Memorandum submitted by Professor Brian
Launder
Thank you for the invitation to comment and
I'm certainly glad there's to be an enquiry. Here are some brief
thoughts:
If the surface transport sector is to become
anything near carbon free there'll need to be a major replacement
over the coming decade of fossil-fuelled cars by hydrogen or battery-powered
vehicles. Thus, in computing the electrical power required from
power stations, one needs to include the electrical demands that
the production of H2 or the energy for battery recharging will
itself entail.
The failure to tax aviation fuel (and aircraft)
or to introduce some equivalent taxation system on tickets to
recognize CO2 emissions from air travel is a serious
anomaly in transport policy that urgently needs to be addressed.
Yes, regrettably, it's my personal belief that
we do need new nuclear power stations. Small scale renewables
provide energy that is expensive/difficult to harvest, and usually
requires back-up provision as supplies are not correlated with
demand.
It seems perverse for the UK to be even considering
"going it alone" with new Generation 3 reactors. The
French have a track record of plotting a succesful strategy and
running a much larger system of nuclear power stations that we
have. Moreover, perhaps because of the successful use of nuclear
for so much of their electrical energy, the French public is much
less hostile to nuclear power than that in the UK. I am of the
view that the UK would be well advised to throw in their lot with
the French, let the protype Generation 3 (and, later, if they're
needed, Generation 4) reactors be built in France (that seems
the only way they can be built soon enough) so that construction
of, I guess, some half dozen or more "production-line"
stations in the UK can get underway in the next 10-12 years. (I
mention, as an aside, that the French led Airbus consortium has
done great things for Europe's ailing commercial aircraft industry.)
My colleagues here at the Tyndall Centre for
Climate Change Research feel I am unduly pessimistic about our
supplying sufficient carbon-free energy from truly renewable (non-nuclear)
sources. They feel that a combination of efficiency improvements,
large-scale planting of bio-fuel grasses, offshore wind, tide
and wave power, supported by various taxation and "smart
metering" measures could enable us to avoid nuclear re-build
even given the loss of capacity from the progressive closure of
existing stations.
As my earlier remarks have indicated, I do not
share that degree of optimism partly because I feel the currently
proposed carbon-reduction targets are far too modest. Perhaps,
however, one can avoid going to Generation 4 reactors if one does
embrace all the measures noted in the previous point, in conjunction
with carbon capture and storage.
7 September 2005
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