafield travel to work area,
he found that, in sharp contrast to the national position, almost
two-thirds of the public supported the nuclear industry in spite of a
high level of concern about risk and a belief that it had done harm to
the natural environment.
Consistent with contemporary risk theory, people in West Cumbria
balanced the perceived risks associated with the nuclear industry
against the perceived benefits and the industry came out ahead. The
nuclear industry was related to something the local community valued
personally - the local way of life.
The challenge confronting the nuclear industry nationally was to make
the connection among the mass public with their key values. “In this
age of self interest”, Mr Wylie said, “we must ask not what the nuclear
industry can do for UK plc, but what it can do for individuals - and
how those benefits can be credibly and effectively communicated”.
The meeting concluded at 3pm. Present (those recorded as attending):
Patrons: Sir William McAlpine (presiding) and Professor Sir Frederick
Holliday; Committee: Jim Corner (Treasurer), Sir Bernard Ingham
(Secretary), Keith Parker and Professor J A Simmons.
Members:
Craig Arnold, David Barker, Philip D Barnard, David Bradbury, F G
Brightman, Frank Chadwick, Gerald Clark, Sir John Cullen, Professor K J
Durrands, R H England, David Erskine, Robert Freer, K M Gammon,
Geoffrey Greenhalgh, Sir Frank Gibb, E G Harling, Andrew D Harris, Lord
Jenkin, G M Jennings, Dr Joseph Lambert, Derek Limbert, Sir Robert
Malpas, J B B Mills, Martin Morland, Guy Moore, Lord Peyton, Simon
Rippon, Richard Sargeant-Manse, Dr L R Shepherd, Mrs R M Shepherd,
Robin Smith, Lord Ullswater, Professor J H P Watson.
Apologies for absence
(those formally notified): Patrons: Dr Gordon Adam MEP, Sir Christopher
Audland, Lord Gregson, Sir Gavin Laird, Sir Ian Lloyd, Lord Walker and
Viscount Weir. Committee: Robert Armour, Neville Chamberlain, K G
Jackson, Dr J Dickson Mabon and Dr W L Wilkinson.
Members:
G C Ackerman, Leonard Ainsworth, R H Allardice, D Avery, Trevor
Barrett, Sir Malcolm Bates, R M V Beith, E Bunnell, Sir Stuart Burgess,
John Button, Mike Callard, Steuart Campbell, Cmdr C A Cambrook, N
Cenci, David Chatfield, Lord Clitheroe, Hugh Collum, Professor David
Cope, Roy Dantzic, Phillip Dewhurst, John L Dickson, Sel A Ghalib, Dr
Roger P Gower, M C Grimston, Ray W Hall, Sir James Hann, John Hayles,
Sir John Hill, R M Horsley, Lord Hunt of Wirral, Terri Jackson, Oliver
S Johnson, J M Jones, Victor P Koller, Damon de Laszlo, Dr Rodney
Leach, Dr D B Leason, Mark Lennox-Boyd, Roy R Matthews, John W Menzies,
David Ness, B A Owen, P Owen, Lord Parkinson, R W Phelps, C E Pugh, J L
Raikes, John Sandalls, Thomas Scheibel, Dr D B L Skeggs, Lord
Tugendhat, W L Tyson, Lord Wakeham, L C Watson, the Duke of
Westminster, Ted Williams, Jim E Withe and P H W Wolff.
WHITHER KYOTO?
Some global warming sceptics see the World Climate Conference held in
Moscow at the beginning of the month as a highly significant event.
This was because Russian politicians described the obligations placed
on subscribing countries as “scientifically flawed”. George Bush had
earlier been much less specific in saying they were “fatally flawed”.
Of course, no one expects Kyoto to go down the drain. There are far too
many vested interests - the UN plus 180 participating countries, for a
start - in perpetuating these expensive climate change conventions in
swish surroundings. But Fred Singer, emeritus professor of
environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, sees Russian
support for US scientific and economic scepticism about the Kyoto
process as a major event, especially as Canada’s new premier, Paul
Martin has questioned the Treaty and the haste with which it was
adopted by Ottawa. He clearly expects a more questioning approach to
the issue.
THE COST OF WIND
Members complain it is very difficult to pin down the costs of wind
power. This summary of a letter to the Western Mail on October 6 by Dr
John Etherington, a leading critic of wind power, may be helpful. He
took issue with a reader who claimed that the cost of wind power was
2-3p/ kWh since that, he said, was only the cost of generation.
“If he looks at P 38 of WAG’s Renewable Energy report”, Dr Etherington
wrote, “he will see that the total price received by the generating
company and supplier would have been 5.43p/kWh in January 2003. This
included a “subsidy” of 3p/kWh from the Renewables Obligation, toped up
with 0.43p/kWh from the climate change levy.
“Because the Government has created a money market for Renewables
Obligation certificates, these have now rocketed to a much higher
price. The DTI currently admits to 4.5p/kWh, giving a total wholesale
payment for windpower approaching 7p/kWh. I only pay a retail charge of
2.84p/kWh for Economy 7. We all pay this extra charge on our bills -
not just those conned into “green” tariffs. For this privilege, less
than 0.3% of UK electricity comes from wind.”
ONE DAY NUCLEAR GRATITUDE?
The Daily Telegraph summarised on October 2 the full extent of British
Energy’s financial disaster - equity wiped out, lenders getting £425m
of new paper in exchange for tearing up their existing £1.3bn and a
mere 2.5% of the new company allotted to existing shareholders. But it
added:
“British Energy does have a future: the taxpayer has kindly taken back
the decommissioning liabilities which were supposed to pass to the
shareholders on privatisation, and electricity prices have started to
recover now it seems that the glut of generating capacity is over. “One
day we may be grateful to have a nuclear power industry, as the
Government’s pathetic attempts to pretend that a combination of
windmills and efficiency gains add up to an energy policy fall apart.
Until then, we must be grateful that BE has survived, sort of, and that
the owner of dangerous nuclear material has not fallen into the hands
of the al-Qa’eda Corporation”.
DEVELOPMENTS ABROAD
Nicole Fontaine, French industry minister, is formally recommending the
French Government should build a euros 3bn demonstration unit of the
Framatome European PWR “as soon as possible”. She said the advantages
of the 1,600MW reactor - the result of Franco-German co-operation -
were “incontestable, ten times safer, 10% more competitive and
producing less waste”.
The European PWR is the preferred option for Finland’s fifth nuclear power station to be built at Olkiluoto.
The Australian Nuclear Association is sending a one-page document
recommending that nuclear power should be evaluated as part of
Australia’s future energy needs to every member of the country’s
federal and state Parliaments. It describes nuclear as a “mature
technology”. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 09 September 2005 )
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