Round-up on nuclear power debate

In the 4 weeks since the earthquake and tsunami hit the Fukushima nuclear reactor the debate on the future of nuclear power has intensified. Here I take a look at the six main debating points and draw a conclusion on what this may mean for UK energy policy.

1. Safety

George Monbiot and Mark Lynas have said this accident, like previous accidents, will lead to very few deaths. Mark produced a pretty convincing analysis of this. Meanwhile John Vidal in the Guardian takes issue with fellow columnist George as he recounts his first-hand experience of visiting areas around Chernobyl, hearing accounts from doctors of the grim impact of the accident and seeing with his own eyes malformed children born after the accident. Of course any new reactors will be built to much higher safety standards than Chernobyl and Fukushima. But it is true that new nuclear power plants can not be completely safe because all industrial plants have inherent dangers. But the major concern with new nuclear power stations are nuclear weapons proliferation and highly radioactive waste not safety (as George said in his 2006 blog on nuclear power).

2. Economics

Some argue that nuclear power is far too expensive whereas George Monbiot says that it is substantially cheaper than the smaller scale renewable energy that Friends of the Earth and others promote.

There is certainly lots of evidence to back George's position, such as the report by Mott McDonald for the Dept of Climate Change. But cost is not the main issue here - speed is.

We need to cut our emissions urgently to avoid dangerous climate change. Small-scale renewable energy can deliver faster which is very important in weaning us off fossil fuels and reducing carbon pollution. Nuclear power stations have a troubled history of being built years behind schedule and well over budget (whilst the cost of renewable technologies falls).

Nuclear power has had 50 years worth of subsidies yet it has not reduced its costs significantly through learning and scale.Yet it still seeks more.

Although the Coalition Government says it will not be funded by tax-payers it looks it is doing its best to introduce some backdoor subsidies. Renewable power has had precious little subsidy through the years but even so the costs of the technology are falling rapidly whereas the cost of nuclear is likely to rise following the Fukushima accident. Subsidies should be short-term investments to help new technologies to market.

Nuclear power has had and continues to seek a long-term prop disguised as a subsidy. It's the turn of renewable energy to get financial support and nuclear should be made to stand on its own two feet.

4. Thorium reactors

These are said to be the new clean nuclear power without the waste and proliferation issues of conventional nuclear power. They are also said to be inherently safer. In one of my previous blogs I said Friends of the Earth supports research into this technology, as we do many other technologies.

I also said that whilst we wait for the research to bear fruit, which may be decades, we really do need to get on with the job of deploying existing energy saving and renewable energy technologies.

5. Bridging technologies

Stephen Tindale, former Director of Greenpeace UK and another advocate for nuclear power, has said on his website that he believes a 100 per cent renewable energy future is possible in the future but we need nuclear power or fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a bridging technology while the transition is made. In Friends of the Earth's view, gas with CCS is a preferable route because gas is cleaner than other fossil fuels and doesn't bring with it the risk of nuclear proliferation and the problem of nuclear waste (although CCS itself is not risk free).

6. What to do when the wind doesn't blow

This is likely to be the first challenge from 'the man in the pub'.

Intuitively it doesn't seem right that renewable energy can provide all the energy we need during long periods of cold calm weather in the darkest mid-winter. Tidal energy, geothermal heat and electricity, biomass and biogas provide some of the answer. Storage solutions such as tidal lagoons can help, especially during shorter periods of calm weather. International grids can enable us to import energy from areas where the wind is blowing or sun shining. Together these solutions may help get us through these periods.

But energy storage is a critical part of the answer. Compressed hydrogen storage is the most promising technology combined with open cycle hydrogen turbines. The hydrogen can be manufactured from excess energy on sunny and windy days and used when the sun isn't shining or wind blowing. Already in the UK we store around 14 days worth of gas. It isn't rocket science to store equivalent amounts of energy either as hydrogen or biogas.

The great irony

The great irony of this nuclear debate is that it is there's almost total unanimity between many of the protagonists that the Government should give a much greater priority to renewable energy and energy saving in the UK.

An opinion poll we carried our recently showed that 75 per cent of people support these being the priorities. I would expect that most would also agree that a 100 per cent renewable energy future is possible once energy storage issues have been sorted (even if some may not support it because they don't like the look of wind-farms). And most would probably prefer thorium nuclear reactors to conventional nuclear power plants. Friends of the Earth will continue to advocate gas with CCS as a transition fuel whereas I suspect Mark, George and Stephen will advocate conventional nuclear power.

Regardless of this, please let's get on with the job of cutting energy waste and harnessing the huge green energy potential at our fingertips.