WIND V. NUCLEAR – A REAL ENERGY FIGHT IN UK

Clearly the nuclear energy industry is getting desperate. The use of national security as an excuse has in recent years, to paraphrase the folk wisdom, become the last refuge of the scoundrel. And yet national security is what the nuclear industry has turned to in the UK in a last ditch effort to assert its own importance and wrestle New Energy down.

Nuclear has already lost the battle for dominance in the Big Energy field, though not everybody is aware of it yet. While its advocates, not understanding wind energy, claim it is has advantages as a baseload source, few are choosing to build new nuclear plants while all over the world wind is being developed as fast as developers can get turbine parts.

The cost of nuclear plants is too high, construction too uncertain, and return too delayed to make them good investments. It is possible new plants could be built with government loan guarantees but there are only so many ~$5-to-10 billion dollar loan guarantees any government can hand out, especially considering the small but serious possibility of a nuclear accident or terrorist attack that would leave the government on the hook for the money.

Then there is, of course, the problem of nuclear waste, for which there is no real solution. The dream of “4th generation” plants capable of recycling all their waste is years from being a reality (and always has been).

Faced with such hard economic facts, the nuclear industry required a new raison d’etre, especially in the face of the rising practicality and cost competitiveness of wind. Nowhere is nuclear’s need to justify itself greater than in the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government has been and continues to be stalwart in its commitment to climate change and the solution that New Energy, especially wind energy, offers.

Enter Professor Ian Fells, long time nuclear energy champion, and A Pragmatic Energy Policy for the UK, Fells’ new argument that the UK must set aside its concern with climate change and develop its energy policy in the interests of national security.

Fells’ report: “A determined and urgent course of action is of paramount importance to address this major threat to the long-term economy, security and social well being of the United Kingdom…”

How’s that for language designed to get attention?

Fells particular concern is the Brown government’s intention to set aside new nuclear in favor of a massive development of wind.

Interestingly, the report was commissioned by Andrew Cook, whose primary wealth is in steel. How his fate can be expected to unfold in a carbon-constrained world in which coal and nuclear plants are not being built is suggestive, though not conclusive, about his motivations.

The threat to national security might not be enough to jar the British public free from its antipathy toward nuclear energy. Even in a country that mourns every July 7, the all-too-real fear of radioactive waste with no safe storage site is at least as threatening.

Fells, therefore, provides a supplemental supply of fear: “There will be a shortfall in UK power generation of 23GW by 2020, rising to between 30GW and 35GW by 2027… An impending crisis in power generation is now emerging and could lead to a dramatic
shortfall as early as 2012 – 2015…” Candida Whitmill, Fells’ co-author, added recently that power outages “…could become a common occurrence…”

That strategy isn’t likely to work in the UK either, since the British people are well known to have counting skills.

Whitmill claimed the UK could only install 350 megawatts of offshore wind capacity a year. The government’s plans and real life experience around Europe and the rest of the world suggest the wind industry is scaling up and hasn’t even begun to find out how big and fast it can grow. (Ex: The U.S. added 10,000 megawatts of onshore wind capacity in the last 2 years. Yes, offshore wind is more challenging engineering. But it is engineering, not invention.)

Dr, Gordon Edge of the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) called Whitmill’s point "just plain wrong" and predicted the UK would install more than 350 megawatts of offshore wind in 2009, the 1st year of focused effort.

Environmentalists and wind energy experts were widely condemnatory of Fells' report, describing it as inaccurate and biased.

Doug Parr, chief scientist, Greenpeace: "[Professor Fells has] finally lost the backing of the scientific community…All over the world, jobs are being created in the renewable energy sector…But Britain has been left behind for too long by the negative, white flag approach to climate change that this report represents. Professor Fells has a long-standing love affair with the technologies of the 20th Century, but as time goes by his fetish for coal and nuclear power looks increasingly naive."

Footnote 1: Fells argued that coal will be used around the world “…for centuries…” and therefore the UK must invest “major funding” for carbon-capture-and-sequestration technology development. Although Professor Fells did not mean his report to be taken this way, it is further proof that “clean” coal is still only a hypothesis.

Footnote 2: The BWEA’s Dr. Edge fought back at the Fells/Whitmill assertion wind needs more backup on the grid than fossil fuel or nuclear sources: "We will require some back up for peak loads, but you need less conventional plant with renewables than we have now…When you combine wind, hydro, biomass and other forms you can rely on a renewables mix."

This is a point wind’s detractors don’t understand at all. All grid supply requires back up. Wind linked through the grid to other wind, especially in the European countries around the North Sea, needs no more special back up considerations than any other kind of power plant. Though wind is intermittent, it is predictable, so grid operators can know where it will be blowing, where they can get it.

At 2008 costs, almost any form of new generation, and certainly wind, is less expensive than new nuclear. (click to enlarge)

Wind and nuclear go to war over power cut threats; Report argues that energy security should be prioritised over tackling climate change, but critics claim study is guilty of exaggerating supply fears
James Murray, September 17, 2008 (UK Business Green)
and
Britain urged to dump climate goals
Jeremy Lovell (w/Anthony Barker), September 17, 2008 (Reuters)

WHO
Fells Associates (Professor Ian Fells, co-author; Candida Whitmill, co-author); John Hutton, business secretary, Brown governnment; Dr Gordon Edge, wind authority, British Wind Energy Association (BWEA); Andrew Cook, owner/Chairman, Cook Holdings

WHAT
In A Pragmatic Energy Policy for the UK, Fells and Whitmill argue for the development of nuclear power in the UK to head off power shortages brought on by the impossibility of developing enough wind and the unreliability of wind. Business secretary Hutton and environmentalists say Fells is wrong.

Can't make 350 megawatts a year? The London Array alone will be 1000 megawatts. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
- From 2009: Whitmill says the UK cannot develop more than 350 megawatts of new offshore wind capacity/year. Dr. Edge of BWEA contends the UK will build mofre than 350 megawatts in 2009 and more every year subsequently.
- 2010: The report predicts the Brown government will get only 6% of UK power, not its goal of 10%, of power from New Energy sources.
- 2013 to 2015: First power shortages, according to the Fells report.
- 2020: 1/3 of UK’s current nuclear and coal power generation will be retired.
- 2020: UK offshore wind capacity expected to be 33 gigawatts
- 2020: Fells predicts the UK target of 20% and the UK target of 40% of power from New Energy sources is “utterly unattainable…”

WHERE
- The Fells report was primarily concerned with the UK.
- Fells pointed out nuclear power is resurgent across Europe.
- The European Supergrid, linking the UK and the continent, will facilitate the use of wind.
- The UK’s Severn Tidal Barrage and biomass development are New Energy sources that will add to what wind provides.

WHY
- The Fells report was commissioned by steel industry giant Andrew Cook.
- Ian Fells is a long time nuclear power advocate.
- Fells accuses the Brown government of vacillating on climate change/energy policy.
- Fells says the Brown government is starving the power industry of direction and investment.
- Fells advocates a guaranteed minimum electricity price to power companies for 30 years to finance the 4 billion pounds each nuclear power plant will cost.
- Example of the wind industry’s capacity for growth: 2007: The UK had 1 barge for installing offshore wind turbines. 2008: 7 in operation and more being built.

The Severn Barrage, of which Fells is approving, could provide 23 GIGAWATTS! (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Whitmill: "Today's credit crunch is a head cold compared with the double pneumonia this country will suffer if we don't implement an energy policy urgently."
- Fells: "Current UK energy policy is not fit for purpose. Something has to be done about it if we are not going to run into serious problems around about the middle of the next decade…We are looking at something that looks like a slow motion train crash,"
- Whitmill: "Wind is not going to happen and even if it did we'd still need back up capacity [for when the wind is not blowing]," she said. "We have to go with nuclear power which offers the only sufficient base load of power that is low carbon… wind has a role to play but not at the levels the government is talking about."
- Hutton: "Ian Fells overstates the risk of the energy gap, but he also understates what the government's already doing to secure our future supplies and increase our energy independence…That's not to underestimate the task we've got on our hands. Securing future energy supplies for the UK is a matter of national security and so we're not going to rule out any radical options."