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2004 Jul, Newsletter No.71 |
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Written by SONE
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Thursday, 01 July 2004 |
THE SILLY SEASON TURNS SENSIBLE – BUT DON’T CHEER YET
This is supposed to be the silly season. Instead, the debate about
global warming and how best to combat it – by wind power and
renewables, greater efficiency or nuclear – has burst into the open.
This is encouraging, as John Ritch, director general of the
World Energy Association, points out: “When you force the general
public to face facts, the case for nuclear becomes very persuasive. In
Sweden you have a classic case of public debate leading to public
enlightenment”. The Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and Daily Mail all
challenged energy attitudes, notably the pro-wind and anti-nuclear
approaches. In the Mail Professor David Bellamy said the idea that
global warming is man-made through greenhouse gas production is
“poppycock”. The Sunday Telegraph highlighted research by Swiss and
German scientists suggesting the Earth is getting hotter partly because
the sun is burning more brightly. Alan Massie, Sunday Times, called on
people to reconsider their prejudice against nuclear power a week after
the Sunday Telegraph suggested that it was time for Tony Blair to go
nuclear. The Sunday Times had earlier reported Professor Hugh Dalton,
chief scientist at DEFRA, as saying that wind turbines are “a hell of a
bloody eyesore” and expensive with it. It portrayed DEFRA and DTI as
divided over wind. This rush of blood occurred because the Prime
Minister told Commons’ select committee chairmen that we could not
close the door on a new generation of nuclear power stations. Noel
Edmonds, the TV personality, also launched a Renewable Energy
Foundation to fight wind farms but promote other renewable
technologies. This is, however, no time for SONE members to throw their
caps over the wind mill. Mr Blair has said nothing new. Indeed, you
could argue he has made life more difficult. He told the committee: “I
think we have to be realistic. .If we are going to develop a new
generation of nuclear power stations, we are going to have to do a lot
more work on reassuring people both on costs and on safety grounds and
we are going to have to have a debate in which people understand the
science”. If we wait for an informed debate on nuclear science, we
shall all be dead. . None of this alters SONE’s objective over the next
nine months: to secure a commitment by the incoming Government, after
the general election expected in May 2005, urgently to review existing
energy policy leading to a substantial nuclear programme. Promises of a
review will not be enough. Reviews cost nothing. We need a review to
have a nuclear objective. Only the New Party, of which few have heard,
is likely to make a manifesto commitment. It will be a triumph for SONE
if we convert Michael Howard’s written support for nuclear into the
Tories’ manifesto. And, given Mr Blair’s populism, it will be a major
miracle if we get a Labour commitment. It is nonetheless the acid test
of political responsibility.
KNOW THINE “ENEMY”
In pursuing manifesto commitments to nuclear it will be important not
to put off potential supporters. But SONE will get nowhere by pulling
its punches and running away from reality. We need to know our
“enemies”. They come in six shapes and sizes: Skin deep “greens” whose
pigmentation is just for show. Their environmental credentials are
destroyed by their irrational anti-nukes stance.
Anti-capitalists: they object to nuclear because it could cleanly,
safely and economically keep the world economy going; the logic of
their position is a return to a pre-industrial, grow-your-own, tepee
existence. Fact inventors: people with such a visceral hatred of
nuclear that no lie, no exaggeration – eg nuclear is the biggest
greenhouse gas polluter – is too large for their purposes. Their
favourite is that nuclear waste is an insuperable problem. Incurable
romantics - because of their faith, usually founded on duff
information, in renewable sources of energy and energy conservation.
Mad marketers (inhabiting all political parties) who see not the
slightest risk in relying for up to 90% of our energy on imports of
natural gas from politically unstable parts of the world. Spinners
(again, inhabiting all political parties) who, especially before
elections, are masters of weasel words that crumble to dust on the most
cursory examination.
GOVERNMENT STUCK IN GROOVE
The Prime Minister, before Commons’ committee leaders in July,
confirmed that the Government is stuck in a groove. He held very much
to the party line set out by Stephen Timms, Energy Minister, at a BNES
dinner at Haydock Park in May. Mr Timms recognised that there are those
who think the Government should be establishing a Nuclear Commissioning
(instead of Decommissioning) Authority. But, he said, there were very
good reasons why it had not done so. “The economics of new build are
not attractive and we need to develop first a long term solution for
dealing with higher level radioactive wastes”. He said he wanted to
make it clear the Government was serious about keeping the nuclear
option open and instanced involvement in research and maintaining a
“high quality skills base”. “Speedier and more effective planning
inquiries” for major energy projects and the European emissions trading
scheme would also help nuclear but they were not enough to secure new
build now. The Government’s priority is to establish the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority in Cumbria by April. This is fine but it
won’t produce a single additional kWh of electricity by 2020. And just
when is the DTI going to reply to the Royal Academy of Engineering’s
claim that nuclear, including decommissioning costs, was competitive
with gas before recent gas price increases instead of parroting the
idea that nuclear is “economically unattractive”? Or is this an advance
on the Energy White Paper’s “uneconomic”.
TORIES: RIGHT NOISES – BAR ONE
Stephen O’Brien, MP for Eddisbury (Cheshire), Opposition spokesman on
energy, revealed some of the Conservatives’ thinking in the Commons’
second reading of the Nuclear Decommissioning Bill. He said it
represented a missed opportunity to set out a coherent a realistic
strategy to ensure secure, safe, sustainable and affordable low-carbon
supplies in the medium to long term. There was a looming black hole in
the nation’s energy mix. Taking breakdowns into account, normal
operative standby electricity capacity was more like 16% than the
21-23% habitually claimed. This had led Professor Dieter Helm, of
Oxford University, to say: “We are very close to the margins when this
is something we should be very risk averse about. The costs of any
failure are so enormous”. Against the background of increasing reliance
on imported natural gas and falling contributions from coal, oil and
nuclear, Mr O’Brien said that an enormous weight was being placed on a
major planned expansion of renewable energy and energy efficiency to
fill the looming gap in energy supply. But the Government had just had
to revise downwards its energy efficiency and carbon emissions targets,
was expected to miss its CHP target for 2010 by about 20% and experts
did not expect it to come close to meeting its target of 10% for
renewables by 2010. Even with the loosest definition of “renewables”,
UK power from them had remained stubbornly between 2-3% since 1997. It
was hard to conceive a more basic responsibility, he said, than to
create the framework for the market to ensure that the nation’s lights
stayed on. Quite. So why can’t we be told how the Opposition would go
about keeping them on instead of relying on smoke signals?
THE LORDS: HAVEN OF SANITY
All bar two of the 11 speakers in a June 30 House of Lords debate on
energy supply came out in favour of nuclear. Lord Ezra, former chairman
of the National Coal Board, sat on the fence – as usual. The debate was
called by Lord Jenkin, a member of SONE, because of the “deepening
anxieties” about the security of the UK’s energy supply. He said that
opinion in the UK was coming to recognise that climate change was the
enemy, not nuclear. The argument about nuclear costs ignored all the
latest information about new build and the fact that the eight most
recent nuclear plants were built to schedule and within cost estimates.
World nuclear power station efficiencies had also increased from below
60 to over 90%, including Sizewell B. “So we are left with the
Government’s doctrinaire opposition to nuclear power”, he said. “At the
moment, that is the real obstacle. But if we are to keep the lights on
and at the same time make a genuine attack on global warming, Ministers
must swallow their outdated prejudices”. Lord Taverne on hormesis Lord
Taverne used the debate to draw attention to the effect on nuclear
costs of the LNT (“linear no threshold”) assumption about exposure to
radiation – ie that any exposure to radiation is harmful. This led to
reducing standards for exposure that were not based on evidence. In
fact the evidence showed that a low dose of radiation appeared to
enhance the immune system, thereby providing a measure of protection
against cancer (hormesis). Among the cases he cited were: higher life
expectancy among survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bombs;
many times lower incidence of thyroid cancer among children under 15
exposed to fall out from Chernobyl than the normal incidence among
Finnish children; and a 68% below average death rate from leukaemia
among Canadian nuclear industry workers. “We should have regard to
evidence”, he said. “and not allow it to be brushed aside by political
correctness, ignorance or prejudice, nor allow policy to be dictated by
pressure groups influenced by dogma instead of evidence”.
PEERS TAKE FRIGHT ON GAS
The House of Lords has looked at the security of our gas supplies – as
distinct from their price – and taken fright. Its European Union
Committee says it is not convinced the UK has enough gas to meet severe
winter peak demand between now and 2007 when new interconnectors from
Norway and the Netherlands are scheduled to come into operation. Nor is
it satisfied that the market-based “just in time” system for ensuring
supplies will be adequate after that. It thinks too much reliance is
being placed on the ability of shippers to interrupt supplies to large
industrial users and the effect higher gas prices will have on demand.
It concludes the UK will be vulnerable to low probability/high impact
shocks for much of the next 20 years. Lord Woolmer of Leeds, chairman,
said: “While the Minister for Energy, Stephen Timms, tried to reassure
the committee, we remain unconvinced. Ofgem believes supplies are
adequate except in extreme conditions. It is the extreme conditions we
worry about”. The committee wants a review of emergency procedures for
handling a sudden major loss of gas and the Government’s ability to
assure that a terrorist attack on the import terminals at St Fergus
(Scotland) and Bacton (Norfolk) would not trigger a national emergency.
SUPPLIER CALLS FOR BOLDNESS
Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF, owner of the London, Eastern
and Seeboard electricity suppliers, has called for Governments to be
“brave and open” on the nuclear issue because “nuclear needs to be part
of the open options for any generation mix”. It must not be treated as
part of the problem. He said the future of nuclear required investment
in technology and needed cooperation between European countries.
Finland and France had decided to commit to a new European reactor
design and “the UK could benefit greatly by being at the centre of this
development rather than on the sidelines”. Mr de Rivaz, concentrating
on security of supply, said it had to be clearer who was ultimately in
charge of ensuring the lights stay on and who was responsible for
keeping the public informed in a crisis. He welcomed the opening of the
debate on energy security and the dawning of an understanding that the
market alone would not deliver security. While Governments must not run
the businesses, they must set the framework within which the industry
could work and would underpin the necessary fuel diversity.
NUCLEAR COSTS – GAS PRICES
The sensitivity of gas power stations to the price of the fuel has been
emphasised by David Evans, a Cumbrian member who was heavily involved
in a 1994 review of generating costs. He says the recent Royal Academy
of Engineering report that found gas and nuclear roughly level pegging
at 2.2-2.3pkWh relied on a gas price of 23p/therm based on LNG costs in
Europe at that time. It referred to the Heren Report – a private report
on European gas markets – that supported recent Daily Telegraph reports
of increases in forward gas prices to 35-40p/ therm. But at 30p/therm
CCGT fuel costs would work out at 2.5pkWh and at 40p 3.2pkWh compared
with nuclear’s total generating cost of 2.3pkWh. To secure a fair
comparison, the RAE had added a “conservative” penalty for CO 2
sequestration from fossil fuel plants. Its 0.37pkWh penalty for CCGT
plants puts in perspective the Energy White Paper’s claim that nuclear
is “uneconomic”. Mr Evans says this is a further reason for an urgent
review of the EWP where quantified penalties for CO 2 emissions were
conspicuously absent. Nuclear, he adds, has to dispel the doubts of
potential investors that nuclear stations can be built to time and
cost. The problem for gas is to convince investors about its long-term
price. “If recent trends persist”, he says, “investors should conclude
that CCGT plants will not be as competitive as nuclear, even without
any charges for their CO 2 emissions which they deserve”. A cautionary
note: Mr Evans makes the point that nuclear is sensitive to the
discount rate used. The RAE used 7.5% whereas the 1994 review chose 8%
and was under pressure to go for an even higher figure.
A GRID ENGINEER’S NIGHTMARE
A retired grid control engineer, Derek G Birkett, of Pitlochry, has
reacted to the various projections of the amounts of unpredictable
renewable energy “sloshing around the system”. In a letter to the
Institution of Electrical Engineers’ Review, he wrote: “Predictability
is the key to secure grid operation. The electricity grid is a dynamic
beast and unforgiving; it is inherently unstable. Wind resource does
not provide any governor response to assist the automatic correction of
system frequency deviation. Its exploitation on any scale would deter
the introduction of new [predictable] replacement capacity by soaking
up available demand, the basis of payment within a market driven
structure. “At minimum levels of system demand with fixed base load
operation of nuclear plant, in turbulent conditions, the control of
system frequency would become a nightmare”.
....AND THE CONSUMER’S, TOO
Professor Ing Helmut Alt, of Aachen, has blown the gaff on German wind
power costs. In a paper on the economics of wind generation at the end
of last year (and unearthed by Paul Spare, a Cheshire member), he puts
the cost of German wind power, currently 3.5% of total supply, at about
Euro0.9kWh. This is more than four times that of nuclear electricity
(Euro0.2kWh) that the country’s Red/Green coalition wants to phase out.
German consumer support for wind power in 2002 was £900m. That, he
said, would rise to £2.2bn if Germany obtained 10% of its power from
wind. And if current plans to phase out nuclear prevailed it would be
£10bn a year, tripling the cost of German electricity. It would also
increase CO 2 emissions because of the need for stand-by plant and
periods of low or zero wind output meant it was not possible to close
any conventional plants.
WHY PAY THROUGH THE NOSE?
Dr W L Wilkinson, a member of SONE’s committee, seized on reports of
rising gas prices – up 30% for industry in two months – to write to the
Times pointing out this was hardly surprising, given current gas and
wind energy policy. It was therefore difficult to understand, he said,
why nuclear power was in danger of being phased out. After all, we had
the technology and capability to build and operate nuclear power
stations. Nuclear costs were well established and supplies of its
uranium fuel secure at a stable price. And decommissioning and waste
disposal were manageable and represented only a small fraction of the
total nuclear generating cost. The moral of this tale is why pay
through the nose when you’ve got nuclear? |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 09 September 2005 )
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