Labour and Nukes: conspiracy of hope killed off?

nuClear News, March 2016 Lisa Nandy, the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has called on the government to come up with a “Plan B” in case Hinkley Point C is never built. But instead of taking the opportunity to argue the case for more renewables she has called on the government to find cheaper ways to get more nuclear stations built in future. (1) She now wants the Government to look at new reactor types including Molten Salt Reactors, Heavy Water Reactors, and Fast Reactors (2) A far cry from Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto last summer which pointed to the 8 countries, 55 cities and 60 regions which are planning to go 100% renewable over the next few decades which Britain should be part of. He said Britain needs the Big 60 million not the Big 6. In his interview with Greenpeace’s Energydesk he said “no” to new nuclear power stations. (3)

When she was first appointed Nandy signaled that the government could no longer count on the opposition’s backing for Hinkley. But this has been the case for a while. In the run-up to the General Election shadow energy minister, Tom Greatrex, now Chief Executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, called for the Hinkley deal to be scrutinised by the National Audit Office (NAO) to make sure it was the best deal for the UK taxpayer. Baroness Worthington, shadow spokesperson for energy and climate change in the House of Lords attacked the deal with EDF saying it was having a “massive destabilising” effect on the energy market and causing a “crisis of confidence” in the future of energy production in the UK. Ed Balls who would have been Chancellor had Labour won was reportedly warned by Treasury officials that the costs for Hinkley were frighteningly out of control.

But her latest statements appear to be a backward step from commitments to the Labour Party Conference which looked encouraging. (4) She told the 2015 Conference about how the Tories were attacking the cheapest low carbon energy available to us – onshore wind, and pulling the rug from under the solar industry, wasting billions on an energy efficiency scheme that failed, and negotiating a deal to pay Chinese and French firms over the odds for nuclear power. Nandy said she and Jeremy don’t want to nationalise energy – they want to democratise it. ……….

By February this year in an interview with Carbon Brief, much of this support for a decentralised energy future seemed to have been kicked into the long grass. Instead she talked about nuclear power being an: “… important as part of the energy mix. I think it’s particularly important when you look at how we’re going to meet the commitments we made in Paris.”

Even Jeremy Corbyn in an interview with the Carlisle News and Star last November seemed to accept the need for a new nuclear power plant in west Cumbria. (5) Former Labour MP for Nottingham South, and decentralised energy advocate, Alan Simpson, writing in the Morning Star last August said: Corbyn’s plans for turning Britain into a clean energy economy are genuinely transformational – a fundamental rewrite of energy market rules — making energy “systems” more open, accountable, sustainable and affordable. It involves creating new social rights to the development of local energy systems and breaking the grip of Britain’s energy cartel. He wants towns, cities and regions to transform themselves into localised “virtual” power stations. He wants to create markets that sell “less” consumption before more, and take clean energy before dirty. Across the country, across generations, Corbyn has unleashed a conspiracy of hope — and that could be dangerous. It could be exciting. It could change everything. (6)……….

Nandy’s nuclear delusions stand in the way of the party engaging with the energy revolution. In Europe alone some 6,500 towns, cities and regions are committed to localised, “sustainable” energy systems. Nuclear advocates can’t bring themselves to admit that “smart” energy will sound the death-knell of both nuclear and fracking. Instead they trail around nuclear fictions about “baseload,” and fracking’s illusions of “security.” They live in denial of the extent to which technology, accountability and “clean” are already redefining the shape of tomorrow’s secure energy systems. (8)

Unfortunately last summer’s conspiracy of hope has melted away into a molten salt reactor.

References……… http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo83.pdf

March 9, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK

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