The Case for Clean Coal

Ken Capstick, former Vice President of Yorkshire National Union of Mineworkers gives a speech on British and world energy issues and makes the case for the use of Clean Coal utilising Carbon Capture and Storage as an integral part of an Integrated Energy Policy for Britain.

Essential listening for anyone concerned for future energy provision and a world that tackles CO2 emissions in the only practical way available.

Ayrshire, Scotland.

May 2010

THE CASE FOR AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY

On Saturday 1st November 2008 Arthur Scargill gave the following presentation to a Climate Change conference in Newcastle.


ENVIRONMENTALISTS, PROPONENTS OF NUCLEAR POWER AND THE GOVERNMENT ALL REFER TO CLIMATE CHANGE WHEN THE PROBLEM IS GLOBAL WARMING.

THE EARTH HAS WITNESSED CLIMATE CHANGE FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS AND HAS INCLUDED DROUGHTS, AN ICE AGE AND DRAMATIC CHANGES WHICH ARE NATURAL PHENOMENA.

GLOBAL WARMING HAS, OF COURSE, AN EFFECT ON THE CLIMATE BUT AN EFFECT WHICH SHOULD BE VIEWED IN CONTEXT.ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARGUE THAT THE ANSWER TO GLOBAL WARMING IS TO STOP THE USE OF COAL AND RELY INSTEAD ON RENEWABLE ENERGY.

THEY ARE EITHER UNAWARE OR CONVENIENTLY IGNORE THE FACT THAT 92% OF CO2 IN THE UK IS PRODUCED NOT BY COAL BUT BY OIL, GAS AND DEFORESTATION.

WE ARE FACING AN ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CRISIS ON A SCALE SIMILAR TO THE WALL STREET CRASH IN 1929 AND THE MASS UNEMPLOYMENT WHICH AFFECTED THE UK AND EUROPE IN THE NINETEEN THIRTIES.OVER 10 MILLION PEOPLE IN BRITAIN ARE "LIVING" ON OR BELOW THE POVERTY LINE WHILST OVER 1 MILLION CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH FOOD AND ARE CATEGORISED AS "GOING HUNGRY".

OVER 11/2 MILLION PEOPLE ARE ON HOUSING WAITING LISTS AT A TIME WHEN THOUSANDS OF PROPERTIES STAND EMPTY AND THREE-QUARTERS OF A MILLION BUILDING WORKERS ARE UNEMPLOYED.ENERGY AND FOOD COSTS HAVE ROCKETED AND PEOPLE TODAY ARE PAYING OVER 300% MORE FOR ENERGY AND 80% MORE FOR FOOD THAN TWO YEARS AGO.

WE ARE FACING A MONUMENTAL ENERGY CRISIS WITH THE UK'S NATURAL GAS SUPPLIES VIRTUALLY EXHAUSTED, ITS INDIGENOUS OIL SUPPLIES ARE NEARING EXHAUSTION YET WE LIVE ON AN ISLAND WITH OVER ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF COAL FROM WHICH WE CAN EXTRACT ALL THE OIL, GAS, ELECTRICITY AND PETROCHEMICALS THAT WE NEED WITHOUT CAUSING HARM TO THE ENVIRONMENT.

BRITAIN HAS NEVER HAD AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY AND AS A CONSEQUENCE WE ARE NOW FACING THE WORST ENERGY CRISIS IN OUR HISTORY.SINCE THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR,

BOTH LABOUR AND TORY GOVERNMENTS HAVE SOUGHT TO REPLACE BRITAIN'S VAST COAL RESERVES - OVER ONE THOUSAND YEARS' SUPPLY OF DEEP MINE COAL - WITH FALSE PROMISES OF "CHEAP" IMPORTED OIL - "CHEAP SAFE" NUCLEAR ENERGY AND "CHEAP" NATURAL GAS.THESE POLICIES HAVE NOT ONLY COST THE BRITISH PEOPLE BILLIONS OF POUNDS BUT HAVE RESULTED IN THE NEAR-EXTINCTION OF BRITAIN'S DEEP MINE COAL INDUSTRY AND BROUGHT ABOUT MASSIVE ECONOMIC, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS.

HAVING SEEN THE CLOSURE OF 200 PITS SINCE 1980 AND THE LOSS OF 200,000 JOBS, THE CLOSURE OR NON-OPERATION OF NEARLY 70% OF COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS ON THE FALSE PREMISE THAT THEY WERE UNECONOMIC AND A MAJOR POLLUTER OF CO2, IT WOULD BE REASONABLE TO EXPECT THAT THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN A DRAMATIC FALL IN CO2 EMISSIONS.

IN FACT, CO2 EMISSIONS HAVE INCREASED SINCE 1993. FOLLOWING THE SHORTSIGHTED POLICY OF THE DASH FOR GAS WHICH RESULTED IN FURTHER PIT CLOSURES AND A SWITCH FROM COAL TO GAS-FIRED POWER STATIONS IT WOULD - IF THE ENVIRONMENTALST AND NUCLEAR LOBBY WERE RIGHT - HAVE RESULTED IN A SUBSTANTIAL DECREASE IN CO2 EMISSIONS - THE VERY OPPOSITE IS THE CASE.

IN 1993, TOTAL CO2 EMISSIONS BY SOURCE WERE:-

YEAR 1993

OIL 208.5 MILLION TONNES

COAL AND OTHER SOLID FUELS 206.1 MILLION TONNES

GAS 134.2 MILLION TONNES

NON-FUEL 18.3 MILLION TONNES

TOTAL 567.1 MILLION TONNES

Fig 1

BY 2007, THE POSITION HAD CHANGED SIGNIFICANTLY,

I.E. YEAR 2007

GAS 194 MILLION TONNES

OIL 185 MILLION TONNES

COAL AND OTHER SOLID FUELS 150 MILLION TONNES

NON-FUEL 15 MILLION TONNES

TOTAL 544 MILLION TONNES

Fig 2

THESE FIGURES, HOWEVER, ARE NOT ONLY MISLEADING BUT UNTRUE.

ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE, CO2 EMISIONS ARE UNDERSTATED BY 189 MILLION TONNES, NOT SURPRISING IN VIEW OF THE FACT THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS DELIBERATELY OMITTED CO2 EMISSIONS FROM AVIATION, SHIPPING AND DEFORESTATION.

TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE STATISTICS BY THE NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE, A MORE ACCURATE PICTURE EMERGES:-

YEAR 2007

OIL 374 MILLION TONNES

GAS 194 MILLION TONNES

COAL AND OTHER SOLID FUELS 150 MILLION TONNES

NON-FUEL - DEFORESTATION 15 MILLION TONNES

TOTAL 733 MILLION TONNES

Fig 3

IN SIMPLE TERMS, OIL, GAS AND DEFORESTATION NOW PRODUCE 80% OF ALL CO2 EMISSIONS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. FIGURES DON'T LIE BUT LIARS CAN FIGURE, AT LEAST THAT'S THE CONCLUSION ONE MUST COME TO WHEN COMPARING THE NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE CALCULATIONS WITH THE GOVERNMENT'S INACCURATE STATISTICS AND MISLEADING STATEMENTS.

AT THE PRESENT TIME, RENEWABLE ENERGY PRODUCES ONLY 5% OF BRITAIN'S ENERGY NEEDS YET ENVIRONMENTALISTS HAVE CONCLUDED THAT THE UK MUST STOP USING COAL - WHICH PRODUCES ONLY 20% CO2 IN THE UK AND 2% OF CO2 EMISSIONS WORLDWIDE.SOME ENVIRONMENTALISTS EVEN SAY IT MAY NOW BE NECESSARY TO ACCEPT NUCLEAR ENERGY, IGNORING THE FACT THAT NUCLEAR ENERGY ONLY GENERATES ELECTRICITY AND IS OF NO USE FOR OTHER INDUSTRIAL OR DOMESTIC USE.

I WAS CHAIRMAN OF ENERGY 2000, AN ORGANISATION ESTABLISHED IN 1977, SUPPORTED BY THE NUM, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, GREENPEACE AND ALL THE ANTI-NUCLEAR GROUPS.ENERGY 2000 PRESENTED EVIDENCE AT THE WINDSCALE, SIZEWELL AND HINCKLEY POINT PUBLIC ENQUIRIES, PUTTING A POWERFUL CASE AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER.ENERGY 2000 AND ALL THE ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS CAMPAIGNED IN THE 1970s AND 1980s FOR AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY BASED ON UK DEEP MINE CLEAN COAL AND RENEWABLE ENERGIES SUCH AS WIND, WAVE, TIDE, BARRAGE, HYDRO, GEOTHERMAL AND SOLAR POWER TOGETHER WITH INSULATION AND CONSERVATION.

THE DISASTERS AT THREE-MILE ISLAND IN 1979 AND CHERNOBYL IN 1986 WHICH WILL RESULT IN THOUSANDS OF DEATHS OVER A 30 TO 40 YEAR PERIOD, DEMONSTRATED THAT OUR POLICY WAS RIGHT.BASED ON THE EVIDENCE OF DR ROBERT GALE, THE CANCER EXPERT, WHO TREATED VICTIMS IN CHERNOBYL, IT IS PROJECTED THAT THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER ALONE WILL RESULT IN OVER 100,000 DEATHS.

THESE FIGURES ONLY RELATE TO ONE DISASTER AND NOT TO THE CONTINUED RADIATION CONTAMINATION BOTH WITHIN THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY AND IN AND AROUND NUCLEAR PLANTS.EVIDENCE PRESENTED BY EXPERTS SUCH AS Dr ALICE STEWART AND DR ROSIE BERTELL SHOWS AN INCREASED DEATH RATE FROM LEUKAEMIA AND CANCER IN AND AROUND NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS 10% HIGHER THAN IN THE GENERAL POPULATION.ON 13 DECEMBER 1986, DR KENNETH DUNCAN, FORMER HEAD OF THE HEALTH AND SAFETY COMMISSION'S EMPLOYMENT MEDICAL ADVISORY SERVICE AND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION BOARD ADMITTED THAT IF A NUCLEAR ACCIDENT OCCURRED IN THE UK WITH A 100 PER CENT RELEASE OF CORE CONTENTS, IT COULD RESULT IN UP TO 2 MILLION DEATHS (TUC REPORT, 23 JANUARY 1987).THE CONSTRUCTION, RUNNING COSTS AND DECOMMISSIONING COSTS OF NUCLEAR ENERGY ARE HORRENDOUS - THE CURRENT ESTIMATE FOR DECOMMISSIONING EXISTING NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS IN BRITAIN IS £73 BILLION. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS SELECT COMMITTEE IN 1989 REPORTED THAT THE REAL COST OF AGR AND PWR NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS WOULD BE 400% MORE EXPENSIVE THAN ELECTRICITY FROM A COAL-FIRED POWER STATION.BRITAIN NEEDS AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY, BASED ON INDIGENOUS DEEP MINE COAL AND RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES SUCH AS WIND, WAVE, TIDE, BARRAGE, HYDRO, GEOTHERMAL AND SOLAR POWER, A POLICY FREE FROM UNILATERAL PRICE INCREASES OR THE INTERRUPTION OR ENDING OF SUPPLY.

CARBON CAPTURE TECHNOLOGY DOES EXIST AND WE CAN - WITH THE PROPER INVESTMENT - UTILISE UK DEEP MINE COAL IN A WAY WHICH WILL RESULT IN A REDUCTION OF 90% OF CO2 EMISSIONS.

CURRENTLY THE UK'S ENERGY NEEDS ARE MET BY OIL, GAS AND COAL. HOWEVER, THE UK IS ALREADY A NET IMPORTER OF OIL, GAS AND COAL AND BY 2020 IMPORTS OF OIL, UNCONVENTIONAL OILS SUCH AS SHALE OIL, TAR SAND AND GAS WILL - UNLESS THE GOVERNMENT IS STOPPED - ACCOUNT FOR 80% OF THE UK'S ENERGY NEEDS.

THIS POSITION IS UNACCEPTABLE BOTH IN TERMS OF GUARANTEE OF SUPPLY AND THE MASSIVE COSTS TO BRITAIN'S BALANCE OF PAYMENTS WHICH WILL HAVE TO BE MET BY THE CONSUMER WHO ARE CURRENTLY PAYING 300% MORE FOR GAS AND OIL, AT A TIME WHEN OIL COMPANIES SUCH AS BP AND ROYAL DUTCH SHELL ARE RECORDING PROFITS OF £6.4 AND £6.6 BILLION RESPECTIVELY FOR THE THIRD QUARTER OF 2008.

UNLESS THERE IS A DRAMATIC POLICY CHANGE, WE WILL SEE THE UK HAVE AN ENERGY POLICY BASED ON OIL AND GAS IMPORTS AND EXPENSIVE AND HIGHLY DANGEROUS NUCLEAR POWER WHICH USES URANIUM AS A PRIMARY FUEL, A FINITE ENERGY SOURCE WHICH WILL BE EXHAUSTED WITHIN 50 YEARS.DR KENNETH DUNCAN CONFIRMED TO THE TUC IN 1986 THAT LUNG CANCER RATES AMONG URANIUM MINERS WAS 3 TO 5 TIMES HIGHER THAN IN THE GENERAL POPULATION AND IF URANIUM MINERS IN NAMIBIA WERE INCLUDED, IT WAS MUCH HIGHER.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND ECO-WARRIORS HAVE BEEN HIGHLY VISIBLE IN THEIR OPPOSITION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW COAL-FIRED POWER STATION AT KINGSNORTH AND THE DRAX POWER STATION IN WEST YORKSHIRE.YET THEY HAVE BEEN CONSPICUOUS BY THEIR ABSENCE IN THE CAMPAIGN TO STOP OPEN-CAST COALMINING WHICH PRODUCES 54% OF THE UK'S INDIGENOUS COAL AND ACCOUNTS FOR NOT ONLY CO2 EMISSIONS AT SOURCE BUT FOR MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF METHANE, A GAS 23 TIMES MORE POTENT AND DAMAGING TO GLOBAL WARMING THAN CO2.THERE HAS BEEN A SYSTEMATIC CAMPAIGN AGAINST INDIGENOUS DEEP MINE COAL PRODUCTION SINCE THE MINERS INFLICTED MASSIVE DEFEAT ON THE TORY GOVERNMENT IN 1972 AND 1974, A POLICY WHICH HAS SEEN THE CLOSURE OF OVER 200 PITS.THE UK CURRENTLY USES NEARLY 63 MILLION TONNES OF COAL PER YEAR, OF WHICH 44 MILLION TONNES ARE IMPORTED AND 9 MILLION TONNES ARE PRODUCED BY HIGHLY POLLUTING OPEN-CAST SITES.

IN OTHER WORDS, 85% OF BRITAIN'S COAL SUPPLY EMANATES FROM IMPORTS OR OPEN-CAST SITES WHILST ONLY 15% IS PRODUCED IN BRITISH DEEP MINES.THE REASON FOR THIS POLICY IS CLEAR FROM THE SECRET CABINET MINUTE LEAKED ON 23 OCTOBER 1979 WHICH STATED - "A NUCLEAR PROGRAMME WOULD HAVE THE ADVANTAGE OF REMOVING A SUBSTANTIAL PORTION OF ELECTRICITY FROM DISRUPTION BY INDUSTRIAL ACTION OF COAL MINERS AND TRANSPORT WORKERS"THIS EXPLAINS WHY THE TORY GOVERNMENT WAS DETERMINED TO CLOSE BRITAIN'S DEEP MINE COAL INDUSTRY.

IT ALSO EXPLAINS WHY THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT HAS REFUSED TO HONOUR ITS UNDERTAKING TO THE NUM TO RE-OPEN PITS CLOSED BETWEEN 1984 AND 1997 AND DEVELOP NEW MINES AND COALFIELDS IN LINE WITH THE 1974 PLAN FOR COAL.THE PLAN FOR COAL WAS DESIGNED TO PROTECT BRITAIN FROM AN ENERGY CRISIS. IT WAS A PLAN WHICH WOULD HAVE AMELIORATED THE IMPACT OF THE CRISIS WHICH IS PLUNGING THE UK INTO ECONOMIC CHAOS.

WE HAVE SEEN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMBINED CYCLE GAS TURBINE (CCGT) TECHNOLOGY IN GAS-FIRED POWER STATIONS, YET THERE HAS BEEN NO REAL ATTEMPT TO INTRODUCE AN INTEGRATED GASIFICATION COMBINED CYCLE (IGCC) IN COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS.IN ADDITION, WHILST GAS AND NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS ARE RUN ON BASE LOAD, COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS HAVE BEEN USED ON PEAK TIME. THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT THE UK'S 18 COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS COULD ALL BE FITTED WITH CARBON CAPTURE TECHNOLOGY AND WHILST THE CRITICS CLAIM THAT THIS TECHNOLOGY IS NOT YET FULLY DEVELOPED, THE GOVERNMENT IN 2003 REPORTED THAT A SMALL SCALE CARBON CAPTURE SCHEME WAS SUCCESSFULLY OPERATING IN THE USA WHICH REMOVED 90% OF CO2 EMISSIONS.

WE HAVE SEEN THIS YEAR THE DEVELOPMENT AT THE ENEL'S TORRE POWER STATION IN ITALY A NEW "CLEAN" COAL-FIRED POWER STATION - WITHOUT CARBON CAPTURE - WHICH HAS REDUCED CO2 EMISSIONS BY 20%!ENEL'S TORRE STATION IS A 660 MW POWER STATION, PREVIOUSLY OIL-FIRED, WHICH PRODUCED 2,485,980 TONNES OF CO2, 456,608 TONNES MORE THAN THE UK GAS-FIRED POWER STATION AT BALLYLUMFORD C, A 616 MW STATION WHICH IN 2007 EMITTED 2,029,372 TONNES OF CO2.THE ENEL'S TORRE NEW COAL-FIRED POWER STATION IS NOW PRODUCING 1,988,784 TONNES OF CO2 OR 40,588 TONNES LESS THAN THE 2,029.372 TONNES AT THE GAS-FIRED POWER STATION AT BALLYLUMFORD C.THE TECHNOLOGY IN ITALY WAS DEVELOPED WITHIN THREE YEARS, DEMONSTRATING THAT IT IS POSSIBLE - EVEN WITHOUT CARBON CAPTURE - FOR MODERN COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS TO REDUCE CO2 EMISSIONS TO BELOW THE LEVEL OF A COMBINED GAS CYCLE POWER STATION.

CARBON CAPTURE WOULD RESULT IN THE UK'S EXISTING COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS REDUCING ANNUAL CO2 EMISSIONS TO 10,872,720 TONNES PER YEAR, A 90% REDUCTION.UNTIL THE 1970s BRITAIN PRODUCED ALL ITS GAS FROM UK DEEP MINE COAL AND CAN PRODUCE ALL THE OIL, GAS AND PETROCHEMICALS WE NEED AND THIS INDIGENOUS SOURCE HAS RESERVES OF WELL OVER A THOUSAND YEARS.AN ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT POLICY FOR THE UKTHE UK NEEDS AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY WHICH WILL PRODUCE 250 MILLION TONNES OF INDIGENOUS DEEP MINE CLEAN COAL PER YEAR - COAL - FROM WHICH COULD BE EXTRACTED ALL THE ELECTRICITY, OIL, GAS AND PETROCHEMICALS THAT THE PEOPLE OF OUR NATION NEED.ALL EXISTING AND NEW COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS SHOULD BE FITTED WITH CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY INCLUDING CARBON CAPTURE WHICH WOULD REMOVE 90% OF CO2, AT THE SAME TIME WE SHOULD BE DEVELOPING A MASSIVE RENEWABLE ENERGY POLICY BASED ON WIND, WAVE, TIDE, BARRAGE, HYDRO, GEOTHERMAL, SOLAR POWER, INSULATION AND CONSERVATION.WE MUST END THE IMPORT OF COAL, CURRENTLY 43 MILLION TONNES, WHICH IS PRODUCED BY SUBSIDIES, "SLAVE LABOUR" AND CHILD LABOUR, AND END THE IMPORT OF SHALE OIL, TAR SAND AND OTHER SO-CALLED "UNCONVENTIONAL OILS" WHICH ARE THE DIRTIEST FUELS ON THE PLANET YET ARE BEING USED AT POWER STATIONS SUCH AS DRAX TO PRODUCE ELECTRICITY.

WE MUST END OPEN-CAST MINING WHICH IS NOT ONLY A BLIGHT ON THE LANDSCAPE BUT PRODUCES ONE-THIRD MORE CO2­ THAN DEEP MINE COAL.WE MUST END IMPORTS OF GAS AND INSTEAD PRODUCE OUR OWN GAS - AS WE DID UNTIL THE 1970s - FROM UK INDIGENOUS DEEP MINE COAL.WE MUST STOP IMPORTING OIL AND INSTEAD PRODUCE OUR OWN OIL FROM UK DEEP MINE COAL.

WE NEED AN END TO ALL NUCLEAR POWER ELECTRICITY GENERATION, THE MOST DANGEROUS AND UNECONOMIC METHOD OF PRODUCING ELECTRICITY.THE DEATHS AND DISEASE CONNECTED WITH NUCLEAR ENERGY ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION INCLUDING URANIUM MINING, RADIATION AND DISASTERS SUCH AS WINDSCALE, THREE MILE ISLAND AND CHERNOBYL SHOULD IN THEMSELVES BE SUFFICIENT TO CONVINCE ANYONE THAT THIS NUCLEAR MADNESS SHOULD BE PHASED OUT IMMEDIATELY.WE NEED TO END DEFORESTATION - WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF 20% OF CO2 EMISSIONS WORLD-WIDE AND ACCOUNTS FOR 15% OF CO2 IN THE UK - AND END BIO-FUEL DEVELOPMENT - WHICH NOT ONLY PRODUCES SUBSTANTIAL CO2 EMISSIONS BUT CAUSES MASS STARVATION AND HIGHER FOOD PRICES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.WE NEED AN ENVIRONMENT POLICY WHICH WILL REDUCE EMISSIONS OF CO2, METHANE, CHLORO FLUORO CARBONS (CFCs), NITROGEN OXIDE (NOX­), NITROUS OXIDE (N2O), OZONE (O3), SULPHUR DIOXIDE (SO2) AND STOP DEFORESTATION.

WE NEED TO REMOVE FROM OUR ROADS THE JUGGERNAUTS AND AS MANY VEHICLES AS POSSIBLE AND INSTEAD CONSTRUCT A MODERN ELECTRIC RAIL SYSTEM TOGETHER WITH TRAMS IN OUR TOWNS AND CITIES WHICH WOULD REDUCE CO2 AND OTHER GAS EMISSIONS BY BETWEEN 15% AND 20%.CONCLUSIONTHE IMPLEMENTATION OF THESE MEASURES TOGETHER WITH AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY BASED ON CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY CAN PLAY A LEADING PART IN HELPING REDUCE RISING SEA LEVELS.

WE MUST BEGIN TO DESALINATE SEA WATER ON A MASS SCALE AND PROVIDE CLEAN WATER TO THOSE PARTS OF THE WORLD WHICH ARE CURRENTLY BEING SUBJECTED TO DROUGHTS WHICH HAVE TURNED THEIR LAND INTO DUST-BOWLS, RESULTING IN THOUSANDS OF DEATHS.THE USE OF SEA WATER IN THIS WAY WILL REDUCE THE RISE IN SEA LEVELS DRAMATICALLY AND MAKE THE DESERTS BLOOM AND PROVIDE MILLIONS OF HUMAN BEINGS WITH THE BASIC NECESSITIES OF LIFE.

WE NEED A WORLD WHERE PEOPLE HAVE ENOUGH FOOD, CLOTHING, HOUSING AND ENERGY TO ENSURE THAT THEIR LIVES AND THOSE OF THEIR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN ARE EQUAL TO THE STANDARD THAT WE IN THE WEST HAVE ENJOYED FOR THE PAST 50 YEARS.

IF WE DO THAT, THEN WE CAN NOT ONLY CLAIM TO HAVE PRODUCED A SENSIBLE INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY BUT ALSO AN ENVIRONMENT POLICY WHICH WILL HELP TRANSFORM THE PLANET ON WHICH WE LIVE.

ARTHUR SCARGILL

The Future Will Not Be Nuclear

(Prospect Magazine September 2008)

The government is pinning its hopes on a nuclear renaissance to meet Britain’s climate change goals. Planning procedures are being eased and hidden subsidies offered. But the policy is based on a misunderstanding of nuclear power’s lousy economics, and will fail

Tom Burke

Gordon Brown does not dither about nuclear power. His commitment to it is emphatic, advancing since the start of the year from a policy of simply replacing Britain’s existing nuclear capacity to one of doubling it, and now to there being no upper limit to its share of electricity generation. Brown has undertaken a radical reform of the nuclear regulatory and planning processes, aimed at clearing the path for new reactors. It is therefore particularly poignant that this is a policy doomed to fail.

Energy prices are rising, the climate is changing and power stations are closing—so we need more nuclear power. So runs the overwhelming volume of argument in the media. But what is missing is any critical examination of the case that underpins these dire warnings from ministers and utility industry nabobs about the lights going out. The lights are not going to go out. The government’s nuclear policy will fail. And all that will really matter is that we will have lost precious time in switching to a more climate-friendly method of electricity generation.We live, these days, in what Eric Hobsbawm calls a “permanent present.” Even recent history is quickly forgotten. Somewhere in my personal archive are the minutes of a cabinet meeting held in October 1979, which arrived on my desk at Friends of the Earth in a proverbial brown envelope. They recorded the decision of Margaret Thatcher’s newly elected government to build ten nuclear reactors. The arguments were familiar. Oil prices were rising, An energy gap was imminent. Without a crash programme of nuclear reactors we would freeze in the dark. Sixteen years later, just one reactor had been built, at Sizewell in Suffolk. It cost more than double the original estimate. No one froze in the dark.




The story of British nuclear power

There is nothing in the history of nuclear power in Britain to inspire confidence. Most of our 19 reactors, which together have the capacity to generate 12,000 megawatts (MW), are of a design unique to Britain. These Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs) were in 1974 described by Arthur Hawkins, chairman of the then-nationalised industry that placed the orders, as “a catastrophe.” Today, four are not working, reducing from 20 to 15 per cent the share of electricity that is produced by nuclear.A popular mythology has developed that blames the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in Ukraine for the demise of nuclear power in Britain. Lately, the planning system has been added to this mythology. In fact, the only obstacle in the way of nuclear power for the last 20 years has been the unwillingness of electricity generators to take the risk. By the time of Chernobyl, in 1986, no nuclear power station had been ordered in Britain for eight years and in the US for 12. And the public inquiry that considered the application to build Sizewell B began in 1983 and took two years—only six months longer than the government now expects its accelerated planning procedures to take. The government then took two further years to give the go-ahead. Sizewell B opened in 1995, having taken a further eight years to build.
What actually killed nuclear power in Britain was Thatcher’s decision to privatise the Central Electricity Generating Board—the previously nationalised generation utility. The City took one look at the books and told the government that the nuclear power stations were unsellable. They were promptly withdrawn from sale. The later privatisation of most of Britain’s nuclear power stations was only possible because the burden of the decommissioning and waste management costs—now standing at over £70bn—was transferred to the taxpayer. This was a good example of a practice that has been much in the news lately in relation to the banking industry: privatising profits and socialising losses. So much for market discipline. It is an irony that the government’s preferred plan for a nuclear renaissance involves renationalising British Energy as a French state-controlled utility.

Thatcher was as convinced about nuclear power as Brown. She was defeated by the lousy economics. Nuclear power has few attractions for private sector investors, especially in a competitive electricity market. All long-term investment in future electricity generation involves risks and uncertainties (including the price that will be put on carbon emissions). But nuclear power’s risk profile is the worst. To be economic, nuclear power stations need to be very large (at least 1,000MW) and built in a series, ideally four or six at a time, probably on the site of existing stations. They are very capital intensive at both the start and end of their lives and, because of the initial costs, much more sensitive to the cost of capital, which can add 40 per cent or more to construction costs. They take a long time to build, and, when built, have to run continuously into a market where the wholesale electricity price can change constantly. The operators have to make adequate provision for the (currently unquantifiable) costs of waste disposal.

Coal-fired stations take perhaps three to five years to build, cost a lot less per unit of generation capacity and have no back-end liabilities to speak of. They are economic to build singly and therefore each new one is less at risk of failing to sell the power it produces. Gas-fired stations can be built in smaller units much more quickly, and so are even easier to match to shifting demand. Wind turbines can be built in very small tranches, even faster than gas.
Very high, uncertain and rising capital costs on a project that will produce no revenues for a decade or more are not a compelling proposition at the best of times. Add a host of hard-to-quantify sociopolitical risks, and it is not difficult to see why nuclear power programmes have always relied on large and sustained public subsidies.

Why is nuclear power so expensive?

There are only two honest answers to the question of how much it costs to build a nuclear power station. These are “I don’t know” and “I’ll tell you when I’ve built it.” Everything else is a guess. These may come in official volumes stuffed full of impressive-looking data, but they are still guesses. Some numbers will illustrate the point. Between 1966 and 1967, reactor costs in the US exceeded estimates by an average 209 per cent. Between 1968 and 1969 they went up 294 per cent. Between 1970 and 1971 they went up 348 per cent. 1972 to 1973 was a good year, they only went up 318 per cent. But by 1974 to 1975 they were back up to 381 per cent. In 1976 they only went up 169 per cent. But by then the American utilities had given up. They have not ordered a nuclear reactor since 1974. We did little better. The cost of building Sizewell B went up “only” from £1.7bn to £3.7bn during construction.The government’s commitment to new nuclear power stations is based on just such guesses. The cost of a reactor is normally quantified by what it costs to build each kilowatt (kW) of its capacity to generate electricity. To find the cost, you multiply this by the reactor’s size—measured in thousands of kW, or megawatts (MW). To this must be added the cost of financing the expenditure. In its January white paper on nuclear energy, the government’s worst-case analysis assumed that the construction cost would be £1,625/kW, giving a total cost (based on a reactor size of 2,200MW) of £3.6bn. But in May, the German utility company E.ON estimated the cost at just over £3,000/kW, making the overall cost of a new reactor close to £6.7bn. Other recent guesses range from $4,000/kW (£2,162) early in 2007 to $10,000/kW in January 2008 (£5,000). This certainly looks like “I don’t know” to me.

Nuclear enthusiasts argue that everything is different now. Lessons have been learned, designs have been standardised and new reactors can be built on time and to budget. But the fact that none of the three designs under consideration in Britain is operating anywhere in the world might give pause for thought.Recent events in Finland provide further grounds for caution. There, French company Areva is building the first example of the reactor design most favoured for Britain, the so-called EPR. It has not been a success. The 1,200MW reactor is more than £1bn over its original £2.5bn budget and two years late just two years after construction began. If this is the best Finnish contractors can manage, the thought of what those who brought you the Scottish parliament or Wembley stadium might accomplish is chilling.

This is not just, or even mainly, about incompetence. Nuclear costs are rising disproportionately. This escalation—14 per cent a year after inflation, according to one estimate—has many causes. Nuclear power stations are intensive in metal and concrete, and their construction requires specialist skills. So they have been hit harder than other forms of power generation by the surge in engineering costs. The nuclear supply chain has atrophied in the quarter century since there were last large programmes in the OECD countries. In the US there are now only 80 nuclear-qualified suppliers of key components, compared to 400 a decade ago.

And there is only one global provider—the Japan Steel Works (JSW)—of the heavy forging capacity needed for reactor pressure vessels. JSW is already hard-pressed by demand for new refinery equipment and can only supply five new reactor vessels a year, although it wishes to double capacity to ten vessels. But the need to fund this investment is itself contributing to rising prices, which have increased by 12 per cent in six months, and JSW now requires a 30 per cent down payment on an order. It takes six years from the date of the order to get other key components, including reactor coolant pumps and control and instrumentation equipment
The human resources needed to resuscitate the nuclear industry are in even shorter supply. Before you can even apply for permission to build a nuclear power station, you need approval for the design you plan on using. This can take several years. Yet inspectors and engineers are leaving Britain’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), some to retirement and others to more lucrative employment with contractors hoping to come to the nuclear party. The NII now has only 16 people to carry out the detailed safety approval of new reactors, a task estimated to need at least 40. What this means is that if you wanted to have a reactor up and running in Britain by 2020, you would need to have sought approval some time ago. Generous pay rises, relocation from Merseyside and a new management structure are all proposed to relieve this bottleneck. But these reforms will need time to become anchored if we are to avoid an unacceptable choice between speed and safety.

The government has pledged that there will be no subsidies for new nuclear construction. But this was never credible, and it is already possible to detect signs of retreat. In 2006 the government bravely promised to “make sure that the full costs of new nuclear waste are paid by the market.” By 2008 this had mutated into the more nuanced: “The government will [set] a fixed unit price [for] waste disposal at the time when approvals for the station are given.” This effectively caps the costs of nuclear waste disposal to the operator and transfers the risk of cost overruns on to the taxpayer. It is hard to argue that this is not a subsidy.

Furthermore, as Stephen Thomas from Greenwich University has pointed out, if you take E.ON’s estimate of the cost of a new reactor of £3,000/kW, then the operating cost of that reactor is likely to be about £80 to generate a kW of electricity for an hour—a measurement known as a kilowatt hour (kWh). The current wholesale electricity price, which is causing ministers such headaches, is about £40/kWh. We already know what happens to nuclear operators when their operating costs exceed the price at which they can sell electricity. In 2002 British Energy lost money hand over fist and found itself technically insolvent. But the company did not go bust. In a prequel to Northern Rock, the government bailed it out to the tune of some £4bn, taking a large stake in the business. (British Energy is now profitable, thanks to rises in fossil fuel prices.)

This precedent helps to explain why utilities companies are looking at nuclear power. They know that once Britain has started down this road, there will be no going back, as other investment will be suppressed. The “no subsidies” rule will be a distant memory. The utilities companies will be in a strong position to extract from taxpayer and consumer alike what they need to keep going.

Closing the generation gap

The idea that the world is on the dawn of a new nuclear age is no less of a fantasy now than it was in the early 1970s. Even the nuclear-supporting International Energy Agency’s projections have little more nuclear power in operation in 2030 than there is now. That is because most of our present reactor fleet was built in a rush in the 1970s. Even with extensions, these are coming to the end of their lives. Much is made of the 32 reactors now under construction around the world, mostly in Asia. But 11 of them have been under construction for more than 20 years. Just to maintain the current number of reactors by 2025, we would have to build 250 more reactors than are currently under construction—or 15 a year between now and 2025. The build rate since 2000, almost all in Asia, has been one a year. Increasing this is certainly possible, but to do so by 15 times despite shortages of materials and manpower—and during a credit crunch—seems fanciful.

Britain is a very long way from facing a choice of building more nuclear or freezing in the dark. There is a real problem—three problems to be precise—with energy security, but none can be solved by nuclear power. The most urgent is the threat of interruptions to our oil supply, which could bring Britain to a halt. But our oil for transport cannot be replaced by nuclear electricity. Preventing instability in the middle east and reducing oil dependence by more efficient transport and logistics are the solutions here.

Much has been made of the threat of becoming overdependent on imported gas, particularly from Russia. Leaving aside that Russia is more dependent on our revenues than we are on its gas, half of our gas is used for heating domestic space and water, and cannot be replaced without a big transformation of our infrastructure. More is used for industrial processes, leaving under a third for electricity generation. But much of that is used to generate electricity at peak times because gas turbines are easy to switch on and off to meet short-term demand spikes. Nuclear power stations must be run continuously to be economic.
Ministers now often invoke the “generation gap” that will emerge as some 22,000MW of existing coal and nuclear capacity is closed between now and 2020, much by 2015. If this is not replaced by new nuclear power, runs the argument, then carbon-intensive gas or coal will have to be used at the expense of the climate. The British head of EDF, Vincent de Rivas, promises that he can deliver new nuclear electricity to the grid by 2017. But the government’s own nuclear consultation is more realistic. It assumes that were an order placed today under its accelerated regulatory procedures, it would still be eight years before construction started. For a wholly new design, construction would take a further five years, at least. The government has yet to explain how a power station that won’t open before 2021 can meet a “generation gap” it expects to appear by 2015.

Of course, no government will let the lights go out. So this generation gap is more a rhetorical device than a genuine threat. The government is now committed to producing at least 35 per cent of our energy from renewable sources by 2020. That may fill some of the purported gap. Energy efficiency will fill more. If nuclear cannot fill the remainder—perhaps 2,500MW—then coal will do it.

Some doubt whether the renewables target is achievable. In fact, it is more likely to be met than Brown’s hopes for nuclear. Last year the world added about 2,000MW of additional nuclear capacity through improving the performance of existing reactors. Photovoltaic solar energy alone, one of the least economically attractive of the renewables, added 2,300MW. Wind power, which on many estimates already delivers electricity more cheaply than nuclear, added eight times as much.

Nuclear power is a low-carbon source of electricity, and will therefore avoid whatever tax is levied on carbon emissions. But it won’t help Britain meet its climate change targets. The goal is to keep the eventual rise in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius—the threshold of dangerous climate change. This means that greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2020 and then decline steeply. But if building the 15 reactors a year needed to replace the world’s current capacity is going to be impossible—as it is—it is difficult to see how it could play a bigger role in reducing global carbon emissions.

The top climate priority is to very quickly make coal use carbon-neutral by deploying carbon capture and storage technologies. This is mainly for geopolitical reasons. The International Energy Agency forecasts 14,000MW of new coal-fired power stations by 2030. China is building new coal-fired plants at the rate of 2,000MW a week. It also has the world’s most ambitious nuclear power programme, aiming to build 40 nuclear power stations by 2030. This latter effort would still provide only 4 per cent of China’s electricity. Three quarters will come from coal. If this happens without the Chinese using carbon capture and storage, the government, and the world, will not achieve its climate change objectives. We will be saying hello to a four degree jump in temperatures and goodbye to prosperity and security for 60m Britons.
If we want others to make their coal burning carbon-neutral, we must do so ourselves. Actions speak louder than words. In the next three years, Britain will spend £2.8bn a year on cleaning up its nuclear legacy. We will spend nothing on deploying carbon capture and storage—the world’s most important technology for ensuring climate security.

No one should doubt the good intentions of those who are arguing for a switch of scarce capital, materials and skills into nuclear power in Britain. It is not their intentions that are in question, but their analysis. We have been here before, with equally serious people arguing that there was no alternative to a nuclear future. In 1975 the UK Atomic Energy Authority told the royal commission on environmental pollution that by 2000 Britain would have 104 nuclear reactors. This did not happen not because the nuclear industry lacked support. Then, as now, government, business leaders, the unions and the media were all onside. It failed because economic reality intruded. It will do so again—but this time the consequence of going down the nuclear cul-de-sac will be much more serious.

Tom Burke is environmental policy adviser to Rio Tinto. He is a fellow of the Energy Institute and co-founder of E3G. He is writing in a personal capacity