Memorandum submitted by the Joan Pye Project
The remit of the EAC as set out in their Press
Release, is extremely broad under three headings; Nuclear, Renewables
and Climate Change. On the last named we are not qualified to
speak and our submission will be confined to
RECOMMENDATIONS
Our recommendation is strongly in favour of
nuclear power, with as many new-build modern type nuclear power
stations as practicable, to be built if possible on existing sites
by agreement with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
We give our assessment of renewable sources of energy and their
disadvantages as sources of carbon-free energy for the national
energy requirement. Renewables have a place as debating platforms
to arouse public awareness of the magnitude of the energy shortage
confronting this country. Their limited efficiency will preclude
their ever taking the place of nuclear power. (see paras under
Renewables, 7(a) to (g) below)
HISTORY OF
THE JOAN
PYE PROJECT
1. This project was formed in December,
2004 under the chairmanship of Brigadier Hugh Pye, OBE, formerly
Treasurer of the Merchant Venturers Society of Bristol, and responsible
for the management of their charities. The project team comprises
a finance expert, two former heads of projects at the Atomic Energy
Research Establishment, Harwell, and a generalist with a university
background who has held positions in industry in Europe and is
familiar with the European attitude to nuclear power. I act as
co-ordinator. My MA degree is in Classics, my further education
in science and technology was as the Director of A.E.R.E.'s PA
(seven years 1954-61), and then I worked in a middle management
capacity for a total of 18 years, mixing freely with the scientific
community (some 2,500 physicists, chemists and engineers) and
picking up a wide-ranging, if superficial scientific education.
2. Our mission statement has been printed
and distributed in this area and to selective participants nationally.
It is posted on our website (as above). Our objective is to turn
around public perception of nuclear power into a development to
be welcomed and an electoral vote-winner rather than an electoral
liability. We have also established links with the British Nuclear
Energy Society (BNES), with Supporters of Nuclear Energy (Secretary,
Sir Bernard Ingham), with Terence Price, former Director of the
Uranium Institute, and John Ritch (Director-General, World Nuclear
Association). The Project now has a list of some twenty consultants
and advisers, including five Professors with a wide range of academic
interests, several ex-Harwell Group Leaders (personal friends)
and some 200 actively interested individuals nationwide, including
Sir Christopher Audland KCMG, DL (a retired diplomat whose last
posting was as a European Commissioner for Energy in Brussels).
We have ongoing interests in our nearest County Primary School,
for which we are helping to organise some lessons next winter,
with the co-operation of their Head Teacher, within their school
curriculum covering outlines of the whole field of electricity
generation in Britain.
3. We have financially supported the BNES
and its closely allied body the Institution of Nuclear Engineers
in their Education and Training programme for student reactor
engineers, who will be needed to run the nuclear reactors of the
future. This year our donation funded the appointment of two post-graduate
students to attend the first Summer Vacation Course run at Idaho
Falls by the recently set up World Nuclear University. The next
World Nuclear University course will be run in Stockholm, Sweden.
ARGUMENTS IN
FAVOUR OF
NUCLEAR POWER
4. We support nuclear power because it is
the cleanest, the greenest (no carbon emissions) the cheapest
and the most secure (no long pipelines carrying natural gas from
politically unstable countries in the Middle East, Russia and
Asia). It is safe with an excellent safety record, having successfully
overcome the teething troubles of the early development years.
It produces (with modern type reactors) only 10% of the waste
generated by the early Magnox reactors, thus minimising the waste
disposal issue. A table (Annex 2) of the safety record on the
nuclear industry proves this. In addition, it should be possible
to avoid battles over the siting of new-build reactors since the
NDA are discussing the building of new reactors (much smaller
and more compact than their predecessors) on existing sites. We
hope that, if this decision is reached, the NDA will be responsible
for their final decommissioning at the end of their lives. This
would surely be an obviously common-sense decision. As this option
has already been mooted, we believe the Government should take
steps to protect this option as it would be a tragedy if licensed
sites were turned over to alternate use when they may be needed
for "new-build" in the coming two or three decades.
Likewise, grid connections and capacity should be reserved. If
international comparisons are appropriate, it is only necessary
to look at France which has embraced the nuclear industry since
1971, and now makes 80% of the electricity it needs from nuclear
sources with the general support of its population. (See Terence
Price's "Political Electricity" published OUP in 1990,
pp 31 et seq). It should be noted that in Japan, seven BWRs (Boiling
Water Reactors) provide 80% of Tokyo's electricity needs, 8.2
Gigwatts, the last two reactors having been built in under four
years. (Nuclear Future—July/Aug 2005)
DISPOSAL OF
NUCLEAR WASTE
5. We are deeply interested in nuclear waste
management solutions, because this aspect of nuclear power is
of such concern to the general public, and we deplore the Government
mismanagement of the search for best solutions to this, peculiarly
British, problem. (Other nations do not see this problem as a
major obstacle to nuclear power). We deplore the attitude and
management status of CoRWM, the Committee for Radioactive Waste
Management, now fully exposed by its former member, Prof D J Ball,
who has recently resigned (June, 2005) in protest at the way CoRWM
manages its remit. This Committee was set up by Her Majesty's
Government in 2003, with a remit requiring (inter alia) technical
expertise. The Committee had only two practising scientists of
international repute among its members, a fact harshly criticised
by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee and the
Royal Society. (*) The Committee acted throughout 2004 as if it
wanted to minimise quality technical input. The only health expert
on the Committee, Dr Keith Baverstock, objected to this, but in
April 2005 the Chairman, Gordon McKerron (supported by some other
Committee members) had Dr Baverstock expelled from the Committee
on grounds which have not been revealed. Professor Ball, Director
of the Centre for Risk Management at Middlesex University, resigned
soon afterwards in protest at this dismissal and what he considered
to be the incompetence of the Committee. CoRWM was instructed
to take an overseeing role and appoint expert groups to assist
it. Instead, it exceeded its remit by trying to do most of the
work itself, for which it was ill qualified. When it did appoint
specialists, it tended to call on those familiar to it rather
than recognised, independent, international experts. The House
of Lords expressed the view that CoRWM was not even able to distinguish
quality peer-reviewed work from any other work. Professor Ball
and Dr Baverstock are now taking their cases to the Employment
Tribunal on grounds of wrongful and constructive dismissal. The
Joan Pye Project regards the whole story of CoRWM as a public
disaster and disgrace. In contrast to the British handling of
nuclear waste disposal, the Canadians took it far more seriously.
Through their NWMO (Nuclear Waste Management Organisation) the
matter was the subject of a national consultation (as advised
by Professor Ball to CoRWM in CoRWM Report 537).
(*) House of Lords (2004) Sci & Tech
Cttee Radioactive Waste Management 5th Report; House of Lords
(2005a) Sci & Tech Cttee, Radioactive Waste Management, Govt
Response (House of Lords Paper 89; House of Lords (2005b) Sci
& Tech Cttee, Radioactive Waste Management, Hansard 12 Jan:
cols 324-334.
6. We favour the proposal of Dr Fergus Gibb
of Engineering Materials Department, University of Sheffield,
which involves drilling a deep shaft, on land or offshore, 18
inch diameter through impermeable rock geology, for four kilometres
below the land surface to reach a point where the heat is sufficient
to melt both the land surface and the content of the containers
of high-level nuclear waste, and melt the rock at the bottom end
of the shaft. This rock subsequently resolidifies, totally sealing
the already sealed containers. Clearly the fission products will
never be retrievable, but scientific opinion within this project
asserts that this extremely long-lived high-level waste would
be too dangerous to retrieve in the foreseeable future (thousands
of years). The Joan Pye Project is satisfied, after discussion
in details with Dr Gibb by telephone, that the required drilling
technology is proven. (A non-technical account of this project
of Dr Gibb is available from him or from the Joan Pye Project
on request).
RENEWABLE SOURCES
OF ENERGY
7. The proportions of the various components
of the total energy input for the production of electricity in
Britain on 2005 and in 2020 are clearly illustrated by Dr M J
Hall's pie-chart attached as Annex 1. Between these years the
production of fossil fuel (coal and oil) nuclear fuel and imports
has drastically fallen while dependence on natural gas coming
in by pipeline has increased by nearly 25%. Natural gas will have
to be imported by overground pipeline over some very unstable
countries; this is supposed to make up 60-70% of the UK's electricity
needs, and the pipelines will be a tempting target for any terrorist
or local dissident. Moreover, methane (which can leak from pipelines)
is a powerful greenhouse gas, some 20 times more powerful than
carbon dioxide. A leakage of just 2% of the gas produces a situation
as deleterious as burning coal. The present leakage rate is about
4% and virtually no leakage can be tolerated. The CST (Council
for Science and Technology) Report An Electricity Supply Strategy
for the UK (May 2005) makes clear its conviction that it will
not be possible for the UK to meet its obligations under the Kyoto
Protocol by using emission-free renewables within the short term
between now and 2012. They recommend keeping open the option for
nuclear power.
The principal sources of renewable energy are
set out in paras. 7 (a) to (g) below.
(a) Wind energy and "windfarms".
While we believe there is a role for some renewables within the
broad spectrum of electricity provision (see the CST Report mentioned
above), we are convinced that the role of wind turbines has been
heavily overplayed. They can never provide the vital base load
power on which much of Britain's current way of life depends,
and which is presently provided mainly by the nuclear industry.
Since wind turbines produce only a third of their declared capacity
and need to have conventional power stations "idling"
for when the wind drops, they are hopelessly uneconomic. Companies
rush to build them only because of a statutory subsidy worth almost
three times the value of their output. (#1) A recent planning
decision in Blyth, Northumberland, awarded a group of local farmers
£5,000 or £8,000 per turbine per year (depending on
the height of the turbine) in a proposed scheme for 117 turbines
in a large stretch of unspoilt countryside. One local farming
family, the Thorntons, are quitting their farm after residence
for over one hundred years because they refuse to live in a forest
of windmills. (#2) Even to achieve the predicted amount of energy
will require the proliferation of windfarms cresting the tops
of some of the finest upland scenery in Britain—a major
attraction for the thousands of foreign tourists visiting the
UK. We maintain that the Government has no mandate to disfigure
our native countryside with structures more appropriate to an
industrial landscape. The proposed windfarms will occupy an area
which is orders of magnitude greater than that taken up by a single
modern nuclear power station.
(#1) Article by Dr M J Hall, FRIC FInst.Biol.:
in "Conserving Lakeland" Spring/Summer 2004.
(#2) Article "Couple hit by winds
of change", Motor Boats Monthly, Dec 2003
(#3) See also Western Morning News
15/9/2005 "Labour's £1 billion wind turbine rip
off"
(b) Fusion Power. We are familiar with the
work at Culham on the JEPT project (Joint European Torus). A well-briefed
member of this project estimates that a working reactor to deliver
power is at least 60 years in the future. Funding for ITER (International
Thermonuclear Energy Research) has only just been agreed among
the European participants after three years of argument. This
does not foreshadow a rapid joint research project even given
the political will (Europe-wide) to push it along faster. "The
ITER co-operation has no precedent in size and scope and could
well become the model for other world-wide ventures in big science"—Andreas
van Agt, European Commission 1993 (Source ATOM 427 March/April
1993) ("The World Takes a Further Step Towards Fusion Power".)
(c) Solar Power. Better use of solar power,
both for domestic heating and heating of industrial plant, is
clearly proven and worth pursuing, but it will make little difference
to total energy supplies except in a country like Denmark, where
solar heating built into plans for new social housing developments
is widely in use. Its use for conversion of existing domestic
central heating systems in the UK has practical difficulties and
is likely to be small in scale.
(d) Tidal Power. A tidal power renewable
energy project in north Norway (2004) will produce electrical
power by extracting energy from deep-water tidal currents. Hammerfest/Storm
is leading the work with Rolls Royce Marine AS, the Norwegian
University of Science and Technology and other power technology
groups. Their plan was to install an underwater power plant of
20 700KW turbines in 2004, sited on the seabed. A similar project
is in hand off the north Devon coast at Lynmouth. Tidal power
is a renewable and non-polluting source and power (depending on
tides) can be accurately calculated, but the time when power is
being generated may not coincide with peak demands for electricity.
The Hammerfest/Storm units will generate power for about four
hours out of six. The expected life of a tidal turbine is 30 years,
with servicing every three years. There are many possible locations
around British coasts for such a group of turbines, but they would
be subject to heavy pressures from storm weather conditions, and
might require a good deal of maintenance. (see also www.tidalelectric.com)
(e) Wave Power. Ocean Power Delivery Ltd.
Have today (15/9/2005) announced their securing a first order
for their "Pelamis" wave energy converters for a Portuguese
project. Three of these machines will be located 5Km off the Portuguese
coast and will have an installed capacity of 2.25Mw. If the first
stage is satisfactory, an order for a further 30 Pelamis 20Mw
machines is anticipated. This interesting development is, of course,
not yet proven. Even the second stage will only achieve a total
of 600 Mw, just over half the output of a modern nuclear power
station. With likely wind/weather conditions they too will require
adequate—possibly expensive—supervision and maintenance.
A Scottish company is to manufacture the components on the Isle
of Lewis (Source: Ocean@oceanpd.com 15/9/2005)
(f) "Cleaner" Coal: Carbon Capture
and Sequestration (CCS). We are aware of the intensive work going
on to explore this new technology, but the technology is in its
infancy and it seems premature to attempt to comment.
(g) Greater Energy Efficiency. Improvements
in energy-efficient use could also make a greater contribution
to the supply of energy. The EU's "Action Plan to Improve
Energy Efficiency in the European Community." found that
efficiency savings amounting to more than 18% of current energy
consumption could be achieved by 2020 using existing technology,
if there was the political will to achieve it. This is enough
to offset the closure of UK's nuclear plants and, if applied throughout
Europe, would equate to saving the whole energy demand of Austria,
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece and the Netherlands combined.
8. Cost of Electricity. With recent heavy
increases in oil prices due to a variety of causes, the economists
calculate that the price of electricity per unit to the consumer
is now roughly equal as between fossil fuel and nuclear power—estimated
at 2.3 pence per KwH. A comparison with costs per unit from renewables
(windfarms, wave and tidal, and biomass) is unfair because of
the heavy Government subsidies for renewables. Hundreds of millions
of pounds, perhaps over a billion of investors' cash from all
over the world is being channelled into the UK to take advantage
of lucrative tax breaks and other incentives that have made Britain
the most attractive place to build windfarms in the world (Source:
Article, Sunday Telegraph 24/7/2005, by Robert Watts).
The graphs prepared by the Royal Academy of Engineers in their
Report "The Cost of Generating Electricity" (March 2004)
give a true comparison of costs since all subsidies have been
subtracted, leaving a very favourable advantage for nuclear power.
CONCLUSIONS
9. For all these reasons we recommend:
(i) Government to be invited to back a programme
of new-build nuclear power stations, starting as soon as possible.
(ii) Government to be requested to stop subsidising
windfarms.
(iii) Government to take action, not hide
behind options.
Signed: Brigadier Hugh Pye, OBE,
Chairman, The Joan Pye Project
Joan Pye, MA,
FINucE(Hon), Co-ordinator
10. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Grateful acknowledgements are due to those who
kindly commented on earlier versions of this submission, including
particularly Sir Christopher Audland, KCMG, DL, Dr M J Hall FRIC,
FInst.Biol., Sir Bernard Ingham, and Terence Price who gave permission
for me to use material from his book, "Political Electricity"
OUP 1993.
Annex 1
Annex 2
Table
16 September 2005
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