THE AVENGEING RENAISSANCE OF NUCLEAR, OR SO IT SEEMS
Stand by for blasting. All that the Prime Minister has said, apparently
having had a briefing on the Government’s energy review, is that
“nuclear power is back on the agenda, with a vengeance”. We have no
idea what the review will say or, if it argues that nuclear’s
development is necessary, what the Government will do to facilitate it.
That has not stopped the anti-nukes and the militant Greens from throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at the very idea we should have more nuclear power stations. Their enthusiasm for powering Britain with renewables, through energy efficiency and presumably by importing vast amounts of carbon-rich gas at enormous expense remains undimmed by engineering advice they ignore.
Their tendentious little ways shine through their every article. They dismiss nuclear as insignificant – a mere eight per cent of energy and a similarly small contributor to carbon reduction – and uncommercial. This, of course, blithely ignores the miniscule contributions of uncommercial renewables (wind) and energy conservation and the inevitable carbon from gas burning whether under power stations or in micro-generation.
In any case, nuclear is required to give greater security of electricity supplies. If its current contribution of 19% to the nation’s electricity supplies were doubled, it could avoid carbon output by up to 20% of the UK total. (It also has longer-term utility in providing the means to new forms of vehicle propulsion – eg hybrid cars and hydrogen – and minimising the use of fossil fuels.) The important point, to judge from Tony Blair’s remarks, is that he has recognised both the gap in electricity supplies that is opening up and the risks attached to importing up to 90% of our energy in the form of natural gas. This makes the case for competitive nuclear, especially in view of the marginal contributions of renewables and energy saving. Gordon Brown is reputed to back it.
What matters now is how the review, expected in July, argues the case and, more importantly, what action it sets in train to secure its objectives. The pace would be forced if the electricity industry confounded the sceptics and anti-nukes by immediately coming forward with a proposal to build a nuclear power station on an existing site.
Areva, which has built 98 of the world’s 446 commercial reactors and is constructing the Finnish station, has told the Government that, with the right processes in place, it could have the first European reactor operating in the UK by 2017 within a competitive market and without Government subsidy..
Our advisers in Westminster are confident that the Commons would back both Government and industry in a free vote. What are we waiting for? Answer: July.
THE PRIME MINISTER’S WORDS
Mr Blair chose to preview the thinking behind the energy review at the May 16 annual dinner of the CBI which, under Sir Digby Jones, has latterly been a vocal advocate of nuclear power.
For purposes of record, Mr Blair said: “Essentially the twin pressures of climate change and energy security are raising energy policy to the top of the agenda in the UK and around the world. The facts are stark. By 2025, if current policy is unchanged, there will be a dramatic gap on our targets to reduce CO2 emissions, we will become heavily dependent on gas and at the same time move from being 80-80% self-reliant in gas to 80-90% dependent on foreign imports, mostly from the Middle East, Africa and Russia.
“These facts put the replacement of nuclear power stations, a big push on renewables and a step-change on energy efficiency, engaging both business and consumers, back on the agenda with a vengeance. If we don’t take these long-term decisions now we will be committing a serious dereliction of our duty to the future of this country”.
Inevitably, for political reasons, Mr Blair linked nuclear with renewables and energy efficiency. We would still like to think he has been listening to SONE.
AREVA’S POINTS
In its submission to the Government’s energy review, revealed mid-May, Areva made the following points: · The Government should facilitate new-build through a modernised planning and regulatory system to make approval processes faster and more predictable.
· The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate should be given the resources to produce its assessments in a timely manner · A policy framework is needed for long-term radioactive waste management to reassure the public and provide potential investors with clarity on potential costs and liabilities · Decommissioning is not a financial obstacle to new build and does not alter nuclear’s competitiveness because the costs can easily be provided for over the 60-year life of a plant · Global uranium supply is sufficient for investment in a new generation of reactors over their life span.
These are SONE’s sentiments exactly.
THE WORSENING BACKGROUND
Mr Blair spoke at the CBI dinner against a deteriorating background. European carbon trading is in a mess. Critics argue that the system had produced higher rather than lower carbon emissions by setting caps too high. Memberstates set the caps and those companies that emit less CO2 can sell their allocation to others. Those that emit more need to buy allowances or face fines.
The UK was spectacularly over quota by 15.7%, along with Ireland (16.4%) and Spain (11.6%).
Germany, France, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were all pretty spectacularly under. Incidentally, France’s quota of 151m tonnes – it produced only 131mt – is 58m tonnes below the British, no doubt because of its vast nuclear power and hydro industries.
The Guardian unwittingly boosted the case for nuclear with a front page lead identifying the top five polluting companies in the UK. Four of them are fossil fuel electricity generators, EON UK, RWE Npower, Drax and EDF.
Mr Putin and his lieutenants further underlined the Prime Minister’s fears of dependence on Russia with threats to divert oil supplies away from Europe in the long term to the Far East if it continues to limit Russian expansion into Western markets.. Gazprom’s interest in Centrica, owner of British Gas, has caused a lot of sucking of teeth in Whitehall.
Preparing for “tight” winter Alastair Darling, the new Industry Secretary, acknowledged – in mid-May – that gas supplies are going to be tight next winter. Things must be bad. Mr Darling is proposing reforms to the planning system to help speed the construction of 10 new gas storage facilities.
He said he would set out measures to MPs “that will enable us to get through the winter, but it’s going to be tight”. Last year UK gas shortages drove up the price to world record levels, cost consumers at least £1bn and closed some intensive gas users.
Refusal to supply by Continental monopolies was widely blamed. The Minister pledged to raise anti-competitive practices with the EU.
He signalled support in principle for Mr Blair’s backing of nuclear power. “The problem with renewables on present technology”, he said, “is that they’re never going to be enough to supply us with the energy we need.” With the departure of Margaret Beckett (from DEFRA to FCO), the sacking of Eliot Morley as Environment Minister, and the earlier move of Patricia Hewitt from DTI to Health, Ministerial interest in nuclear looks brighter.
PLAYING POLITICS?
The Prime Minister’s surprise intervention in support of the nuclear option drew a number of gasps, primarily for anticipating the Government’s energy review. Even Malcolm Wicks, the Energy Minister, seems to have been caught off guard. But then Mr Blair is anything but an orthodox Government leader.
He could once again be accused of giving his CBI audience what it wanted to hear. He might even have been trying to wrong-foot the Greens and anti-nukes with whom, it seems, he is increasingly – and not surprisingly – out of sympathy. He could also reasonably be charged with upsetting and embarrassing the Tory Opposition with malice aforethought (which is surely what Labour politicians are for).
The Blue/Green Tories are conducting their own more leisurely energy review. They give the impression – at least at the top – of being wideeyed renewables, conservation and microgeneration freaks, though Lord Jenkin, a member, told the House of Lords on April 20 he was “very reassured” after discussing nuclear power with David Cameron. Let us mention only Alan Duncan, Tim Yeo and Peter Ainsworth (who has recently told your Secretary he does not want to bother with people with “closed minds and open mouths”).
Nuclear is the option of which Tories dare not speak at present, especially as it has the potential to split them. No doubt Mr Blair knew what he was doing. But for SONE that is not the issue.
The issue is whether he means seriously and determinedly to play the role of statesman in looking after our longer-term energy supply interests.
THE PROS AND CONS
Opposition to the Blair agenda has been largely confined to The Guardian and Independent, with The Guardian the more cautious. “A portfolio of sources, including nuclear, may, as Mr Blair suggests, be the best outcome,” it wrote, “but the unarguable case for nuclear has not yet been made. The debate is more complex than the Prime Minister likes to suggest”.
The Independent, protesting about the Prime Minister “pre-empting” the energy review, said: “The balance of judgement is very far from being as one sided as the Prime Minister makes out.
Given the dangers and the problems of nuclear energy, it would seem only reasonable to lay out just what the true costs and other options are before coming to a decision. The fact that the Prime Minister does not suggests that he has already made up his mind and wishes to pre-empt the decision before the public can decide for itself”.
That could be another way of saying that he has pre-empted the Independent’s efforts over the next few weeks to spike nuclear’s guns. That is, of course, what Ken Livingstone, the curious Mayor of London, Tom Burke, formerly Friends of the Earth, and Joan Ruddock MP, ex-CND, sought to do in familiar terms in the Independent, The Guardian and The Times respectively. The Times itself was rock solid: “The only viable alternative now is nuclear. Of course more must be done across Europe to increase energy efficiency, boost renewable sources and cut waste, as Mr Blair said. But no number of home generators or wind farms will fill the looming energy gap.” The Sun’s simple message was: “Nuclear power is now the only realistic answer. And the sooner the better”. How can we fail?
THE PERILS OF PROMOTION
You will be gratified to learn that your Secretary has been shot at in the line of duty. After he had helped to win an Institution of Civil Engineers’ debate for nuclear 38-12, with three abstentions, an opponent, one Mary Edwards, Friends of the Earth’s East of England campaigns co-ordinator, told him: “I am sure you will be pleased to know I have found you as objectionable in the flesh as I have on radio and TV”. He said he was not merely pleased, but delighted. Collapse of stout lady.
This is one of the perils of going on the road to promote nuclear power. Your Secretary has now undertaken eight speaking engagements to this end in Newcastle upon Tyne (twice), Bath, Welwyn, Stansted and on three occasions in London, the last at the British-North America Committee on May 5 where he was up against the aforesaid Tom Burke.
There seems to be a deep resentment on the part of nuclear’s opponents when a fully irradiated person stands up in their midst and tells them that their clothes are threadbare. Mostly, they are courteous but there is a very sharp edge when you rubbish their highly inventive assertions and statistics. Nuclear is bad and nothing – certainly not facts – is to be allowed to get in the way of that idea.
Their monopoly of euphemisms is striking: Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Sustainable Development Commission. It would be more accurate to call them Greenwar, Enemies of the Earth and the Unsustainable Development Commission. How long can Sir Jonathon Porritt, of the Commission, sustain his position in a nuclear resurgent Britain?
LORD TOMBS DOES IT AGAIN
One of the important functions in life of our patron, Lord Tombs, is to convene an annual energy debate in the House of Lords. This year it was on April 20 – the fifth in the series – when he called attention to the problems in the electricity supply industry which, he said, stemmed from a lack of strategic planning.
He said: “The use of a diversity of primary fuels has served us and other countries well. Its abandonment in favour of ill-conceived alternative policies has resulted from the actions of politicians and regulators mistakenly based on a wholly unrealistic belief that competitive shortterm market forces would achieve satisfactory long-term results. The absence of any industrywide management has abdicated responsibility to pressure groups with little knowledge of the technical and economic factors involved”.
Having criticised the FoE, Greenpeace, DEFRA, academic economists, the Sustainable Development Commission and the Commons’ Select Committee for Environmental Audit, he added: “Not for nothing are environmentalists sometimes described as ‘green’ – green in this case relating to naivete.” He recognised the value of dreams in any society but he feared that the present system of government intervention did not provide the technical expertise to strike the balance between dreams and reality.
IN DEFENCE OF BRITISH ENERGY
In the same Lords’ debate, Lord Jenkin stoutly defended British Energy which has benefited the taxpayer by £2.5bn since its “rescue” in 2002. As new nuclear build loomed, he asked whether the terms imposed on BE in 2002 were being reconsidered.
He added: “Given the huge financial returns that have accrued to the Government – far in excess of the amount they originally lent to the company, as a direct result of the increase in the price of electricity – how can they go on justifying taking 65% of the company’s net cash flow simply to swell the Chancellor’s coffers. Is it the case that they still contemplate forcing the one major British nuclear generator to compete in the market with both hands firmly tied behind its back?”
ADVICE TO ENERGY REVIEW
The Government’s energy review formally closed on April 14 and attracted 5,300 written submissions, including one from SONE. We are grateful to those members who have latterly sent us their personal evidence – C E Pugh (Ruthin), A D Evans (Cumbria) and Graham Brightman (Cumbria).
Both Mr Pugh and Mr Evans made some telling points about costs. Mr Evans said the proposed Sizewell C twin-reactor station in 1994 would at today’s gas prices be cheaper than its then favoured gas-fired rival. It would be even more competitive if gas were to meet the cost of its carbon emissions.
Mr Pugh said that gas-fired power stations could produce electricity at 2.2p/kWh with gas costing 20p/therm. It was now rising to 70p. Every 10p/ therm put up the gas generating cost by 0.6p/ kWh and at 70p/therm the cost of electricity rose to 3p/kWh for fuel alone and to 5.2p/kWh in total. This compares with the Royal Academy of Engineering figure for nuclear of 2.3p/kWh.
GENERAL MEETING, JUNE 27
So far we have about a dozen members signed up for the general meeting for members outside London at AMEC/NNC’s Astely Suite at Birchwood Park, near Warrington, on Tuesday, June 27. The speaker is Sami Tulonen, head of the European Atomic Forum’s (Foratom) institutional relations unit for nuclear generation.
He will speak on the European Commission’s security of supply green paper and Foratom’s follow-up.
For catering and security reasons, would SONE’s substantial membership in the North West please indicate as soon as possible whether they intend to be present to the Secretary on: 020-8660- 8970; mobile: 07860-535962; or e-mail –
