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Nuclear Power 


In January, the latest symptom of this lack of planning manifested as the UK’s energy network operator issued four gas system balancing alerts in a matter of days, cut off supply to almost 100 industrial users, called for emergency imports and asked power companies to turn off gas power stations in favour of coal. While this showed that the system worked, prior to 2010 only one such alert had ever been issued. In fairness, we experienced a severe cold snap with


record gas demand as a result. However, if we think this is a problem now, we haven not seen nothing yet. Gas has left coal and nuclear far behind as our main source of power generation – from less than 40 per cent of supply a few years ago, to between 50 and 60 per cent now. In the next decade this will rise further, perhaps to 75 per cent or more. Te system coped this year because we could switch on coal-fired plant – but by 2015 many of these will have to close as a result of the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD), which aims to cut power station emissions. In the meantime, they have to run on restricted hours.


on a large scale – and that is at least a decade away. So – what is cheap to build and run, clean(er) and able to fill the gap by 2015? Gas. Lots of it. Power companies are falling over themselves to build new gas stations – often on the sites of old coal plants on their last legs (Cockenzie and Tilbury to name but two). Te problems are obvious. As global gas demand


mushrooms, we will be hugely reliant on one imported fuel source for our energy needs. It will come by pipeline from Russia and the former Soviet Bloc via Europe – and we are at the end of the line. If Ukraine doesn’t pay for Russian gas, will we be cut off as a result? We also increasingly rely on liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports by ship from the Middle East, but that is a global market – the UK will have to pay top dollar to attract these cargoes. Norway is a safer source of supply, but also sends its gas to the continent. Nor is gas clean enough to meet our emissions


objectives. Te dilemma of future energy supply in the UK is a menu of imperfect options. Gas is cheap and easy, but on the other hand the supply sources are far from guaranteed, it burns off CO2


, and we are in


great danger of becoming completely reliant on one fuel. Unabated coal is an emissions ‘car crash’ that is being regulated out of the picture – clean coal is a nascent technology and years away from economic production on the scale needed. Renewables, primarily wind, are being developed at a furious rate with generous subsidies. Yet reliability is a major issue – the intermittency of supply inevitably means that flexible back-up (fossil fuel) will be exceptionally expensive. Step forward nuclear. With the UK signing up to


low carbon legislation both here and at European / global levels, atomic power is virtually impossible to ignore. Ironic then, that until 2005 that is exactly what government policy did. Emboldened by cheap and plentiful fossil fuel-sourced power from ageing power stations, policy froze out nuclear as an ongoing option. Te key Government energy White Paper in 2003 noted that there was a lack of replacement nuclear on the slate, but argued that “its current economics make it an unattractive option for new, carbon-free generating capacity”. Firm statements like this over time led to the erosion of the nuclear skills base – why go to university to learn about atomic power stations that your country has written off? Te tide started to turn in late 2005. First, the


Fig. 2. Carbon targets and energy independence mean that a future built mainly around conventional fossil fuels is untenanble.


Furthermore, our nuclear reactors are ageing and unreliable. Teir share of generation has dropped from more than a quarter to around 15 per cent, and will continue to fall over the decade. Renewables will play an increasingly important role, with exceptionally ambitious government targets for new wind power, in addition to commitments to huge cuts in carbon emissions. Neither nuclear, nor wind, will fill the energy gap that is looming by 2015. All roads lead to a yawning energy gap. Coal is the dirty outcast – until clean coal technology is proven


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government’s Chief Scientific Adviser (Sir David King) – and then the prime minister – spoke in favour of a reappraisal of nuclear. In 2006, the resulting White Paper confirmed that a new generation of ‘nukes’ was on the agenda as part of a future mix of energy supplies – but the private sector would have to cover the cost of investment, decommissioning and waste storage. Greenpeace was furious, and won a court action ruling that the subsequent consultation process was lacking. Te government consulted again, and came to the same conclusion. At the end of May 2008, a series of coincidental power station outages – including at Sizewell B, the


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