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NY Times: United Kingdom Faces a Quandary Over New Nuclear or Coal Power

By Tom Burke

The UK has a legally binding commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 34% by 2020, and 80% by 2050 on 1990 figures. Given that emissions from power stations account for about 37% of all UK CO2 emissions, what direction will the energy industry take in a carbon constrained world?

Tom Burke speaks to Jeremy Lovell of ClimateWire about the alternatives to including nuclear power in the future energy mix. The article was featured in the New York Times on August 27th, 2009.

United Kingdom Faces a Quandary Over New Nuclear or Coal Power

The United Kingdom is nearing a crucial decision as it tries to tackle the climate crisis—whether to make a major push into new nuclear power or to proliferate coal-fired power plants constructed so their carbon emissions are captured and safely stored.

While U.S. officials and America’s utility industry continue to mull this question, Britain’s decisional clock is ticking much faster. At stake are not just the government’s pressing legal commitments to slash the country’s contribution to global emissions of climate-changing carbon gases, but also a stated policy goal of reducing dependence on energy imports from unstable regions.

In a recent report on the country’s future energy mix, Malcolm Wicks—a former energy minister and now Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s special representative on international energy—called for a tripling of the amount of electricity produced from nuclear power plants from 12.5 percent of the national total now to 35 percent to 40 percent by 2030.

“At a time when the UK is becoming increasingly reliant on imported fossil fuels we need to ask whether the UK should be more ambitious on nuclear power. When national security considerations are added to climate change exigencies I believe the answer is yes,” wrote Wicks.

It was the first time the government has been so specific on the desired size of the new nuclear contribution. It has made it clear for some years that it favors a new generation of nuclear power plants as the existing fleet is progressively closed down due to old age.

Nuclear sees itself rapidly expanding

The nuclear industry, which provides 6.3 percent of the world’s primary energy production, sees itself as central to this equation. It forecasts a minimum five-fold rise in nuclear power by the end of the century worldwide. Its forecasts for the United Kingdom are broadly in line with that global picture.

But there is a potential catch. The French and German power utility companies that have so far expressed an interest in building new nuclear plants in Britain have made it clear they will not make the massive capital outlay needed—a 1.5-gigawatt nuclear power plant would cost an estimated $2 billion-$3 billion to build—without price guarantees.

But guaranteeing future carbon prices or electricity prices would amount to a large bet that would put government money at risk. If the price went below the guaranteed minimum the government—in other words, the taxpayers—would have to pick up the difference. U.K. officials have repeatedly said they will not put public money into new nuclear.

Tom Burke, a respected climate change commentator with London-based environmental think tank E3G, says this is all dangerous nonsense.

Nuclear is not the answer. There is no way it can replace a significant amount of coal globally. What is needed in Britain is a serious focus on energy efficiency, a swift development of and promotion of carbon capture and storage, electrification of the terrestrial transport system and more renewables,” he said.

But so far the government is pushing nuclear and only paying lip service to the others. There have been a lot of words but little action.”

Could there be a coal renaissance?

Into this ring steps the British coal industry, long believed to have been dead after the mine closures of the 1980s when cheap imports replaced more expensive domestic coal. But it is actually undergoing something of a renaissance.

Domestic production of coal is currently around 18 million tonnes a year and is seen rising to around 20 million tonnes. That is about one-third of current demand of 60 million tonnes, although that total is expected to fall to around 40 million tonnes over time.

The trouble is that coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, is part of the climate problem, so how can it also be seen as part of the solution? The answer is to stop the emissions from burning it from entering the atmosphere in the first place.