LONDON, 26 November 2005 — This is not cold weather for late November in Britain. There is no energy shortage. Domestic gas bills in the UK are the lowest in the EU. Electricity is 10 percent cheaper than in 1997. A few imprudent industries refused fixed prices to play the energy spot market, but squeal now the market is against them. They represent only 0.05 percent of industry, despite the Confederation of British Industry’s (the CBI) Digby Jones crying wolf over yet another “government crisis.”
Behind this scare is the nuclear-power lobby waking like the kraken to warn of imminent power cuts, in time for Tony Blair’s announcement next week of another energy review. It will be headed by the UK energy minister, Malcolm Wicks — a hopeful sign of sanity — but Friends of the Earth finds it somewhat ominous that we need another review just three years after the last.
A colossal decision on nuclear power will be made through a thicket of energy factoids. Note how cleverly the language is framed already, implying that nuclear is common sense and anything else is “alternative” to it — probably wearing woolly hats and fingerless gloves.
This will be a case study in political decision-making — rational and transparent or dismally dysfunctional. Watch how the wind of opinion changes, who manipulates it, how and why. See how emotion, political predilection and even gender swing the debate on both sides. What should be the ground rules for this review? Global warming is more dangerous than any other threat. Its progress is certain, its deadly effect already striking down the weakest. A few Chernobyls would do nothing like the damage caused by melting ice caps, flood and drought. Let’s all agree on that, right? Nuclear power with low CO2 emissions is better than doing nothing.
So here’s the first question: Does nuclear give us more clean kilowatts per buck? Second: If the price of other clean forms of generation is roughly comparable or even a little more, why needlessly store up nuclear waste that is a hazard for centuries? Third: Will the government ensure an absolutely transparent level playing field, so that nuclear decommissioning costs and accident insurance are upfront and not fudged? Fourth: If investors demand fixed energy prices for decades ahead to make it worth investing in unproven technologies (nuclear or alternative), will that price guarantee be for all technologies?
Now for the factoids. Deliberate confusion is sown, even over the few hard facts. Figures get bamboozled between electricity use, total energy use and emissions. Get this clear: For all the waste and terrorist threats it produces, nuclear power, if it is maintained, will still only prevent 10 percent of the rise in our CO2 emissions because electricity represents a relatively small part of our total energy use. Yet it is discussed as if it were the only show in town, as if nothing else has to be done.
Here’s another hard fact: The British government has had to give the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority £56 billion to clean up after existing nuclear plants. That wasted cash is more than enough to provide as much renewable energy as we could use, by anyone’s sums.
Remember the history of nuclear stations, far more expensive than expected and quite intermittent as they often went off-line with cracks and failures. Unsurprisingly, the market has refused to build any for 20 years since Sizewell B plant: Too costly, too risky. New nuclear stations — as yet built nowhere — may work better, but no one knows. Finland has started to build one and the world is watching: The price is unknown as it is hugely subsidized by France on a fixed-cost deal as a loss-leader, a market distortion curiously ignored by pro-nuclear conservatives. We wait to see how cost effective it is, even then.
Pro-nuclearists estimate a cost of £10 billion to build and £10 billion to decommission if we are to replace Britain’s existing stations.
According to the 2002 Cabinet Office review, offshore wind costs the same per kilowatt. The engineers WS Atkins, reviewing an application to build a tidal lagoon generator off Swansea, south Wales, say that will cost about the same. The (River) Severn estuary, in the west of England, could provide enough tidal power per unit price as three nuclear power stations. Onshore wind is cheaper again, but its beautiful turbines distress a countryside lobby that tolerates hideous pylons and forgets the thousands of windmills in every landscape a couple of centuries ago. Clean technology using biomass in coal-powered stations could become CO2 emission negative, eating more CO2 in growing fuel than is produced in burning it.
Domestic and micro-generation could offer a wind turbine beside every satellite dish on every house, just as combined heat and power boilers now generate electricity in homes. Public attitudes will change when people see smart meters moving forward or backwards, using or selling power back to the grid for the first time. There is a whole array of alternatives that claim to be able to generate more and emit less, if only they were given the green light.
We may all have views, but what can we know, who only stand and watch the economists and scientists argue? The decision is critical because the market is poised, waiting to decide which way to invest. If the world is nuclear, all the money will go into that one technology. If the world is definitely not nuclear, then it makes it worth investing in a host of tidal, wind, solar, biomass, clean coal, carbon sequestration and micro home-generators. Any or all of them could employ millions and develop highly exportable new technologies.
Some things we can know. We can detect cant, commerce and prejudice. We can be highly suspicious of those who want a big quick fix, no complexity or diversity; let’s just build nuclear and forget about global warming. The right thinks nuclear promises limitless clean energy for no pain at all: It suspects the Green impulse yearns for the hair shirt option just for the sake of it. The danger is that, when it comes to the crunch, cowardly politicians may feel it is less politically risky to go with the great weight of commercial conservative opinion, which makes the most noise. But the history of nuclear power shows there is a great risk too with that unknown, expensive technology.
