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3 Nuclear Decision
‘The security of our energy supply is best safeguarded by building
a new generation of nuclear power stations.’ So said Gordon Brown
last July, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the government decided
that, yes, companies should consider nuclear. Even so, it’s a
little odd since it’s always been open to private sector investors
to back a new nuclear programme. What the government now plans to offer
is help to ease this, though it insist that no direct finance will be
provided and the new Energy Bill included measures to ensure owners
of new nuclear plants pay their share of decommissioning/waste costs.
The Sustainable Development Commission said the nuclear decision was
an ‘inadequate response to the legitimate concerns expressed by
the general public over new nuclear power’.
Tories on Nuclear
‘Our policy is for investors to be able to go ahead but without
subsidy. There should be a carbon regime, approval for reactor design
and for their location and a clear regime for handling the waste,’
Shadow energy spokesman Alan Duncan told the FT (10/1/08). He added:
‘We have been making it very clear that any enthusiasm for nuclear
power should not be allowed to detract from doing everything possible
from renewables’. Until recently the Conservative position was
that nuclear power was the ‘last resort’- a phrase used
in its interim energy review.
Moving on the offensive, Tory leader David Cameron accused the government
of being ‘irresponsible’ in its approach to nuclear, since
the problems of nuclear waste haven’t been dealt with. He wanted
a level playing field- so it should not be subsidised by the taxpayer
or receive special favours..
The 'stop press' item below was included with Renew 171, but not with
Renew On Line 71.
New Labour-New Nuclear
‘The idea that Britain can meet its growing power needs through
renewable energy and greater efficiency is nonsense’. So said
Secretary of State John Hutton, as quoted in the Sunday Times 6 Jan.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that three days later the Cabinet
unanimously backed a new nuclear programme, and on 10th January the
government published a White Paper which said ‘The Government
believes it is in the public interest that new nuclear power stations
should have a role to play in this country’s future energy mix
alongside other low-carbon sources; that it would be in the public
interest to allow energy companies the option of investing in new
nuclear power stations; and that the Government should take active
steps to open up the way to the construction of new nuclear power
stations. It will be for energy companies to fund, develop and build
new nuclear power stations in the UK, including meeting the full costs
of decommissioning and their full share of waste management costs.’
In the White Paper, the government claims that nuclear power is:
Low-carbon- helping to minimise damaging climate change
* Affordable- nuclear is currently one of the cheapest low-carbon
electricity generation technologies, so could help us deliver our
goals cost effectively
* Dependable- a proven technology with modern reactors capable of
producing electricity reliably
* Safe- backed up by a highly effective regulatory framework
* Capable of increasing diversity and reducing our dependence on any
one technology or country for our energy or fuel supplies.
And it says that it will deal with the specific concerns raised in
the consultation by ensuring that there:
* is a clear strategy and process for medium and long-term waste management,
with confidence that progress will be made
* are new legislative provisions setting out a funding mechanism that
requires operators of new nuclear power stations to make sufficient
and secure financial provision to cover their full costs of decommissioning
and their full share of costs of waste management
* is a further strengthening of the resources of the Nuclear Installations
Inspectorate (NII) to enable it to meet a growing workload. These
steps will include the Government taking forward regulatory processes
and other steps:
* undertaking a Strategic Siting Assessment and Strategic Environmental
Assessment * meeting the requirements of European law that new nuclear
practices should be required to demonstrate that their benefits outweigh
any health detriments
* ensuring that the regulators and particularly the NII are adequately
equipped to review new build proposals through a process of Generic
Design Assessment
* bringing forward legislation to ensure that the framework for funding
decommissioning and waste management liabilities is clear and properly
ensures that each nuclear operator meets its costs
* making use of the provisions of the Planning Bill to ensure that
nuclear development projects are treated like other critical infrastructure
projects and are dealt with effectively through the use of a National
Policy Statement
* working to strengthen the EU Emissions Trading Scheme so that investors
have confidence in a continuing carbon market when making decisions.
Overall it says the government believes that: ‘our energy strategy
should be based on diversity and flexibility in the energy mix and has
accordingly developed policies which keep open the widest possible range
of low-carbon generating options. These options would include renewables
and the use of gas and coal with CCS, as well as nuclear. Unnecessarily
ruling out one of these options would, in our view, increase the risk
that we would be unable to meet our climate change and energy security
objectives.’
Reactions and critiques
The governments analysis has not gone unchallenged. The Conservative
Party seems to have moved to a position of guarded support for nuclear,
as long as it was not subsidised, but most environmental groups remain
strongly opposed.. Even before it emerged, the Nuclear Consultation
Working Group convened by Dr Paul Dorfman at Warwick University, produced
a critical review of the governments (second) consultation exercise.
The group of eminent academics concluded that ‘the key assumptions
underpinning the government’s approach to the nuclear consultation
remain open to critical analysis. We are profoundly concerned that these
assumptions have framed the questions asked by the government during
the nuclear energy consultation, and were designed to provide particular
and limited answers - and those answers risk locking in UK energy futures
to an inflexible and vulnerable pathway that will prove unsustainable.’
It claimed that significant ‘what if’ issues- such as uncertainty
about nuclear fuel supply and manufacture, vulnerability to attack,
radiation waste, radiation risk and health effects, reactor decommissioning,
reactor design and siting, costs of electricity-generating technologies,
energy distribution models, true renewable and energy efficiency modeling-
have not been resolved. And it called for a much more comprehensive
consultation. For the full report see: www.nuclearconsult.com
There were also even stronger claims: ‘I have heard two of Tony
Blair’s senior colleagues confirm that the DTI has long suppressed
renewables to make space for nuclear. The slow-motion UK treatment of
renewables during the last five years, while renewables markets abroad
have grown explosively, now makes a sickening kind of sense.’
So said Jeremy Leggett, one time member of the governments Renewable
Advisory Board, in the Guardian Jan 3rd.
However, while opposition will no doubt continue, basically now we are
now stuck with the governments insistence that nuclear can play an important
role in meeting energy security and climate policy goals, and that ‘not
having nuclear as an option would increase the costs of delivering these
goals’- along with Gordon Browns conviction in the preface to
the White Paper: ‘More than ever before, nuclear power has a key
role to play as part of the UK’s energy mix’.
Leaving aside the specifically nuclear issues, perhaps the main strategic
issue is how to avoid collateral impacts on renewables. The White paper
says that the government ‘considered whether it is necessary to
take additional steps to promote investment in renewables, alongside
nuclear. We have concluded that our plans to extend the Renewables Obligation
level to 20%, subject to deployment, and to target additional support
to help bring emerging technologies such as offshore wind and marine
to market quicker, will adequately address this concern. We will also
bring forward further measures in the light of the EU’s 20% renewables
target for 2020.’
Whether that will be sufficient to avoid nuclear crowding-out renewables
remains to be seen.
For a useful critical overview of the issues see: www.e3g.org
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