UK energy review backs new nuclear stations

The UK government's long-awaited Energy Review today swept aside objections from environmentalists and anti-nuclear campaigners by proposing a new generation of nuclear power stations.
"A new generation of nuclear power stations could make a contribution to reducing carbon emissions and reducing our reliance on imported energy," UK Energy Secretary Alistair Darling told the House of Commons. "But it would be for the private sector to initiate, fund, construct and operate new nuclear plants and cover the costs of decommissioning and their full share of long term waste management costs."
The government's review sets out its strategy for supplying energy while also tackling climate change until 2020. It also recommends financial measures that would increase the extent to which renewable energy technologies feed into the power grid. It will, for example, make wind and tidal power cheaper for electricity companies to use through subsidies.
The UK is the world's fourth largest economy after the US, Japan and Germany, and is re-examining the sources that feed its electricity grid because demand over the next decade is projected to exceed generation capacity.
This so-called "energy gap" will emerge as old and inefficient coal and nuclear power stations are retired under measures the European Union is taking to cut carbon dioxide emissions in compliance with the Kyoto protocol. Without reinvestment, this gap will add up to about one-fifth of the nation's requirements by 2015, according to the Carbon Trust, a UK organisation that helps companies cut their emissions.
Mind the gap
The Energy Review opens the way for new nuclear power stations to replace those to be retired. This will ensure that nuclear energy continues to provide at least 20% of UK's electricity, which will otherwise drop to 6%, Darling warned.
Measures to speed the building of the new nuclear power stations will include what may be a highly controversial "streamlining" of the planning process to prevent local objectors delaying construction.
"We'll be acting to ensure that energy companies, whether seeking to build gas storage facilities, wind farms or any other kind of large energy installation, are not faced with costly uncertainties and delay," Darling added. "Local concerns must be taken into consideration but the right balance has to be struck with the national need for our vital energy infrastructure."
The review also makes a commitment to lowering the cost of using renewable energy sources for electricity companies. This will mean subsidising less widely used renewable technologies.
UK electricity companies have an obligation to acquire 10% of their power from renewable sources by 2010. But they mainly opt for the cheapest option: onshore wind turbines.
The Carbon Trust last week urged the government to provide subsidies for the less successful and more expensive renewable technologies like offshore wind, tidal and solar power. With new investment, Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust says renewables could feasibly supply up to 13% of the UK's electricity by 2015 and 19% by 2020. This is close to the government's target of 20% renewables by 2020.
Investment worries
While welcoming support for renewables, Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace in the UK, said: "This renewable push should be seen in the context of what it is: just a way of delivering new nuclear build."
Parr also questions whether the investment community will be willing to pay to build, manage and handle waste from the nuclear power stations. He cites a report from Standard & Poor's, the credit ratings agency, which earlier in 2006 warned investors that cost overruns are "highly probable" on new nuclear power station projects.
"The headlines today might be about new nuclear build, but the devil will be in the detail," Parr adds. "There is a huge level of risk for anyone putting up the money for a nuclear power station and there is a distinct possibility the investment the government is seeking won't be there."
Other environmental groups reacted negatively to the review. "The idea that we are facing an enormous energy gap which only nuclear power can fill has been a classic piece of spin," said Keith Allott, head of climate change at the World Wildlife Fund. "Nuclear is a costly red herring and it will be the taxpayers who end up covering the costs of an uneconomic industry and future generations who deal with its legacy of radioactive waste."
Kevin Anderson, director of the energy programme at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK, said the review focuses disproportionately large-scale electricity generation. "There is no real action proposed to realise the substantial potential of alternative means of generating low-carbon power, such as micro-generation of electricity at the community-level," he said.