Principal Speaker 'nukes' nuclear power in Oxford Union Debate
29th Nov 2004
"Nuclear power generation has failed to live up to the early promises made for it, and it's not all Homer Simpson's fault!"
Keith Taylor, Principal Speaker of the Green Party of England & Wales will make the case for 'nuking' the nuclear option, while expanding renewable energy generation during at an Oxford Union panel debate tonight.
Also appearing in the panel debate will be Rt Hon the Lord Parkinson of Carnforth, the former Secretary of State for Energy, Tony Cooper, Chairman, Nuclear Industry Association, Tony Juniper, Executive Director, Friends of the Earth, and Dipesh Shah, Chief Executive, UKAE.
Cllr Taylor will emphasise his party's belief in a nuclear-free future by saying there is no good economic case for having one. He will point out that the waste created by the industry leaves an unacceptable legacy for future generations, and, in today's uncertain world, nuclear plants present too great a risk from terrorist attack. He will make the case that concentrating on renewable energy sources would create jobs and wealth.
Coupled with calls to bring back the National Grid back into public ownership and control, halting all nuclear reprocessing, Keith Taylor will suggest that the UK follows the lead of the German government and completely phasing out nuclear power.
"The decisions taken now about how to generate power in the coming decades are crucial. We cannot continue producing mountains of dangerous waste to be buried or exported for others to deal with," says Taylor.
"I concede that nuclear generation produces less carbon emissions than gas or coal, but accepting the dangerous waste bi-product as an acceptable risk on behalf of future generations seems immoral and totally unacceptable. Greens will continue to make the case for reducing our energy needs. It can be done easily. For instance, if every household used energy-saving light bulbs, a power station could be closed.
"If we coupled robust energy-saving policies with switching the billions of Pound used to prop up the nuclear industry over to investing into safe renewables such as wave, solar, wind and geothermal, we would leave a safer legacy for generations to come. We simply have to move quickly to harnessing the earth's own free power to fuel our future needs.
"This is about finding practical solutions to the challenges that face us. It's not about continuing to direct financial support to the big power generators. That's a dead-end policy- it simply leads nowhere."
Text of speech
Nuclear power generation has failed to live up to the early promises made for it, and it's not all Homer Simpson's fault, or even his nasty boss, Mr Burns'!
Why the Greens believe there is no future for nuclear power
We were promised a cheap, endless source of power. Instead we ended up with state subsidies worth billions just to prop up a nuclear industry that provides a diminishing proportion of our energy requirements -- just 8% of our requirements.
The government's support is at the expense of the renewable energy generation. Oil and gas still supply the majority of our energy needs, which may go to explain why this and previous governments continue to take such an interventionist line to Middle East affairs - but that's another story and debate!
We were told that nuclear energy was a clean energy. True, the carbon emissions are lower than with fossil fuelled stations. However, in the 50-odd years of this country's nuclear production, we still have not resolved how best to deal with nuclear waste.
We are torn between burying it, recycling it or exporting it to far away places so it is out of sight and mind. And now, still without a clear plan, we are encouraging reprocessing works from overseas, whilst the latest estimates for a nuclear clean-up start at £50bn.
The Greens believe nuclear power has no place in an integrated and sustainable framework for power generation on 4 main grounds:
· There is no economic argument for nuclear energy
· The creation of nuclear waste creates a disproportionate and unacceptable social, economic and environmental burden for future generations
· The ongoing vulnerability of our nuclear dependence from terrorist attack
· There is regenerative potential in expanding our renewable energy industry
Government subsidies and write-offs have distorted the real costs of energy. The love affair with nuclear has seen the public purse bail out British Nuclear Fuels, and the taxpayer foot the bill for its current liabilities - it has set aside £4.5bn for decommissioning. It's time to make real progress towards developing sensible energy policies that won't put future generations into hock and at risk.
We hold that the broader economic argument is not simply about what the market will pay for power, or how little lowest cost supplier can produce for. We believe any calculation needs to incorporate the social and environmental costs of the activity.
While these may be difficult to quantify in monetary terms, for me they are the killer argument. Namely, that while carbon emissions are lower, we are creating nuclear waste which remains a threat for generations.
But in an uncertain world we can be sure the sun will shine, the tides flow and the wind blow. We can be sure we can capture power from biomass and geothermal activity. So we must quickly move towards harnessing the earth's own free power to fuel our future needs. It will take a decade to build a nuclear station, and its worst effects will remain for centuries. It will take a month to build a turbine; it works straight away and will dismantle as easily as it has been built.
We must look also at reducing our demands for energy to use power more sensibly. For example, if every light bulb in British houses was energy saving instead of incandescent; a power station could be closed. The government must move to increase energy efficiency in a much more meaningful way. We need to see the highest standards of energy-saving building design expected as the norm.
We also need to accept and learn from our experiences with nuclear power stations that we've built in the past. For example the THORP plant at Sellafield, which has never made a profit has cost the taxpayer £500m in written off capital costs. I expect the designers and economists predicted a bright future for Thorp. How confident should we be of future assurances of viability, especially when the environmental and financial consequences of failure are so high?
The Royal Academy of Engineering issued a report recently that claimed new-build nuclear power stations based on the Westinghouse AP1000 design could produce electricity for 2.3p per kWh. No such reactor has ever been built in the UK, and it would probably take 10 years to build.
Combined-cycle gas turbine plants are cheaper and wind is almost competitive at that price. However, judging by the past record of the nuclear industry cost estimates, it seems very unlikely that such plants would actually produce power at those costs, and by the time any station was operational the costs of wind and solar could well be cheaper.
Because the same material enrichment technology is used for both power generation and bomb making there will be an ever-present risk, both from countries who wish to develop their own nuclear industry, and from the temptation to terrorists to either attack facilities or themselves acquire materials for offensive use. One only has to look at what is happening in Iran and North Korea to appreciate this simple fact.
We need politicians with vision to make decisions now that will benefit this and future generations, rather than decisions which blight the future. For instance, in Germany where nuclear power is being phased out, the government has just started a new programme to encourage solar roofs. In the first month of the scheme they have approved more applications for solar roofs than the UK government received in three years. We need that political will in UK.
There are thousands of jobs to be created in renewable energy creation. In design, build and manufacture. In installation and conversion, and even in exporting new technologies.
We need to dismantle the mechanism that sees public money siphoned off to support the nuclear industry and divert those funds to the emerging renewable technologies, rather than continuing to deprive of them of investment and encouragement.
We also believe the National Grid should be brought back into public ownership, and for that new Grid to make embedded renewables a real option.
It is in our interests that our energy is, as far as possible, less dependent on foreign supplies. One, fossil fuels are finite, two political futures are uncertain and unreliable.
In conclusion then, the Green's are calling for an energy strategy for the future to include:
· Adopt the German model of phasing out nuclear generation
· Halt all reprocessing immediately, and transfer to storage and containment technologies
· Use the money currently subsidising nuclear production to invest in renewable energy research, development and production
· Bring back the National Grid into public ownership democratically accountable, and use funds diverted from nuclear subsidy to make embedded renewables a real option
· Work at national and international levels to improve building/manufacturing design and build, incorporating improved energy efficiency measures. Further to introduce energy saving designs in new machinery and equipment, and use regulatory powers to discourage unsustainable energy use, for example incandescent light bulbs
