Chris Huhne’s nuclear test

As we all know, Chris Huhne has become a convert to nuclear power since the Lib Dems hitched their wagon to the Tories to form the new Coalition Government. For those with any grasp of the history of energy politics in the UK, it’s still just a little weird to hear a senior Lib Dem rooting for nuclear, but there are so many weird things going on out there at the moment, that I guess it’s just got lost in the noise.

Chris Huhne’s big face-saver is that nuclear will only go ahead as long as there is no ‘public subsidy’. As I’ll explain, it’s just about possible to stick to this rhetorical claim without Chris Huhne knowing that he’s lying, but it is quite difficult. (I’ll return to this in my next blog).

All the more wondrous, therefore, that Chris Huhne personally invited the redoubtable Amory Lovins to come and talk to his officials in DECC last week. Unlike that cohort of should-know-better Greens (on both sides of the Atlantic), who’ve been seduced by the blandishments of the nuclear industry, Amory Lovins has never wavered a single centimetre in his excoriating contempt for all things nuclear. And unlike people like Mark Lynas, Chris Smith in the UK and Stuart Brand in the US, Amory Lovins actually knows what he’s talking about when it comes to nuclear issues.

Looking at some of the material he shared with DECC officials, I’d love to know exactly how they tried to persuade Chris Huhne after the event that Amory Lovins was a mad, unreliable, anti-nuclear zealot. Perhaps his next speech on nuclear power will reflect something of the following points.

Far from there being a ‘nuclear renaissance’ going on around the world today (as DECC officials would have us all believe), the only countries where nuclear is on the up again are China, India and South Korea. Of the 61 nuclear plants officially ‘under construction’ today, 12 have been ‘under construction’ for more than 20 years, half of the rest are behind schedule, and 39 have no official start up date at all. Not a single one has been commissioned without massive government subsidy.The United States makes a particularly interesting case study for Chris Huhne. So desperate is the US Administration to promote new nuclear that it has offered tax credits which amount to more than 100% of construction costs – and even so interested utilities have been unable to raise any private capital whatsoever. Referring to this as ‘nuclear socialism’ –a horrible thought for our free-marketeering Lib Dems – Amory compares this incomparable government largesse with the support programme for Chevrolet’s electric vehicle, the Volt. This will be retailing at $41,000, with a tax credit from the Government of $7,500. “Imagine if the tax credit were $50,000!”By contrast with this lacklustre story, markets for renewable, energy efficiency and co-generation (or Combined Heat & Power as we call it) are booming. Grid-connected solar power has managed 60% average annual growth for a decade; China is now top in five renewable energy technologies, and met its 2020 target for wind in 2010. No matter what the nuclear industry might say (and on their past track record, you’d be insane to believe them anyway), nuclear power turns out to be the most costly of all the low-carbon alternatives. If you want to know the details of why that’s the case, check out the source data that Amory provides in his article “Forget Nuclear”, at www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php

With some relish, Amory concluded his demolition of today’s nuclear fantasies with a reminder that there were some people who saw through this farrago of false claims and febrile imaginings more than 50 years ago:

“An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap. (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose. (7) Very little development will be required. It will use off-the-shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now.“On the other hand, a practical reactor can be distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) It is being built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It requires an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items. (4) It is very expensive. (5) It takes a long time to build because of its engineering development problems. (6) It is large. (7) It is heavy. (8) It is complicated”(ADM Hyman Rickover, USN, 1953)

My emphasis, but you get the point!