THERE’S NAUGHT FOR YOUR COMFORT DOWN AT THE NATIONAL GRID
As luck would have it, 22 members of SONE visited the National Grid’s
HQ near Reading a week after the lights went out for 500,000 consumers
across the country. We were naturally interested as to the cause of
this unexpected interruption in a system with a 99.99% reliability
record.
The answer, it seems, was an unfortunate coincidence of failures at Sizewell B (nuclear) and Longannet (coal) that removed 1,670MW (1,320 plus 350MW respectively) more or less simultaneously, well beyond the failure limit they plan for. Ah, yes, we said, but could wind have had anything to do with it? Probably nobody knows for sure.
This is because only 900MW of the 2,200MW nominally accredited to wind is directly connected to the grid and monitored. That leaves another 1,200MW swishing around in the system – or not, as the case may be, given the intermittency of wind. It sounds rather a lot to be unaccounted for, but that is in the nature of renewables “embedded” lower down in the system and not monitored at NG level.
NG officials who briefed us were supremely confident in their ability to balance supply and demand provided, of course, there was enough supply available. They also tried hard to keep out of the politics that increasingly dominate management of the grid.
But their manifest worries about the uncertainties of micro-generation, enthusiastically and uncritically espoused by politicians across the spectrum, contrasted sharply with their apparent equanimity over the longer-term prospect of 30,000MW of renewables, mostly wind. Perhaps this was because they expect more inter-connection with the Continent where, we were told, supply is less reliable.
Swapping notes after this fascinating visit, we reached the following conclusion: “Electricity is going to get dearer. Its supply is going to be less reliable. The public are not being told they are going to pay more for a dodgier supply. And nobody is in charge – and hasn’t been ever since privatisation removed any statutory responsibility for ensuring supplies”.
Of all the visits arranged for SONE members, this provided naught for our comfort – and it is only half the story. No wonder Gordon Brown and John Hutton want new nuclear power stations tomorrow.
HARBINGERS OF DOOM
It is perhaps unwise at this stage to get too worked up about wind and micro-generation – and all those other sources of electricity that Greens say render nuclear unnecessary. They are only expensive follies to come, if common sense continues to elude the body politic. More immediate problems lie elsewhere – in the bulk supply of electricity.
We have known for several years that the UK is going to lose about a third of its generating capacity within 10-15 years through the closure of ageing nuclear and coal-fired power stations.
This is what makes political procrastination over nuclear power – and the politicians’ pigheaded preoccupation with unpredictable renewables – all the more frustrating.
Now some – and notably The Times – claim that last month’s blackouts were compounded by the EU’s large combustion plant directive that limits the number of hours coal and oil-fired power station chimney stacks can be in use before they have to close in 2015. This no doubt impairs the flexibility of the network but, given the matter of hours it takes to bring coal- and oil-fired power stations on line, seems hardly likely to have contributed directly to the May 27 difficulties.
But as harbingers of troubles to come in 2015 they are a different matter. Worse still, with only seven years to go, power companies are not exactly rushing to build any kind of power station, apart from heavily subsidised wind. This is not surprising in view of the cost of gas and questions over the security of its supply and the Greens’ vocal opposition to new coal-fired power stations, with carbon capture and storage on this scale unproven.
NOEL EDMONDS’ FORECAST
A few days after we emerged from the National Grid a surprising warning was voiced in the Daily Mirror. It came from Noel Edmonds who presents C4’s Deal or No Deal and helps fund the charity, the Renewable Energy Foundation.
He said: “We are facing a massive energy crisis and the politicians have been very successful in keeping quiet about it…and extremely foolish.
Most people are unaware of this and need to be told”.
Well, he told ‘em. Wind farms, he said, are a “ludicrous” £40bn waste of money. Our politicians are doing nothing to protect our interests in a future tight for natural gas.
And nuclear cannot help with a crisis that is now upon us.
“I predict”, he said, “that within three years we will get used to power cuts at certain parts of the day. Our lives are going to change for ever. The Olympics in 2012 will go ahead. I don’t think they will be held in the dark. But what I do guarantee is parts of the UK will be in the dark just so the Olympics can be held”.
CAMERON BEWARE
It follows that you have to be deaf, blind and walk about with a vacuum between your ears not to recognise that we have a humdinger of a national crisis in the making. No political party can claim immunity when it hits us. All have contributed in various ways to the narrowing gap between supply and demand.
But since David Cameron, with anything up to a 23 point lead in the polls, looks likely to kop it when it happens, he should be arming himself against the day. Perhaps he might start by inviting Professor Michael Laughton, London University’s pre-eminent expert on electricity supply, to tell him the facts of electricity life before taking himself off to the National Grid HQ.
It is true that the Conservatives rallied behind the Government in January when it opened up the market for nuclear power. But we are far from convinced that they are more realistic than Labour about renewables, CHP and microgeneration.
Through intermediaries, your committee is urging the Conservative leadership to take power supply far more seriously.
Politically, it could be a life or death issue for them.
MORE BRASS THAN SENSE
In the modern rush of events and half-hour news bulletins, governments have come to follow the principles that reportedly once governed elections in Northern Ireland: Vote early and vote often.
They produce action programmes often, - if not, as nuclear shows, early, - to give the impression of “purposive” government.
As we were going to press, the Government produced yet another renewable energy strategy in pursuit of the binding but unattainable EU policy of producing 15 per cent of energy supply from renewables – a term that excludes nuclear - by 2020. This would require 40 per cent of electricity from renewables, eight times the most generous estimate of their present output.
According to The Guardian, which claimed to have seen a copy of the consultative document, it proposed a £100bn dash to build up a clean power supply that would transform large areas of the British landscape. Among its proposals are another 3,500 onshore wind turbines, a massive increase in offshore wind power and planting of an area the size of Essex with trees and crops to produce bio-energy.
Greenpeace commented: “If this plan becomes a reality, Britain will be a better, safer and more prosperous country. We’ll create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and use less gas, and in the long run cut power bills”. But even the Renewables Advisory Board reckoned that the most they could get from £100bn would be 14%.
If you believe any of this, you will believe anything. Anybody who thinks spending £100bn on that recipe has no concept of value for money.
It will guarantee only instability, uncompetitiveness and rising carbon emissions.
THE BILLS RISE AND RISE
Talking of value for money, energy analysts are forecasting rises in oil and gas prices of up to 40 per cent during the coming winter, costing the average household another £400 after oil prices soared to near $140 a barrel over the past month.
This is not to mention the bills to come from the knock-on effect on electricity or for subsidising wind and paying for new grids or their reinforcement to take wind power to market. Or where the cash to finance the £100bn new EUimposed bill for renewables and energy conservation is to come from, though you can be sure the consumer will eventually pay.
It really is about time the Government came clean about the implications for people’s purses. If they candidly told them about the relative benefits of renewables and other fancy ideas they would have no difficulty in getting a nuclear programme rapidly under way.
It might also be a smart political move because, while it might split Labour, it would also put the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on the spot. David Cameron has nailed his colours to the green – indeed, the micro-generated green - mast.
THE GOLBY WARNING
This call for candidness on energy realities is not just ours. Paul Golby, chief executive of E.ON, wants it too. He has drawn attention to what he describes as Britain’s “trilemma” – balancing the priorities for carbon, costs and energy security.
“We are calling for a new balanced and honest debate about Britain’s energy needs”, he says, “one that truly assesses the consequences in terms of carbon, costs and security of our energy choices.” Most tellingly, Mr Golby makes it clear that the massive increase (he says up to 50,000MW) of renewable electricity to meet the aforementioned EU targets would require 90 per cent of that as back up from coal and gas plants to ensure supply when intermittent renewables supplies were not available. That would push Britain’s installed conventional power station base up from 76,000 to 120,000MW.
Just imagine the cost of all that plant lying idle, or idling, for when the wind doesn’t blow enough or blows too hard. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad. We can reliably report on the basis of the matter in this Newsletter that we are well round the twist.
GEARING UP FOR NUCLEAR
We are not quite certifiable because the Prime Minister has been in Saudi Arabia trying to trade more oil production for a stake by oil producers, using their massive sovereign wealth from oil, in our nuclear power industry. He thinks the world needs at least another 1,000 nuclear power stations as well as a lot more in Britain than is going to be comfortable for his natural supporters.
All this enthusiasm and urgency are encouraging.
What is more, every week brings more evidence that the UK really is doing what it ought to have done at least 10 years ago in gearing up for a nuclear future.
At a Government conference with industry, Business Secretary John Hutton announced several moves intended, ambitiously, to make the UK “the world’s number one location for new nuclear development”: 1 - a new Office of Nuclear Development to coordinate work across government; 2 - a new Nuclear Development Forum to bring industry and government together to monitor progress on new nuclear build; 3 – the publication of the Strategic Siting Assessment setting out criteria for deciding on the siting of new nuclear power stations; and 4 – an invitation for applications for membership of a Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board to provide independent advice to the Government on the financial element of decommissioning programmes for new nuclear power stations.
And more...
Over and above all this the Government published a policy for dealing with nuclear wastes in a new paper “Managing radioactive waste safely – a framework for implementing geological disposal”. It said that principles of “voluntarism and partnership” are to be used in the selection process.
In other words, communities across the UK – though the Scottish Executive won’t touch nuclear waste with a bargepole – have been invited to express an interest in hosting the facility, without commitment at this stage. If they landed the depository, they would benefit from jobs, infrastructure and a “tailored” benefits package. Perhaps inevitably, this was called a “bribe” by the Greens.
Officials have also announced changes to the rules governing work permits for 28 occupations in engineering, including some specialist nuclear roles, to help new nuclear builders to recruit staff.
Things are moving on the real answer to the UK’s energy security, competitiveness and cleanliness.
It is a pity that as a nation we could not concentrate on nuclear instead of being diverted by grossly expensive renewable illusions.
INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM
If it is any comfort, it isn’t just the UK that lacks sharp focus. So does the International Energy Agency that sits within the OECD in Paris. It has just reported in the grand manner of international bodies that the world needs to spend $45 trillion on clean technologies by 2050.
Without that – estimated at a mere 1.1 per cent of global GDP over the period – carbon emissions would rise by 130 per cent and oil demand by 70 per cent. The IEA’s estimates are intended to guide the G8 group of industrialised nations.
In more detail, the IEA says the world needs to build 32 new nuclear plants and 17,500 wind turbines every year to halve emissions by 2050.
But how can 875,000 wind turbines across the world help if they have to be covered by conventional capacity. Mr Golby and Mr Edmonds would like to know as well as us.
MISOLOGISTS BEWARE
A member of the committee, Professor Jack Simmons, has come up with a new word.
Apparently it was coined by Plato. It is “misologist” which means “a hater of reason”.
There’s a lot of them about. They are all over the place. Anybody by definition who advocates spending £100bn, let alone $45 trillion, on dodgy technology seems to us to be a misologist.
WHO SAYS ITS ALL OVER?
As we are studiedly neutral on man-made global warming, we would hesitate to describe global warmers or their sceptics as misologists. We merely record that more than 31,000 academics, including 9,000 PhDs, have signed a petition rejecting the idea that man is responsible for global warming.
It has been issued by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine in response to Al Gore’s film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth.
They say there is “no convincing scientific evidence that human release of greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate”.
On this evidence, we would be misologists ourselves if we did not brand those who say the argument about man-made global warming is done, dusted and absolutely over.
CHAIRMAN’S APPEAL
With this Newsletter you will have received a personal message from the chairman, Sir William McAlpine, making another appeal for funds over and above subscriptions. It is unfortunately the third he has had to make over the past six years or so. In the past you have given generously and enabled SONE to continue its work.
We hope you will do so again as your committee seeks new sources of finance.
SONE was not established on the basis that it would hang around once nuclear power was under assured development.Last year’s AGM thought things were promising but recognised a lot had yet to be done and that SONE most definitely should continue to try to secure progress. Much work remains, given the soft political support for nuclear and the determination of the militant Greens to cause as much delay as possible.
The chairman seeks your further help in minimising the delay.
NEW BRIEFING NOTE
You will also have received with this Newsletter a revised and updated basic briefing on nuclear power – Nuclear Power in Perspective. It replaces what was simply described as Briefing Note. Members wanting more copies of the new note should e-mail the Secretary on
or ring him on 020-8660-8970.
OBITUARY
We regret to report the deaths of two members – Richard W Phelps CBE, of Christchurch and James R Atkinson, of Cupar, Fife.
Because of successive changes, much of SONE's literature gives incorrect information about contacting us. The Acting Secretary is Sir Bernard Ingham at:
