Tuesday
Mar152011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Hastings notices energy gap
Mar 15, 2011 Energy Politicians Max Hastings, writing in the Mail, notices that we may have a bit of a problem with our energy supplies here in the UK.
To be sure, if Fukushima releases lethal radiation affecting thousands of people, it will become much harder politically for any government to push through a new nuclear programme. But, today, this still seems unlikely.
What could be a catastrophe for Britain, however, is the crisis that will fall upon us ten years hence unless this Government comes to its senses, and starts to plan for a credible energy future which must include nuclear power.
If it continues to duck the issues and leaves policy in the hands of Chris Huhne and his foolish green friends, start hoarding candles.
H/T Breath of Fresh Air
Reader Comments (127)
Unfortunately, as usual, the media, including Max hastings, plays up the scare message, What is this "lethal radiation"? Chernobyl killed 56 people, with more cancers to come, but indistinguishable from normal cancer. Chernobyl, with all that burning graphite, a reactor not shutdown and no evacuation of the local population, was not a major incident on the scale of global disasters. Even if all three BWRs at Fukushima Daiichi rupture the pressure vesels and containments, the probability is that no member of the public will be killed. There may be a few undetectable extra cancers as a result. Fukushima Daiichi will probably turn out to be only slightly worse than Three Mile Island, which killed nobody and released an insignificant quantity of radioactive material.
This is it. This is the heart of the problem: aspirational 'climate' policy can never work.
Sorry to repeat it yet again, but the figures are vitally important. The UK is responsible for just 1.84% of global annual CO2 emissions. It just doesn't emit enough CO2 for reductions on any scale to have any measurable effect on future climate.
So all talk of 'tackling climate change' by emissions reduction in the UK is delusional or downright dishonest, depending on who is doing it and why.
This climate showboating, enshrined in the Climate Change Act, has derailed energy infrastructure planning and is going to have very severe real-world consequences within a decade.
Wrong advice (lobbying) = wrong policy choices = bad outcomes.
It is past time to get the energy fantasists and climate activists out of the corridors of power.
BBD
I agree, but how do get the energy fantasists and climate activists out of the corridors of power? I have written countless times to my MP and various ministers, but to no avail. Who is going to lead the revolution that is needed?
Philip Bratby
I have absolutely no idea.
- The takeover of the Establishment and of upper-echelon politics by the 'climate concerned' appears to be absolute.
- Activism and pompous, ill-informed self-righteousness have formed an unholy alliance.
- This has replaced knowledgeable pragmatism when it comes to planning and justifying energy policy.
It is the Age of Stupid.
============================
Those wanting good technical coverage of what's happening at Fukushima Daiichi will find it here:
http://bravenewclimate.com/
I wonder how many miners have died throughout the years (not to mention oil and gas workers etc), digging up the coal we need for electricity production? And how does that compare to how many people have died through the use of nuclear reactors? Looking at it this way, we should have gone 100% nuclear years ago.
Good luck to China and it's Thorium based nuclear power effort - they will leave the west behind.
Interesting how what has happened at the Fukushima nuclear plant is being spun by the MSM.
After all, there's a completely different way of looking at what happened - that apart from a small (well, smallish) problem, the reactor has survived one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded, intact. So a tribute to modern nuclear reactor design then, confirming their intrinsic safety etc etc ...
Candles, surely not?
"Candles have killed 126 – in just one year and a single country! Having a reliable supply of electricity would mean less use of candles, and so lives would be saved."
http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/14/even-candles-kill-many-more-than-nuclear-power/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/30/india-punjab-children-uranium-pollution
'A previous report in the magazine Scientific American, citing various sources, claimed that fly ash emitted by power plants "carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy", adding: "When coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels."'
"not a major incident on the scale of global disasters"
Ain't that the truth. The word 'nuclear' still has people hiding under the bed, unfortunately. I've noticed how the MSM news from Japan in the last few days has focussed on the power station, while the carnage of the 'quake and waves remains almost secondary. I guess that the excuse to use the word 'meltdown' in its proper context is too irresistible.
Meanwhile, 5000 people die from malaria every day (and nearly 3000 on the roads)...
Power and Energy is like lust. People just keep on wanting more. The Germans have done a bit of knee-jerking over it.
http://wrinkledweasel.blogspot.com/2011/03/aftershock-sparks-european-panic.html
Phillip Bratby said:
It is the same as the Great Stench. Westminster will only do something when the current situation directly affects Westminster.
A prolonged power cut there would give them a kick up the arse. Climate lobbyists like to present future scenarios - pictures of flooded that there London, talk of massive numbers of refugees, war over natural resources. Let's have a demo of a different kind - switch off the power to Parliament and see how they manage in order to illustrate the energy gap *they* are creating. They presumably do fire drills so perhaps they should do power cut drills.
If the lights go off because of them they will lose support. Presently they scramble to hide behind unaccountable quangos and global bodies as if this might protect them from blame in the future. They need a gentle reminder that if push comes to shove, invoking the perceived authority of the IPCC or whoever else will not protect them.
Paul at 11:07 -
I recall an excellent little book published during the anti-nuclear fervor of the 70s, entitled The Health Hazards of not going Nuclear, which made precisely that point. It detailed the number of deaths and injuries due to coal (miners mostly) and oil usage, and compared that to nuclear risks. As you might expect from the title, nuclear came first from an overall view of safety.
Phillip - I think that the Governments' scientific advisers have a key role here - unlike the Royal Societies they have at least some direct responsibility for ensuring that Ministers don't pursue policies which clearly endanger our population and economy (which the inevitable blackouts will surely do). Has anyone written direct to the either Scientific committees (Westminster or Holyrood) and requested a meeting so we rationalists could put our case to them? I think it is an avenue worth exploring if it has not already been tried.
BH - I suggested this last week after you said you have not had a reply from Nurse, but you didn't respond. If you are interested in fronting or being part of an approach to the Scottish Committee, please send me an email, as I have one or two ideas. Scotland is a small country and it may be easy to set up an informal meeting with Prof. Glover and a few others - you never know.
See government policy here:
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/lc_uk/carbon_plan/carbon_plan.aspx
There you will find a link to the Carbon Plan pdf signed by Cameron, Clegg and Huhne. Your worst fears will be confirmed. John Redwood also has a blog post on this today.
lapogus
I admire your optimism. However the First Minister is obsessed with renewables and completely fails to understand the consequences of the intermittency problem and the urgent need to update our thermal generation plants. Will the incoming Holyrood government be any better? I doubt it.
That said your approach could only improve things, so go for it.
Ed
Good article.
From the link above I quote:
"Many sensible economists and industrialists think we should be much more frightened than we are about the prospect that amid worsening energy shortages and rising oil prices, by the end of the decade this country will face a crunch that the Government is doing nothing to avert."
Instead of focussing on the damage done to the reactors, and waiting if more alarm can be squeezed out of it, why don't our MSM look at the effect the disrupted energy supply already has?
How are the Japanese - not just those in the devastated areas, but everywhere else - coping with those black-outs? What effect does this have on daily life commerce? How is this affecting the industries across the board?
Business news give a pointer - look at the dive in the Nikkei!
Does our government think a reduction across the economy, due to lack of energy supplies, will make people happy? Does the government think people will accept rolling brown-outs and energy rationing because 'we're doing our bit to save the planet', even if this affects less than 2% of the global human CO2 production?
It is time our woolly pseudo-greens, Hoo and Cameron and the rest of them, are being told by businessmen what their fairy-tale energy policies mean in real life. And someone in the Treasury better calculate the huge loss in tax income to the exchequer due to this negligence of ensuring that energy will be available at the level needed - and at costs not pushed high by green policies.
I am stunned by the inability of our watermelons to calculated the effect their dream policies will have not just on this country - but on themselves as well.
Or do they think they'll be getting bonus electricity to run their cars, just for having been greenly vociferous?
Candles are going cheap at Ikea.
You get a good breakfast there as well.
Don't believe in all this media hype over nuclear, it is, as usual, complete bollocks.
The ignorance and seemingly wilful stupidity of politicians is incredibly frustrating and they are pandered to and generally encouraged in their follies by the MSM, but new information from the Pew organisation indicates that in the USA at least, the blogosphere is overtaking the MSM in influence; there is considerably more factual opinion available on the blogosphere than in the MSM, but there is some incredibly nasty stuff available too. I take heart from the fact that the award-winning WUWT is the world's most popular science blog and RC has only a small and sycophantic audience, which seems like natural justice to me, Bish's book is doing well in the market place and politicians such as Graham Stringer are becoming more prominent and more outspoken. I have the feeling that the groundswell of support for good science and rational decision-making that springs from it is slowly growing and I am sure that the combination of a mildly cooling world and the ever-growing amount of actual knowledge will win in the end, but I suspect that it will be a slow process.
UKIP just MAY hold the answer...
@ Phillip / Gareth
Politicians are in it for the short term. All they need to do is get the money for carbon indulgences flowing into the state's coffers, and at that point they've won.
It is exactly the same argument as is used to defend charging motorists colossal sums of tax on road fuel and other imposts. It is well understood that these taxes greatly exceed the actual costs of providing for people with cars (you occasionally see a study purporting to show that cars impose wider costs than the provision of roads, but such studies rarely consider what it would cost economically in comparison if all those car journeys were instead undertaken either not at all or by public transport, so are essentially meaningless).
Or indeed it is like Britain's introduction of income tax as a temporary measure, strictly to pay for the Napoleonic Wars, you understand. Once Napoleon's defeated, we'll abolish it, we promise. How did that one work out? No, once government gets used to money rolling in, the argument - and the burden of proff - instantly shifts from "Is this extra tax justified?" to "Which hospitals will you close to 'pay for' this 'tax cut'?"
The indulgence fee stream will instantly become a structural part of government finance. Indulgences are particularly exposed to this because, like NI in the UK, the revenue is not despite its name earmarked to be applied to anything in particular. It just goes into the general trough, and will be spent the same way. If indulgences actually succeeded in reducing CO2 output, this would then become a disaster for governments, because the revenues from selling them would fall.
It is this latter point that tells us that CO2 indulgences are not intended to, and will not succeed in reducing emissions. If they did so, they would have failed. They are a bit like those dodgy bank charges where, if everybody ran their account flawlessly, there'd be no fines and the bank's operation would become unprofitable. Banks need customers to take unauthorised overdrafts, and governments need CO2 emissions to continue unabated. Governments in general only support taxes to reduce carbon emissions because they are confident that such taxes will not work.
Some comparable figures:
Comparing the historical safety record of civilian nuclear energy with other forms of electrical generation, Ball, Roberts, and Simpson, the IAEA, and the Paul Scherrer Institute found in separate studies that during the period from 1970 to 1992, there were just 39 on-the-job deaths of nuclear power plant workers worldwide, while during the same time period, there were 6,400 on-the-job deaths of coal power plant workers, 1,200 on-the-job deaths of natural gas power plant workers and members of the general public caused by natural gas power plants, and 4,000 deaths of members of the general public caused by hydroelectric power plants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents
The one and only reason for the re-introduction of nuclear is the global warming scam. Oh yes, and corruption.
Lots of connections between Murdoch/New Labour and the nuclear industry.
Labour and the nuclear lobby
Anti-nuclear campaigners like to portray the government as being in the pocket of the nuclear industry. How else, they argue, do you explain the return to favour of an industry once written-off as dirty, dangerous and prohibitively expensive.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5149676.stm
Miss Thornton is thought to be a somewhat reluctant political spouse. A former child actress who starred in the television show Dramarama, she went on to Cambridge and the Bar, becoming an environmental lawyer. The pair have been together for five years, and were sharing a home in north London when, in March 2009, The Daily Telegraph disclosed her identity for the first time – reporting that she worked in the nuclear industry at a time when Mr Miliband was responsible for energy policy.
He had provided officials at the Department for Energy and Climate Change with her name, but did not publish it on the publicly available register of ministerial interests, merely reporting that his girlfriend was an “environmental lawyer.” In fact, Miss Thornton was the “preferred counsel” for E. On, which was bidding for government contracts worth more than £20 billion to build new power stations.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/ed-miliband/8026732/Ed-Miliband-too-busy-to-marry-pregnant-girlfriend.html
Keep It In The Family, Gordon
What makes this decision politically sensitive, is that Gordon Brown has close family connections to the nuclear industry. His younger brother Andrew Brown works for EDF Energy, the UK subsidiary of EDF, which operates nuclear power stations in France, and which is one of the leading companies pushing for a nuclear rebuild programme in the UK. Andrew Brown was appointed as EDF Energy's Head of Press on 13 September 2004.
http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/Gordon_Brown
EDF Energy calls for UK carbon floor price
LONDON, May 26 (Reuters) - Britain should encourage investment in low-carbon energy like nuclear power by setting a minimum charge that fossil fuel burning generators must pay to emit climate-warming carbon dioxide, EDF Energy said on Tuesday.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLQ06362720090526
Campaign to repeal the Climate change Act, set up meeting this month.
http://repealtheact.co.uk
General point. Whatever is happening in the energy sector has absolutely nothing to do with any politician loving the planet or being misguided or idealistic in any way. It's to make money for someone.
The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
It is ironic that the oil industry was largely responsible for saving whales from mankind by knocking the bottom out of whale oil demand. Never thanked and now demonised, the (supposed) alternative to fossil oil kills whales!
@Justice4Rinka
This then is like the annual revenue gained on alcohol in the uk (about £63 biilion) and from motorists (about £50billion). The government are always saying we should drink less, own fewer cars and drive less, but they can not say how the taxation gap will be filled if were to suddenly do that.
For me the levers needed to change are going to come from external markets in countries who have not committed themselves to reducing carbon use being able to manufacture and sell stuff cheaper, thus costing jobs here and with it decreasing the prospect at the polls for politicians, and from within by a combination of communication channels influencing the great british public that actually, there is more harm to them personally (jobs, lifestyle, money etc) by following a carbon reduction path than by rejecting it. Logic does not work in belief change, rather you have to create confusion in the current belief, curioisty about alternatives and importantly a greater fear of following the currently held belief than changing it.
In Deller's post about the earthquake in Japan, and the subsequent devastating tsunami, he seeks to inject some perspective into the nuclear vs renewables argument (apart from the obvious one - that nuclear gives you power ALL the time..).
He quotes 'David' - (its not me..!!) - who had posted the following:
Nuclear fatalities in the last ten years: 7
Wind farm fatalities in the last ten years: 44
Which, bearing in mind that nuclear has provided 30 times the electricity of wind farms, makes nuclear 200 times safer than wind.
Re: David's post at Mar 15, 2011 at 1:19 PM,
I was going to make a similar comment regarding the number of deaths arising from windfarms. Maintenance of these units imposes significant risk with workmen working on top of these structures. The risks associated with off-shore windfarms will be far worse because of adverse weather conditions and more slippery surfaces. Accordingly as the push for off-shore windfarms increases one can expect to see an ever increasing number of deaths associated with the windfarm industry.
Additionally, these figures do not include deaths caused by pollution. The mining of the rare metals used in some of the components has led to considerable pollution in China and this no doubt in turn has led to deaths but the MSM never reports on this side effect.
The BBC hoisted on its own petard.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12745128
A fake text message reportedly from the BBC warning people that radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant has leaked beyond Japan has been panicking people across Asia.
Since the BBC are at the forefront when it comes to scaremongering and over-hyping the news over the Fukushima nuclear plant it is ironic that they are complaining about fakery.
richard verney - too right. I am actually ex-'Elf & Safety' for construction projects, so I noted with interest a website entitled Caithness Wind Farms - which I think (although its not clear) is anti-wind farm.
What it does do is tabulate the number of accidents and deaths since wind farms began being used in any significant numbers, as follows:
Number of accidents - nearly a thousand.
Number of deaths: 73.
It also lists the causes - which are interesting - blades making a bid for freedom seem to figure quite significantly..!
As richard points out - offshore wind farms pose particular risks - which will only increase as the age of the installations increases. Will there be pressures to repair them in unsuitable weaher conditions..? Also - how long before a fully laden tanker loses steering (say) and ploughs into one..? They are spread out over a huge area of sea...
Contrarian nonsense from E. Smith.
Opportunistic profiteering FOLLOWS ON from from the activism and the distortion of policy it has caused. Just as politics has sought advantage from rallying around the climate issue, business has sought profits.
I don't understand the preference some climate skeptics show for nuclear power plants over coal-fired power stations. Is it because nuke is cheaper than coal? Or is it because the political heat from the Greens -that CO2 is bad- is just too much to bear?
If energy is expensive, the elites of the world win. It is that simple. Regardless of whatever motivations you want to attribute to any politician, activist or average joe, the fact is that if the people of today's free democratic nations allow their governments to make energy expensive, they are (ultimately) handing control of the future over to an oligarchy.
If you want freedom, that includes economic freedom. You cannot have economic freedom if you do not have cheap energy with which to pursue some form of production/industry.
Meanwhile, in Germany...
That is quite a knee-jerk reaction, seemingly for naked political reasons than practical ones. I wonder what it will do for Germany's carbon emissions and energy prices.
BBD,
I agree. The activism and lobbying is the spearhead. Once money making opportunities become apparent the business interest flood into the space cleaved by the activists. With CAGW the initial concern was CO2 and global warming. Now it is with green New Deals and making money trading carbon permits.
sHx said
It's not so much the climate sceptics' opinion, it's the Greens' opinion. They absolutely hate nuclear power.
The Sceptics have an open mind on the subject. Not only is it an economical source of power it also has relatively little 'aggravating' CO2 emissions. A plus to genuine Greenies, but a negative to the politicised Green masses.
Gareth
What do you expect? The Greens are a powerful political force in German politics. QED...
I still don't understand it, Jerry. You seem to be saying political heat from the Greens is just too much to bear, not because nuke is cheaper and safer than coal.
Richard Verney is right to note that, as well the dangers associated with the installation and maintenance (especially off-shore) of wind turbines, the rare earth minerals (REMs) that are an essential component of such turbines (and, incidentally, of electric car batteries and other “green” technologies) involve considerable risk of pollution. Their mining and processing (separation, refining, alloying and manufacturing) is unpleasant and hazardous: for example, the chemicals used in REM extraction can pollute soil and water supplies; and, because “uranium tailings” are sometimes used, some ores are radioactive.
So - not only do wind-turbines depend on a scarce and depleting commodity virtually controlled by a single supplier (China), but their the production is dangerous and a threat to the environment. Hardly, I suggest, renewable, sustainable – or green. Perhaps the only solution is Ol’ King Coal.
BBD,Gareth
There are cases of the business opportunity being apparent first and the activism and lobbying become a part of a 'sales' budget.
High finance employs people to look at opportunities and cost campaigns against expected profit. Viable opportunities are then 'sold' to interested corporations with the sales and project costs being repaid as a loan repayment with interest added.over a period of years. Nice little earner with consistent revenue.
sHx
Obviously I cannot speak for Jerry, but for myself nuclear is preferable to coal because of the high CO2 emissions from the latter. I don't believe a word I've read about 'clean' coal and CCS, so coal is problematic.
That said, it is also the driving force for a substantial proportion of the world economy. Industrialisation in China is principally fuelled by coal. Going forward, the same will be true for India. Coal use worldwide will grow over the coming decades.
Coal prices will rise.
The problem with stupid greens and stupid politicians is that they do not see the bigger picture: coal use will mean global emissions continue to rise for decades to come.
Unless climate sensitivity is lower than the consensus 3C value, we are in trouble. The problem as I see it is that the no-coal lobby is now so powerful there is no hope for any more coal fired capacity in the UK.
This forces nuclear back onto the table alongside gas and renewables. We know renewables are a joke and we know security of supply issues cannot be ignored with gas. So nuclear becomes a smart choice for security of supply.
It doesn't really matter what you or I believe about CO2 and climate change - this is the energy policy realpolitik today.
BBD,
I can't remember the exact figures but nuclear power is much more expensive than coal power. Something like 50 percent more expensive, I think. Yet, some people object to Carbon Tax because it'll increase electricity prices by 5 to 15 percent!
Putting aside the environmental and safety issues for now, nuclear option still doesn't make any economic sense. It is much better to build coal power plants and to impose a CO2 tax -to collect revenue for the state and to appease the Greens-, then build nuclear power plants.
Even if the Greens' CAGW fears prove true in a hundred years time -and that is a big, big IF spread over a long, long time-, we'll still have the time to adapt to environmental challenges.
It seems to me the case for nuclear power is no better than the case for renewables.
sHx
Nuclear works (baseload and load following). Renewables don't.
Cost comparison invalidated.
But you haven't invalidated the cost comparison with coal.
sHx
And you've forgotten that all new UK coal-fired plant has to have CCS - unproven, incomplete and without a doubt, astronomically expensive.
Cost comparison invalid.
Hastings believes in AGW, he also knows that soon, the lights will go out, bit of a conundrum for old Maximilian.
Therefore his 'belief' in nuclear - keep the lights on and no CO2 e.
I luv a lad who is a compromise.
On power, if Huhne had [even] a few brain cells, he should be investigating Thorium reactors = technology we have at our fingertips, we should be building NEW Coal fired generators NOW, with gas and more gas, shale gas exploration and utilisation, means there will no shortage - a glut of Gas in the West.
BBD
Enlightenment still invalid.
End of report.
Can we not re-build all coal-fired plants which are more efficient today than our current plants? We keep our lights on, the plants are more efficient so less CO2, we have a good supply of coal to last us a bit (and you get jobs) and in the meantime we can go ahead and really research a decent alternatives which really work?
Ok, this is a pipe dream, and there's the EU issue too, but why the rush to strip down the UK when it will bring so little?
EU mulls nuclear-free future, tests on reactors
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20110315/tts-uk-europe-nuclear-ca02f96.html
There is now a ridiculous assumption that all nuclear plants are unsafe. The logic performed by some of our 'leaders' makes me wonder if we are of the same species!
I see that Union for Concerned Scientists are predicting that the radiation plume from Fukushima nuclear plant will probably reach Tokyo.
However, weather reports say winds are blowing radiation from the plant, on Japan's north-east coast, over the Pacific.
It is not like the Union for Concerned Scientists to get things wrong .............. is it?
Mac,
"It is not like the Union for Concerned Scientists to get things wrong .............. is it?"
Ha Ha Ha!!