Readers letters
I notice that a group of MPs is demanding a Plan B Energy Strategy. I would suggest that since the 1990s we haven’t had a Plan A. Until Privatisation under Mrs T, the production of power was in the hands of the Central Electricity Generating Board, the CEGB. It was a nationalised organisation, and the CEGB was responsible for electricity generation in England and Wales. The organisation was unusual in that most of its senior staff were professional engineers, but with excellent support in financial and risk-management areas. Some people felt, that it represented the best of government planning, others, mostly free market neo cons, felt that it had become a monolith that exemplified the worst aspects of central planning, and was ripe for reform. It is probably the case that, in its most successful period, up until the mid 1970s, it was managed in a way broadly comparable to large private-sector energy majors such as BP. But the free market neo cons, in the Thatcher era, saw to the privatisation of the CEGB and the Gas Industry, and by provoking a miners` strike caused the decay of the coal industry.
So rather than having a rational policy, in which the CEGB burned British coal we now have a free market in energy supply, owned by foreign investment, in which we are closing 10% of coal fired generating capacity, thanks to the EU, at a time when the old nuclear stations are being closed, losing yet more capacity, and in the short term we, as a country, have to buy gas on the expensive world open market, plus allowing wind farms to be built by foreign investors, who then charge us for using our wind.
The economic case for wind power is wrong, but our energy policies are influenced by the Climate Change Act 2008, under which Britain is committed to cut emissions by 34% by 2018, and by the EU`s Renewable Energy Directive 2009, which demands that Britain has to source 15% of its energy from renewables by 2020. This has to be seen in the context that Britain`s CO2 emissions are 1,5% of the world total and the EU`s is 12%. No other major power has such binding powers to cut back its emissions. To put it in context China is responsible for 26% of world emissions, followed by America at 18%. The increase in emissions in China between 2007 and 2009 was one and a half times the total of British emissions.
There have been many reports on the use of wind power and when the total costs are included, wind power always comes out as amongst the most expensive. The Royal Academy of Engineering recently carried out a survey of the cost of generating power. No surprise - nuclear at 2.2 p/KWh was the cheapest, coal at 2.5 p/KWh was next, then gas at 3,2p/KWh, onshore windfarms came in at 5.4p/KWh, offshore windfarms at 7.2 p/KWH and wave and tidal at 6.6p/KWH. Indeed another report by Civitas, said that wind power is expensive and is not effective in cutting CO2 emissions. They add were it not for the renewable energy targets set by the EU, wind power would not even be considers as a cost effective way of producing electricity or reducing carbon emissions.
Now anyone studying Engineering Economics 101, could see that the cheapest way to produce power is coal or nuclear. The most logical option would be coal, since we are sitting on an island of it, and there is the technology to burn coal cleanly. Other sources of power have to be bought in and, matter how you factor in the costs of gas, the supply is uncertain, so gas is a bit of a dubious choice.
We need a new generation of nuclear power stations, yet we do not now have the will or ability to build them, so what have we Engineers being doing for the last ten years?
It is ironic, that one of the main candidates is EDF, a French state owned company, with major trade union investment,and our Conservative Government with its ideological bias against public enterprise is looking to subsidise EDF with billions of pounds of taxpayers money.
John Owen, Caerphilly
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