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Energy Policy: Nuclear Power

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, on his magisterial maiden speech. I agreed with almost every word of it, as I did with the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. There are two reasons for pressing for nuclear power: security of supply and the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It is fair to say that, on recent developments, the second seems to have become more urgent. I do not regard the case that this is the most serious problem we face as conclusive, but it is certainly quite strong. It is significant that so far in the debate no one has spoken out against nuclear power. Renewables obviously have a role to play and many people favour them, but they are, with one exception, still a long way off. The one exception, which is perhaps environmentally the least attractive and the least efficient, is perversely the one that the Government have favoured most; namely, wind power. The best bet for the next two or three decades seems to be nuclear. We do not have to design a new form of power station—feasible designs are available. If we press on, it should be feasible to build one within the next 10 years. I meant to look the figures up beforehand but I believe that either Japan or South Korea has built a station in fewer than six years. I am worried by the opposition to nuclear power. Much of it is emotive and based on misinformation, whereas the issue should be judged on evidence. Unfortunately, some of the NGOs that are most strongly opposed to nuclear power are somewhat cavalier in their treatment of evidence. One argument against nuclear power which has not been mentioned is that it will increase the danger of nuclear proliferation. That may be true in the case of Iran and North Korea but it cannot conceivably apply to the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States or, for that matter, China or India. Let me put the question this way: if we do not go for nuclear power, does that mean that Mr Ahmadinejad will then say, ““Ah, well, in that case we are not going to go ahead either with our development of nuclear military power””? Of course, the argument is absurd. Next there is the question of terrorism. One cannot entirely dismiss that. It is sometimes asked, ““What would happen if you flew a 747 into a nuclear power station””? The concrete casing round the reactor would simply mean that the plane would explode. It is suggested that one might fly a 747 into the storage facilities at Sellafield. They exist anyway but the interesting thing about future nuclear power stations is that they will generate very little waste. Indeed, a year’s production of waste could be contained within one cubic metre or, as somebody put it, inside a taxi. However, I do not see a 747 being flown into a taxi. The next argument is often regarded as one of the major objections to nuclear power—the disposal of waste. CoRWM was set up to look at that although, given its terms of reference, it seems mainly a delaying device on the part of the Government. The Sense About Science organisation of which I am chairman has a panel of experts. Interestingly, they are unanimous that there is no particular problem about the disposal of waste—that is, deep geological disposal. Indeed, the Royal Society put it slightly more cautiously when it stated:"““The confidence that could be placed in geological disposal in UK sites has been understated””." It was put rather more decisively by the Geological Society of London, which stated:"““Informed geoscientific opinion is united around a central belief that only deep geological disposal can provide a long-term, safe and sustainable solution for radioactive waste””." That is a solution which Finland and Sweden are going for, and which Japan and Canada are likely to go for. I do not believe there is any doubt that CoRWM will recommend that when it is in a more sensible frame of mind. Then there is the argument about safety. This is often used as an argument against nuclear power when it is one of the strong arguments in favour of it. In 2001 the Paul Scherrer Institut—a Swiss body—did a comparison of the number of deaths per million million watts of electricity per year. Its findings were as follows: gas, 85; coal, 342; hydro-electric power, 883; and nuclear power, eight. People are scared of radiation. James Lovelock went to Sellafield with a Geiger counter and was rather surprised to find that the level of radiation there was very much less than in his native Cornwall, which comes in the form of radon produced naturally. Indeed, there is some evidence that small doses of radiation can be good for you. Chernobyl is the greatest disaster one can imagine. In that case people disabled the safety mechanisms and then increased the heating. It was a badly built, incompetently managed station. It was a disaster, and it led to 51 deaths. None of the prognostications about terrible consequences have been realised. As far as safety is concerned, there is no evidence against nuclear power. That leaves the question of cost. Several speakers have recommended, and I completely agree, that the right policy is to create the right long-term framework with incentives for the reduction of carbon dioxide and then to let the market decide. What are completely irrelevant, although often cited, are the huge costs of decommissioning, cited sometimes at £50 billion or more. Decommissioning has to take place anyway. It is not part of the cost of building new nuclear power stations which, as many speakers have pointed out, create so very much less waste than they did in the past. The Royal Academy of Engineering, after very careful consideration, came to the conclusion that nuclear power was only just more costly than gas—though since then the price of gas has gone up. Taking into account the need to back up wind power with fossil fuel power stations—because wind power is effective only part of the time—if you compare nuclear with wind power, it is two and half to three times less costly. It seems to me that there is a very strong case indeed for nuclear power and it should be judged on the basis of evidence, not on misinformed scare stories.