Nuclear comes clean (Jonathon Porritt)

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Nuclear comes clean

The Cheltenham Science Festival is now in full swing, and on Wednesday I went along to listen to Jeremy Leggett of Solar Century. Great talk.

However, we didn’t get the full value of Jeremy’s insights, as the festival organisers had stuck him on a panel with four other people, one each for nuclear, coal, wind and Energy from Waste industries. The last two did well (yes, there really is a good sustainability case for the kind of Energy from Waste technologies), but our friends from the coal and nuclear industries were just dreadful. They'd clearly been sent on media training courses, which produced a weird amalgam of the patronising, the banal and the downright dishonest.

But at least we know where we are these days. Not so long ago, the nuclear industry would disdainfully acknowledge that there was a role for renewables alongside nuclear. Not a big role, but at least something to add to the overall supply picture. In the last few months, however, they’ve decided to move into full battle mode, on a "them or us" basis. As Jeremy puts it:

"Those reluctant to abandon the nuclear and fossil-fuel status-quo have been reacting to all this with a fresh candour. In March, both EDF and EON advised the UK Government to cut back on renewables in favour of nuclear. The energy giants declared efforts to get 35% renewables into the UK’s electricity mix – as the Government intends – to be not only unrealistic, but damaging to nuclear plans. They said additional carbon-generating plants would be needed because of the intermittency of renewables."

I’m sorry, but this is truly pathetic. Little more a year ago, these nuclear zealots were telling the world (including any prospective investors who would listen) that any new nuclear in the UK would require zero public subsidies. Hardened anti-nuclear campaigners such as myself and Jeremy fell about laughing – not one kilowatt-hour of nuclear-generated electricity has ever gone onto the grid, anywhere in the world, over forty years, without some kind of public subsidy. So why does anybody suppose that it’s going to be any different this time round?

At least the big energy companies have now had the decency to come out and tell us at least part of the truth about their nuclear ambitions.

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on June 5, 2009 9:33 AM | Permalink

Comments (9)

Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s big buddy is the UK MP Ed Balls. Ed Balls is married to MP Yvette Cooper, who, as Minister of Housing was responsible for the new planning laws that will speed up major projects, like nuclear power stations. Yvette Cooper’s Father is Tony Cooper, who, until recently, was the chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, which lobbies Ministers on the benefits of atomic power. He is now director of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and has become one of the most outspoken champions of the industry's 'green' credentials."

Gordon Brown’s brother is Andrew Brown, who was director of media strategy of the PR and UK government nuclear lobbying company Weber Shandwick. Weber Shandwick has a long history of involvement with the atomic industry, a former UK chief executive Philip Dewhurst, is corporate affairs director for British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL).

Andrew Brown no longer works for Weber Shandwick leaving to work as Head of Media relations at EDF Energy. EDF are one of the largest energy companies in the UK, employing over 12,000 people, is one of over 70 subsidiaries of the EDF Group, which has over 40 million customers worldwide and is the world’s largest nuclear operator.

I wonder if the UK government will listen to EDF pleadings to cut back on renewables in favour of nuclear Jonathon?

Posted by Fr. Peter | June 5, 2009 10:58 AM

I'm afraid that when you admit to being "hardened anti-nuclear campaigners", then anything you say about nuclear has to be nonsense because it is based on dogma and not reality. Anyone would think that wind and solar and all these other renewables aren't subsidised to a huge extent through the RO and other schemes. When you're an ardent environmental dogmatist, then wind and solar are good and wind and coal are bad. The reality, from a scientific and engineering perspective (i.e from people who live in the real world, not in tax-payer funded QUANGOs) are the exact opposite.

The intermittency of renewables is a major drawback and cannot be dismissed as "truly pathetic". The major problem with our future energy supplies is that this falling-apart government has too long been in the thrawl of environmentalists and the like who haven't a clue about the realities of energy supply. 35% from renewables is pure fantasy, unless we all go back to a pre-industrial peasant economy. It's time to put a stop to all this useless, intermittent renewable energy and it's time to start building proper power stations, just like they have done in France over the past 30 years.

The best advice is to move to France, where electricity supplies will continue. In this country, unless things change rapidly, we face a future of rolling brown-outs or even black-outs. I don't know about other people, but I like my electricity 24/7, not just when the wind blows, the sun shines or the tides are flowing. Perhaps it'll soon be time to put in my own generator alongside my wood-burner to guarantee my own electricity and energy supplies; the government, by concentrating on renewables, certainly isn't doing anything to guarantee them.

Posted by Phillip Bratby | June 6, 2009 7:54 AM

Fr. Peter:

Have you also thought of looking into the background of Jonathon's friend Jeremy Leggett? A member of the Renewables Advisory Board from 2002 to 2006, advising the government about renewable energy, whilst founder and chairman of a solar power company and founding director of the world’s first private equity fund for renewable energy. No conflict of interest there then!

Posted by Phillip Bratby | June 6, 2009 8:11 AM

You may be interested in reading my comment today on Jonathan's "UK is Right" post. It relates to whether or not there is any need for this dieing government or any replacement to waste taxpayers money we don't have in developing renewables in order " to get 35% renewables into the UK’s electricity mix – as the Government intends – " just to apease envirnmentalists. It would be "not only unrealistic, but damaging to " our economy, appart from, perhaps, nuclear.

Regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Clmate Change Agnostic

Posted by Pete Ridley | June 9, 2009 1:47 PM

I am at a loss here Philip, Jeremy is an expert on renewables who is advising the government... is he related to or a family friend of the present PM as well?

As for moving to France, the Euro is a bit weak at the moment, unless you want to move to the area close to the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers in Southern France. That's the area where 30,000 litres of a solution containing unprocessed uranium leaked away from the EDF nuclear site.

'Only' 18,000 litres have reached the rivers and locals have been ordered not to swim or fish in them, drink well water or irrigate their crops with river water... Property is not so expensive there.

Posted by Fr. Peter | June 11, 2009 7:42 PM

You might be intereasted to see how nuclear is "sold" together with renewables in Sweden and Turkey.
http://gardenearth.blogspot.com/2009/03/wind-and-nuclear-marriage-coincidence.html

Posted by Gunnar Rundgren | June 12, 2009 10:21 AM

Sorry if I misled you with my last comment. I thought I'd submitted a comment on 9th to Jonathan's "UK is Right .. " post but it does not appear there (I have re-submitted today). The part of my comment of most relevance to the debate here is an acknowledgement by another committed environmentalist Professor Barry Brook, Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability, University of Adelaide.

This staunch supporter of the "significant human-made global climate change" hypothesis has stated quite categorically on the issue as recently as 23rd April this year (http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/) that QUOTE:

There are a lot of uncertainties in science, and it is indeed likely that the current consensus on some points of climate science is wrong, or at least sufficiently uncertain that we don’t know anything much useful about processes or drivers ”. UNQUOTE

I particularly like the last part of his comment. If scientists presently know nothing much useful about processes and drivers of climate change how on earth can governments justify committing enormous amounts of taxpayers money (we're already up to our necks in debt) to develop renewable energy sources which will not be competitive with fossil fuels or nuclear for decades. We taxpayers have to suspect that the politicians have (poorly) hidden agendas such as:

- reducing dependence upon energy from unreliable (potentially hostile?) sources,

- raising money (through taxing that essential natural compound CO2),

- attracting environmentalist votes.

It's time the general public woke up to this political scam and asked themselves what experience they themselves (or their parents or grandparents) have of any significant climate change taking place over their lifetimes. Those of us who've been around for decades (I've been here for 7) have noticed none. We've seen weather extremes, yes, but nothing to suggest significant or catastrophic change in climate.

Over the past 150 years we appear to have experienced a mean global temperature increase of much less than one degree centigrade and over the past decade we appear to have experienced a fall in mean global temperature of one tenth of one degree centigrade (Note 1). This apparent fall is despite an apparent steady increase in the mean atmospheric concentration of CO2 (Note 2). IF that ten-year rate of decrease were to continue (despite a continuing increase in CO2) for the next 90 years then MAYBE we would see mean global temperature back at their levels in 1950. IF there is more global cooling then MAYBE we could see ourselves in another ice age. The scare mongers tell us that by 2100 we COULD see temperatures up to 5 degrees centigrade higher than today, we COULD see the world's climates thrown into disorder, floods, droughts, famine, breakdown of law and order, BUT then again, we COULD see temperatures more than 1 degree centigrade lower or even much lower than that, then we COULD see less rain, more snow and ice, reduced growing seasons, bla, bla bla.!

It doesn't take much intelligence to recognise that all of this speculation depends entirely upon what are the processes and drivers of global climates.

So what does Professor Brook (that expert of experts) say regarding the uncertainties (IF's, BUT's, MAYBE's, COULD's) surrounding climate science? "we don’t know anything much useful about processes or drivers”.

Why don't we get back to reality by continuing to cope with whatever nature throws at us instead of pretending that we can do anything significant to change it.

Regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic.
Notes:-. If we can trust the statistical manipulation of suspect raw data

1) about suspect measurements of global temperatures at suspect locations,

2) about atmospheric CO2 concentration from a few locations where actual measurements have been made and from suspect "proxy" measurements using air which has been stored within ice for many decades under conditions which do not guarrantee that the original atmospheric air composition has been maintained.

Posted by Pete Ridley | June 12, 2009 11:17 AM

Jonathan is reported (http://cheltenhamfestivals.com/blog/2009/06/12/10-minutes-with-3/) to have said QUOTE: Climate change is really difficult for people to get their heads around. It’s big, it’s scary, and it’s the whole planet. It’s different from any other issue. ... We’re talking about the phenomenon of what the scientists call irreversibility. Apart from species extinction, there is nothing like climate change in the world today – almost everything else is reversible. UNQUOTE

This is pseudo-scientific gobbledygook having only one objective, to frighten people into reducing their use of fossil fuels. This is not because such use has any significant detrimental impact on global climates but for other political and environmentalist reasons. It is purely and simply another piece of misleading environmentalist propaganda. There is no such thing as a global climate and there is no sound evidence that the numerous global climates are changing significantly. All that can be honestly said about the subject is that the mean annual global temperature during the last 150 years may have increased slightly (less than one centigrade degree) and there may have been some localised changes in climatic conditions. The reasons for these are not at all well understood but in any case they are not unusual, having occurred repeatedly during the existence of the earth. During the time that humans have been around there have been numerous periods of warming and cooling and humans have had no control over such events. All we have been able to do is cope with them in an ever-more successful fashion.

This success has been achieved through scientific and economic advances, the latter being fueled by our use of fossil fuels. There is no reason to believe that this should not continue for millenia, with scientific and engineering developments finding alternative ways of ensuring the continuing success of human development.

The predictions of global catastrophe used by propagandists like Jonathan are based upon computer model projections that are incapable of predicting the future because of the uncertainties surrounding global climate processes and drivers. Honest scientists (and even the politically motivated IPCC) acknowledge this. Staunch environmentalist Professor Barry Brook, Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability, University of Adelaide has admitted that “.. it is indeed likely that the current consensus on some points of climate science is .. at least sufficiently uncertain that we don’t know anything much useful about processes or drivers ”. Politicians and environmentalists have no intention of acknowledging this fact because it undermines their own agendas.

I was tempted to comment on the rest of the report referenced above but decided against wasting my time. I suggest that others who read it do so with open minds and identify for themselves Jonathan’s clever use of propaganda tactics.

At the Policy Network’s conference on ‘The Politics of Climate Change’ on 5th June 2009 at the LSE students on Jonathan’s Forum for the Future “Masters in Leadership in Sustainability” course have been subjected to this same kind of propaganda. People like Tony Blair (remember “Weapons of mass destruction”), Peter Mandelson (seen by others as “the Svengali of Spin”), Greg Clark (Shadow Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change). These are politicians, all involved in that expenses scandal which has made so many of the population despise politicians and confirmed their distrust of anything they say.

On the other hand, in October 2008 my offer to the Forum for the Future of my “Politicization of Climate Change and CO2” (http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=374&Itemid=1) for debate among the students was ignored. They obviously do not welcome open-minded debate on the issue. Only propaganda supporting the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis is allowed.

Regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic.

Posted by Pete Ridley | June 17, 2009 1:59 PM

Thanks Jonathon, for contnuing to be a voice for commnon sense and real science in the face of the nuclear industry smoke and mirrors. As for climate change sceptics, I refer them to the Grist web site (http://www.aerzteblatt.de/int/article.asp?id=62000) and the "skeptics forum", which lay the myths and misinformation related to the issue, in favour of sound science. The problem with burying your head in the sand is that something comes up on you from behind and bite your ****.

Posted by Peter Rowberry | July 26, 2009 7:53 AM

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