Expensive nuclear power push ignores chance to cut costs of UK’s electricity system
Energy strategy: expensive nuclear power push ignores chance to cut costs of UK’s electricity system
The Conversation, Furong LiReader in Electrical Systems, University of Bath, Nigel TurveyVisiting Senior Industrial Fellow in Electrical Engineering, University of Bath, 8 Apr 22,
”……………………… apart from a promised five-fold increase in solar power generation by 2035, the strategy sets no target for generating electricity from some of the country’s cheapest sources, like onshore wind.
The government may defend its decision to ramp up the production of nuclear power as support for a home-grown and reliable source of energy. But some of that hefty investment would be unnecessary if Britain reorganised its energy system to make the most of the nation’s abundant renewable electricity instead.
When the price of a commodity like a soft drink goes up, production can be ramped up fairly rapidly to respond to spot market conditions, which quickly lowers prices again. Building a new nuclear power plant or offshore wind farm is quite different, requiring major investment and the certainty that there will be a reasonable return on upfront investment from selling energy over 30 to 40 years.
In the UK, governments can intervene in the capacity market to ensure a secure electricity supply by paying for reliable sources, which provides the long-term certainty necessary to build sufficient generating capacity. Financial backing changes to reflect the state’s priorities, and the drive for eight new nuclear reactors is reported to cost the public £13 billion.
Building wind farms and nuclear plants is just the first step though. The speed at which they be can integrated into electrical networks and operated to be in tune with power, transport and heat demand is what will actually decide when energy prices stabilise………………..
How to get inflexible, low-carbon energy to homes and businesses reliably and cheaply is as important as building new, reliable sources. And on that count, making more effective use of renewable sources – and reducing energy demand overall – would mean the country could afford to build less nuclear power, which is one of the few low-carbon sources which hasn’t become substantially cheaper.
New technologies
One way to increase customer demand for renewable and low-carbon energy when it’s abundant and reduce it when generation is tight is to incentivise storage technologies.
For example, if electric vehicles are charged up when there is plenty of wind and solar power being generated, 40GW of offshore renewable energy would be enough to power the country’s entire vehicle fleet without any of it going to waste.
To help harmonise Britain’s energy demand with periods when renewable output is high, the government could invest in digital technologies such as smart meters and set up new tariffs which can send price signals to EV chargers. It could also invest in improving the short-term forecasting of solar and wind output. These changes would make distributors aware of customer needs and help customers alleviate stress on the system.
While electric vehicle batteries can manage the variability of renewable output, Britain’s energy system also needs fixed storage – like grid-scale batteries which, unlike the government’s favoured solution of hydrogen fuel, are capable of very fast response times to manage sudden changes……………………… https://theconversation.com/energy-strategy-expensive-nuclear-power-push-ignores-chance-to-cut-costs-of-uks-electricity-system-180365
Britain’s ”underwhelming” energy plan – ‘Great British Nuclear, with no policies on saving energy, nor energy efficiency
The government announced that a new body called Great British Nuclear will also
be launched to bolster the UK’s nuclear capacity, with the hope that by
2050 up to 24 GW of electricity will come from that source – 25% of the
projected electricity demand.
It has said the focus on nuclear will deliver
up to eight reactors overall, with one being approved each year until 2030.
It also confirmed advanced plans to approve two new reactors at Sizewell in
Suffolk during this parliament. Wylfa in Anglesey and Oldbury in Cumbria
(sic) have also been named as candidates to host either large-scale plants,
smaller modular nuclear reactors, or possibly both.
Environmentalists and many energy experts have reacted with disbelief and anger at some of the
measures in the strategy. They cannot believe the government has offered no
new policies on saving energy by insulating buildings. They say energy
efficiency would immediately lower bills and emissions, and is the cheapest
way to improve energy security.
A Downing Street source said the strategy
was now being see as an energy supply strategy. Campaigners are also
furious that ministers have committed to seeking more oil and gas in the
North Sea, even though humans have already found enough fossil fuels to
wreck the climate. There is a strong welcome, though, for the promise of
more energy from wind offshore with speedier planning consent.
The same
boost has not been offered to onshore wind. Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow
climate change and net-zero secretary, said: “The government’s energy
relaunch is in disarray. “Boris Johnson has completely caved to his own
backbenchers and now, ludicrously, his own energy strategy has failed on
the sprint we needed on onshore wind and solar, the cheapest, cleanest
forms of homegrown power.
“This relaunch will do nothing for the millions
of families now facing an energy bills crisis,” he added. Liberal Democrat
leader Sir Ed Davey also described the plans as “utterly hopeless”, while
the SNP’s Stephen Flynn called it a “missed opportunity”. Dr Simon
Cran-McGreehin, head of analysis at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit,
told the BBC that he also felt “underwhelmed” following the announcement.
BBC 6th April 2022
” Renewable Energy Foundation (REF)” – strongly linked to anti-wind power lobby
Charity linked to UK anti-onshore wind campaigns active again. While the
name of the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) suggests it is a charity
dedicated to promoting low-carbon electricity, it appears to spend most of
its time campaigning against onshore wind.
When it was founded in 2004,
with the TV personality Noel Edmonds as its chair, the organisation was
clear it wanted to fight against the “grotesque political push” for
onshore renewable energy in the UK. It styles itself on its website as “a
registered charity promoting sustainable development for the benefit of the
public by means of energy conservation and the use of renewable energy”.
However, many in the energy sector believe the charity to be full of
anti-wind lobbyists. In 2008, the REF had what it described as a
“dialogue” with the Charity Commission over whether it was violating
its charitable status by being too political in its campaigning. The
Charity Commission said it assessed the complaint relating to the REF’s
campaigning activities and determined there was no evidence that it was not
charitable, but also provided guidance about how to achieve its objectives
as an organisation.
The REF has strong links to a group accused of climate
science scepticism, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, started by the
former chancellor Nigel Lawson, who has denied global heating is a problem.
Prof Michael Kelly, a trustee of the REF also has a position on the board
of the GWPF. John Constable, an adviser to the GWPF, has been quoted as an
REF spokesperson and was previously its director of policy and research.
Constable answered the Guardian’s questions for this article on behalf of
the REF.
While the REF has been relatively quiet in recent years, growing
pressure on the government to support wind energy to help solve the energy
crisis seems to have led to it becoming more active again. In recent weeks,
the charity has provided anti-onshore wind research to the Telegraph and
Daily Mail. Colin Davie, a trustee of the REF, has appeared on Radio 4’s
Today programme to oppose onshore wind. Constable added that the REF had
“no blanket policy” on renewables – but that the charity did not see
them as a large part of the net zero strategy. He added: “Each proposal
must be judged on its own merits, and providing that local environmental
concerns offer no obstacle, niche applications may be suitable, as they may
be for all renewables.”
Guardian 5th April 2022
Portugal to speed up switch to renewable power in wake of Ukraine war
https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/portugal-speed-up-switch-renewable-power-wake-ukraine-war-2022-04-01/?fbclid= By Sergio Goncalves,
LISBON, April 1 (Reuters) – Portugal aims to accelerate its energy transition and increase the proportion of renewable sources by 20 percentage points to 80% of its electricity output by 2026, four years earlier than previously planned, the government said on Friday.
As part of a global shift away from carbon-emitting fossil fuels, countries are betting on renewable energies such as wind and solar, a transition that is being accelerated in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The new Socialist government that was sworn in on Wednesday, said in its overall programme released on Friday that the energy plans should mobilize more than 25 billion euros of investment in the next 10 years, involving public and private players, incentives and financing.
“Portugal has already taken very significant measures in the energy transition, but the evolution and duration of the war in Ukraine must necessarily imply new measures,” Cabinet Minister Mariana Vieira da Silva told a news conference.
The country, committed to become carbon neutral by 2050, currently gets 60% of its electricity from renewable sources – one of the largest proportions of green energy use in Europe.
Unlike central European countries, Portugal does not depend on Russian natural gas pipelines, as it mainly imports liquefied natural gas from Nigeria and the United States, and has not imported Russian crude since 2020.
The government also wants to “more than double the installed capacity of renewable sources in the next decade”.
Portugal, which closed its two coal-fired power plants last year, has 7.3 GW of hydroelectric capacity and 5.6 GW of onshore wind parks, which together represent 83% of its total installed capacity. Reporting by Sergio Goncalves Editing by Andrei Khalip and Frances Kerry
Nuclear is not the key to energy independence
Nuclear is not ‘key to energy independence’, https://www.centralmaine.com/2022/04/03/nuclear-is-not-key-to-energy-independence/ Jim Perkins The headline on the opinion piece by conservative activist Jim Fossel (March 20) extolled nuclear power as “key to energy independence.” In his text, Fossel dealt only with rosy promises that go back to the days of Walt Disney’s “Our Friend the Atom.”
Fossel did not mention any of the challenges nuclear power faces: not the environmental concerns, not the economic realities, not safety experience highlighted in this country by one stuck valve rendering a brand-new billion-dollar plant in Pennsylvania a smoldering heap nor major catastrophes in Ukraine and Japan. He did not address short and long-lived contamination by nuclear wastes, from mining, then milling, through to the unresolved issues of site contamination and eventual (maybe) ultimate disposal of high-level “spent” fuel.
He didn’t address nuclear proliferation concerns: see North Korea, Israel, South Africa and Iran for examples of blurring the civilian/military distinction.
He brought up support by governments of the world for some renewable energy projects, but ignored totally the government roles underpinning every nuclear program in the world.
Centrally, Fossel was holding out “energy independence” as a goal for all. A Google search might have shown him where he could find the world’s large reserves and significant production of uranium. As with petroleum, the U.S. has some of its own, but leading the pack are these five: Kazakhstan; France (with production operations in Canada, Africa, the U.S. and Kazakhstan); a nominally “Canadian” company called Uranium One which is owned and controlled by Rosatom, the Russian state corporation; China; and Uzbekistan.
Trading dependence on one unstable and dangerous resource for another is hardly progress. A conservative perspective should make that obvious.
To wean UK off Russian gas – the key is energy efficiency + wind projects – not nuclear power, says new research.
Fixing energy-leaking homes and funding wind projects – not nuclear power stations – is key to weaning the UK off Russian gas, a new studysays, amid cabinet clashes over policy.
Boris Johnson is pushing to get 25 per cent of the UK’s electricity from nuclear power – requiring up to
six new power stations – at a cost that is alarming Rishi Sunak, the
chancellor.
Meanwhile, cabinet rows over relaxing planning rules to lift
the block on onshore wind turbines are also holding up a new energy
strategy, prompted by the Ukraine crisis. Now an analysis by the climate
change think tank E3G says a strategy that “starts at home” is the
route to reducing reliance on Vladimir Putin’s gas supplies.
Dramatically improving the energy efficiency of the UK’s buildings “could secure an
80 per cent cut in the amount of gas we import from Russia this year”, it
is arguing. If combined with government funding for solar and onshore wind
projects already in the planning pipeline, “the UK could cut the amount
of gas we get from Russia by 100 per cent within a year”.
“Energy security starts at home,” said Ed Matthew, E3G’s campaigns director,
ahead of the expected release of the “energy independence plan” this
week. “By ramping up the energy efficiency of UK buildings and
accelerating renewables deployment, the government can take an axe to UK
gas demand.
Independent 3rd April 2022
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/energy-russia-gas-wind-turbines-b2049677.html
Sizewell new nuclear will not solve the government’s energy problems, but will punish the poorest.
| Nick Butler: Spending £4bn on a new nuclear station at Sizewell will not solve the government’s energy problems. Instead of sensible short-term measures to help those facing energy poverty, the government is focusing on a technology with a track record of failure. In the face of surging energy prices and the prospect of more problems as Europe turns off Russian gas supplies, the UK government is struggling to find a coherent energy policy. The latest move, a £4bn investment in the proposed new nuclear station at Sizewell, is both a mistake and an irrelevance. Private investors who are being asked to stump up the majority of the £20bn total cost should politely decline the offer. The current energy challenge—driven first by the surging post-Covid economy around the world, and now by fears of a fight for supplies as Europe reduces its use of Russian gas by two-thirds by 2023—is not the fault of the British government. The UK is not dependent on Russian supplies, which account for less than 5 per cent of British consumption. We do, however, import half our gas, and are therefore vulnerable to whatever happens on the world market. The government is responsible for the response to a crisis which will raise retail bills in April, and again in the autumn. The burden of these sudden increases will hit the poorest hardest, adding to cost of living pressures already evident. The Bank of England talks of inflation of 8 per cent by the end of the year. Many commentators think 10 per cent is more likely. The answer to the challenge has to begin with welfare support for those who cannot cope. A temporary removal of some of the taxes on energy supply, including VAT, would also offer some relief. The £2bn being given to the developers of Sizewell would have made a material difference to those facing energy poverty. The choice of EDF’s European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) technology is the worst from any perspective. In the face of an energy crisis and soaring bills, the government needs solutions which are practical and affordable. There is no way of insulating the UK from developments in the world market. The poorest can and should be protected but the rest of us will undoubtedly have to pay more. What matters now is that the short-, medium- and longer-term solutions to limit that exposure are deliverable and affordable. Sizewell is neither. Prospect 30th March 2022 https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-technology/spending-4bn-on-a-new-nuclear-station-at-sizewell-will-not-solve-the-governments-energy-problems |
Boris Johnson’s fixation on nuclear power is not justified by the facts, as Britain’s electricity demand continues to fall.
| Letter Andrew Warren, Chairman, British Energy Efficiency Federation: In declaring that Boris Johnson’s fixation on nuclear is a threat to British energy supply, Simon Nixon (Mar 31) draws attention to the fallacious belief by the Department for Business (if not at the National Grid) that demand for electricity is expected to expand enormously, apparently even double, over future years. Strangely enough, precisely the same justification was used in 2006, when the Labour government first committed itself (as Nixon observes) to a “family” of further nuclear power stations. Based on the official forecasts issued in 2006, we should by now be consuming at least 15 per cent more electricity than we were then. But we are not. In fact UK electricity consumption has gone down by more than 15 per cent since 2006. In other words, all that “expectation of demand growth” used then to justify new nukes was grossly exaggerated, by well over 30 per cent. In the interim, no new nuclear power stations have been added to the system. It hasn’t collapsed, and is far less carbon intensive. Surely, we should not be fooled again by the same spurious rhetoric about endless consumption growth? In that immortal phrase of the 1970s: “Save it. You know it makes sense.” Times 1st April 2022https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/times-letters-lessons-of-the-shropshire-maternity-scandal-7vs5xwfw3 |
War in Ukraine has produced a new energy crisis. Energy efficiency is the fastest way to address this.
| Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is good reason to “crank with wartime urgency” the mass insulation of buildings and deployment of renewables, energy conservation pioneer Amory Lovins declares in an interview with the Guardian. “We have a new energy crisis, and efficiency is the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest, and fastest way to address it,” said Lovins, chair emeritus of the Snowmass, Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. While new renewable technology usually gets more attention, he added, the time has come to focus on the energy efficiency measures that Lovins and others have been advocating for the last 50 years. Lovins also happens to be the grandchild of 20th century Jewish immigrants. from small villages in Ukraine. Most of his Ukrainian ancestors were murdered by the Nazis in the infamous 1941 massacre of Tarashcha, which resulted in the deaths of 14,000 Jewish Ukrainians. Eighty years later, fossil fuels are underwriting further vicious loss of life. But in the first two weeks of the war, western countries paid out €8 billion for oil and gas purchases from Russia, he told the Guardian. The Energy Mix 27th March 2022 https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/03/27/shift-to-energy-efficiency-could-pressure-putin-says-conservation-pioneer-lovins/ |
Spending £4bn on a new nuclear station at Sizewell will not solve the government’s energy problems
Spending £4bn on a new nuclear station at Sizewell will not solve the government’s energy problems
Instead of sensible short-term measures to help those facing energy poverty, the government is focusing on a technology with a track record of failure Prospect Magazine
ByNick Butler March 30, 2022In the face of surging energy prices and the prospect of more problems as Europe turns off Russian gas supplies, the UK government is struggling to find a coherent energy policy. The latest move, a £4bn investment in the proposed new nuclear station at Sizewell, is both a mistake and an irrelevance. Private investors who are being asked to stump up the majority of the £20bn total cost should politely decline the offer
……………………………………………………………..There are no instant solutions but on and offshore wind and solar power could be increased relatively quickly at a reasonable cost. The government could also accelerate its investment in developing the crucial technology for energy storage. This would capture more of the power produced by every wind turbine and limit the need for back-up plants (usually requiring more gas) to deal with the times when the wind is not blowing. On top of this, direct support for simple measures to enable people to use energy more efficiently would limit demand and cut bills.
Instead of such sensible short-term measures, ministers have chosen to focus on a technology which has a track record of failure and which, even if it could be made to work, will take at least a decade to provide any new electricity supplies………….
Of all the available options, however, the choice of EDF’s European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) technology is the worst from any perspective.
In 2009, EDF promised investors and the government at the time that the EPR to be built at Hinkley would produce power at a cost of less than £50 per MWhr. By Christmas 2017, we were told Hinkley would be onstream and providing the power to cook our Christmas turkeys. We were the turkeys for believing such claims.
Hinkley is still being built and 2027 now looks like the earliest date for production to begin. In France, the comparable EPR development at Flamanville—which was due onstream in 2013—is still unfinished, having experienced a series of crucial technical problems. In both cases the costs have overrun the original budgets by many billions.
Hinkley, if it ever comes onstream, will charge consumers £92.50 per MWhr index linked from 2013 when the deal was agreed. While the costs of renewables such as offshore wind have fallen dramatically over the last decade, the costs of nuclear power from Hinkley have continued to rise. After almost a decade of inflation, that price has already risen to around £110. Who knows what it will be in 2027?………….. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-technology/spending-4bn-on-a-new-nuclear-station-at-sizewell-will-not-solve-the-governments-energy-problems
We have a new energy crisis, and EFFICIENCY is the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest and fastest way to address it.
| Energy efficiency’s time may have come. Amory Lovins is arguing for the mass insulation of buildings alongside a vast acceleration of renewables. “We should crank [them] up with wartime urgency. There should be far more emphasis on efficiency,” he says. He sees Vladimir Putin’s war inUkraine as an outrage, but possibly also a step towards solving the climatecrisis and a way to save trillions of dollars. “He has managed to bring about all the outcomes that he most feared, but he may inadvertently have put the energy transition and climate solutions into a higher gear. He demolishes the technology with statistics. “In 2020 the world added 0.4 gigawatts more nuclear capacity than it retired, whilst the world added 278 gigawatts of renewables – that’s a 782-fold greater capacity. Renewables swelled supply and displaced carbon as much every 38 hours as nuclear did all year. Where nuclear is cheap, renewables are cheaper still and efficiency is cheaper than that. There is no new type or size or fuel cycle of reactor that will change this. Do the maths. It is game over.” “Putin’s war is being financed by those who buy Russian fossil fuels. In the first two weeks the west has paid €8bn to Russia. We have a new energy crisis, and efficiency is the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest and fastest way to address it,” he says. Guardian 26th March 2022https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/26/amory-lovins-energy-efficiency-interview-cheapest-safest-cleanest-crisis |
UK does NOT need more nuclear power. Electricity demand has fallen
| Andrew Warren: In seeking justification for “rigging” the UK electricity market in favour of more nuclear power, It is beingcategorically argued that electricity demand is expected to rise over the next decade (“Johnson in ‘gung ho’ push for more nuclear power as energy crisis bites”, Report, March 21). Strangely enough, that was precisely the reason given back in 2006, when the then Labour government first committed to a “family” of further nuclear power stations. Based on the official forecasts issued in 2006, we should by now be consuming at least 15 per cent more electricity than we were then. But we are not. Right now, UK electricity consumption has in fact gone down by over 15 per cent since 2006. In other words, all that expectation of demand growth which was used to justify new nuclear power stations was grossly exaggerated, in practice by over 30 per cent. In the interim, no new nuclear power stations have been added to the system. The system hasn’t collapsed, and it’s also far less carbon intensive. Surely, we aren’t getting fooled again by the same spurious rhetoric about endless consumption growth? In that immortal phrase of the 1970s: “Save it. You know it makes sense”. FT 24th March 2022https://www.ft.com/content/41942796-1da4-469a-af7c-a331673ae494 |
In UK, some welcome news, in Government support for energy saving
Welcome green tax cuts struggled to counter the sense of a Chancellor that
does not fully understand the scale of the interlocking environmental, cost
of living, and security crises the UK is facing. First, the good news,
because we could certainly do with some. Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s decision
to make the scrapping of VAT on energy-saving materials one of the central
planks of his Spring Statement is hugely welcome news. The fact
energy-saving materials has been defined to include clean technologies such
as solar panels and heat pumps, as well as insulation is similarly welcome.
And the decision to extend this tax cut for at least five years, giving
installers and manufacturers a clear signal that demand is likely to soar
and they should rapidly scale up capacity accordingly, is arguably most
welcome news of all. In addition, the doubling of the support fund for
Local Authorities to £1bn to help households in fuel poverty is also
undoubtedly welcome, even if it smacks a little of providing two buckets,
rather than one, to help tackle a forest fire. There was no grand vision
for driving sustainable growth, insulating the UK from surging global
fossil fuel prices, or helping people manage the transition to a net zero
emission economy. There was little sense of the UK’s place in an
increasingly dangerous world and how it could become a trailblazer for the
shift away from hydrocarbons that can help defang petrostate autocracies.
Most surprisingly of all, there was far too little to help the millions of
households that through no fault of their own are facing the looming shadow
of genuine poverty. It was, just like Sunak’s eve of COP26 Budget, a
significant opportunity missed.
Business Green 23rd March 2022
https://www.businessgreen.com/blog-post/4047134/spring-statement-bad-deeply-worrying
 | ReplyForward |
Welcome green tax cuts struggled to counter the sense of a Chancellor that
does not fully understand the scale of the interlocking environmental, cost
of living, and security crises the UK is facing.
First, the good news,
because we could certainly do with some. Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s decision
to make the scrapping of VAT on energy-saving materials one of the central
planks of his Spring Statement is hugely welcome news.
The fact energy-saving materials has been defined to include clean technologies such
as solar panels and heat pumps, as well as insulation is similarly welcome.
And the decision to extend this tax cut for at least five years, giving
installers and manufacturers a clear signal that demand is likely to soar
and they should rapidly scale up capacity accordingly, is arguably most
welcome news of all.
In addition, the doubling of the support fund for
Local Authorities to £1bn to help households in fuel poverty is also
undoubtedly welcome, even if it smacks a little of providing two buckets,
rather than one, to help tackle a forest fire.
There was no grand vision
for driving sustainable growth, insulating the UK from surging global
fossil fuel prices, or helping people manage the transition to a net zero
emission economy. There was little sense of the UK’s place in an
increasingly dangerous world and how it could become a trailblazer for the
shift away from hydrocarbons that can help defang petrostate autocracies.
Most surprisingly of all, there was far too little to help the millions of
households that through no fault of their own are facing the looming shadow
of genuine poverty. It was, just like Sunak’s eve of COP26 Budget, a
significant opportunity missed.
Business Green 23rd March 2022
https://www.businessgreen.com/blog-post/4047134/spring-statement-bad-deeply-worrying
Energy efficiency and renewables – faster, safer, than nuclear power, to move away from Russian fuel, and combat climate change.
A recent paper by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change says reducing
our oil and gas consumption could be an important tool to help Europe
through the medium-term challenge of moving away from Russian energy.
There is a need to address energy demand now, according to Prof Nick Eyre,
director of the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions at Oxford
University, both as a result of the Ukraine crisis and to tackle climate
change.
Reducing demand and decarbonising our energy systems is something
we should be doing anyway for climate reasons, said Eyre, in order to meet
our targets for net zero. “This energy security and price crisis is
another prompt to do this,” he said. “It will be expensive – but a
windfall tax on companies who, at best, have had a pretty dubious
relationship with Russia, would help pay for it.”
Eyre said collective
action was needed, driven by government, who should bring forward immediate
detailed policies on decarbonising domestic heating in the UK. Domestic
heating produces about 14% of UK emissions, and decarbonising the way homes
are heated – meaning more efficient homes and the electrification of most
heating systems – would cost an estimated £200bn over the next 30 years,
according to the Institute for Government. Between now and 2050, emissions
from residential buildings need to fall to zero at a rate of 3.4% a year
based on current emission levels, according to the Department for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Eyre believes any new energy supply policy
– expected to be announced by Boris Johnson in the coming days – will
make no sense if it does not include energy reduction measures and the
bringing forward of detailed plans to decarbonise our homes.
“If it’s
all about building nuclear power stations, this would take 10 years, so
it’s not a very sensible strategy,” said Eyre. “Energy efficiency and
renewable energy can provide what we need more quickly and less
dangerously.” Molly Scott Cato, former Green MEP and professor of
economics at the University of Roehampton, says the UK government should
launch a massive, nationwide, and publicly funded home insulation programme
backed up by information campaigns about how to use energy efficiently,
including reducing the thermostat settings on central heating systems and
introducing a 55mph speed limit on the national road network to cut energy
demand.
Guardian 23rd March 2022
The energy crisis is now, new nuclear will be (at least) twenty years too late – UK’s Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA)
The energy crisis is now, new nuclear will be (at least) twenty years too late
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities were dismayed to hear that the door of Number 10 will today once more be held open for guests from the nuclear power industry as Prime Minister Boris Johnson hosts a roundtable with prospective commercial partners, ahead of a new energy statement later this week.
Following Johnson’s proclamation that he will look to ‘place big new bets on nuclear’ and with one cabinet member allegedly describing the Prime Minister as ‘really gung ho for nuclear’, the participants are likely to meet with a firm ally. Government resolve will also be bolstered by the publication last week by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Nuclear Energy of a ‘roadmap’ to make sites, money and a pared-down regulatory environment available to the nuclear industry to enable the development of a further 15 Gigawatts of new nuclear generating capacity by 2035 and 30 GW by 2050.
The NFLA believes that this hyperbole ignores the reality that any new nuclear projects will take too long, cost too much and have too many uncertainties to provide a meaningful solution to the energy and climate crisis that Britain faces now.
“Despite the need to generate ‘more electricity more greenly’ now, the Prime Minister seems determined to ignore the obvious solution that would result from a far greater and more urgent investment in renewable technologies and is instead taking us once more along the increasingly well-trodden and costly road to no-where that is new nuclear”, said Councillor David Blackburn, Chair of the NFLA, in response to the news.
“Every pound spent on nuclear is a pound denied to renewables. New nuclear has a lamentable history of being delivered at far greater cost and far more slowly than was at first predicted. New nuclear plants take decades to deliver with Hinkley Point C currently estimated to cost at least £23 billion. Renewables have been proven to deliver electricity far more cheaply, far more quickly and far more safely than new nuclear ever can – and renewable energy comes without the additional eye-watering cost of decommissioning nuclear plants and managing the legacy of radioactive waste for millennia that comes with it.”
The NFLA would like the government to change tack and look to harness natural energy sources to generate power to meet our needs, whilst saving our environment.
“The irony is that we already have the solutions to our energy and climate crisis to hand. When you live in a country that is surrounded by seas and has unpredictable weather it is surely a far safer bet to invest in tidal energy, hydro power, solar panels and wind turbines to draw energy from Mother Nature. The NFLA believes this, combined with investment in innovative energy storage solutions and in retrofitting our cold and draughty homes to a far higher standard to reduce energy use, could meet Britain’s energy needs, reduce fuel bills, and safeguard our planet in the here-and-now, not the never-never.”
Ends//…For more information please contact Richard Outram, Secretary, NFLA Email Richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk / Mobile 07583 097793
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