There’s none so blind as will not see. Wherever we go, we encounter an
almost fanatical conviction that Britain can be powered by a
combination of renewable sources of energy, micro-generation, CHP and
as yet undeveloped new-fangled technologies, topped up by gas, because
energy conservation can drastically reduce demand.
This is an act of faith that looks more irresponsible the more you examine past performance, the status of alternative technologies and the current arithmetic of electricity generation. There seems to be an absolute determination to shun the one proven way – nuclear – of generating the bulk of our electricity cleanly.
Chancellor Gordon Brown was at it in his budget. He was keener to pander to the reckless Greens than to secure the economic stability – his central aim – that comes with a reliable and affordable energy base. He had to prove himself greener than the young, tree-hugging Tory pretender, David Cameron.
It may well be that all this politicking masks the last hurrah for the Green’s approach to energy policy, but don’t count on it. There are those who will not consider the nuclear option at any price, as Dr Ian Byrss recently pointed out in the IESIS Newsletter. Such a one is Sir Jonathon Porritt, Tony Blair’s adviser as chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC).
In these circumstances, the latest SDC position paper on “the role of nuclear power in a low carbon economy” must count an embarrassment for him. It bears all the hallmarks of compromise and its decision to rule out the replacement of nuclear power stations was apparently achieved by a single vote (8-7).
Before finally concluding “there is more than enough renewable resource in the UK….to meet our energy needs in a carbon-constrained economy without nuclear power”, the SDC concedes that “nuclear power is…a viable option for tackling climate change”. It acknowledges that the nuclear waste “problem” can be solved. And it agrees, as it must, that CO2 emissions from nuclear are low and finds no major concerns about the long-term availability of uranium.
So, the SDC argues that determining future energy policy involves a choice between nuclear and alternatives. It has inevitably made the wrong and dangerous choice. With Porritt as its chairman it could do no other. But the one vote margin to exclude nuclear is a measure of SONE’S progress in the debate. WHERE THE ONUS LIES
The SDC argues that the burden of proof rests on the nuclear industry to show that updated designs, combined with private financing and project management, are a viable way forward.
This is a monumental cheek, given nuclear’s proven ability to provide competitive – and clean - bulk power over 50 years with largely prototype reactors.
The central issue, given the choice which the SDC says exists, is for the Greens to prove their untested, largely undeveloped and decentralised way can keep Britain lit up, working and warm.
That is a challenge we must continually put to nuclear opponents: prove your case.
We must not be put off by the so-called academic qualifications of nuclear detractors. For example, The Sussex Energy Group at Sussex University argues in this month’s issue of Energy World that the energy review is unnecessary. The course set in the 2003 White Paper, it says, has had little time to take effect, still less reveal its long-term potential, and talk of an energy gap is alarmist.
Well, these self-deluders would say that, wouldn’t they. After all, they don’t have to take responsibility if they are wrong – as industrialists clearly think they are because of their concerns about supplies. It looks very different if you are likely to see your political career terminated, your firm go bust or your job forfeit.
The cold winds of March brought another National Grid warning about a shortage of gas.
We live from hand to mouth, and long term it will get worse without nuclear.
WHY NOT CONSULT ENGINEERS?
An early blow to the technical credibility of the SDC report has come from Professor Michael Laughton, a leading expert in electricity supply.
He says that the SDC’s assumption that all of the UK’s electricity could in theory be supplied long term from renewable sources is “not well grounded”.
Calculations of the likely income from renewables assume the generator will be able to market all the power he produces and will not be constrained by fluctuations in demand. That, he says, is not a reasonable assumption.
“Contrary to the SDC’s view”, he goes on, “the main constraint on renewable energy is technical rather than economic. Power demand, not the quantity of the energy resource available, is the dominating scientific constraint. Biomass, tidal, hydro, solar, even wind, have much to offer and if correctly managed will make a useful contribution to our energy needs. But with renewables being able to supply only a fraction (value as yet unknown) of the demand for electrical energy, the need for other large, low carbon generation sources remains.
“If the purpose of the SDC’s report was to find an alternative solution to a future containing more nuclear power, then it has not succeeded. If the SDC still wishes to argue that nuclear power has no role, then it must endorse hydrocarbon sources with carbon capture and storage, and address all of the attendant price and security of supply questions”.
IT BEGGARS BELIEF……….
In a recent edition of the Newsletter we reported that new arguments by nuclear opponents were very thin on the ground. Mind you, it is very difficult to beat the old ones after a senior Civil Servant, several years ago, told us that weather forecasting was so much improved that we could cope with the intermittency of wind power.
At a Newcastle upon Tyne Science Week debate this month on future power supplies, your Secretary was assured that the unreliability of various “renewables” now held no terrors for the National Grid. Technology exists, a scientist said, for individual homes continuously to signal their varying output to central control. Make way for microgeneration, led by David Cameron.
Before we turn to microgeneration, let us acknowledge that Porritt’s Commission has come up with three new arguments against nuclear. It is extremely fussed about investment in nuclear doing three things: 1 – committing the UK to that technology for at least 50 years; 2 – diverting attention away from renewables and microgeneration; and 3 – reinforcing the alleged bias towards large scale generation instead of encouraging “a more decentralised and sustainable economy”.
Their vested interest is transparent: they want to ditch the National Grid and put the clock back to local electricity without so much as a reference to the cost of fragmentation, still less its reliability.
Neandearthal man is alive and well and on his roof blowing his windmill.
ALL HAIL MICROGENERATION
There are two unanswered questions about this passion for microgeneration whether in the form of wind turbines and solar panels on your superinsulated roof, a CHP system, fired by wood chips, in your treble-glazed kitchen, assorted photo-voltaic cells and heat pumps buried in the garden. They are: how much will it cost and will I still be connected to the grid? Well, we are indebted to a Durham chap for British Gas’s limited insight into costs and savings. It has just sent him a leaflet on “the top improvements that could help you save on your fuel bills and help decrease your household’s impact on the environment”.
Its top three are double glazing (cost £4,000), draught proofing (£20) and low energy light bulbs (£100). For that you could save £47.60 a year. Draught proofing is by far the best buy with a two-year payback. But guess what the stated payback is on double glazing: 111 years (repeat 111 years). And on low energy light bulbs? Why, 63 years (repeat 63 years).
Economies of scale Energy conservation is a wonderful theoretical concept but a very hard sell indeed. So might microgeneration be if any costs were attached to it. We hope to produce a briefing note on the issue soon. In the meantime, between them two SONE members who are former senior supply engineers, Alan Shaw (Norfolk) and Michael Gammon (Woking), and a patron, Viscount Weir, usefully offer a little history.
Under the leadership of Viscount Weir’s grandfather in 1926, a 132kV grid was designed to consist of a number of independent regions, each capable of connecting to neighbours, if necessary. Total interconnection was not planned.
Then came the threat of WWII. The most striking benefit of creating a national grid was a huge reduction in spare plant capacity.
Messrs Shaw and Gammon say that by 1938 the national level of spare plant necessary was reduced from 70-80 per cent to 15-20 per cent and the consequent savings in capital cost, according to Mr Shaw, amounted to 75% of the cost of the national grid.
So we have to ask ourselves why the Greens, naïve or otherwise, wish to kill nuclear and the national grid. The answer is very simple: they wish to change our way of life for the poorer.
Microgeneration is not about making the planet better to live in. It is to serve a political objective to replace our economic system.
Politicians are mere putty in Green hands.
FOLLOWERSHIP
One of the most malleable politicians seems to be Alan Duncan, Tory Shadow DTI Secretary. He told us this month “My view is that you can’t go against the grain of public opinion on nuclear power. They have been very suspicious of the waste issue and of the cost. The nuclear industry have to prove their case. We are open-minded but we start from a position of suspicion”.
This just goes to show silly we are. We had thought that the function of politicians was to decide what is necessary for the country’s good and persuade the people to go for it. In other words, to lead, not follow.
That is exactly what the Scottish Labour Party has decided to do. In conference at Aviemore at the end of February, it overwhelmingly approved a call for ageing nuclear plants to be replaced or renewed.
Hugh Scullion, of Amicus, said: “We support a balanced energy policy that promotes the use of all available energy in the most productive manner possible. This should include conventional fossil fuels… renewables and nuclear.” And Dr Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, added: “We cannot continue to hide for ever behind a sentence from the coalition agreement (with the Lib Dems) that Scottish Labour does not support the further development of nuclear power stations while waste issues remain unresolved”. The waste issue, she said, had to be resolved.
Mr Duncan should also be aware that public opinion is not all it may be cracked up to be. An Edinburgh member, Steuart Campbell, pointed out in the Scotsman that a March ICM poll claiming that Scots are against nuclear power stations actually showed that when it is a question of security of supply a majority is in favour.
CONSERVATIVES BOMBARDED
If our postbag is any guide, SONE members are trying to put Messrs Cameron and Duncan right.
There has been a rush of correspondence following the Conservatives’ enthusiasm for all things green, but not the greenest – nuclear.
Viscount Weir, Professor R W Cahn (Cambridge), Professor J H P Watson (Southampton), J M R Watson (Milford on Sea), Graham Brightman (Cumbria), Michael Gammon and your Secretary have all tried to inject some inconvenient facts into Opposition minds.
As befits a maverick, Boris Johnson MP, Tory spokesman for higher education, has broken ranks. In a Daily Telegraph column he wrote: “It is not just that nuclear energy is environmentally friendly in itself: it offers a cheap way of producing the energy necessary to produce hydrogen, and therefore to produce hydrogen fuel cells, and heaven knows what else.
“It also offers the hope that we can restore British activity and prestige in the physical sciences, not just as end in itself, but because if we have to rely endlessly on the Russians for our gas, and on the Arabs for our oil, then no nukes will be bad nukes”. Not all Conservative MPs have been bamboozled by Zac Goldsmith.
THE UNMENTIONABLE
Gordon Adam, a SONE patron and former MEP for the North East, has drawn attention to energy articles and speeches in and out of Europe that manage to avoid mentioning nuclear power. He suggests SONE might offer a prize for the most ingenious avoidance of the issue.
We can think of two early candidates: Gordon Brown and David Cameron on budget day.
Martin Morland, a member of SONE’s committee, found another at a BNES/CBI/TUC/ Carbon Trust conference recently at TUC HQ on “A sustainable energy policy for the UK”. It was Alan Johnson, Industry Secretary, who spent 25 minutes on microgeneration and clean coal. In answer to a question, he explained his avoidance was deliberate because he wanted to emphasise the energy review was not just about nuclear.
Three interesting points emerged: a) An Ernst and Young speaker said the current market structure was incapable of ensuring security of supply, with no new generating capacity over the past three years; b) doubts whether will there be enough engineers and project managers around to build power stations with Olympics 2012 sucking them in; and c) the idea of an independent energy agency seeking security of supply and offering long-term contracts for sustainable power that reduces carbon emissions – the only positive outcome for Professor Watson, of Southampton, of “a very depressing affair”.
NEED TO LOOK LONG TERM
The need for long-term contracts has been underlined in a recent issue of Nuclear Future by Dr Anthony White, a founding member of the Government’s energy advisory panel. He says that if nuclear power is to be regarded as a generation option in the UK, the rules governing the British power market need to be altered so that long-term contracts, related to long-run costs, become available. Indeed, the market as it stands seems incapable of encouraging the development of any form of non-renewable generation.
There has clearly got to be some very serious thinking about the short term nature of the regime operated by Ofgem, the regulator. The incompetence of the system is evidenced by British Energy which was driven to the wall by the Government’s regulatory regime. The Government then “rescued” it and now seeks to make a packet out of selling off the stake it confiscated. If this is called stability, then we are Hottentots.
RENEWABLES SETBACKS
Dr White may be right that only renewables can develop or renew themselves in the present market conditions. But over recent weeks there have been a number of blows to wind’s development. An inquiry turned down a massive wind farm on the Cumbrian fells bordering the Lake District National Park at Whinash and local politicians rejected a wind farm on theYorkshire- Lancashire border at Saddleworth.
Last month the Irish electricity market was in turmoil because Airtricity, the wind energy firm, withdrew from the domestic market because of rising costs. Some 8,000 domestic and 3,000 larger commercial users were affected. Its troubles stemmed from the ban on any further wind power connections to the Irish grid in 2003 because of a shortage of stand-by capacity, Since then Airtricity has had to seek power elsewhere, including through the Scottish connector which no doubt exported nuclear electricity.
BIRMINGHAM CELEBRATIONS
Birmingham University is inviting SONE members to a conference on the past and future of nuclear power on June 30 in connection with the 50th anniversary of its MSc course in the physics and technology of nuclear reactors.
Anyone interested should inform the Secretary on 020-8660-8970; or on
GENERAL MEETING – NORTH WEST
We are to continue our practice of holding a summer general meeting outside London on Tuesday, June 27 at Birchwood Park in the angle between the M6 and M62 near Warrington, thanks to the help of a member, Ian Currie, and AMEC NNC, who will be our hosts. Details will be circulated later. We hope to have a briefing on the energy scene in Europe from Foratom.
