News Extra

Tony Blair told the Labour Party Conference that the Government would publish proposals on energy policy in 2006. He said all options, including nuclear power, would be assessed for their contribution to tackling global warming and providing security of supply.

A round up of all September’s news about the new nuclear build debate.

Tony Blair told the Labour Party Conference that the Government would publish proposals on energy policy in 2006. He said “the G8 Agreement must be made to work so we develop together the technology that allows prosperous nations to adapt and emerging ones to grow sustainably; and that means an assessment of all options, including civil nuclear power”.

Full text of his speech: BBC 27th September 2005

Energy Minister, Malcolm Wicks, dropped a heavy hint about the government's thinking only hours before Blair’s speech. He said. "In principle, we can meet our climate-change targets without going down the nuclear road, although obviously it's more difficult.” Speaking at a fringe meeting organised by the nuclear industry, Mr Wicks said the government was "keeping options open" about expanding the nuclear industry as a way of reducing global warming. "I think it would help us tackle our challenge of climate change, all things being equal. But there is no silver bullet."

The Scotsman 28th September 2005
The Independent 28th September 2005

Jeremy Warner writing in The Independent said: the nuclear lobby would be ill advised to get its hopes up. Only a few months back Mr Blair seemed to acknowledge there was little public appetite for more nuclear. As likely as not, he'll have changed his mind again by this time next year.

The Independent 28th September 2005

The CBI re-iterated its call for new nuclear stations at the Labour Party Conference. Before the government review of energy policy is started, the climate change strategy review will be published at the end of this year. The CBI argues that Blair has to face the potential resistance to new stations and at least commit to replacing existing stations. They argue it is the only way the Government will be able to meet its climate change targets.

But Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alan Johnson, insisted at the Conference that new nuclear stations were “not inevitable”. The concerns that surrounded nuclear power when the energy white paper was issued in 2003 still remained, he said, particularly in relation to waste disposal and the economics of attracting private sector investment.

FT 26th September 2005

The Business newspaper reported that the Cabinet committee on energy and environment, set up after the election and chaired by Tony Blair, was due to meet for the first time in the last week of September. The committee includes the key cabinet opponent of nuclear power: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs secretary Margaret Beckett. It also includes Chancellor Gordon Brown, thought to be sceptical of the high costs of nuclear technology, Trade Secretary Alan Johnson, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Cabinet Office minister John Hutton, and Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks. The meeting will set the framework for a review on whether new nuclear power stations are needed, apportioning responsibilities between different departments, and deciding on issues such as whether a white paper on nuclear would be required or simply one on energy in general.

The Business 25th September 2005

The new energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, hints that he may be in favour of new nuclear stations, according to The Sunday Telegraph. The prime minister has said that the Government will have determined whether to build a new generation of nuclear plant before the end of this parliament and, according to Wicks, "that is soon enough". Issues that need to be taken into account are cost and how to deal with the poisonous waste.

Sunday Telegraph 18th September 2005

Wicks also says questions which need to be answered include: (1) What will persuade the private sector to finance nuclear new build? (2) Is there a publicly acceptable solution to the disposal of radioactive waste? (3) Will there be public support for a decision to build more nuclear power stations, even if they are restricted to existing nuclear sites? Public opinion will determine the political and media environment.

MORI 6th June 2005

Meanwhile, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee added fuel to the fire with its latest report which says that even if we reach renewable energy targets, the Government will need to encourage investment in other low carbon generating capacity, and in particular nuclear, to stand any chance of meeting its overall emissions target.

Only three existing nuclear stations will remain by 2020 and much of the present generation of coal-fired stations may be redundant if carbon constraints are imposed as planned. So Britain may be facing a serious energy crisis 10 years down the line. As things stand, the difference is being made up with the construction of gas-fired stations, but it hardly fits with the Government's aim of ensuring diversity of supply.

Jeremy Warner, in The Independent asked whether the Government should be sponsoring a new generation of nuclear plants, but concluded that past experience would argue against it. With the possible exception of the early magnox stations, Britain's post-war experiment with nuclear power has been a hugely costly mistake. There have been no serious accidents to speak of, but there have been leaks from the Sellafield reprocessing plant and no long-term solution has yet been found to the problem of how to dispose of nuclear waste. Nor could any supposed strategic advantage possibly have justified the cost. It's impossible to believe that any new nuclear build could be privately financed without some form of government guarantee. Warner says Alan Johnson is keen to give renewables a chance before venturing into the nuclear debate. Few would want to invest in renewables, he would argue, if they knew there was a Government-underwritten programme of new nuclear heading down the road.

The Independent 17th September 2005

The Liberal Democrats say climate change targets can be met without resorting to an increase in nuclear power. Environment spokesman Norman Baker told the party's annual conference in Blackpool that carbon emissions could be cut by 60 per cent by 2050 using increased energy efficiency, renewable power sources and a "limited" amount of clean coal technology.

ePolitix & BBC 21st September 2005

The UK should turn to technologies that remove carbon dioxide from fossil fuels rather than nuclear generation, says, Environment Minister Elliot Morley. Clean coal may be a cheaper way of reducing emissions, he said and “the problems with nuclear energy are not really resolved yet.''

Bloomberg 26th September 2005

Across the Atlantic, while the US government is preparing the ground for a major expansion of civil nuclear power, Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, says she is strongly in favour of extending nuclear energy to developing countries as a way of easing the energy crisis and combating climate change. Ms Rice told heads of state and business leaders at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York: "Civilian nuclear power is going to have to be part of the mix [in developing countries]." But early indications of the difficulty of the approach came from Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general. He told the Clinton Global Initiative audience that one of his biggest regrets of the UN Summit was its failure to agree a solution to nuclear proliferation. He warned of the dangers that proliferation posed, in giving terrorists opportunities to steal nuclear products that they could use to make so-called "dirty" bombs, which would combine radioactive material with conventional explosives in order to make bombs that could spread harmful radioactivity over a wide area. Bill Clinton, the former US president, agreed: "The push to bring back nuclear power as an antidote to global warming is a big problem. If you build more nuclear power plants we have toxic waste at least, bomb-making at worse."

FT 19th September 2005

Steve Kidd of the World Nuclear Association attempts to answer Malcolm Wick’s question: What will persuade the private sector to finance new nuclear build? He says it’s clear that financing new nuclear build in the financial markets will prove very challenging. Nuclear has a bad reputation there, with memories of the cost overruns still strong, and the recent problems at British Energy have caused further image problems. Financiers are loath to invest equity in new nuclear build, while loan finance is likely to come only with a hefty risk premium, such that the economics of new plants may not work out.
The industry has a number of requirements of governments, which it seems reasonable for them to fulfil, including: (1) a sound regulatory system, which allows reactor design certification to take place quickly, followed by a local planning process that doesn’t have unreasonable delays; (2) deciding on (and then delivering) a workable national radioactive waste management policy. Without being able to demonstrate a workable solution to the waste issue, it will be difficult to build new nuclear plants. The industry also needs the state to set the rules on decommissioning – some would argue that it must also act as the ultimate guarantor as a plant owner could conceivably find a way of walking away from its future obligations, even with an adequate decommissioning fund in place; (3) a power markets where different technologies can compete on a level playing field and where long-term investment in capacity is incentivised. Investors have to take major risks with selling nuclear power at good prices for many years in the future, to recoup the heavy initial plant investment costs. These requirements of the state are almost essential preconditions for cutting the risks of new nuclear build to manageable levels.

Nuclear Engineering International 1st September 2005