Nuclear power is not the solution to the energy gap, but the risks associated with it are part of the problem, argues Nathan Argent

OVER the past couple of weeks, there has been a lot of tub-thumping emanating from Westminster about the need for more nuclear power in Britain. Indeed, amid the concern of rising fuel costs and energy bills, some have been guilty of making erroneous claims that nuclear power will provide the panacea for all our energy woes. But what really lies behind this fanfare?

Readers of The Sun would have seen the recent headline: “Atomic Smitten – PM acts tough on oil prices” and concluded Gordon Brown was trying to persuade a restless public that he was feeling their fuel pain. In reality, the Prime Minister’s motivation for talking up nuclear power was his need to get the media talking about policy, rather than his own possible political demise, and shore up confidence in an industry that has suffered its worst week in years.

This bold yet vacuous statement was meant to distract from the fact that Britain’s “world-class” flagship reactor at Sizewell B had shut down unexpectedly, causing massive blackouts across the country. The following day, British Energy, owner of Sizewell B and Britain’s biggest nuclear operator, announced that its annual profits had slumped by a third, blaming falling electricity prices and unplanned reactor shutdowns. Just after this announcement, the reactor at Hunterston in Scotland went off-line without warning. This meant that 10 of BE’s 16 reactors were not producing any power.

At the same time as all this, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the body in charge of dealing with the country’s radioactive waste, admitted that the costs of cleaning up our existing nuclear legacy, which it currently estimates to be in the region of £73 billion, are likely to spiral “by some billions”. And to compound all this bad news, the French Nuclear Safety Authority has now ordered all construction work to stop on the site of the supposedly state-of-the-art European Pressurised Reactor in Flamanville because of on-going safety problems. The EPR is the reactor design that the Government is keen to see followed in Britain.

All this has shaken confidence in a new nuclear build to its roots and the PM saw fit to step in to set things to rights. But has he? Brown’s recent comments look like nothing more than a rather gauche attempt to talk up nuclear power’s future by making vague promises of its critical strategic importance. But whichever questions you ask about energy – whether these concern the price of oil, power cuts, gas, security of supply or even climate change – nuclear just doesn’t have the answers.

Take power cuts. Centralised generation systems such as ours rely on big clunky generation units like nuclear. When they fail, the effects are huge. An expansion of nuclear power isn’t going to change this. Sizewell B, the plant that failed unexpectedly, has the single greatest need for back-up on the national grid. A decentralised energy system, producing cleaner energy with more local super efficient power stations near to where it is needed, would meet our energy needs, tackle energy security, slash carbon emissions and provide a system that would be much more robust if problems arise.

What about oil? Well, unless Brown is about to appoint an alchemist to the Cabinet, nuclear power will do nothing to address any concerns over oil. This is because oil is used mainly for transport. To reduce worries over the price of oil the Government needs to introduce tough mandatory efficiency standards on new cars, tax gas guzzlers and make sure green taxes (which, in real terms, are at their lowest rate for years) are used effectively and transparently. Making public transport better and cheaper would be a good place to start.

What about energy security and those volatile states such as Russia? Britain’s biggest energy demands are for heating and transport. These sectors are fuelled by oil and gas. Adding a little bit more nuclear power isn’t going to help shore up our energy security – not least when the first reactor isn’t likely to be on-line until after 2020. A better bet would be to improve energy efficiency and plough money into maximising our renewable potential, estimated to be the biggest of any country in Europe. For example, Germany has installed 200 times more solar power and 10 times more wind power than this country over the past five years, generating the equivalent power capacity of our entire nuclear fleet (when it’s working). If we’re serious about tackling climate change, we need to follow the German lead.

And what of climate change? Ten new reactors in Britain could only cut our carbon emissions by 4 per cent some time after 2020. This is too little, too late. With recent cost estimates for replacing our ageing fleet of reactors put at £60 billion – twice the amount this muddling Government stated only months ago – to deliver a paltry 4 per cent reduction in emissions, it is worth considering the kind of return we would get if we invested this in renewable technology and energy efficiency. It’s rather like comparing a radioactive Dairylea triangle with the king of English cheese – Blue Stilton.

To put it more bluntly, nuclear power is a multi-billion pound block on actually getting the much more effective and cheaper alternative solutions up and running. Those tempted to scoff at this should be mindful of the words of Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF, the French nuclear company which want  to buy British Energy. Earlier this year at the Adam Smith Institute, he stated that, if Britain met its renewable energy targets, the role for nuclear power would be marginalised.

The simple fact is that we can make the big cuts we need much quicker and much more cheaply by using renewables and energy efficiency as part of an ultra-efficient decentralised energy system.

Not so long ago, Gordon Brown committed Britain to generating around 40 per cent of our electricity from renewables by 2020. This means delivering on the 33 gigawatts of offshore wind power the Government promised and kick-starting other renewable and decentralised energy technologies. It means building super-efficient power stations on the Scandinavian model – ones which are 90 per cent efficient and can use both fossil fuels and cleaner fuels such as biomass. It means designing products and appliances that use energy more efficiently. And it means establishing a mechanism that pays householders for feeding the electricity they produce from micro-generation at their own homes into the national grid – a move which stimulated the rapid expansion of both domestic renewables and energy efficiency in countries such as Germany and Sweden.

The real solutions to the energy gap and climate change are available now: energy efficiency, cleaner use of fossil fuels, renewables and state-of-the art decentralised power stations. Together, they have the potential to deliver reliable low carbon energy quicker and cheaper. So, as the Prime Minister tries to define his time in office as one of tough decisions on energy, it would appear this is yet another wrong decision to add to his back catalogue.

Nathan Argent is a member of Greenpeace UK’s climate and energy team