Extracts from NATTA's journal
Renew, issue 145Sept-Oct 2003

6. MP’s on Energy

The House of Commons had a debate on energy policy back in June, focussing on the Energy White Paper, a report by the Environmental Audit Committee and the report on Non-Fossil R&D, produced by the Select Committee on Science and Technology (see Renew 144). The debate was a lively one. The White paper was at one point described as ‘green at the edges but with a yellow streak’, having failed to decide on the future of nuclear power. It was also seen as weak on targets for renewables. As a corrective, one member recommended the Renewable Power Associations new Renewables Roadmap (see earlier), but was challenged by Martin O’Neill (Ochil): ‘I am very suspicious of any industry or trade group that promotes its own case. The United Kingdom has been bedevilled by trade groups that promote particular forms of generation. People who use windmills are not likely to be any more honest than those who use other forms of generation.’

Simon Thomas (Ceredigion) was worried about the Energy Minister’s assertion on the day on which the White Paper was published that renewables and energy efficiency had five years to prove themselves. ‘After seeing nuclear energy commit suicide and then digging up the body, we can give more hope to energy efficiency and renewables. Let us not wait for five years until they have proved themselves. Let us work with them to ensure that they prove themselves, because they may be our only real option for a low-carbon future.’

Brian Wilson (who was then Energy Minister) responded: ‘I am not complaining, but I am being slightly misrepresented. I was saying that we will have a much clearer idea of what carbon reduction renewables and energy efficiency will deliver by about 2008. There will have to be a reassessment then. I never undermined the objective. I believe that there should be maximum support, which I hope that we are giving, to both those pillars of our policy. If they deliver what we hope of them by 2008, no one will cheer louder than I will.’

However O’Neill came back in support of nuclear power. He claimed that MARKAL based studies had shown that ‘energy prices would be something like 260% more than we would pay if we had a 40 % nuclear contribution’.

Dr. Desmond Turner (Brighton Kempton) responded: ‘There is no way that the substitution of renewables for nuclear or other power sources could carry the sort of financial penalty that he suggests, unless their generations costs were two and a half times higher than current commercial generation costs. I am satisfied that that is not the case for wind power. I am satisfied also that that will not be anywhere near the case for wave and tidal power; indeed, when they are fully exploited, generation costs will be little different from current commercial levels.’

He argued that although we had wasted 20 years ignoring wave and tidal,‘’the future lies offshore. We have a unique strength compared with the rest of the world.’

Not everyone was happy with this sort of commitment. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead) was worried that ‘in picking the winner of wave and tidal energy, we are throwing all the other horses out of the race’. And although Brian Wilson confirmed his strong support for wave and tidal power, but he evidently couldn’t resist one parting shot on the gap between aspirations and reality. When it was mentioned that the wave project in Islay was being used to generate power for Greenpeace’s green bus, he commented ‘I do not want to be a wet blanket amid all this enthusiasm but, the last I heard, it was broken down beside the swimming pool’.

But Turner put it in a wider perspective-comparing other countries R&D spending on renewables: ‘We are just about matching Finland, which has a much smaller population, and are spending less than the Netherlands, which has only 10 % of our population. We spend one eighth of the French budget, one quarter of Italian investment, one sixtieth of what the Japanese are spending and about one fortieth of what the Americans are investing.’