Examination of witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
WEDNESDAY 5 JULY 2000
PROFESSOR SIR
TOM BLUNDELL,
DR SUSAN
OWENS and PROFESSOR
BRIAN HOSKINS
40. Is it not a fact that within the scientific
community, as witness the Rio conference, a very large number
of highly reputable scientists do not subscribe to the view which
is the basis of your report? Sixty-two Nobel prizewinners actually
signed a dissenting report, but we do not hear enough about that
perspective on the role of carbon dioxide in all of this.
(Professor Hoskins) I am viewed by some as a bit of
a sceptic in this, in that when people say we are going to be
growing sunflowers in southern England, we do not know. We do
not know what the details of this climate change will be. However,
when we go to the more basic things, whether we are actually tinkering
with the climate system, then—I hate to do things on a democratic
basis in terms of scientists, but—certainly the overwhelming
majority would say we are tinkering with this in a very important
way. In fact the major sceptics do not usually say that greenhouse
gas emissions are not going to lead to a rise in temperature.
They would say they think there are some negative feedbacks which
might reduce that by a factor of three or something below what
other people say. Almost everyone will say, yes, there will be
a change in climate. It is a question of whether it is smaller
or larger. The vast majority of the scientists I know would certainly
say that we are doing something serious to the system. The disagreement
tends to come when people start to say it will do this or it will
do that.
Dr Ladyman
41. Would you accept that we currently produce
somewhere between 30 and 40 per cent of our energy needs from
nuclear power?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) It depends what you are
measuring. Do you mean in terms of electricity production?
42. Yes.
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) I think that is right.
It is not, in terms of total energy.
43. But in terms of energy production about
30 to 40 per cent.
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) Electricity production.
44. Is it also true to say that over the next
25 years, if we do not replace our nuclear capability it will
effectively be switched off?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) It is true that by 2020
we shall have closed down all the nuclear power stations except
for Sizewell B.
45. Is it also true to say that there are some
countries in the world, particularly those which recently seceded
from the Soviet Union, which are 100 per cent dependent on nuclear
power for their electricity?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) I do not think there
is anybody 100 per cent. Certainly there are, including France,
countries which have much higher dependence on nuclear power.
46. If we are not producing new nuclear capacity
in this country and developing new safe nuclear technologies in
the West, then those countries in the East are either going to
have to replace their capacity with existing designed, relatively
unsafe technologies or they are going to have to start using fossil
fuels. Is that a reasonable thing to say?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) The challenge is not
so much nuclear technologies for production. Rather we need to
do a lot more research on the storage of nuclear waste. We say
in our report that whether we have an increase in nuclear power
stations or not, there is an absolute requirement, an urgent requirement,
to address with further research that question. We would hope
that research would be relevant to other countries.
47. Two of your four proposed scenarios for
dealing with this situation involve relatively moderate and I
would suggest achievable behavioural changes but a high proportion
of nuclear electricity generation. Two of your scenarios are dependent
upon unproven, yet to be developed technologies and I would suggest
major unachievable behavioural changes. Is that a reasonable summary
of your four scenarios?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) I would question some
of the adjectives which you use. May I first make the comment
that nuclear energy has been the subject of a huge investment
of research and development over the years and over that same
period many of the alternative technologies have had very little
investment. There are opportunities that we are going to lose
unless we put research and investment there. If you are saying
there has been a very big difference in investment and we are
seeing a reflection of that now, I could hardly disagree with
you. However, many of the technologies we are indicating are operating
now and are feasible. All of our scenarios involve technologies
which one can use at the present time. I just make one other qualification
of what you said and that is that as you rightly say two of the
scenarios could involve nuclear. The real problem with renewables
is their intermittent, small and dispersed and often embedded
nature and one needs to have as a reliable provision of electricity
some source which is either fossil fuel or nuclear which provides
a reliable base load. You could do it in another way and that
would be to remove the carbon dioxide from a fossil fuel station.
Even the two scenarios you mention are not absolutely dependent
on nuclear.
48. Just put yourself in the Government's position
for a moment.
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) I do not think the Government
is going to build nuclear power stations.
49. That is the thrust of my question to you.
If the Government has to make plans, those plans have to be based
on what it senses is reasonably achievable in the timescale over
which those plans are intended to impact. On the basis of the
text of your report, it is clear to me that you accept that nuclear
generation is an achievable technology which could be deployed
and yet, if I could put it to you with great respect, in your
recommendations it appears to me that you have copped out by not
suggesting that the Government provides that leadership and starts
thinking about replacing nuclear power.
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) The technology of production
may be solved but the technology of waste storage has not been
solved. We say that quite clearly. It seems to us unlikely that
either Government or private enterprise, given the lack of solution
of the waste problem, is likely to invest in nuclear. In our report
we are not trying to proposea single scenario. We are saying that
in future weare going to have challenges. 50 years is areasonable
time. In that time there may be different technologies, several
different mixes which can meet the challenge.
(Dr Owens) You said "could be deployed".
That might be one of the things which we would consider to be
difficult. All our scenarios are difficult in one way or another.
The scenario which has the highest component of nuclear energy
would require 46 new nuclear power stations of the same capacity
as Sizewell B. Whether that is a politically realistic scenario,
since we have been talking this morning about political realism,
is something one might want to ponder. Other scenarios have other
difficulties. There is no free lunch.
50. Let us come back to some of those other
difficulties. What on the face of it the man in the street might
regard as the greenest of your scenarios, scenario 4, seems to
me to be proposing technologies which would have devastating effects
on eco-systems: barrages, wind power, wave power. Although everybody
likes to say they are renewable and isthat not green and is that
not wonderful, the factis—and I speak as a former ecologist—those
types of technologies have devastating effects on eco-systems.
(Dr Owens) We do not deny that all of the scenarios
have some undesirable effects, in fact we have been at pains to
point out in the report that all energy systems have environmental
impact. It is true that some renewable energies do impact on eco-systems
and on landscapes, as we know only too well. We would hope that
some of those effects could be minimised through treating the
environmental impacts of any system properly and indeed we suggest
in the report that any assessment of renewable energy resources
at regional level should be the subject of a strategic environmental
assessment so that the environmental impacts are taken into account
from the outset. We set out those scenarios to demonstrate the
difficult political choices which have to be made, not to suggest
that there is any one blueprint for a future without any problems
in it.
Mr Olner
51. May I come back to this reducing energy
issue? You mentioned in your report four sectors: manufacturing
industry, public and commercial services, households and transport.
In which of those sectors is it going to be most difficult to
achieve your targets?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) The answer has to be
transport. We have discussed that a little bit.
52. Is it transport because that is easier to
have a go at?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) No; transport is a huge
challenge. We should not underestimate the challenges in households
as well. At the moment the levels of energy efficiency in UK housing
are extremely low. The SAP ratings which we require of new housing
really need to be increased. We need to make people aware of these
factors when they buy a new house and make it part of the decision
making in the purchase of a house. There is a culture at the moment
where, when people switch off a light, they almost feel it is
penny-pinching and not what we should be doing these days. There
is a complete need for a change of culture as well as a long-term
investment in housing stock.
53. How easy will it be to achieve in the manufacturing
sector without frankly making ourselves totally uncompetitive
globally?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) In the manufacturing
sector there are some advantages. We have already described how
in many parts of industry we throw away a lot of the heat. Increasing
use of combined heat and power—
54. I am not talking just about heat, I am talking
about the factory that makes a motorcar.
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) Yes, if you have a factory
which makes a motorcar you need to use electricity. If you throw
away half of your energy in making the electricity then there
are many issues of that kind which we need to address which are
part of manufacturing. We need to look at whole cycle processes.
55. In your report one of your recommendations
is the establishment of a sustainable energy agency. What do you
think that agency should be doing? How many teeth should it have?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) The agency would bring
together all those aspects—and all your questions round
the table have implied that it is going to be a major challenge—which
at the moment are in different departments. At the moment the
Energy Saving Trust is doing useful work but it is disconnected
from the research into renewables. We would see a need to have
a focus on these issues coming from that body which would be rather
like the Food Standards Agency or the Environment Agency as a
body which had statutory powers probably which could bring things
together and look at things in an integrated and longer-term way.
56. What realistically would it achieve? Would
it be another talking shop?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) Let me say for example
on the research area, we were just discussing the nuclear side
a moment ago, there has been a reduction of 80 per cent in the
investment in energy research. One of the major objectives of
that agency would be to focus that research in those areas, both
in energy use side and in energy production.
57. What about the influence of such an agency
on the gas and electricity regulators?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) We say one or two things
about the regulators in our report. What we say is that the regulators
should not be asked to make environmental decisions, that we should
have clear government guidelines as to what we want to achieve
with an environmental objective.
Mr Benn
58. Leaving aside nuclear, which we have dealt
with, which of the alternative sources of energy do you think
have the greatest potential for the UK?
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) The implication of our
scenarios is that no one energy source could be 90 per cent producer
of energy. As my colleague Dr Owens said, they all have environmental
impacts, they are all going to have consequences. We are really
looking at a mix and the mix would depend on the location. There
is a great opportunity for energy crops as long as we can get
support which makes them competitive with other agricultural products.
I should think offshore wind has a much better opportunity than
onshore wind. Onshore wind has an environmental visual impact
which has made it very difficult to get planning permission. There
really are opportunities in some of the tidal stream technologies.
I think it would be foolish to take one technology and think it
was going to be the solution to them all. We need to invest and
develop demonstration projects in several new technologies.
Chairman
59. Some of the schemes have been hanging around
for an awful long time. As a junior Minister 30 years ago I can
remember sitting on Cabinet Committees talking about the Morecambe
Bay barrage and a number of sustainable experiments which frankly
never got off the ground because no-one was prepared to put the
really very considerable amounts of money into them.
(Professor Sir Tom Blundell) There has been a huge
reduction in research and development activity. However, our whole
perspective needs to be changed; if you take the external costs
of the carbon dioxide over a long period of time then the economic
use of the different technologies changes.
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