Support for academics' condemnation of nuclear plans

bristol | the environment | press release Friday January 04, 2008 15:42 by Jim Duffy - Stop Hinkley stophinkley at aol dot com

An academic report condemning the Government's plans to push though a new generation of nuclear power stations has the backing of Stop Hinkley, West country anti-nuclear group.

The group of academics who specialise in nuclear, energy or public consultation issues has criticised the Government's most recent Energy Review as not addressing the risks from radiation, disposal of nuclear waste and vulnerability to a terrorist attack.

The 87 page report states: "We are profoundly concerned that the government's approach was designed to provide particular and limiting answers," adding: "Significant 'what-if' issues were not consulted on in a meaningful way" and going on to say: "The 2007 nuclear power consultation has failed. Poor consultation practice wastes people's time and can seriously undermine people's trust in government."

The report was authored by Dr Paul Dorfman, former University of West of England lecturer and former Secretary of the Committee Examining Radioactive Risks from Internal Emitters (CERRIE). He collaborated in today's report with eighteen academics including ten university professors. Dr Dorfman has long been linked to Stop Hinkley as an advisor from 2000 till his move to Warwick University in 2006. He co-authored a study into excess breast cancer rates near Hinkley Point nuclear power station in 2000 (1).

Jim Duffy spokesman for Stop Hinkley said: "These top academics are making a point the government should hear. Their consultation paper was heavily loaded to favour nuclear power, skimming over or avoiding issues we find crucial such as radiation risk, terrorism, reactor design, nuclear waste disposal and many others. How they did this after the High Court ruled the 2006 consultation 'deeply flawed and misleading' beggars belief. They've got a fight on their hands if they propose new nuclear build and a third Hinkley station in their announcement."

Renewables held back
The report follows a claim from Solar Century Chief Executive that the DTI has systematically held back renewable energy to favour nuclear power. In Jeremy Leggatt's letter in yesterday's Guardian he makes 'sickening sense' of other countries relatively leaping ahead with development of renewables like wind and solar power as the UK has suppressed such growth here to aid the development of nuclear power.

Jim Duffy said: "Mr Leggett saw nuclear laughed out of contention on economics grounds, only to find the Government were deliberately holding back renewables to make way for nuclear. There's no reason to doubt his claim and much evidence points that way, which depressingly underlines our government's underhand and deceitful ways."

Jim Duffy
Stop Hinkley Coordinator
07968 974805

Also available for interviews: Charlie Graham, Stop Hinkley Committee Member, 01278 727732,
m 07811220269

Report author, Paul Dorfman: 07972 385303

Scroll down for Guardian articles.

Notes:
(1) "Cancer mortality and proximity to Hinkley Point nuclear power station 1995-1998" Busby, Dorfman, published April 2000 see www.llrc.org

Scientists take on Brown over nuclear plans
Academics say safety concerns of new generation of plants not yet addressed

Read the full text of the report here (pdf)

John Vidal, environment editor
The Guardian,
Friday January 4 2008
A group of scientists and academics today condemns as undemocratic and possibly illegal the government's plans to force through a new generation of nuclear power stations to meet Britain's energy needs for the next 30 years.

They warn that questions about the risks from radiation, disposal of nuclear waste and vulnerability to a terrorist attack have not been addressed - even though the government was ordered last February to repeat a public consultation on energy supply, after its exercise was declared unlawful by a high court judge.

Today the nuclear consultation group, made up of 17 energy economists and several of the government's independent advisers on nuclear waste, condemned the methods used in the second attempt to gather public and expert opinion.

"We are profoundly concerned that the government's approach was designed to provide particular and limiting answers," said Paul Dorfman, a spokesman for the independent group, which includes professors of Oxford, Sussex, and Lancaster universities, and Rutgers in the US. "Those answers risk locking in UK energy to an inflexible and vulnerable pathway that will prove unsustainable," he added.

In an 87-page report, the group says: "Significant issues were not consulted on in any meaningful way or resolved in practice. It has left the government vulnerable to legal challenge and may lead to hostility and mistrust of any future energy decision," the paper warns.

Contributors include Andy Stirling, director of science at the Science Policy Research Unit, Jerome Ravetz, fellow of the Institute for Science and Civilisation at Oxford, Dave Elliott, co-director of energy and research at the Open University, Gordon Walker, chair of environment at Lancaster University, and Frank Barnaby, at the Oxford Research Group.

The report comes as the government prepares to give the go-ahead next week for a major expansion of nuclear power, which could herald the building 20 reactors by private firms. Prime minister Gordon Brown is convinced, as was Tony Blair, nuclear power is needed to ensure energy security and to limit carbon emissions.

The intervention could trigger fresh legal action, however. Yesterday Greenpeace, whose challenge to the energy review was upheld last year, said it would wait to see the government's formal response on Tuesday before deciding whether to return to the courts. A new court case could delay the start of building stations by a further year.

The government is expected to insist it has a mandate. In meetings in the autumn, more than 1,000 people were asked their view of nuclear power after seeing videos and taking part in discussion: 44% said power firms should have the option to build nuclear; 36% said no.

A Department for Business and Enterprise spokeswoman said: "We gave people five months to respond, longer than the average three to four month consultation period. We have received 2,700 responses from the extensive consultation, which included public meetings across the UK, a written consultation document, and a website. Time is pressing. We need to make a decision on whether we should continue to get some of our electricity from nuclear, which is a low carbon form of making energy."

Green groups said the questions were loaded and the information presented biased and inaccurate. A complaint was made to the Market Research Standards Board alleging the market research firm involved broke the code of conduct.

A Greenpeace letter sent to the Treasury solicitors before Christmas says: "It would be unlawful for the government to make a decision to build new nuclear power stations without knowing what will happen to the new radioactive waste."

The consultation response will be a statement by energy secretary John Hutton, followed in days by an energy bill.



Yes minister, nuclear's best
Civil servants have played a damaging role in skewing UK policy away from renewables

Jeremy Leggett
Thursday January 3, 2008
The Guardian

The government published its first energy white paper almost five years ago, when oil cost barely $30 a barrel. The result of a consultation with more than 60 energy firms, it called for deep carbon emissions cuts by 2050, to be achieved primarily by a massive programme of renewable and efficient energy mobilisation. Nuclear energy barely survived the consultation. During the strategic review that preceded the white paper, I saw executives from nuclear companies laughed out of contention in debates about the economics of energy supply. But Department of Trade and Industry officials fought a rearguard action. Nuclear was granted a place on the back burner, to be reviewed after five years.


The DTI set up a renewables advisory board to advise ministers how to execute the white paper plan in November 2002. By September 2003 the board's industry members, of which I was one, were already troubled by slow progress and issued a statement of concern. One warned me DTI officials would deliberately go slowly, to keep their hopes for nuclear alive; renewables would be teed up to fail. I didn't believe it at the time, but recently I have heard two of Tony Blair's senior colleagues confirm that the DTI has long suppressed renewables to make space for nuclear. The slow-motion UK treatment of renewables during the last five years, while renewables markets abroad have grown explosively, now makes a sickening kind of sense.
In 2004 oil hit $50 for the first time. New fears about energy security meant more than $30bn of new investment flowed into renewables globally, but very little came to the UK. Much of it went to Germany, where 200,000 jobs have been created since 2000 in industries that are now exporting globally.

Along the way the nuclearphiles have jumped the gun on their five-year review. Blair called for a second energy white paper, and by July 2006 the draft already backed a new generation of nuclear power plants. At that time, inspectors were reporting unexplained cracks in six reactor cores in the existing generation. British Energy, it seemed, did not fully understand why the cracking had occurred. The DTI authors of the new energy white paper and their champion in No 10 were undeterred.

Greenpeace challenged the legality of the second white paper process, and in February 2007 the high court ruled that the government's review had been unlawful. Another consultation began.

In March the EU agreed a target of 20% renewables in the energy mix; 27 leaders signed up, Blair among them. The EC costed the switch to renewables at €24bn to €31bn a year, assuming an oil price of $48 a barrel. At $78 there would be no additional cost. Before the year was out, oil almost hit $100.

Global investment in renewables firms accelerated still faster in 2007. Meanwhile growing numbers of experts warned that oil and gas were running out faster than expected. But in the UK, it was business as usual. In August the Guardian revealed that ministers were being briefed by officials to the effect that the UK couldn't come close to a 20% target. In a development worthy of Yes Minister, options for avoiding the 20% commitment included counting nuclear energy as renewable.

Gordon Brown is insisting that the 20% target stays. But how will he deliver it, when his government has some of the least effective programmes for renewable energy in the industrialised world? How can he deliver surrounded by civil servants intent on seeing a re-nuclearised Britain - almost at any cost?

· Jeremy Leggett is chief executive of solarcentury and served on the government's Renewables Advisory Board from 2002-06
jeremy.leggett@solarcentury.com