Nuclear: The Quest for Real Answers

Rav Casley Gera — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:47:00 +0000

Numbers are flying, people are shouting, and protestors are waving banners. Nuclear is back on the agenda, and it isn’t a pretty sight. Some environmentalists are furious, calling the Government’s endorsement of a new generation of nuclear power stations a betrayal, and those who see nuclear as necessary seeing the others as misguided and deluded. The anti-nuclear lobby squeal repeatedly about the danger, about Chernobyl, about Five Mile Island, and about the threat of waste. Those in favour of new builds repeat, endlessly, that without nuclear we cannot meet our future energy needs. Repeat ad infinitum.

The mantras go round and round. The Government is in the pocket of industry. Methane is the answer. Biomass is the answer. In a beautiful illustration of the complete confusion of the general public, one of the most-reccomended reader comments on the BBC website called for us to get our energy for free from Tesla coils. Of course, the post that politely explained why this is pie-in-the-sky impossible got far fewer recommendations.

And yet, this isn’t like other issues. There is no fundamental ideological divide here. Nobody taking part in this debate seriously questions the existence of man-made climate change, and the need for serious reductions in carbon emissions; indeed, the conversation about this provides another example of just how strong in the public imagination the consensus on that issue has become, in Europe if not in America. And nobody seriously disputes the idea that energy is needed, or that it must come from a mix of sources. There are some political issues over how energy independent we need to be, but otherwise the issues are essentially factual. How much can we reduce our electricity needs? How much can renewables produce? How much can gas and new clean coal technologies produce?

Add up the potential of all the technologies, subtract that from our needs, and there you go. If there’s a gap, we need nuclear.

So why the furore?

Well, to figure out, I took a look at the Energy Review, which concludes that we need nuclear, and Friends of the Earth’s report “A Bright Future,” which concludes that we don’t.

Friends of the Earth’s most pessimistic model, what it calls its “slow coal” model, makes conservative assumptions about the progress of Government efforts to reduce emissions. It also makes pessimistic assumptions about progress in switching from coal to gas. The differences between FOE’s estimates and the Government’s are striking.

The table below shows the Government’s estimates for our energy mix in 2020, if no major shifts in policies take place; Friends of the Earth’s most pessimistic model in line with no new nuclear stations; and the eventual nuclear-free mix in 2020.

Energy type —- Govt estimate 2020 —- FOE plan 2020 —– FOE Plan 2030
Coal —————-102 ———————151 ———————124
Oil ——————0 ————————0 ————————0
Gas —————–202 ———————135 ———————117
Nuclear ————22 ———————–27 ———————–0
Renewable ——–62 ———————–80 ———————-137
Imports ————12————————20 ———————-22
Total —————400 ———————-407 ——————–400

The single most striking figure is not a difference but a similarity – the totals figues.

The FOE is not imagining a society of mud huts here; this most pessimistic estimate recognizes the Government’s usage estimate, 400 terawatt/hrs. It also allows for a 48% reduction in emissions by 2020. It should be stressed that the gas and coal figures in FOE’s plans involve an array of new techniques to clean up these fuels, techniques which have their own costs and disadvantages.

The next obvious large figure is the reliance on gas in the Government prediction. Indeed, it’s this that the Government seeks to avoid: as the Energy Review points out, over 50% reliance on gas “would reduce the diversity of the UK’s generation mix, with more than half of the UK’s electricity supply dependent on a single fuel type. This increased dependency on gas for electricity generation would also be happening at the very time the UK becomes increasingly reliant on imports for its gas supplies.” In other words, we’d be hostage to Russia, or more likely Norway, our biggest supplier.

The next big figure is no shock - FOE’s eventual goals for renewable are way beyond the Government’s. The Government does express hope for 20% generation by renewables by 2020, which would match FOE’s 2020 goal. But the continuation of renewable growth to provide a third of needs by 2030 might strike the Government as decidedly optimistic.

Ultimately, then, the question is – what is the potential of renewables? I’ll be investigating that in the next instalment.

*I’ve fiddled the figures a little for simplicity. Most particularly, I’ve split a
curious single FOE figure for CCGT, an advanced gas technique, and imported solar power, equally.