British Nuclear Fools

Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden has been talking complete bollocks about climate change to pay lip service to his self interested, tax reaping Government cronies.

After a politically motivated visit to Blackpool Sixth Form’s “eco-council”, the well heeled Brighton based sausage jockey said that “a lot of people” in Blackpool want to see lots more legislation in the name of climate change. Students at the college have as expected been toeing the line, spewing out Labour rhetoric on behalf of Marsden.

Also, this week the Global Carbon Project has released a study claiming that between 2000 and 2008 there has been a 29% increase in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels with a rate of increase of 3% per year compared with 1% in the 1990s. The study concludes that if CO2 emissions remain uncurbed, the Earth will be 6C hotter on average within 100 years.

The rapid expansion of China’s economy is being blamed, in particular the manufacturing of goods that are exported to the West, but then they always say that to imply that the West is guilty of causing China to expand. They might have a point.

All perfect timing for the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in a few weeks.

The hysteria surrounding climate change may be true or may not. These climate change groups are founded to spin out scare stories and as we saw with the dismissal of Professor Nutt from a Home Office drugs advisory board if you don’t toe the Government line you are history.

The problem I have with all this, though, is that if it’s as serious as we’re being told why is the UK Government doing nothing about it?

We get told constantly to reduce our “carbon footprint” and I’m seeing businesses attempt to become “carbon neutral”. How is an office block emitting CO2? Simply via the energy it uses both directly and implied via the consumables it buys. Stationery and paper have to be made somewhere at some cost. Carbon neutral companies are no different to others except they pay guilt money to a carbon offset group who then put that money into renewable energy projects.

So, if most carbon emissions are driven by a demand for energy then it makes sense to address the source: fossil fuelled power plants. This unfortunately isn’t happening.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband admitted that by 2017 the UK will face power cuts due to lack of electricity and announced approval for 10 new nuclear power plants which would mean about 25% of the UK’s energy was produced by nuclear. Currently it’s 20%, and the reason that it’s only a 5% increase is because all of the current nuclear power stations are being decommissioned by 2023. New replaces old.

Perception of nuclear power in France

Nuclear has no unpleasant emissions so it’s a good move but does this mean that any fossil fuel burning plants will close? No, because there would be power cuts. Therefore at the very least the actual CO2 emissions will be the same due to energy demand through population increase; the fossil fuel burning would be the same but the rate of increase of CO2 emissions per population would probably drop slightly. It’s all numbers.

France took a decision following an oil crisis in 1973 that since they have no fossil fuel resources they would focus on nuclear power. Now, almost 80% of their energy comes from nuclear power stations and the French government continue to approve construction of more. In fact, they overproduce energy and on some weekends operator EDF switch off plants due to lack of market for the electricity: or sell it to desperate countries like Britain at inflated prices.

Perception of nuclear power in Britain

A 2005 Ipsos poll showed that 70% of French people had a good opinion of nuclear power and 63% wanted France to remain a nuclear leader. In the UK we can’t win – we complain about fossil fuels and global warming climate change yet when a clean alternative is approved everyone’s screaming NIMBY NIMBY NIMBY!

It has been said that France has reduced its emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by 70% over 20 years, during which time their power output has tripled. Furthermore, their carbon emissions per kilowatt hour are 10% of that of the UK and of Germany, and 7.5% of that of Denmark which has no nuclear plants.

According to self-appointed climate change guru Al Gore, the average household in the USA uses around 900 kilowatt-hours of energy per month so you can see that if the USA upped its nuclear capability (not missiles)  from 20% to a level similar to that of France, then there would be a significant drop in emissions. The same applies everywhere, be it in China or in the UK. There would also be the implied reduction in dependence on oil which has to be a good thing.

It’s often claimed that the motorist is the cause of the increase in carbon dioxide emissions. Indeed, for every gallon of petrol used by a car there is an emission of 8.8 kilograms of carbon dioxide.

So what of the electric car? Sure, there would be no fossil fuel burning but batteries are not environmentally friendly to make or dispose of and there would still be a carbon footprint due to the energy consumed by charging the car up.

Believe it or not, this runs off a battery

There are studies such as those carried out by the Electric Power Research Institute of the “wheel to well” cost in terms of emissions, and it has been shown that if the car is charged using only coal-fired energy then the reduction in emissions compared with internal combustion is only about 21%. Given the mix of renewable and non-renewable energy sources, though, the actual reduction in emissions is a lot more, so if the cars were available and incentivised, then a fast reduction in carbon emissions could be achieved. Indeed, if all of the UK’s energy came from renewable or clean sources, then there would be no carbon footprint from driving a car, just as there wouldn’t from travelling by electric train. However, this is a long long way off.

In the UK, small highly efficient hatchbacks are pushing towards 80 miles per gallon these days which is a world apart from the average 24mpg of a car in the USA. I suspect that “wheel to well” these hatchbacks are more efficient than an electric car currently could be but it depends from country to country. Why? Well, the carbon footprint of an electric car is determined by how clean the energy infrastructure is and in the UK it’s fair to say it’s dirty, with 80% of electricity produced through fossil fuel burning.

This brings us, once again, back to the dependence on fossil fuel energy sources being the (unaddressed) problem, with Governments instead preferring to try to change our behaviour by making the norm too expensive and offering us inconvenient alternatives which in some cases cost even more.

Nuclear power could have been rolled out in the UK 10 years ago and we’d have it online by now, but whilst France were doing it and whilst Germany were pioneering solar powered towns the UK under Labour just sat on its hands; the result now being the splurge on “green” taxes that don’t seem to pay for anything remotely green. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown both proclaim themselves to have taken the “tough decisions”, but they’ve really bottled it on this.

Absurdly, the Government are still approving the construction of new coal power stations in the UK.

Taking it further, in Australia it has been suggested by Professor Barry Walters – clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia – that couples that have more than two children should pay $5000 per additional child in order to pay for 40 trees to be planted due to the carbon implications of that child and $800 per year for ongoing carbon emissions. I don’t know if breathing counts in that. I’m not actually against discouraging mass population, but if a couple are (un)lucky enough to conceive triplets or more then what happens? Abort or pay $5000.

The Government can tax us out of powerful cars, but if it really cared it would just ban them or set the fuel tax at an obscene level that nobody could afford except those that drove LPG conversions or hybrids. This is where survivalist politics supercedes any climate change fears, because any Government that applied such a law knows that it would be voted out.

That’s what this Copenhagen meeting is all about: if they impose laws and regulations as a group, no Government can be singled out and blamed, and taxes and legislation can be implemented in the name of whatever agreements they make. Remember what I said about the Lisbon Treaty/EU constitution being used to impose unpopular laws and taxes once ratified? We’ll it’s ratified now, so get ready to have less money.

It’s estimated that a nuclear power plant costs £1.5billion to construct: a fraction of what the Government pumped into RBS and Lloyds TSB. What’s more important, bankers bonuses or the end of life as we know it?

Yep, it’s the bonuses.