THE GUARDIAN

  COMMENT

Polly Toynbee
Friday November 25, 2005
 

This is not cold weather for late November. There is no energy shortage. Domestic gas bills are the lowest in the EU. Electricity is 10% cheaper than in 1997. A few imprudent industries refused fixed prices to play the energy spot market, but squeal now the market is against them. They represent only 0.05% of industry, despite the CBI's Digby Jones crying wolf over yet another "government crisis".

Behind this scare is the nuclear power lobby waking like the kraken to warn of imminent power cuts, in time for Tony Blair's announcement next week of another energy review. It will be headed by the energy minister, Malcolm Wicks - a hopeful sign of sanity - but Friends of the Earth finds it somewhat ominous that we need another review just three years after the last.

A colossal decision on nuclear power will be made through a thicket of energy factoids. Note how cleverly the language is framed already, implying that nuclear is common sense and anything else is "alternative" to it - probably wearing woolly hats and fingerless gloves.

This will be a case study in political decision-making - rational and transparent or dismally dysfunctional. Watch how the wind of opinion changes, who manipulates it, how and why. See how emotion, political predilection and even gender swing the debate on both sides. Polls show Britain is evenly split on nuclear power, but that masks a huge gender difference: two-thirds of women are against, as they are across the EU. Is there something intuitively macho about glowing fuel rods? How cleverly the nuclear lobby insinuates that grown-up, real men - and by inference real political parties - know what has to be done. Wind, waves and energy-saving are for silly greens and big girl's blouses.

In theory this hard decision should have nothing to do with politics - yet it does. The conservative-minded tend to be pro-nuclear, while the left of centre is instinctively against, the debate beginning in the heart, not in the head. Each side seeks out its own elastic facts to support what it already believes. Just look how commentators fall in this debate: there are precious few cross-overs on this apparently non-ideological question. You could say my colleague Simon Jenkins and I are exemplars of the phenomenon. Those who claim there is no longer a left and right these days should ponder how, on the contrary, left and right still infuse the most unlikely issues. So remember most "facts" are tainted in this debate either by the powerful commercial nuclear lobby or by deep political emotions.

What should be the ground rules for this review? Global warming is more dangerous than any other threat. Its progress is certain, its deadly effect already striking down the weakest. A few Chernobyls would do nothing like the damage caused by melting ice caps, flood and drought. Let's all agree on that, right? Nuclear power with low CO2 emissions is better than doing nothing.

So here's the first question: does nuclear give us more clean kilowatts per buck? Second: if the price of other clean forms of generation is roughly comparable or even a little more, why needlessly store up nuclear waste that is a hazard for centuries? Third: will the government ensure an absolutely transparent level playing field, so that nuclear decommissioning costs and accident insurance are upfront and not fudged? Fourth: if investors demand fixed energy prices for decades ahead to make it worth investing in unproven technologies (nuclear or alternative), will that price guarantee be for all technologies?

Now for the factoids. Deliberate confusion is sown, even over the few hard facts. Figures get bamboozled between electricity use, total energy use and emissions. Get this clear: for all the waste and terrorist threats it produces, nuclear power, if it is maintained, will still only prevent 10% of the rise in our CO2 emissions because electricity represents a relatively small part of our total energy use. Yet it is discussed as if it were the only show in town, as if nothing else has to be done.

Here's another hard fact: the government has had to give the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority £56bn to clean up after existing nuclear plants. That wasted cash is more than enough to provide as much renewable energy as we could use, by anyone's sums. Remember the history of nuclear stations, far more expensive than expected and quite intermittent as they often went off-line with cracks and failures. Unsurprisingly, the market has refused to build any for 20 years since Sizewell B: too costly, too risky. New nuclear stations - as yet built nowhere - may work better, but no one knows. Finland has started to build one and the world is watching: the price is unknown as it is hugely subsidised by France on a fixed-cost deal as a loss-leader, a market distortion curiously ignored by pro-nuclear conservatives. We wait to see how cost-effective it is, even then.

Pro-nuclearists estimate a cost of £10bn to build and £10bn to decommission if we are to replace our existing stations. According to the 2002 Cabinet Office review, offshore wind costs the same per kilowatt. The engineers WS Atkins, reviewing an application to build a tidal lagoon generator off Swansea, say that will cost about the same. The Severn estuary could provide enough tidal power per unit price as three nuclear power stations. Onshore wind is cheaper again, but its beautiful turbines distress a countryside lobby that tolerates hideous pylons and forgets the thousands of windmills in every landscape a couple of centuries ago. Clean technology using biomass in coal-powered stations could become CO2 emission negative, eating more CO2 in growing fuel than is produced in burning it.

Domestic and micro-generation could offer a wind turbine beside every satellite dish on every house, just as combined heat and power boilers now generate electricity in homes. Public attitudes will change when people see smart meters moving forwards or backwards, using or selling power back to the grid for the first time. There is a whole array of alternatives that claim to be able to generate more and emit less, if only they were given the green light.

We may all have views, but what can we know, who only stand and watch the economists and scientists argue? The decision is critical because the market is poised, waiting to decide which way to invest. If the world is nuclear, all the money will go into that one technology. If the world is definitely not nuclear, then it makes it worth investing in a host of tidal, wind, solar, bio-mass, clean coal, carbon sequestration and micro home-generators. Any or all of them could employ millions and develop highly exportable new technologies.

Some things we can know. We can detect cant, commerce and prejudice. We can be highly suspicious of those who want a big quick-fix, no complexity or diversity; let's just build nuclear and forget about global warming. The right thinks nuclear promises limitless clean energy for no pain at all: it suspects the green impulse yearns for the hairshirt option just for the sake of it. The danger is that, when it comes to the crunch, cowardly politicians may feel it is less politically risky to go with the great weight of commercial conservative opinion, which makes the most noise. But the history of nuclear power shows there is a great risk too with that unknown, expensive technology.

polly.toynbee@guardian.co.uk

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