Monthly Archives: September 2013

Lib Dems Take the Nuclear Option

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Of the many ways in which the Green credentials of Liberal Democrat voters have been caricatured in the past, one of the most enduring must be the image of the rainbow- emblazoned sticker in the rear windscreen (of a Citroen 2CV, naturally) proclaiming: “Nuclear Power – No Thanks”. Opposition to nuclear power has been such a touchstone of the Green movement for so long that any questioning of this stance is treated as nothing short of heretical by many Greens. Yet, at their annual conference in Glasgow, the Lib Dems have not merely questioned the policy of opposition to new nuclear power generation, they have ditched it altogether.

Although the debate over the details of the Party’s acceptance of new nuclear and the precise definition of terms such as ‘no public subsidy’ will rumble on, there is no doubt that a Rubicon has been crossed.
There have been howls of outrage from environmentalists, with Craig Bennett, policy director at Friends of the Earth, saying: “The change punches a huge hole in the Liberal Democrats’ fast-sinking green credibility.” Greenpeace have been equally savage: Dr Doug Parr their chief scientist added: “The vote shows how far the Liberal Democrats have slid from their previously principled position on energy and climate.”

There are, however, some very respected Green thinkers who have come around to the pro-nuclear way of thinking and have also been pilloried by their fellow travellers for daring to question the orthodoxy of the anti-nuclear stance.

As far back as 2004, James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia theory and elder statesman of the environmental movement, took his fellow environmentalists to task for their continued opposition to nuclear energy even in the face of the far more immediate and potentially deadly threat posed by climate change. Writing in The Independent, he said: “I find it sad and ironic that the UK, which leads the world in the quality of its Earth and climate scientists, rejects their warnings and advice, and prefers to listen to the Greens. But I am a Green and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy.” This view was reflected in his 2006 Book The Revenge of Gaia in which he expanded on the view that the threats posed by nuclear power and the disposal of nuclear waste are as nothing compared to the global threat posed by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

In March 2012, in an open letter to the Prime Minister that publicly disagreed with an earlier letter signed by four former Directors of Friends of the Earth urging him to abandon plans to increase nuclear power generating capacity, George Monbiot, Stephen Tindale, Fred Pearce, Michael Hanlon and Mark Lynas asserted: “Nuclear remains the only viable large-scale source of low-carbon baseload power available to energy consumers in the UK today. Whilst we enthusiastically support research into new technologies, the deployment of renewables, demand-management and efficiency, these combined cannot, without the help of atomic energy, power a modern energy-hungry economy at the same time as reducing carbon emissions.”

What both these views have in common is an acceptance that we have waited too long to tackle climate change through renewable technologies alone and, due to a failure to invest in research and development in both renewables and methods of mitigating the impact of burning fossil fuels such as Carbon Capture and Storage, we have run out of alternatives to the nuclear option.

So, instead of criticising the Liberal Democrats for abandoning their Green principles, we should be applauding their willingness to take a realistic approach to meeting the energy needs of the 21st century whilst taking seriously the need to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of energy generation. Taking the nuclear path is an admission of failure but, having failed to address the issue of climate change by other means, it does at least buy us the time to seriously invest in the development of alternative technologies. If the Government will commit to the next generation of nuclear power stations being the last and that, by the time they reach the end of their productive lives, they will have been made redundant by the great strides that have been made in improving the efficiency of renewable energy technologies, then this change of heart will have paid off. If, on the other hand, the commissioning of new nuclear is used as an excuse to stop thinking about the problem then the Lib Dems will deserve all the opprobrium, and more, being heaped upon them by the likes of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

Fracking Threatens to Fracture the Coalition

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Following increasing public disquiet about fracking, including the recent protests and direct action around the Sussex village of Balcombe, which saw the arrest of Green Party MP and former leader Caroline Lucas, cracks have started to appear in the coalition Government over energy policy.

Chancellor George Osborne has stated that he wants to “put Britain at the forefront of exploiting shale gas” and Prime Minister David Cameron, in an article for Lord Lawson’s climate-sceptic think-tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation, wrote: “we cannot afford to miss out on fracking”
But this enthusiasm for shale gas demonstrated by the holders of the two top jobs is not shared by all members of the government.

Mark Durkan, Environment Minister for Northern Ireland, criticised this headlong rush to exploit shale gas reserves and made his position more cautious position clear: “The scientific evidence is far from being established. No fracking for Fermanagh, no fracking for Northern Ireland, as things stand.”
Meanwhile, a policy paper produced by the Liberal Democrats in advance of their forthcoming conference puts clear daylight between the party and their coalition partners on a range of energy-related issues, including shale, where the paper’s authors flatly contradict the Chancellor’s views, stating: “There is no realistic prospect of a ‘shale gas revolution’ in the UK.”

In a more measured assessment of the potential role of shale gas in the energy mix that is in marked contrast to the wild enthusiasm shown by senior Conservatives, the paper goes on to conclude: “There is value in promoting domestic production rather than imports, so Liberal Democrats would permit measured shale gas extraction, ensuring that regulations protecting water and land pollution and local environmental quality are strictly enforced at a national level. Planning permission decisions should remain with local authorities however, and local communities should be fully consulted over local extraction, and fully compensated for all damage to the local landscape.”

The debate about fracking, as with that over wind farms, has tended to focus on the local environmental impacts, real or perceived, rather than the big picture issues such as climate change and the effect these technologies will have on efforts to mitigate future rises in global temperatures.

Given that wind energy generation causes no carbon emissions and shale gas is a fossil fuel that emits over 500 kgs of CO2 for each megawatt-hour of electricity generated, a rational approach to policy-making in the light of the Government’s own decarbonisation targets would seem to be that there should be a presumption in favour of the former and against the latter before the local factors are considered. However, in marked contrast to the rushing out of Planning Practice Guidance that stresses that Local Authorities have a duty to make an assessment of all oil and gas resources in their areas the planning regime for onshore wind energy has recently been tightened

Here again, the Liberal Democrats paper on energy policy shows a clear difference in approach to the Conservatives: “Onshore wind, currently the cheapest renewable technology, could provide up to a fifth of UK electricity consumption. In public opinion surveys wind farms consistently attract support from around two-thirds of the public, but the 10 per cent or so who are consistently opposed are usually more vocal. Liberal Democrats would require onshore wind farms to help fund local energy efficiency measures, thus reducing householders’ energy bills. Liberal Democrats would support developers who seek punitive damages against councils who do not follow National Policy Guidelines in determining consents, for example, many (particularly Conservative) councils have adopted criteria (such as minimum separation distances from dwellings), in contravention of government planning policy.”

This claim of two-thirds public support reflects the findings of a poll conducted for The Guardian in 2012, which found that 66% of Britons were in favour of wind power and only 8% against. Indeed, a similar poll found that 60% of people would support a wind farm development within 5 miles of their home compared to 20% support for a new coal-fired power station and 14% for a nuclear power station.

Conversely, only 40% of the public support fracking in their local area with 40% saying they would oppose it.

Given that the scientific evidence on the negative impact of shale gas exploitation on efforts to curb climate change is clear, the industry’s record on localised environmental damage is far from blameless and the lack of support from the public despite efforts by the tabloid press to cast the Balcombe anti-fracking protestors as benefit scroungers and extremists who do not represent the views of the local community, it is not difficult to see why elements of the coalition government are rushing to distance themselves from their leader’s wholehearted support for the technology as a potential answer to Britain’s energy worries. We wait to see whether this will lead to a permanent split or another policy U-turn.