Last week, Energy Secretary Chris Huhne made the first annual carbon statement at the House of Commons and presented the 2050 Pathways analysis, an energy policy plan of 6 possible mixes for Britain's energy needs achieving 80% GHG emission cuts.
This is the first time that the Coalition government has presented something tangible on this subject, even though I expected that there would be a carbon budget in the Chancellor's recent emergency Budget, but the environment was conspicuosly absent then.
Mr Huhne proposes that energy efficiency in households should reduce demand (very sensible) (also probably costly). Homes in Britain dissipate a lot of heat and energy and are ill-equipped with all sorts of energy inefficient gadgetry. There is also room for technological advances, as we must move away from inefficient light bulbs but energy saving ones are not yet good enough for most people's needs and have the downside of being packed with toxic by-products, such as mercury.
The government wants the private sector to be the driving force of a nuclear revolution and pay its way to build new reactors and contribute to the significant shortfall that is predicted, as energy demand will double in the next 40 years (with a substantial electrification of households and transport), and North Sea oil and gas runs dry. This is wishful thinking, and there is little chance that the private sector will enter this field without proper incentives, because nuclear energy is immensely costly. Incentives can be in the form of land and technology leases and lucrative energy contracts. Alternatively, given that the state can ill afford to splash on incentives, and must make severe cuts to repay the national debt, the private sector can be pushed into nuclear energy by making other forms of energy generation more expensive.
Undoubtedly, by saying that fossil fuels will remain but only when fitted with CCS, Mr Huhne is implicitly implying just that. Carbon Capture and Storage is phenomenally expensive, and if utilities will only be permitted to burn coal and gas with CCS, suddenly investing in nuclear energy will be attractive to them.
I believe that nuclear energy is fundamental to the decarbonisation of Britain, and to meet its energy needs in the long term. However, we must not forget that nuclear energy has numerous problems, not least that it is not a renewable resource. We have enough uranium to last us about one century at the current rates of consumption, much less if we engage in a full-fledged nuclear programme. Fusion nuclear energy (when and if ever commercially available), will be a renewable energy source (as there's plenty of hydrogen around) but fission is not.
Therefore, a nuclear programme, though necessary, can only be a plan with a horizon of a few decades at most to allow renewables to catch up with the level of supply that we need.
The government intends to support microgeneration - great news. Solar energy is a brilliant solution for household supply, also recently it has been introduced to power recharging points for electric vehicles, so it can contribute significantly to decarbonise transport.
DECC has published a site called the 2050 Calculator where people can play energy secretary and design the UK's energy infrastructure, adjust demand and supply, and try to score the final goal: 80% emission cuts by 2050. Have a go!
Mikel Susperregi
mikel@carbonica.org
