The Sunday Times November 27, 2005

Now for Blair's dodgy nuclear dossier
Do we really need new nuclear power stations or is the prime minister 
about to railroad us into a disastrous error, asks Jonathan Leake

There is something strangely familiar about the tactics being used to 
turn the financial basket case that is the nuclear industry into the 
shining new hope of Britain’s energy sector.

First we had a contrived panic — over energy prices and gas supplies — 
then a welter of Downing Street’s anonymous briefings. Now, in the shape 
of the energy review to be announced this week, we are likely to get the 
pièce de résistance: the “dodgy dossier” — a report designed to give 
Tony Blair the pretext that he needs to implement a policy he has 
already decided on.

Advisers led by Sir David King, Blair’s hyperactive chief scientist, 
have given us all a fright, saying that only nuclear power can keep 
Britain’s lights on after 2015. Seemingly Blair is standing back, 
playing the no-decision-yet-taken card, while allowing King to push 
ahead with the case for nuclear.
Meanwhile, environmentalists cry foul and hit back with their own 
counter-claims. Battered by both sides the public is understandably 
confused.

The dodgy dossier is yet to come, although the wait will be short. On 
Tuesday Blair will announce the commissioning of a new energy review; 
like its predecessor that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq, it 
will not be an independent inquiry but one led by members of Blair’s own 
strategy unit, nominally reporting to Alan Johnson, the trade secretary. 
Their true loyalties will, no doubt, rest in Downing Street.

On the face of it such a review is hardly needed. It is just two years 
since the energy white paper — an exhaustive and expert study that took 
nearly three years to complete. That seemed to slam the lid on the 
nuclear coffin, deeming the costs of a new generation of nuclear plants 
to be “unattractive”.

Instead it set out a vision under which Britain’s energy policy would be 
dominated by efficiency measures and renewable power generation. It 
produced detailed figures showing how cutting waste in homes and 
businesses, plus investment in wind, solar and other forms of “green 
power”, could plug the gap left by the closure of Britain’s ageing 
nuclear and coal-powered generators.

However, even though the figures appeared to add up and the policies 
needed to implement them seemed clear, the action taken by government 
since then has been minimal, leading us straight into the energy crisis 
that the white paper was meant to forestall.

That crisis is what has largely allowed the nuclear industry to spring 
back from the grave and — say the critics — prepare to suck taxpayers’ 
blood once again.

It was, after all, only last April that the government created the 
Nuclear Decommissioning Agency to clear up the industry’s past mistakes, 
spent fuel and other waste at a predicted cost of £60 billion. That is 
on top of many billions more in subsidies that the industry has had over 
the past five decades.

Where does this energy crisis come from? Lack of investment is the main 
cause. The liberalisation of Britain’s energy markets in the 1990s meant 
lower prices for consumers, but it also made investing in new power 
stations deeply unattractive.

The consequence is that about half of the 17 coal-fired power stations 
that supply more than a third of Britain’s electricity are so old and 
inefficient that they contravene incoming European Union rules to 
safeguard the environment. They must close by 2016. Those left will 
supply less than a fifth of our needs.

Our nuclear stations are closing, too. At present there are 23 reactors 
generating a fifth of Britain’s power but by 2020 the few that are left 
will supply just 4% of our needs.

What all this means is that by 2016 Britain’s generating capacity will 
have fallen to 250 terawatt hours (Tw/h), while demand will have risen 
to 350 Tw/h — a huge gap.

Skilfully, King and the nuclear industry have leapt on this. Last year 
the Nuclear Industry Association set up a special committee to oversee a 
lobbying operation that has repeatedly pushed the nuclear cause as the 
nation’s potential saviour.

One aim of that lobbying was to prompt Blair into another energy review. 
It has won that battle but a tougher one lies ahead: proving its claim 
that nuclear really can save Britain from the evils of power cuts and 
carbon emissions, and all at a reasonable price.

The reality is likely to be far more complex. What often gets lost in 
the controversy is that although nuclear power provides about a fifth of 
Britain’s electricity, this translates into only 7% of the nation’s 
total energy needs.
About a third of the energy that we consume is in the form of oil and 
petrol for transport while the rest — mainly gas and coal — is used by 
industry and for heating buildings. Nuclear energy simply cannot replace 
fossil fuels for such purposes.

What’s more, Britain’s growing population and economy are both pushing 
up the demand for all forms of energy (including electricity) at a rate 
of 1.5%-2% a year. Given that a typical nuclear power station would 
produce about 2% of the nation’s electricity, Britain would need to build a
new plant every year just to keep pace with demand.

Even if we built at twice that rate, the savings in greenhouse gases 
would be small when compared with the surging emissions from industry 
and transport, especially aviation.

Of course, most of the same arguments apply to renewable energy, too. 
Wind has been held up as the great green hope for Britain’s energy 
future. But even the explosive growth in unattractive wind farms cannot 
keep pace with the increasing demand for electricity. The government has 
said that it wants 20% of our electricity to come from such sources by 
2020 but, with demand still rising, wind power can do little more than 
meet some of the extra demand, let alone replace fossil fuels.

The argument that at least wind farms avoid the need to generate more 
electricity from coal and gas may even be false. Wind, after all, gets 
huge subsidies which help to keep energy prices down — and low prices 
are what keeps demand growing. The same argument applies to nuclear 
power, which is also heavily subsidised.

All of which brings us back to the main plank of the recent energy white 
paper: efficiency. It set out licences restricting companies’ carbon 
emissions, grants for energy saving insulation and a range of measures 
that could all be used to reduce demand without affecting the economy or 
people’s lifestyles. Such measures could, it suggested, slash 25m from 
the 183m tons of annual carbon emissions in Britain.

Tom Burke, the veteran environmentalist and opponent of nuclear energy, 
believes that, as with the Iraq war, the public is being misled about 
the choices. “Nuclear power stations won’t make energy supplies more 
secure or significantly cut carbon emissions,” he says. “What’s more, 
since the Treasury will never agree to pay for the power stations, the 
electricity market will have to be rigged for 30 years to guarantee a 
return for nuclear investors.”

Three decades of bigger energy bills for homes and businesses: will that 
be Blair’s real legacy?

THE ALTERNATIVES
# Cleaner coal About 10 of Britain’s coal-fired power stations must shut 
down or clean up under EU pollution rules. One option is to upgrade them 
to operate at higher temperatures and pressures and run on bio-fuels. 
This would raise efficiency and cut carbon emissions at a fraction of 
the cost of a new power station
# Energy efficiency Britain wastes more than half the power it produces 
through generation and transmission losses in the National Grid. 
Inefficient homes and businesses lose another 13%. Better transmission 
systems and insulated homes could reverse the growth in demand
# Carbon sequestration New technology will allow generators to strip 
carbon dioxide from power stations and pump it into the ground, making 
coal and gas almost as “clean” as wind power
# Renewables Domestic wind turbines and solar panels could make homes 
almost self-sufficient in electricity

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