IS DEFRA WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED FOR ENERGY POLICY?
One of the more canvassed initiatives for Gordon Brown’s first 100
dynamic days as Prime Minister would kill off the Department of Trade
and Industry and distribute its responsibilities around Whitehall. The
Treasury and the Environment department (DEFRA) are, it seems, likely
to be the principal beneficiaries.
We have some experience of departmental re-organisations. They usually produce a fair amount of initial chaos but not necessarily better government. We acquired a Department of Energy in the middle of an oil, coal and political crisis in 1974, partly to handle the arrival of North Sea oil and gas, but it quite failed to prepare for the first inevitable challenge to the government of the day by Arthur Scargill early in the 1980s.
Traditionally, we only get an independent Energy department when there is a crisis. Mr Brown does not apparently read the future in such traumatic terms. According to the no doubt inspired leaks/ rumours/speculation, he is going to transfer the DTI’s energy responsibilities to DEFRA. Energy and environmental policy are to be brought under one roof in what Mr Brown hopes the voters will see as a serious response to climate change.
The prospect of such Whitehall tinkering is exciting remarkably little comment. After all David Miliband, the Environment Secretary (who swears he will not challenge Mr Brown for the Labour leadership), will, as things stand, inherit energy – and he is pro-nuclear. So, it is said, is Mr Brown.
But Mr Brown will inherit a comprehensive portfolio of other problems and we have no idea whether he will be as pro-nuclear as Tony Blair, although he has a penchant for tackling global scourges such as poverty.
Come to think of it, we have no idea how pro-nuclear Mr Blair is, either – and we won’t know until we see the colour of his Energy White Paper next month. That may answer the question – but rather too late for Mr Blair to do anything about it.
Meanwhile, as we await the news, we are not inclined to throw our caps over the windmill about DEFRA taking responsibility for energy policy. Already energy policy is subservient to environmental policy to the detriment of the national interest.
Unless the environmental grip on energy policy is broken we are heading for trouble. Mr Brown should use the next few weeks before he (presumably) moves into No 10 to think again. On present form, DEFRA in charge of energy policy is calculated to produce an environmental, industrial and economic disaster.
IS SCEPTICISM WRONG?
We have been taken to task by an Edinburgh member, Steuart Campbell, for airing our scepticism about man-made global warming leading to climate change. He does not think it is SONE’s purpose to take any stance on global warming which, he says, is “an hypothesis supported by a great deal of evidence and so is accepted as the most likely explanation”.
Mr Campbell also argues that Dr Halibullo Abdussamatov, head of St Petersburg’s Pulkova Astronomical Observatory, is wrong in suggesting that global warming is the result of solar irradiance, as we reported in the March Newsletter, because there is apparently global warming on Mars without Martians.
We are deeply grateful to Mr Campbell for his detailed help in preparing SONE briefings but we think he is wrong in being against any expression of SONE scepticism.
The case for doubt
We are frankly amazed that so many scientists on both sides of the global warming argument are so sure of themselves when the more humble meteorologists admit we do not really know what makes climate. It therefore seems prudent for us to exhibit a certain scepticism as distinct from wild enthusiasm for or flat opposition to the hypothesis. Scepticism is the middle ground in this business.
It also seems necessary to ensure that SONE members hear something of both sides of the argument when there is so much pressure to close down the discussion whether from the Royal Society, assorted US senators or the more propagandist of the British media.
We must also confess we see no future for nuclear in the UK if its case is narrowly based on climate change when scientific fashion changes so abruptly. Until the 1980s global cooling was all the rage and it has never been adequately explained why global warming took over if scientists, in their cold phase, knew that CO2 acted like a duvet.
The case for nuclear rests squarely on the need for more secure supplies of electricity at competitive prices and the need to minimise the use of finite fossil fuels. If man-made global warming is a reality, then nuclear is even more necessary. If man-made global warming is a myth, the dash out of nuclear into coal (and to hell with the miners who have to dig it out) and into gas (regardless of President Putin and Islamic extremism) will make the Calgary Stampede look like an egg and spoon race.
ANOTHER SCARY INSTALMENT
April brought yet another instalment in the Fourth Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is becoming tiresome, with apparently a third report to come in May. Why cannot the IPCC issue one definitive document? One possible reason is that the UN wishes to milk successive instalments for all the scary propaganda they have to offer since governments across the world seem inclined to pay only lip service to global warming.
There were plenty of catastrophic scenarios in the latest report and The Times found it all somewhat over the top. While judging the case for accelerating climate change as “convincing”, it said “the world is in danger of being held captive by powerful lobby groups that have distorted data, made unjustified extrapolations and attempted to stifle debate on one of the most important issues of our time”.
Beware zealots After drawing a distinction between forecasts and worst-case scenarios, it warned of the danger of zealotry. “There have already been examples”, it added, “of environmental scientists hounded out of their jobs for daring to question the prevailing orthodoxy. The IPCC summary is inevitably a political narrative, one in which each word and phrase will be endlessly and selectively parsed by the likes of Greenpeace and friends.
“The planet deserves the benefit of the doubt. Climate change is serious and must be a political priority. But the arguments must be subject to free and rigorous debate and the facts separated from fanciful predictions – the environment is too important to be bequeathed to the hysterical”.
In the meantime, we are told that the snows of Kilimanjaro (19,340ft) are not melting.but evaporating. Austrian scientists say that the problem is precipitation, not temperature, and reflects a drier climate since the late 1880s. They reckon there will be glaciers on Africa’s tallest mountain for at least twice as long as forecast – i.e until 2040 - and longer if it gets wetter.
EU POLICY WITHOUT LOGIC
Paul Spare, a consultant engineer and a member of SONE’s committee, has written a fascinating – and mind-boggling - analysis of the implications of the European Union’s binding target of securing 20 per cent of its energy (surely it means electricity) from renewables by 2020. His article will soon appear on SONE’s website and raises the question as to whether politicians across the world any longer seek advice from engineers as to what is possible.
He reveals the massive impact that such a policy would have were it feasible and the colossal sums needed to finance the expansion of renewables on top, for example, of the unknown demands for capital to introduce carbon capture and sequestration of CO2 emissions from coal- and gas-fired power stations.
An estimate of the cost of the EU’s climate change goals has been produced by McKinsey, the consultants. They give a figure of £747bn – or a trillion euros – over 14 years – an average of, say, £40bn to £60bn a year until 2020. This would be spent on reducing, theoretically at any rate, CO2 emissions, regardless of the production of CO2 across the rest of the world.
It seems to be a massive outlay for an uncertain return, especially if nuclear power is ignored. It also begs the question that, if the rest of the world negates Europe’s savings, would it not be better to devote the money to adapting to the supposed effects of climate change? Mr Spare says the EU policy is without logic.
NOT SO SIMPLE
What is clear from all this – and Kilimanjaro, above – is that coping with a changeable climate and finding ways to make it less changeable are not a simple as some would have us believe.
For example, we are now told that planting trees in the frozen North will not necessarily help to reduce global warming because they tend to absorb the sun’s rays and trap heat rather than allowing snow to reflect radiation back into space.
In the Americas, the drive to produce ethanol (for cleaner engines) from corn is raising the price of tortillas in Mexico and beef, pork and chicken in the USA. Bakers and livestock farmers are having to bid against the ethanol industry for supplies of corn.
Thrashing around
In Europe, the EU wants transport to get 10 per cent of its motive power from bio-fuels by 2020. This implies that the UK, with an annual oil consumption by transport of 50m tonnes, would require 5m tonnes of oil equivalent in the form of bio-fuels for transport.
Paul Spare (see above) has told The Times that this would require a crop area of 2m hectares – twice the area currently given over to cereal crops in the UK and equivalent to the land covered by eight average-size English counties. He wrote: “Since massive additional areas suitable for cereal growing do not exist, our varied arable farmland would have to be converted to a monoculture crop ocean like the American prairies. Even so, wheat/barley exports would have to give way to imports and the former recipients of our exports would see their food supply disappear into our petrol tanks. How many millions will be wasted on this scheme before the physical limitations are recognised?” Mr Spare might have added that the impact on flora, fauna and the nature of the countryside would be dramatic. On this evidence, we can safely conclude that Europe’s politicians are thrashing around and environmentally at least have thought nothing through.
MODERATION IN ALL THINGS
Talking of thinking things through, there are some members who believe we need to clarify our minds about our lifestyle. Sir Christopher Audland, a SONE patron and former director general of energy in the European Commission, does not agree with those who think that nuclear is the answer to all our prayers. He also argues that among the other measures required is a more less-demanding lifestyle.
There will be few members who would disagree with him on either count, though we should not lose sight of the fact that nuclear power could render all-electric homes and cars virtually CO2- free. We do not need to break our arms lifting the Sunday newspapers or fill a sack with packaging after the weekly shop, though newspapers and retailers, living in a competitive economy, may not agree.
Common sense teaches that in this throw-away age we are profligate in the use of resources and the energy required to turn them into products and their surrounding packaging. Malthus warned us at the tail-end of the 18thC that population would outstrip resources and the Club of Rome reported on the limits to growth in the 1970s. But there is not much evidence mankind took any notice any more than there is that we recognise, in our behaviour, that oil and gas will eventually run out.
Economy v “open skies”
The plain fact is that our behaviour is often at odds with our professed objectives. Take, for example, the EU’s “open skies” aviation deal with the USA that will almost certainly give a huge boost to transatlantic air travel only weeks after it agreed a huge mandatory cut in CO2 emissions.
Politicians the world over, but more immediately in the West, are faced with a long term need to manage expectations and demand without sacrificing their political careers by asking voters to don hairshirts. It follows that we should not expect a dramatic breakthrough in attitudes or behaviour. But that does not mean we should not take energy conservation seriously. One of the tests of the forthcoming Energy White Paper should be its approach to economy in the use of resources.
It follows that it will not pass muster unless it embraces nuclear power wholeheartedly and looks forward to the development of the fast reactor.
GEARING UP FOR NUCLEAR
If the White Paper is mealy-mouthed about nuclear’s development, it will be at odds with world trends. The information flowing into us from across the globe tells but one story: the developed and developing worlds are gearing up for a substantial increase in the number of nuclear power stations.
One indicator is the soaring price of uranium.
Another is the surge in activity in uranium exploration, development and mining. Urenco is awash with orders for fuel.
The World Nuclear Association also reports that, as of January this year, 250 reactors were planned, proposed or under construction to a total capacity of 215,821MW. This compares with the 435 reactors currently in operation with a capacity of 368,860MW.
The main expansion is in China (68), Russia (32), India (26), South Africa (25), USA (24) and Japan 14. In Europe 14 are under construction or contemplated – all of them in former Soviet satellites apart from France and Finland.
In other words, the world, if not Europe, is looking to increase its nuclear generating capacity by around 60 per cent. Remember that figure when you read the White Paper.
NEW PATRON
We are delighted to announce that Mr Damon de Laszlo, a businessman and chairman of the Economic Research Council, has accepted an invitation to become a patron of SONE.
Mr Laszlo is a long standing member of SONE and last year published through the Economic Research Council a pamphlet on “The New Economics of Energy Security” containing an essay by SONE’s Secretary. He has latterly embarked on a research project on nuclear issues.
CULHAM MEETING
There are still places available for SONE’s regular meeting for members outside London which is this year being held at JET Culham on Tuesday, June 19. We shall be given a progress report on fusion by our hosts followed by a buffet lunch and a tour of the project.
Those wishing to attend should get in touch with the Secretary on 020-8660-8970 or by e-mail:
Names are required for security and catering purposes. Directions to Culham will be given in the next Newsletter.
AGM
Please note that SONE’s annual general meeting will be held this year at the Institution of Mechnical Engineers at 1 Birdcage Walk, London SW1 (just off Parliament Square), by courtesy of British Energy, on Tuesday, October 23. The speaker in the afternoon (2pm) will be Mr Bill Coley, chief executive of British Energy.
SONE’s AGM will be held from 12noon to 1.15pm, when there will be a buffet lunch. After nine years’ operations, we shall need to review SONE’s future in the light of the Energy White Paper.
NUCLEAR WASTE BRIEFING
All members should by now have received the latest SONE briefing paper on nuclear waste.
This is an important addition to our armoury of briefing and has been very well received. We hope members will ensure its wide distribution. Copies can be ordered from the Secretary (for contact details see “Culham meeting” above).
CHAIRMAN’S APPEAL
The chairman will soon be writing individually to the 142 members who contributed the magnificent sum of £6,875 to his appeal for funds at the turn of the year to convey his – and the committee’s – appreciation. These donations have enabled us to produce several briefing notes in this crucial year for nuclear and to plan their deployment to effect.
