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2004 Aug, Newsletter No.72 |
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Written by SONE
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Sunday, 01 August 2004 |
A NATION DEDICATED TO THE AVOIDANCE OF THE OBVIOUS
Three things have happened during this holiday month. Oil and gas
prices have taken off, thereby making nuclear the cheapest option, if
the Royal Academy of Engineering’s earlier analysis of comparative
costs is any guide.
Opposition to wind power’s impact on the countryside has become
more vocal, led by the Prince of Wales. And our deputy Prime Minister,
John Prescott has re-written planning guidance to make it easier to
build wind farms in defiance of public opinion. We would have preferred
to record official recognition that the national interest can only be
protected by a programme at least to replace our initial stock of
nuclear power stations. But our contacts with Westminster suggest it is
as far away as ever. The Ministerial mantra is familiar: “We have not
ruled out nuclear, but.....”. This mantra may be both strictly true and
a preposterous porkie. While keeping the nuclear option technically
open the Government is doing its level best to close it by casting
around for something – anything other than nuclear – to supplement
unreliable wind. Its new great white hope is water power in the form of
sea waves and currents, without, of course, any reliable indications of
cost. Energy policy, it seems, has become an elaborate exercise in
avoiding the inevitable decision required by the national interest –
namely, the replacement at least of our initial crop of nuclear power
stations. The Government may, however, be unable to avoid the decision
if, as seems likely, Mr Blair wins the next election. So how do we read
the future? There are two favourable and therefore unlikely scenarios.
In the full flush of re-election, Mr Blair will prove his alleged
nuclear credentials and set the course for a more energy secure future.
Alternatively, the foreign owners of British electricity utilities will
seek to build Finnish-type European nuclear power stations on existing
British nuclear sites to the benefit of their nuclear construction
industries back home. More likely, the Government will continue to
procrastinate until it is hit by an entirely predictable
supply/emissions/competitiveness crisis – and conceivably a combination
of all three – and will embark on a crash nuclear building programme.
That is no way to develop nuclear power. So, while SONE continues to
demand a review of energy policy after the next election with a view to
ensuring security of supply and a cleaner atmosphere through nuclear,
we might usefully call for four more things: 1 – a campaign by the
nuclear industry to demonstrate beyond doubt its competitiveness; 2 –
the licensing by the nuclear inspectorate of a choice (which exists) of
modern reactor designs; 3 – the reform of planning inquiry procedures
to ensure that an internationally licensed reactor cannot be endlessly
challenged by opponents to prolong the hearing; and 4 – the designation
of a long term repository – eg at Sellafield – for higher level wastes.
It is only by doing 2 and 3 that the Government will convince anyone
that it has not effectively ruled out the nuclear option. As for 4,
Britain needs a long term repository even if some alchemist
miraculously comes to the Government’s rescue with another available
form of reliable, clean and competitive electricity.
EX-MINISTER EXTOLS NUCLEAR
However politically bleak the nuclear outlook may appear, there are
straws in the wind. Brian Wilson, former Energy Minister, has stated
unequivocally: “The case for resuming a nuclear energy programme in the
UK is so strong that the time is ripe to take the argument head-on”. It
seems unlikely that the Cabinet will take that view with an election in
the offing but it is open to question how much the Cabinet counts for
these days. More important perhaps is that Mr Wilson is Mr Blair’s
special representative on overseas trade. In an article in the Observer
(August 22), he said that it was “a myth that the world is turning its
back on nuclear”. And, against the background of floods and landslides
in Cornwall and Perthshire, he suggested that the affected citizens
might usefully be asked whether “it really makes sense to abandon our
only existing significant source of carbon-free energy”. He went on to
concede that the Government had sought to reconcile two almost
certainly irreconcilable positions – signing up to Kyoto and arguing
the urgency for action on climate change while bringing into government
“a generational prejudice against nuclear power” that evolved largely
on the premise that it was the reverse side of the nuclear weapons
coin. “There might not have been a civil nuclear industry had it not
been a by-product of military investment,” he said. “But that is not a
persuasive argument against a present-day assessment of what nuclear
power has to offer. As things stand, no matter how successful we are in
delivering on renewable targets, the outcome in carbon reduction terms
for the next 20 years will only be to cancel out what we are throwing
away through the run down of carbon free nuclear generation. “I firmly
believe that, as climate change rises through the league table of
political concerns, that approach will become unsustainable. Surely it
is better to pre-empt that mood by making the case for nuclear
new–build, probably on existing nuclear sites.” Let’s hope this is what
Mr Blair thinks. He has told MPs that he is under pressure from the USA
to re-examine the possibility of new nuclear plants.
A MEDIA TREND?
Another straw in the wind is the appearance of pro-nuclear arguments in
unlikely places. Initially a nuclear enthusiast who now likes
“graceful” wind farms, Robin McKie, in the Observer (August 18), took
as his text a statement by Professor Rod Smith, of Imperial College –
“We are going to get an awful shock in a few years when we run out of
power to light our homes. It sounds incredible but it is looking
increasingly likely”. Mr McKie argued that we are rapidly running out
of options and “only nuclear power provides the massive stable output
we need to form the secure electricity generation that our nation
requires. Wind farms will not do. We now urgently need a commitment to
a modest nuclear programme to provide us with options to survive a very
uncertain future”. It seems we are beginning to get through.. Then in
the Independent of August 28 a SONE patron,. Professor James Lovelock
was permitted to indulge in debate with that visceral anti-nuke, Zac
Goldsmith, editor of The Ecologist. Professor Lovelock hoped that it
was not too late for the world to emulate France and make nuclear power
our principle source of energy. He attacked the “near-pathological
anxiety” about nuclear power largely created by the news media, TV and
film industries and fiction writers, all of whom had used the fear of
things nuclear as a reliable prop to sell their wares. Yet nuclear
power was a negligible danger to the planet. In the turmoil which
global warming had the potential to create, hundreds of millions of
people might look back and reflect they could have avoided their
miseries by the safe use of nuclear energy.
NUCLEAR COMEBACK
In its August edition, The Chemical Engineer, was positively ebullient.
It said nuclear power looks increasingly likely to make a comeback in
Western countries under two pressures – the realisation that renewables
will not enable them to make their promised greenhouse gas emissions
cuts and fears of over-dependence on oil and gas from politically
unstable sources. It contrasted the nuclear standstill in the West
after Chernobyl with Asia where rapid growth has led to energy
shortages. Of the last 31 reactors to come on line, it said 22 were in
Asia and of the 30 nuclear plants under construction 17 are in Asia
(nine in India, four in China, three in Japan and one in South Korea).
But it claimed that construction of new nuclear plants in the UK was
more than likely. BNFL, it said, was keen to build four to seven
Westinghouse AP1000 reactors in the next decade at a cost of £1bn each
on existing nuclear sites, with Scotland taking one or two, possibly at
Hunterston (in Brian Wilson’s constituency) and Chapelcross. The only
trouble is that the Government owns BNFL. It all – or nearly all if you
accept the industry’s obligation to demonstrate its own competitiveness
– comes back to the Government.
MONEY WEEKLY CONCURS
Perhaps even more persuasive than The Chemical Engineer, an investment
briefing in Money Week (July 16) set the future of nuclear against an
international background of threats of electricity supply disruption,
ageing generating plant, overreliance on imported oil and gas and
“notoriously unreliable” renewable energy. It said many countries were
coming round to the view that nuclear was the answer. In the UK the
Blair Government had, it said, prevaricated and procrastinated over
nuclear for seven years. Its energy policy documents had consistently
called for lower greenhouse emissions, lower consumer prices and
greater security of energy supplies while refusing to acknowledge that
nuclear is the only way of delivering on these aims. Instead the
Government had put its faith in renewable energy but “all but the most
blinkered supporters of renewable energy” acknowledged it was unlikely
to deliver 10% of our needs by 2010.
NUCLEAR UNECONOMIC? HOW?
In a letter to The Times on August 18, Sir Donald Miller, a Scottish
member of SONE, made the point that engineers know the cost of wind
power does not come down as the size of the generating unit is
increased. They can therefore make an informed guess as to their likely
costs after further development. The Royal Academy of Engineering had
shown that nuclear’s costs came out at 2.3pkWh compared with onshore
wind’s 3.7pkWh, rising to 5.4pkWh for the stand by generation required
to meet electricity demand when the wind did not blow. Anyone who
doubted the Academy’s figures needed to explain why, at the time of
privatisation of electricity, Scotland, with more than half its
electricity from nuclear, could offer one of the lowest electricity
prices in the UK, even after allowances for waste disposal and eventual
decommissioning.
ANTI-NUKES COME CLEAN
A certain John Busby, who seems to spend his time in Bury St Edmunds
ridiculing nuclear power from a curious “scientific” base, has been
smoked out by one of our members, Andrew Harris, of Droitwich. Mr
Harris wrote to Mr Busby about his anti-nuclear letter in The Times,
and in reply Mr Busby said: “I have come to the conclusion that we have
to change our lifestyle to one using only 25% of our current energy
usage”. The “Greens” consistently deny they are anti-growth and the
Friends of the Earth once told us that they recognised they had to
demonstrate they were not all tepee dwellers wearing hair shirts. Mr
Busby’s honesty makes it harder for them to do so. But having come
clean Mr Busby then played it dirty. He told Mr Harris that we are
running out of nuclear fuel. Quoting World Nuclear Association figures,
he said they reckoned on ore being available at present consumption
rates for only 50 years. That meant, he said, that if all the world’s
electricity were to be nuclear only eight years’ supply remains. We
are, of course, a million miles from all the world’s electricity being
produced by nuclear power stations. Mr Busby also conveniently ignores
the fact that uranium is a commodity whose prices vary with demand. The
greater the demand the more less economic sources will be worth
exploiting and Paul Spare, a Cheshire member, tells us there are known
and highly probable deposits of about 12m tonnes, even though we have
been searching for uranium for only about 30 years. Mr Busby clearly
has bees in his busby.
GAS MAKES NUCLEAR’S CASE
Yet another straw in the wind is the sharp (12.9%) increase in gas
prices announced this month. If before this nuclear, according to the
Royal Academy of Engineering, was virtually level pegging in
competition with gas, it must now be way out ahead. The Government’s
claims that nuclear is “uneconomic” or “economically unattractive” must
now be challenged at every opportunity. The nuclear power station
builders have the opportunity they must been dreaming of: to kill the
notion that nuclear is expensive and establish it as the cheapest
option. Of course, we may be experiencing a blip in gas prices and may
not, as some analysts suggest, be seeing the end of cheap fossil fuel.
But with China and India storming ahead and the Middle East in a
volatile state, the betting must be that demand pressures will dominate
the market.
WIND CORRUPTS PLANNING
No doubt some pro-nuclear folk will be rubbing their hands at the
revision of planning guidance by the deputy Prime Minister, John
Prescott to encourage the development of renewable energy. They will
argue that if the planning system can be rigged to promote and
encourage renewable energy rather than restrict it, the same can be
done for nuclear. We fear there is a trap in this. A planning system
which does not carry public consent – and PPS22, as Mr Prescott’s
policy statement is called, is the subject of bitter controversy – is
as dangerous to nuclear as it is to renewables. The nuclear industry
has suffered from mammoth inquiries but these did not stop its
expansion. Instead, they provided a useful safety valve that Mr
Prescott is in danger of scrapping. What nuclear needs is a more
sensible approach to planning inquiries in which internationally
licensed reactors should not be the subject of interminable challenge.
WIND IN A WHIRL
Mr Prescott’s desperate new rules are understandable. The Commons’
Environmental Audit Committee has reported that the Government’s plans
to cut greenhouse gas emissions are seriously off course. The wind
power industry is also in turmoil even though it is expanding. One sure
sign is that the British Wind Energy Association has appointed a PR
company to promote wind power. They no doubt feel the need since Noel
Edmonds, the broadcaster, has established a Renewable Energy Foundation
to campaign against wind farms. So far, Edmonds seems to be having the
better of it. The Sunday Times (July 25) carried a piece suggesting the
race for wind power was driven more by greed than environmental
concern. The Government has been forced to deny it is about to scrap
plans to build hundreds of wind farms across the country and there have
been reports that it has abandoned an expensive power line link from
wind farms across remote Scotland because of public outcry. But such is
the corruption of spin that campaigners on both sides are looking
behind every statement for the hidden hand of Machiavelli.
MEETING WITH CHURCH
With the help of Graham Brightman, a Cumbrian member, SONE has
established contact with the hierarchy of the Church of England, led by
the Bishop of Newcastle. A lunch chaired by Sir William McAlpine in
July provided the opportunity for useful discussions in which the
church leaders showed they had a firm grasp of the essentials of the
energy debate.
WASTE MANAGEMENT LECTURE
Terri Jackson, a SONE member, asks us to inform members of a waste
management lecture on September 8 by Dr J G Devezeaux, deputy director
of reprocessing and formerly head of waste disposal for Cogema, the
French nuclear fuel company. The lecture is at 7pm at the Institution
of Mechanical Engineers at 1 Birdcage Walk, London SW1, in association
with the Institute of Physics. Admission is free. There will be
coffee/tea from 6.15pm.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Please note that SONE’s annual general meeting is to be held on
Wednesday, October 27 at the Royal Academy of Engineering in Great
Peter Street, Westminster SW1 at 12 noon until 3pm. There will be a
buffet lunch. Among the speakers will be Lord Jenkin, a SONE member and
former Energy Minister, who will give an account of the efforts being
made in Parliament to safeguard nuclear’s future. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 09 September 2005 )
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