BBC frightens ‘em to death - all bar politicians, that is
We would never have dared to be quite so alarmist. Indeed, had SONE
concocted the scenario for a massive power cut in Britain in 2010 - a
Chechen terrorist attack on a gas compressor station at Vyborg in
Russia which left us gasping for natural gas - we would have expected
to be accused of scare mongering.
But
BBC 2’s “If… the lights went out” programme in mid-March ran through
many of the horrors that could occur if such a crisis caused a major
winter interruption in electricity supplies: no heat, no light, no
lifts, no traffic lights, no water, no sanitation, limited phones,
people trapped on the Tube, risks to public order, including looting,
and to children and elderly left alone and afraid in cold, black rooms
etc.
The overall programme was an indictment of existing energy policy and
over-reliance on the market but with delayed consequences, six years
into the future - and then only because of a catastrophic failure
caused by an imaginary terrorist attack. The film would have been even
more dramatic had it hammered home the point that we are already
vulnerable to power cuts because of a lack of generating capacity in
sustained cold spells - and before coal, oil and nuclear generation
have been phased out.
SONE does not wish to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially as
nuclear advocates got a hearing and the underlying message was develop
nuclear. Moreover, the subsequent televised discussions between experts
and separately politicians produced a consensus that the BBC’s
scenario, while extreme, was plausible. That at least was useful.
But those discussions did little to illuminate the urgency of the
situation or how to sort out the mess. People were altogether too
relaxed. In essence, they thought the market was fine provided it was
guided by a clear strategy and signals or incentives to secure the
desired end. But it’s easy to talk in generalities about strategies,
policies, technologies and mechanisms. It is an entirely another matter
devising a simple path to achieve security of supply at affordable cost
while at the same time bearing down on greenhouse gases.
This is where the programme became truly frightening. Martin O’Neill,
Labour’s representative on the discussion panel, tried to square his
apparent belief in the need for a new nuclear power station programme
with loyalty to the Government. Theresa May, for the Tories, waffled.
And Vincent Cable, for the Liberal Democrats, was his usual complacent
self over heavy reliance on imported gas. He even forecast 50% of our
electricity from renewables by 2050.
Dr Catherine Mitchell, the Government’s energy policy adviser, partly
explained why we are living on the edge of a volcano. She felt the
Government had the right strategy in place with its long-term
concentration on renewables and energy conservation. Ye Gods! You would
never have imagined that one consequence of the projected disastrous
power cut in 2010 was the end of the Energy Minister’s political career.
Nuclear competes with gas
A report from the Royal Academy of Engineering, The cost of generating electricity
on March 10 concludes that the UK’s cheapest electricity will come from
gas turbine and nuclear power stations at around 2.3p/kWh. The costs of
various forms of coal-fired base-load generation range from 2.5 to
3.2p/kWh.
Philip Ruffles, vice president of the RAE who chaired the study group,
said: “The results may sound surprising, especially as we have included
the cost of decommissioning in our assessment of nuclear generation
costs. With the exception of nuclear, the analysis assumes the
decommissioning cost is neutral. The weakness of the Government’s
energy White Paper was that it saw nuclear power as very expensive. But
modern nuclear stations are far simpler and more streamlined - the
latest only about half the size of Sizewell B - and far cheaper to
build and run.
“In the case of wind energy, it is also necessary to provide back up
capacity for when the wind does not blow. In this report we have been
rather generous with the wind generation figures. We assumed you’d need
about 65% back up power from conventional sources for this study. The
RAE has previously called for higher back up - more like 75 to 80%.
Even so, the cost of back up capacity adds 1.7p/kWh to the costs.
Onshore wind generation is the cheapest renewable, but with back up it
costs two and a half times as much as gas or nuclear.”
The RAE’s figures are: 3.9p/kWh for onshore wind, but 5.4p/kWh with
back up, and 5.5p/kWh offshore (7.2p/kWh with standby). Other figures
are: poultry litter-fired 6.8p/kWh and wave and marine technologies
6.6p/kWh.
Cutting through fog
The objective of the RAE’s study is to provide a proper comparison of
various generating technologies by cutting through distortions from
such things as subsidies, market mechanisms and transmission and
distribution costs. It deals only with the cost of generation, using a
common financing model with a 7.5% discount rate.
It makes the point that the mix of generation cannot be determined
solely by cost since energy policy addresses security of supply,
environmental impact, national competitiveness and social concerns. But
a rigorous understanding of costs is nonetheless essential.
The report shows that the effect on nuclear’s generating costs is
minimal with a 20% change in the fuel cost and nil with a £30 per tonne
levy on CO2 emissions. In each case, nuclear becomes the cheapest option.
Did you know…wind barred?
On 4 December last year the Irish electricity regulator stopped
allowing new wind farms to connect to the Irish grid system. He did so
because he was advised by the grid that analysis of historical wind
data had shown that with 1250MW of wind power installed - about 20% of
peak demand - variations in wind generation output would frequently be
beyond the generation capacity of available reserves.
Another reason for acting to protect the “security and stability of the
power system” was that any more wind capacity would require more
operating reserve and result in more not less overall greenhouse gas
emissions.
All this was revealed on 24 February by Professor Michael Laughton in a
paper on the engineering perspective on supply security. He said the
astonishing aspect of the Irish regulator’s action was that power
system engineers would have been able to predict the outcome before any
Irish wind farm development programme was launched to meet Kyoto
obligation targets. Had their advice been sought, he wondered.
It’s a question that should be asked in Britain. As Professor Laughton
pointed out, the UK has ambitious targets for renewable energy
development - for 15% of our electricity by 2015, most of it from wind.
“The extent and nature of the consequential system difficulties
operating in a liberalised market structure have yet to receive proper
recognition”, he said. “Furthermore, there is an important principle
that needs to have a higher profile - specifically there is a limit to
the amount of intermittent generation that can be connected to the
system of England, Wales and Scotland. What that limit is has yet to be
determined.”
He hoped that before public policies in the complex field of energy
supply were launched, proper professional consulting engineers were
consulted as a matter of routine just to check the technological
consequences of options being considered.
The Irish adoption of a wind generation policy without engineering
studies to define the technical boundaries had damaged not only the
wind industry but the prospects of all other renewable sources of
energy of an intermittent nature.
Green subsidies “misguided”
The energy regulator, Ofgem has attacked a Government plan to amend the
Energy Bill to extend subsidies for renewable generators. Sir John Mogg
says they are “unnecessary and misguided”.
The amendment would allow a reduction in transmission charges for
renewable energy generators in peripheral areas. These higher costs
would be passed on to customers “for no clear benefit”, said Sir John
who estimates that the Government’s renewables obligation is already
subsidising renewables generation by £485m.
SONE men busy in lords
The Government’s Energy Bill has been launched in the Lords and has
undergone detailed scrutiny in a Grand Committee. SONE members –
notably Lords Jenkin Gray, Maclennan, Jordan, Tombs and Viscount
Ullswater- fought a noble fight not merely on the detail but also on,
among other things, the need statutorily to preserve the nuclear option
in a practical way - eg by retaining skills, through research and
protecting the use of existing sites for future nuclear use. They also
sought to educate their peers at every opportunity about the
inadequacies of the Energy White Paper (EWP) published a year ago.
The Bill notably provides for the establishment of a Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to clean up the nuclear legacy from the
past but also would establish a single wholesale electricity market for
Britain called BETTA. It got a mauling at second reading in December.
Lord Jenkin wanted to know at the outset why the Bill was being
introduced in the Lords when Ministers had made much of the idea that
the Bill would be through by July and the NDA operational by April
2005. After all, there was a Treasury convention that no money could be
spent in pursuit of the Bill until it had had a second reading in the
Commons. Introduction in the Lords had thus pushed back the timetable.
The Government had promised to keep the nuclear option open but
incredibly there was nothing in the Bill to do so.
Non-SONE peers were also scathing. Lord Christopher, a former trade
union leader, said the Bill missed the point that new nuclear build was
essential. Lord Bridges said it appeared the Government was determined
to show that, despite their commitment to reduce CO2 emissions, they did not like nuclear power and wanted to abandon it as soon as they could get round to it.
Baroness O’Cathain claimed that the Energy Bill’s title was a misnomer.
It did nothing to secure a continual, consistent supply of electricity
in the years to come. And so it went on. SONE members can be assured
that their supportive peers have repeatedly got over the point that the
EWP and the Energy Bill are not up to much.
MIT backs nuclear
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has added to the pressure in
the USA for the expansion of nuclear power as the US nuclear industry
calls for 50 new commercial reactors by 2020 and White House officials
are talking about a nuclear “renaissance”.
According to Physics Today an interdisciplinary study group
wants limited federal support to reenergise the nuclear power industry
and lessen the potential impact of global warming. It concludes “the
nuclear option should be retained precisely because it is an important
carbon-free source of power”.
It offers a scenario in which global nuclear generating capacity
increases three-fold by 2050 avoiding 1.8bn tonnes of carbon emissions,
about 25% of incremental emissions expected if things continue as they
are. But it says if this expansion is to occur four factors are
critical - cost, safety, radioactive waste and proliferation. Among the
things it advocates are a carbon tax and an end to reprocessing.
It’s all theoretical
The next time you hear someone – usually enthusiastic greens - claim
that “the wind resource of Britain could theoretically meet the
country’s electricity needs eight times over”, you might try using the
retort by Roy Sumerling, a Seascale member.
In a letter published in Materials World he says it reminds
him of the eminent chemist, Fritz Haber, who thought he could repay
Germany’s debt to the Allies after World War I by extracting the gold
in the sea. Even though the world’s oceans contain more than 10m tonnes
of gold, it has not been possible to extract it economically”.
Come on Tories - answer
A member, Professor J H P Watson, of the School of Physics and
Astronomy at Southampton University, has told Theresa May MP, Tory
front bench spokesman, that he was “very disappointed” with her refusal
to advocate the building of new nuclear power plants on the BBC 2 “If…”
programme (see above).
“Nuclear generation is the only reliable, proven long-term technology
of sufficient scale to address simultaneously the problems of security
of supply and greenhouse gas emissions”, he explained to Mrs May. “I am
looking forward to the next Conservative Government restoring our
security of energy supply”.
If only it would!!
IAEA upbeat about nuclear
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the IAEA, says the case for
nuclear power in Western Europe may be gaining ground because of the
decision the EU has taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and
concerns about security of electricity supply.
His agency would work to help countries that choose nuclear power in
operating their facilities safely and securely. It would also continue
to encourage the development of new reactor and fuel-cycle technologies
to secure cost competitiveness, greater reliance on passive safety and
greater control over nuclear materials that allow reduced construction
times and lower operating costs.
He described Russian legislation making possible the hosting of an
international spent-fuel storage facility as “a welcome step that could
have positive implications related to safety, economics and
non-proliferation” but it would be at least the end of the decade
before the first civilian repository was ready to begin receiving waste.
Meanwhile, expansion prospects were centred on Asia where 18 of the 31 nuclear plants under construction are sited.
Fred’s diatoms for nuclear
A British Energy security guard member at Heysham, Fred Nicholson is a
leading amateur diatomist. He spends a lot of his spare time studying
and photographing diatoms, nature’s smallest living creatures. He has
built up a substantial portfolio of photographs and slides of diatoms,
occupying in real life space notably less than the most modest full
stop, and has arranged some of them into logos in support of nuclear
energy.
He sees his promotional use of diatoms as demonstrating the nuclear
industry’s commitment to improving the environment, For his work he has
been presented by Heysham’s engineering council with a glass bowl
modelled on a diatom.
Your date at Capenhurst
Your Secretary apologises for any inconvenience caused since the end of
February by the crashing of his computer. He has been off line for
virtually a month (partly because he was away for a fortnight) but
hopes to be available again soon on .
Those members in the North West proposing to attend the general meeting
for members outside London at Urenco’s Capenhurst (Cheshire) plant on 8
June (noon to 3pm) should let the secretary know either by e-mail or by
telephone or fax: T: 020 8660 8970; F: 020 8668 4357.
Your secretary to speak
Your Secretary took part in the BBC Radio 4 programme “You and Yours”
on wind power (and why it can never compete with nuclear). He also gave
a well received talk on “Does Britain need nuclear power?” at the
Purley Literary Society.
In addition to being booked to address Professor James Lovelock’s
three-day conference on global climatic change at Dartington (Devon)
early in June, he has also been invited to present the case for nuclear
power at a public meeting of the Cirencester Science and Technology
Society on 22 September.
Condolences
We regret to record the deaths of two members: Sir James Hann, former
chairman of Scottish Nuclear; and K S White, of Hest Bank, near
Lancaster. We also extend our condolences to a patron, Denis MacShane
MP, Minister for Europe, who lost a daughter in a skydiving accident in
Australia.
