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Written by SONE
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Wednesday, 01 November 2006 |
A STERN LESSON ON THE NEED FOR NUCLEAR POWER NOW
We have been read a Stern lecture about the need to spend now to avoid
an awful lot more expenditure in the future. In cold figures, it is put
at one per cent of global GDP per year – or £184bn – instead of
anything from five to 20 times as much if we neglect to act now. These
telephone numbers are, of course, mere estimates and, given their
range, pretty meaningless.
Since that was effectively the only “new” message, or scare, coming out
of the Treasury report on climate change, it seems a trifle indulgent
of Sir Nicholas Stern to have devoted 700 pages to the matter.
This magnum opus has not had a good press. It is assumed that the
author has dutifully put an economics stamp on climate change and so
enabled the politicians virtuously to tax us until we are reduced to
green immobility. In our judgement, it has been entirely
counter-productive – a report too far, in fact.
A cynical public doubts whether green taxes will be offset by tax
reductions elsewhere and is becoming thoroughly disgruntled with the
prospect of a far less comfortable lifestyle, priced out of their cars
and cut-price jets just as they are discovering the wider world.
Nor are they daft. There is nothing about global warming, man made or
not, that seems threatening to them. They are rather in favour of
hotter, drier summers and warmer winters. After all, that is what they
seek in their carbon-producing flights abroad.
This is nuclear’s opportunity. We should be asking the public one
simple question: why do you need to pay through the nose when nuclear
can provide much of the electricity we require cheaper than any other
fuel and cut out carbon emissions, reduce the use of fossil fuels and
provide greater security of electricity supply in the bargain? After
all, France gets 83% of its electricity from uranium and has the
cleanest skies in Europe.
Put in those terms, the public, who are by no means ill-disposed to
nuclear power, will want to know what the politicians are up to. Why no
sense of urgency? they will ask the Government which has at last
embraced nuclear as a significant component of energy policy? Why isn’t
nuclear the first not the last resort, they will ask the Conservatives.
And when are you going to get with it? they will ask the Liberal
Democrats, assorted Nationalists and the fundamentalist Greens.
The time has come to cut the political cackle: nuclear’s development is
the acid test of politicians’ domestic and global intentions.
REASON
AND UNREASON
Two vocal respondents to the Stern report – one Lord
(Nigel) Lawson, former Chancellor, and George Monbiot, resident
Guardian green guru – perhaps summarise the reaction.
At a Centre for Policy Studies seminar, Lord Lawson tore into the
Government over the report for “scaremongering” and abandoning reason
in favour of encouraging fear.
“Today we are very conscious of the threat we face from the supreme
intolerance of Islamic fundamentalism”, he said. “It could not be a
worse time to abandon our own traditions of reason and tolerance and to
embrace instead the irrationality and intolerance of ecofundamentalism
where reasoned question of its mantras is regarded as a form of
blasphemy.
There is no greater threat to the people of this planet than the retreat from reason we see all around us today”.
Yet even before Stern had been published Monbiot had come up with a
ten-point “drastic” action plan to avoid runaway climate change. His
formula did not, of course, mention nuclear power.
Good-bye lifestyle
Instead, he wants carbon reduction targets with
plummeting individual carbon quotas for all of us; new high-standard
building regulations; bans on the sale of incandescent light bulbs,
patio heaters, garden floodlights etc; taxes on inefficient electronic
goods; redeployment of money earmarked for an updated nuclear deterrent
on investment in energy generation and distribution, including very
large offshore wind farms and a hydrogen pipeline network replacing the
gas grid for home heating; a new national motor coach network with
motorway terminals; garages to be required to supply leasable electric
car batteries; abandon road building and road widening; freeze and then
reduce airport capacity; and close all out of town superstores in
favour of warehouse and delivery systems.
All this must be done a breakneck speed and, we would add, regardless of feasibility, cost or equity.
We must turn the new twist given to environmentalists’ demands by Stern
to nuclear’s advantage. Why pull society up by its roots when nuclear
can do much to clean up the global act?
THE ADVOCATE
Mr Blair remains
the greatest single political advocate of nuclear power in Britain –
and he is due to stand down next year. He told Parliament mid-month
that without nuclear Britain would not be able to meet its objectives
either on climate change or energy security.
He was speaking against Britain’s move from near self-sufficiency in
oil and gas to the need to import 80 or 90% of its requirements over a
mere 15 years. “In those circumstances”, he said, “and when we also
lose about 15% of our electricity capability through the phasing out of
[ageing] nuclear power stations, I must tell the House that, in common
with countries around the world, we need to put nuclear power back on
the agenda and at least replace the nuclear energy that we will lose”.
New Energy Minister
While these pro-nuclear sentiments were welcome, we
lost in a re-shuffle the Energy Minister, Malcolm Wicks, who piloted
the July energy review that brought nuclear in from the cold and made
it a significant contributor to energy policy. Mr Wicks has replaced
Lord Sainsbury as Science Minister. He fortunately remains in the DTI
where the Secretary of State, Alistair Darling, takes over energy
policy.
Mr Darling thus acquires midstream direct responsibility for the White
Paper, expected next Spring, which will build on the July energy review
and. as such, will be a crucial indicator of Government nuclear intent,
not least for what it reveals about the work done to facilitate nuclear
over the autumn and winter.
Normally, we would not quibble about a Cabinet Minister taking over
policy responsibility from a Minister of State, especially one close to
the apparently pro-nuclear Gordon Brown. But Mr Wicks was the first
Minister since SONE’s formation to meet us and address our AGM. And Mr
Darling can be quite disconcertingly naïve.
Ofgem on micro-generation
At the beginning of the month he claimed that
a radical shift away from large centralised power production to
community-based locally generated energy could help cut carbon
emissions and improve efficiency. In fact, it could just as easily
increase carbon emissions and reduce the efficiency with which energy
is used.
Mr Darling was commenting on the review by Ofgem, the energy regulator,
of both incentives and barriers to the development of distributed
energy, or micro-generation. Off the top of our head, we would mention
as problems economics, rational use of energy, installing CHP in
existing complexes, the ability of modern buildings to bear such
devices as wind turbines and solar panels, coping with unexpected flows
on and off the grid from micro-generation and not least the metering of
those flows.
Ofgem should find that just because Greenpeace thinks “decentralised
energy” is the bees-knees – and takes full page newspaper
advertisements to say so – it is no sound guide to keeping the lights
on.
CONSERVATIVE PARADOX
Why on earth, SONE members ask themselves, did
David Cameron demote nuclear power to “a last resort” just when the
Government restored it as an important component of energy supply? We
suspect it was the please the Greens who will never be happy until we
are back in the age of the pony trap, fuelling our much reduced way of
life with carboniferous horse muck. See George Monbiot above.
The Conservative stance does not really add up, given the decisions the
Conservatives have already made to facilitate nuclear power while
Labour is still in consultation mode.
In a letter to a patron, Lord Walker, a former Secretary of State for
Energy, Alan Duncan, the Shadow Energy Minister, lists the following
Conservative decisions:
1 – Remove the climate change levy.
2 – Introduce a reducing carbon cap, projecting ideally to 2050,
following advice from an independent commission; while wishing to make
the EU’s Energy trading Scheme work better, they would seriously
consider acting unilaterally if there were insufficient international
action.
3 – New nuclear operators to pay only their fair share of waste
management – in other words, to pay only for what they create and not
for clearing up old waste.
4 – Ensure that the planning system and prelicensing are made “fit for
purpose”, coupled with a willingness to look at an international
prelicensing agreement.
There is evidence of some exasperation in Conservative circles with
SONE criticisms. But we must ask: what are decisions which help to
level the playing field for nuclear worth if the Shadow Cabinet really
does think – even though a poll puts 87% of Tory MPs in favour of
nuclear power – nuclear is a last resort?
OUT-STERNING STERN
Stern was
not the only doom monger as winter set in. A business services group,
LogicaCMG issued on November 20 a report to freeze the blood. It said
Britain’s looming energy gap could cost Britain more than £100bn a year
within the next ten years in lost output.
The report claimed that energy demand could outstrip supply by 5% by
2010, rising to 23% by 2015 unless something was done. This could lead
to energy intensive industries such as steel, glass and chemicals
shutting down at peak periods of energy usage. A new nuclear programme
could plug part of the gap but it could not prevent energy shortages
within 10 years.
While we cannot endorse these figures, they do underline our concern
about the Government’s sense of urgency and the at best ambivalence of
other political parties.
Europe, too
The consultant, Capgemini, has also warned of a growing
threat of electricity shortages across Europe because growth in demand
has outstripped investment in new power stations. It said that the
Continent was operating at such a low margin that there was a raised
risk of interruptions in supply to large industrial users, brownouts –
i.e. reductions in supply voltage – and blackouts.
“We are in a dangerous zone now”, a spokeswoman for Capgemini said. “We
could have power cuts”. They came within a month across Germany,
France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Croatia and Italy. This time it seems
they were not because of an actual shortage of supply but because a
power cable was switched off to allow a large liner to pass down the
River Ems. The result: shortages and overloading.
This did not stop the Government of North Rhine Westphalia, the worst
affected area, from identifying a load balancing error after a surge of
supply from German wind turbines.
Getting the wind up
It has not been a good month for wind power’s
credibility. A report published by ABS Research said that with the
industry’s rapid development – the global capacity is likely to rise
from 59,000MW to 136,000MW by 2010 – it was in a highly controversial
phase as operational data became available.
A reality check was needed. An Agentur (Germany) report had questioned
greenhouse gas emissions savings. Eltra said Denmark exported more than
80% of the wind it generated to Norway, which has 98.5% carbon free
hydro generation, because of surplus production, almost nullifying
emissions savings. Wind’s intermittency also placed a large strain on a
transmission system’s balance.
PUSHING NUCLEAR
While the limitations of renewables are being
increasingly identified, some powerful voices have been raised this
month in support of nuclear’s development.
In its World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency for the
first time urged governments to build more nuclear plants to increase
energy security and slow climate change. Together with energy
conservation, it said nuclear could cut consumption of fossil fuels by
10% by 2030.
It added: “The economics have moved in nuclear power’s favour. Nuclear
power offers considerable advantages in terms of avoiding greenhouse
gas emissions and energy security”.
Claude Mandil, IEA’s executive director, commented: “The energy future
we are facing today, based on projections of current trends, is dirty,
insecure and expensive. New government policies could create an
alternative that was clean, clever and competitive”
US opinion positive
A new nationwide survey of American opinion finds that 68% favour
nuclear energy and 81% believe it will play an important role in
meeting future electricity needs.
Three of the more interesting detailed findings were that: l 76% agreed
US utilities should prepare now so that new nuclear plants can be
built, if needed, within 10 years l 77% associated nuclear energy “a
lot” or “a little” with clean air; 81% with reliability; and 71% with
affordable electricity costs.
We do not believe such good numbers would come out of a UK survey. This
is not surprising in view of, until recently, the political sidelining
of nuclear power.
Trenchant critic
Meanwhile, Dr James Martin, founder of the James
Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation at Oxford, has accused
environmental groups of setting back the fight against global warming
with misguided and irrational objections to nuclear power.
While the anti-nuclear campaign is wellintentioned, he said, it
fundamentally misunderstood the safety of the latest generation of
reactors and threatened to hold back a technology that could be
critical to the world’s future.
Dr Martin, a computer scientist and physicist, has spent much of his IT
and publishing fortune on environmental science research.
MISSING TARGETS
One thing is clear, the Greens’ enthusiasm for
renewables, energy saving and carbon reducing targets is not
delivering. In Britain, CO2 emissions are higher than when the present
Government came to office in 1997 and on the Continent at least seven
countries – Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and
Spain – of the EU 15 committed to Kyoto will miss their targets.
Spain, allowed a rise of 15% on 1990 emissions, is projected to exceed them by 51% in 2012.
Against an allowed 13% increase, Ireland is set to be emitting 30% more
and Portugal 42.7% more against an allowed increase of 17%.
This Newsletter thus shows that current policy is not working on
security of supply, on carbon reduction and in delivering competitive
energy.
Just look at the waste in Denmark’s dumping most of its wind power on that ultra-clean generator, Norway.
WHAT’S GOING ON?
Those who attended SONE’s AGM on October 24 will
recall that the then Energy Minister confirmed that CO2 sequestration –
dumping – under the seabed was illegal under the London and OSPAR
conventions. He said that this would need to be changed for
sequestration to go ahead.
You can therefore imagine our surprise when the New Scientist reported
mid-month that the London convention had been suitably amended as from
November 2 and 20 countries had ratified the change. We are trying to
find out what has been going on.
CHAIRMAN’S APPEAL
In accordance with a decision at SONE’s AGM, the
chairman, Sir William McAlpine, has now written to members to launch
another appeal to repair SONE’s funds.
He says: “We clearly have a great deal to do to ensure that the
Government’s switch of policy within three years from sidelining
nuclear power to embracing it is carried through. The size of the
educative task we face is not matched by the resources left in SONE’s
reserves. They are a good £1,000 lower than when the last appeal was
launched”.
The last appeal two years ago raised £5,000 and enabled SONE to mount a
campaign to promote nuclear power as the Government was formulating a
new policy.
We hope you will give generously. Cheques for SONE should be sent
direct to the Treasurer, Jim Corner, to 3 Highgrove, Tunbridge Wells,
Kent TN2 5NF.
The chairman and committee wish all SONE members a Happy Christmas and a successful nuclear New Year. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 01 December 2006 )
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