Greenpartywatch: GP candidate faces axe for trying to save the planet

A storm is brewing in the Green Party over an article by Chris Goodall, their PPC in Oxford West and Abingdon, arguing that nuclear power will be necessary as part of the solution to climate change.

He goes where Mark Lynas and Stephen Tindale have gone before. Many leading environmentalists now take the view that nuclear is just too useful a source of low-carbon energy to do without; that concerns over nuclear waste, while valid environmental concerns, pale into insignificance compared to climate change.

Opponents frame the debate as "nuclear v renewables", but this is just framing. Let's take as read support for renewables and efficiency. Then what? Where is the rest of our energy coming from?

Realistically, what nuclear is up against is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). A good idea, but not yet, and perhaps not ever, a technology ready to be deployed. If you are convinced that CCS will work, then you can probably afford to be anti-nuclear. But why would you be so convinced?

Here is a question I put to Steve Webb MP, in a Lib Dem Voice webchat way back.

Do you agree that we should be looking to make progress on carbon emissions, primarily with techonlogies that exist, such as wind, nuclear, CSP, CHP, rail, and smart meters rather than gambling on technologies that might never exist, such as CCS, much better PV, and particular road transport solutions? Where technologies look promising, but don't yet work, rather than buy inferior versions of them, supporting that inferiority, why don't we offer prizes to companies that bring them to viability?

And he responded

We should certainly use readily available technologies such as CHP and smart meters as far as possible. But Carbon Capture is essential to the planet. China and India are rolling out new unabated coal-fired power stations at an alarming rate. Unless those emissions get captured we are all in trouble. So investing in CCS research has got to be a priority. In terms of prizes for companies that bring forward new ideas, in a world of carbon rationing and carbon markets, there ought to be strong economic 'prizes' for green technology - the key is to remove the barriers which prevent them getting to the commercial viability stage.

The position on nuclear - too little too late - had been given previously.

To support this policy it seems necessary to believe that CCS will actually work, and to be willing to gamble the planet's future on it working. Carbon capture is essential to the planet? Nuclear is too little too late. One could just as well say the opposite. Nuclear is essential to the planet, and CCS is too little too late. The second position has the advantage that nuclear is known to work, and building CCS-ready plant actually means building dirty coal plant.

So we face the same questions the Greens do, and we will continue to debate them, just as the Greens, er, oh...

Mr Goodall’s remarks had left many party members “seriously concerned”, the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas, MEP, said last night. “It is of great concern to me that a candidate should be promoting a policy which is at odds with the party manifesto, and I shall be taking that forward,” she said. ...  Asked if this would include disciplinary action and possibly even de-selection as a candidate, Ms Lucas would only say: “We will be taking appropriate measures.”

What really bothers me about this - because of course parties should be able to remove candidates who reject their values - is that Goodall's position is being seen by the Green party not as a contribution to the debate on how to save the planet, but as a rejection of the idea that we should be saving the planet - as a rejection of the party's values.

And this way madness lies. If you happen to believe that technology A will do a job better than technology B, for empirical practical reasons, this says nothing about your political values. If, when you explain your reasons, people invoke disciplinary procedures, that does suggest a deliberate attempt to keep heads in the sand and protect sacred cows from any kind of criticism.

But as I have said in the past, it is only by debating these questions openly, by taking evidence on the chin when it hurts, that we stand any chance in the long run of getting the right answers.

Chris Goodall, if you're listening, have a look as well at some of the benefits of trade, enterprise, and science.

Lynas and Lucas on nuclear power

Environmnental writer Mark Lynas and Green Party leader(!) Caroline Lucas debated nuclear power on the today programme this morning. It brought what I thought was the most astute question I've heard for a while on Today:

[Is there something] almost dogmatic in the theological sense about where the Green movement stands on this question, in that people are perhaps looking at the facts through lenses tinted by the historic opposition of the green movement to nuclear power?

Lucas didn't entirely disagree, but argued her point nonetheless in the usual way:

•  "Nuclear would lock us into a centralised energy system...." which is largely cod. They are all good ideas that come under the "decentralised energy" agenda, but the agenda itself is simply a way of packaging all carbon-saving technologies except for nuclear for the purposes of promoting them. By all means do that if you have already decided that nuclear would be a mistake, but it doesn't work as an argument against nuclear.
•  "Nuclear is not necessary..." - perhaps not. Arguably wind is not necessary either, or coal or gas or even energy efficiency. What is necessary is the generation of enough low-carbon energy, and we cannot afford to let dogma get in the way of this.
  
•  "Nuclear delivers too little too late." - that all depends on how much of it we build and how quickly. As Lynas pointed out, Germany built more coal fired power stations after the Greens had their nuclear plant shut down. That is an undeniable harm to the climate.

On their own these arguments might sway some but seen together they are horribly weak. We don't oppose wind farms because they deliver very little as a percentage of our total energy needs. We don't dismantle the interconnector to France's nuclear electric riches on the grounds that that is too "centralised", nor should we. We maintain spare generating capacity so that no single plant is "necessary". Lucas' objections are paper thin when stood against the need for large amounts of low-carbon energy.

Now maybe nuclear is just too expensive. Perhaps filling a percent of a percent or two of the Sahara with CSP, and linking to it with HVDC would be a better investment. But my guess is that we should do both - that we are a long way from being in a position to turn down feasible low-carbon energy sources. It is madness to frame the debate as nuclear v renewables and efficiency, when we are still building coal-fired plant.

And in any case the unknown factor in the cost of nuclear is the underwriting of the decommissioning cost, which is some time away. This would represent off-books liability that puts PFI to shame. No other low-carbon energy source can defer its costs like this. I don't think that our descendents whose climate will have been saved will mind that much the decommissioning cost. It is not as if they would be better off suffering climate change.

So with that in mind, it seems that nuclear capacity is almost certainly probably worth building, and probably probably worth building in sufficient quantity to replace all our coal-fired plant. (Gas, on the other hand, complements wind well.) I realise that my party, the Lib Dems, is opposed. I guess this is due to a desire to do the right thing for the environment, but with too much deference to the environmental movement. But environmentalists should heed Lynas:

We are no longer living in the 1970s. Today, the world is more threatened even than it was during the Cold War. Only this time nuclear power – instead of being part of the problem – can be part of the solution.

Nuclear: No Quick Fix

The Sustainable Development Commission has reported on the subject of nuclear power. This is a finely balanced question, and what worries me is quite how weak most of their arguments are.

Links: News item, SDC, chapter on C02 (pdf)

These are the arguments:

1. Long-term waste – no long term solutions are yet available, let alone acceptable to the general public; it is impossible to guarantee safety over the long- term disposal of waste.

Yes. Bang on. Of course if nuclear diminishes the threat of global warming, then this a question of what is the greater threat. Also how much nuclear may diminish global warming depends on the other arguments.

2. Cost – the economics of nuclear new-build are highly uncertain. There is little, if any, justification for public subsidy, but if estimated costs escalate, there’s a clear risk that the taxpayer will be have to pick up the tab.

Correct. The new Finnish reactor is getting hidden subsidies. Of course environmentalists will usually argue that it is worth paying more to fight global warming.

3. Inflexibility – nuclear would lock the UK into a centralised distribution system for the next 50 years, at exactly the time when opportunities for microgeneration and local distribution network are stronger than ever.

No, sorry, this just stinks. Microgeneration may be an alternative to grid power for people who are off-grid, but it is only a complement to grid power to those of us who have the benefit of a grid connection.

The SDC clearly sees nuclear as a political rival to renewables and microgeneration. They may be right, but it is still unfortunate. Nuclear, renewables, efficiency and microgeneration can all reduce carbon emissions, and are all alternatives to fossil fuel use.

There is absolutely no sign of an economically sound engineering case for dismantling the 'centralised distribution system'. It is driven by 'small is beautiful' wishful thinking. There is an engineering trade-off between capital-efficient and thermally-efficient large plant on the one hand, and distribution costs on the other.

4. Undermining energy efficiency – a new nuclear programme would give out the wrong signal to consumers and businesses, implying that a major technological fix is all that’s required, weakening the urgent action needed on energy efficiency.

This is just ridiculous. We should not use techonological means to reduce carbon emissions, because people may conclude that technological means can reduce carbon emissions. Sorry, this is not just ridiculous, it is gob-smackingly mind-bogglingly ridiculous.

And of course, what actually drives energy efficiency, is not the spin we put on how we generate the energy, but the price of energy. If we have more, expensive, nuclear power, cross-subsidising from gas and coal, then costs will be higher and efficiency will be promoted.

In the pdf linked above, the SDC talk about "demand reductions". Demand reduction if not a result of "technological fixes" will be much the same in economic impact as huge price increases, worse in fact if they are not brought about simply by huge price increases.

5. International security – if the UK brings forward a new nuclear power programme, we cannot deny other countries the same technology*. With lower safety standards, they run higher risks of accidents, radiation exposure, proliferation and terrorist attacks.

I largely agree with this, or rather I agree that it is a very good reason to develop and promote renewables ahead of nuclear. But it is not so compelling a reason not to use nuclear in preference to fossil fuels in already-nuclear powers such as the US, Europe, China and India, representing a lot of energy demand growth.

...

It is suggested that maintaining nuclear capacity would only make a difference of 8% to our carbon emissions. That may not seem much compared to a target of 60%. But it is a lot compared to what we seem to be on course to achieving. United against nuclear are anti-technology environmentalists, and "economic contrarians" who consider that global warming is inevitable and the costs of doing anything about it would be disproportionate. What an alliance!

There are sound reasons for having a mix of energy sources, both for security of supply, and because they have different characteristics of cost, flexibility and so forth. Taking nuclear out of the equation altogether means taking it out of the roles it is best at. There is no case for trying to do without renewables, or without coal or without gas. It will take better arguments than those of the SDC to defeat nuclear.

Tag: nuclear power