Civil Nuclear Power

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:37 pm on 17 January 2006.

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Photo of Alan Whitehead Alan Whitehead Labour, Southampton, Test 9:37, 17 January 2006

We are conducting an ambitious review, which will report shortly. The issue concerns not only a secure supply for the future, but a diverse supply that is not intermittent and contributes to a 60 per cent. cut in CO 2 emissions by 2050—if we do not reach that target by 2050, climate change will mean that we do not have another chance to do so. The review is taking place against an uncertain series of parameters, but a reasonable conclusion is that we should source as much of our energy as possible for future use from within the UK.

We need a mature and careful analysis of all sources of energy. Tonight, we are discussing nuclear power, so it is reasonable to ask how nuclear power might work as part of the mix—it cannot form the sole power source. I want to raise two issues—timing and cost. Nuclear power is not a short-term fix, because all but one of our nuclear power stations will be closed by 2023, so if we are to maintain our present level of nuclear power generation we must replace all those nuclear power stations. In that case, we would have to invest £10 billion to £15 billion over a 10-year period in capital payments for nuclear power stations before a single kilowatt of nuclear energy were produced.

Tonight's argument has addressed whether direct or indirect subsidy would be required to undertake such a programme. If no subsidies were provided, recent practice suggests that no one would build a nuclear power station, which would take us 10 years down the line with no new nuclear power stations and a greater gap in our energy supply, so the likelihood is that some money will be needed either directly or indirectly. If that money were to be used, the question that we might well ask is what we could get for that money if we did not put it into nuclear. In relation to the outputs that we could get on renewable energy, for example, the figures equate very well.

The other issue relates to security of supply and getting to a low-carbon economy. In terms of the mix that we could have, we stand in a very positive position compared with most industrialised countries. We have huge reserves of coal that we fail to exploit. We will be a net oil and gas importer, but we will still produce some oil and gas. We have Europe's largest supply of wind, tidal and wave energy. We are almost uniquely blessed in the raw materials for renewable technologies. The nuclear argument states that despite all that we must have nuclear as part of the mix.

Nuclear is not CO 2 -neutral. Figures have been produced about what the nuclear footprint is in terms of carbon and the whole-life concerns of nuclear generation. It is relatively low-carbon-emitting compared with oil or gas, but only when its fuel is mined from relatively rich sources. As soon as those sources start depleting in richness, the carbon emissions from the mining rise. Under those circumstances, at half the level of the ores that are currently going into British nuclear energy, the overall carbon emissions rise to roughly those of gas.

It is estimated that at present a 50-year supply of uranium is left. In terms of the uranium used in world nuclear energy, we have a gap, even at present levels, of about 30,000 tonnes across the world. We would have to make that up in future years by mining still more. It is not an indigenous energy supply—it has to be mined from across the world, and it will run out in the not too distant future. We will perhaps commit ourselves to part of our energy supply based on exactly the same arguments about exhaustion of supply that we have faced over the past 50 years. That is not a fundamentally good idea.

I hope that the energy review will consider those aspects of nuclear power as it considers all the possible sources and the mix that is required.