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Written by SONE
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Tuesday, 01 August 2006 |
IT’S NOT ALL OVER BAR THE SHOUTING – THERE’S A LOT TO DO YET
SONE’s responses to the Government and Conservative energy reviews can
be summarised very simply. Labour’s is a big improvement on its 2003
Energy White Paper but lacks urgency. The Conservatives’ effort is
irresponsible since it differs little in substance from Labour’s 2003
White Paper.
We note sadly that Labour is now the only party that sees nuclear as part of the generating mix. We shall judge its performance, including the White Paper promised for the turn of the year, by how urgently it facilitates nuclear’s development and deals with the longer-term management of nuclear waste now that the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management’s report has killed any excuse for further delay.
Meanwhile, we await the Conservatives’ recovery from their bout of green hallucinations and, as ever, we hope that energy reality will eventually dawn for the Liberal Democrats.
Lest anyone think SONE’s eight year campaign for a new nuclear power station programme is all over bar the shouting, we feel obliged to point out that having only one of the three major parties on our side – and Labour uncertainly so at that – is far from encouraging progress. It could be argued that we are no worse off since back in 1998 we could rely – again only very uncertainly – on the Conservatives.
Others – and we agree with them – say that it is a very long time indeed, getting on for 25 years, since there was any prospect of nuclear’s development. That brought Sizewell B without which we might now be in queer street. At least nuclear’s role in meeting energy policy objectives is now properly recognised by the Government.
True, but Tony Blair is on his way out and Labour is instinctively, though perhaps not predominantly, anti-nuclear. Is Gordon Brown (or any potential Blair successor) likely to prove as effective a champion of nuclear? Blair has at least got atomic power on the agenda. Can Brown finish the job? All this means that nuclear’s development is in the hands of politicians. Since they are notoriously unreliable, we must recognise we face a hard struggle and, at best, some years yet, given all the infrastructural work required, before we start replacing our nuclear stock.
This is why we shall judge the Government’s welcome pro-nuclear step by the urgency it brings to tackling the preparatory work for a nuclear power programme. The other reason is that the future is fraught with the risk of power failures after the long years of procrastination. The fact that nuclear can do little to reduce the risk immediately is no reason for further dithering; rather it should be a spur to making sure we have enough clean electricity in the medium to long-term.
AGM – OCTOBER 24
A reminder: SONE is to hold its AGM at the Royal Academy of Engineering, 29 Great Peter Street, SW1, from 12 noon to 3pm on Tuesday, October 24. The speakers will be the Minister for Energy, Malcolm Wicks (on the Energy Review) and Professor Michael Laughton, of the University of London, who will give an engineer’s view of energy policy.
FAILURE OF POLICY
The need for a sense of urgency that we find lacking in the Government’s Energy Review has to be judged against the comprehensive failure of energy policy. Security of supply is now substantially less than when the Government came to office.
We have had alarms about the availability of sufficient generating capacity since 2000, two during the recent hot spell. The Industry Secretary says this winter will be “tight”. North Sea oil and gas reserves are falling more rapidly than expected, we face increasing reliance on imported natural gas from unstable areas and much of our coal is imported, too.
World prices of oil and gas have soared and, thanks to a wilful refusal to liberalise energy markets on the Continent, we are paying over the odds for gas. “Fuel poverty”, as relative poverty is described, will be a big issue this winter.
Under the influence of the “Greens”, CO2 emissions are rising and are back to 1997 levels when the Government came to office. Energy conservation’s contribution to the demand/supply equation is imperceptible. Electricity demand rises by 1-1.5 per cent a year.
Ergo we urgently need clean, reliable, safe and economic power that only nuclear and hydro can currently supply. The Government recognises this but where’s the urgency?
BACKING LOSERS
While promising to ditch the Climate Change Levy for a carbon levy that will more precisely target CO2 emissions, the Conservatives’ Energy review states: “We strongly support the EU Emissions Trading Scheme as a cost-effective method of reducing carbon emissions”.
This and their support for micro-generation and distributed power networks makes us wonder whether they know what they are talking about.
Take the EU industry-based scheme, created in 2005, which allows member states to set their own targets for emissions reduction up to 2008.
In 2005 only four of the 25 members had lower targets than their actual emissions. It cost only Austria, Ireland, Spain and (massively) the UK anything in cash; the rest made a profit.
Indeed, it is estimated that over the first three years of the scheme British industry will transfer nearly £1.5bn to European competitors, based on the £470,000 paid over last year.
The EU has been told all this in meetings. What is more, the Government has known about the scheme’s limitations for some time. Patricia Hewitt wrote to Commission President Romano Prodi as early as July 2004 complaining about other member states’ lack of rigour in target setting. So, why on earth do the Conservatives strongly support the system when there is no evidence that it is limiting CO2 emissions?
SPEAKING WITH ONE VOICE
In SONE’s response to the Government’s Energy Review we make the point that, since the Government now believes nuclear is necessary, it should stop being mealy mouthed about it, actively promote it and forcibly reply to the many representations made about it.
It would help, we say, if Government departments spoke with one voice. In particular, we hope for an immediate improvement in DEFRA’s presentation. Just before publication of the Energy Review its journal headlined the Prime Minister’s statement at the CBI dinner with “Nuclear power – back with a vengeance?” Please note the question mark, as if the Prime Minister’s assertion counted for little.
The subsequent article raised doubts about the private sector investing in nuclear. It quoted nuclear opponents, including Eliot Morley, former Environment Minister, claiming that nuclear would cost “over a billion pounds more than renewables and would reduce climate change emissions by far less”.
In response to Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EdF, who wanted nuclear power to be counted as a non-carbon emitting form of generation, it reported unidentified campaigners as saying that this would amount to a subsidy, even though nuclear emits next to no greenhouse gases.
Finally, under a heading, “Nuclear not trouble free”, DEFRA reported 57 “incidents” at existing nuclear sites since 1997, but had the grace to quote a DTI official as saying that none posed any danger.
Some might describe all this, and Friends of the Earth dismissing Blair’s energy review as a “sham”, as admirably open reportage for a Government preoccupied with “the line”. But the tone and presentation were negative. Will DEFRA persist? This is a test of the unity of Government purpose.
AN AMERICAN SURPRISE
We are used to condemnation of the United States for its anti-social approach to Kyoto. But last year it virtually stabilised its carbon emissions (up only 0.1%) even though its economy grew by 3.5%, twice the European average. Aircraft
emissions declined, road transport’s recorded no growth and industry’s fell by 3.3%.
The US Energy Department says rising fuel prices have had a profound effect on the economy, encouraging a shift to more efficient technology and a decline in carbon usage.
It is claimed that since 1997, when Kyoto was signed, the US has made more progress in reducing its per capita fossil fuel emissions than the UK, France, Spain, Finland, Sweden and Japan. Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland are massively adrift on meeting their Kyoto targets.
AN AUSTRALIAN SHOCKER
In a technical paper prepared for the Australian Nuclear Forum last month, J R Fredshall, sought to quantify the cost in CO2 emissions of the rise in political influence of the anti-nuclear movement following Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986).
He showed that the average net annual increase in nuclear generation across the world more than halved between 1990 and 2004. Extrapolating these rates to 2006 he calculated the loss in nuclear power output and then assumed that the nuclear power stations that might have been built were replaced by coal or gas-fired plant.
This led him to conclude that the extra amount of CO2 emitted during the period 1988-2005 was 8.5bn tonnes if coal were the sole replacement or 5.5bn tonnes if it were gas. In practice, neither coal nor gas would be used exclusively as replacements so the figures are merely indicative.
The coal figure - 8.5bn tonnes – is more than the total CO2 emissions during 2004 from the USA, EU, China and India.
Mr Fredshall commented: “Either outcome hardly seems to be a commendable one for those in the anti-nuclear movement who also claim to be protectors of the environment”.
MacSHANE’S FIVE POINTS
One of our patrons, Dr Denis MacShane MP, former Minister for Europe, argued the case for nuclear from five perspectives at a recent conference. They were: · Ethical – it is our ethical duty to prevent climate change and embrace nuclear and renewables to that end · Developmental – By 2020 half the world’s population will be living in cities and to survive they will need electricity. To deliver that without CO2 emissions requires nuclear power.
· Cultural – The defence of science against irrationality is a key 21stC goal and nuclear energy, fission, fusion and fast-breeding allows the possibility of defeating the anti-science forces.
· Moral – A society that requires its power to be generated by destroying the lives of so many men (coal miners) is one that has its priorities wrong.
· Geo-political – Europe cannot create a space in which society and economy can co-exist or export the rule of law and other democratic values if all its energy comes from sources that do not respect rule of law, hold human rights in contempt or seek to use energy as a political tool.
There was no alternative to nuclear if we were to achieve that geo-political aim.
None of this, he said, was to gainsay the need for renewables or new technologies but those against nuclear must accept that renewables and new technologies were not free of problems. We needed energy more than ever in human history to allow human progress. That progress would not happen without nuclear.
“A GLOWING REPORT”
That was how the Daily Telegraph headlined a review of a BBC2 Horizon programme in the week that the Government announced it was embracing nuclear power. It set out to give the facts about, for example, Chernobyl (only 56 dead so far 20 years after the accident) and hormesis – ie that a little radiation may do you good..
This had the reviewer of the programme, Gerard O’Donovan, asking some pertinent questions.
Have we been panicking unnecessarily about radiation? Are we letting myth control our energy policies? Did those leukaemia hotspots we used to hear about never exist? One swallow does not make a summer, but there will be those who wonder after this programme whether the Government’s decision to embrace nuclear signals a more factual, less emotive approach to nuclear power by the media? We don’t think Horizon signals anything like that since it must have been in preparation for months. But it’s timing was impeccable.
MORE GOOD NEWS
Members who read last April’s National Geographic magazine’s extended report on Chernobyl generally agreed that it was pretty balanced and objective. It generated a lot of letters and an editorial note in the July edition reported that more than 70 per cent of their correspondents were of the opinion that the advantages of nuclear power outweighed its disadvantages.
Things are also looking up in another way. EON is advertising in the latest issue of Professional Engineer for engineers with the capability to take part in the planning and licensing of new nuclear plants. It is particularly looking for those with experience of relations with safety regulators.
IRELAND AWAKE
Last month a group of scientists, businessmen and academics set up the Republic of Ireland’s first pro-nuclear campaign group called Better Environment with Nuclear Energy (BENE). It aims to persuade the Government, policymakers, industry and public of the benefits of nuclear power.
It has an uphill task since the Irish Electricity Regulation Act 1999 specifically precludes the use of nuclear fission for the generation of electricity in the Republic. This was confirmed last month by an amendment outlawing nuclear power to the Planning and Development Bill.
The group – like SONE made up solely of individuals – says that the nuclear debate in Ireland has been more emotional than rational and Ireland was already importing nuclear electricity from Britain via interconnectors.
The group’s leading lights (some of whom are in touch with SONE) are: Dr David Sowby, former scientific secretary to the International Commission on Radiological Protection; Professor Philip W Walton (Applied Physics, Galway); Frank J Turvey, former assistant chief executive to the Irish Radiological Protection Institute; Jim Morrisey, nuclear researcher; and John Stafford, businessman.
TWO NUGGETS
The aforementioned Dr Sowby prosecuted BENE’s campaign with a letter to the Irish Times on July 18 putting Sellafield’s radioactive discharges in perspective.
He said the Radiological Protection Institute for Ireland estimated that a heavy consumer of seafood (half a pound a day) received an annual dose from Sellafield of less than 2 microsieverts – about one per cent of that received from naturally occurring radioactivity in the same seafood. Anyone flying from Dublin to London received 3 microsieverts.
Even someone who gorged themselves every day for a year on half a pound of seafood from the Irish Sea would not incur a discernible health hazard. It would be impossible to convince judges that Sellafield discharges (about which Irish politicians are paranoic) are illegal.
The second nugget comes from the aforementioned Horizon. Remember all those Welsh sheep farmers whose land is still supposed to be tainted by Chernobyl fall-out. Horizon told us that even if we ate their lamb chops every day for a year we would absorb less radiation than from one dental X-ray.
EBB AND FLOW
The current ebb and flow of enthusiasm for various renewables is with tidal power. We should therefore draw your attention to a letter by Dr W Roscoe Howells, formerly director of scientific services to the Welsh Water Authority, to the Western Mail. He called for enthusiasm for a Severn barrage to be “tempered by realism and great caution”.
“Only a very few tidal barrages have ever been constructed and significant environmental problems have been experienced at all of them”, he said. “The construction of a Severn barrage would change that estuary for ever”.
He reported that an investigation of the likely effects of a Severn barrage in the 1980s identified problems of water quality and sediments above and below the barrage; major effects on birds and animals living and feeding in and around the estuary; and a potentially disastrous impact on salmon fisheries.
CLEAN UP COSTS
Every time you blink the cost of nuclear decommissioning and waste management goes up. David Evans, a Cumbrian member, says the latest £90bn estimate is meaningless by itself. In a letter to the press, he believes the quoted average of £900m to decommission each of the 11 Magnox stations is an over-estimate. The figure quoted for modern PWR stations is £300m – an insignificant sum set against its lifetime generation of electricity worth £15bn.
“The truth”, he says, is that decommissioning modern nuclear stations is easy in engineering terms and the effect on generating costs is small”. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 11 September 2006 )
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