Memorandum 107
Submission from the Engineering Professors'
Council (EPS)
1. The Engineering Professors' Council represents
the interests of engineering in Higher Education. It has over
1,600 members, all of them professors or Heads of Department and
virtually all the UK universities which teach engineering are
represented. It has as its mission the excellence of engineering
higher education, teaching and research.
2. Nuclear power provides reliable energy
and does not depend on hydrocarbon fuels that may have to be obtained
from unstable regimes. It is the nearest thing the UK has to a
technically available, non-polluting energy source capable of
delivering power on the massive scale necessary to satisfy future
demand. It has an important role to play in a mixed economy of
power sources including natural renewables such as wind, solar
and hydroelectric power. An important factor in favour of a resurgence
in nuclear power is nuclear reactors emit virtually no carbon
dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas. Of course building a power
station does produce significant amounts of CO2: but the same
is true of, for example, building a wind farm.
3. Nuclear power currently generates around
20% of the UK's electricity. However, all but one of the UK's
nuclear power stations will close by 2023 and at present no replacements
are planned. There is a growing and urgent need for nuclear power
and for nuclear engineering.
4. There are of societal issues, principally
concerning safety but we find that these may be over-stated. It
is worth noting that the three worst nuclear accidents in the
world (Windscale in 1957, Three Mile Island in 1979, and Chernobyl
in 1986) have killed far fewer people and caused much less environmental
damage than the oil and coal industries over a similar period
of time.
5. Modern reactor designs are inherently
safer than those built 20 or 30 years ago, reducing a small risk
still further. For example, work underway in South Africa on the
Pebble Bed Moderated Reactor (PBMR) has produced an inherently
safe nuclear reactor design which is incapable of overheating
or meltdown, and which has successfully addressed most of the
social acceptability issues surrounding nuclear power, including
proliferation and terrorism. An important point is that such a
reactor has the potential to provide, for the first time, a high
temperature source of process heat capable of revolutionizing
the energy industry. A range of potential applications is being
considered but, for the UK, the most important is likely to be
the use of this process heat to generate hydrogen from water via
process routes such as high temperature electrolysis and thermo-chemical
cycles with low or zero carbon emissions. This technology is one
of the very few on the horizon capable of operating at the scale
of the oil industry. Economic generation of such large quantities
of hydrogen raises the possibility of an ultra low carbon emission
transport fleet in the UK. Because of this huge potential substantial
government funded R & D programmes are in place in Japan,
the USA, Korea, France, the RSA, and Germany. However, no such
work has been funded in the UK.
6. Uranium prices have remained steady for
decades, meaning that nuclear energy is far more secure than fossil
fuels are likely to be. Modern nuclear power systems are likely
to be more economic than the older versions, and are therefore
a good investment.
7. If we do not want to become overly dependent
on expertise from other countries the UK has a lot of catching
up to do. The closure of for example CERL, and the demise of the
UKAEA, mean that as a nation we no longer have the capacity to
design our own reactors, nor even the skills to operate them.
8. A praiseworthy but limited initiative
is being mounted by one of the sector skills councils, Cogent,
which covers the nuclear industry. Cogent is supporting Foundation
Degree programmes in Nuclear Engineering at the Universities of
Portsmouth and Central Lancashire (see http://www.cogent-ssc.com/cogent_family/NSAN.php).
However, questions remain as to whether providing a Foundation
Degree is the most appropriate response to this important issue.
What we really need is a viable and prosperous
UK nuclear industry-and to achieve that, sustained and substantial
government investment will be required.
March 2008
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