Revised Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation, volumes I and II (EN-6)

Lord Bishop of Chester Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, in this the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, I have no doubt that phrases from the Bible will be used often in debates in your Lordships' House. I have always been fond of St Paul, who began one of his devastating arguments with the phrase, “I speak as a fool”. Well, I shall speak as a fool—as someone who does not have command of all the details of energy policy but who has taken an interest over the years. I have always been a strong advocate of nuclear energy and have been frustrated during the past 15 or 20 years at the complete paralysis into which it has fallen. I have been struck at the way in which the weather is suddenly changing. I always regarded the dash for gas as a great pity. I think that future generations will look back and regard the burning of so much of that precious natural resource in our power stations in virtually one generation as a great mistake—it is such a wonderful raw material and resource. I fear that the fall in the world price of gas with the onset of shale gas may tempt some energy companies to continue to dash for gas and not face up to the need to develop our nuclear infrastructure.

I speak as a fool particularly in relation to section A.2.7 of the rather scarce volume 2 of our document. It begins by stating that all the updated energy scenarios,

“assume that electricity demand in 2025 will be at approximately the same levels as today”.

That is quite a big assumption. It assumes that economic development over the next 15 years will not be as it was in the 15 years prior to the recent recession. It does not take into account the development of electric cars and all sorts of other technology that requires electricity. I therefore ask the Government to what extent they think they can rely on that assumption, which they relate to the impact of the recent recession. That may disappear rapidly over the next 15 years. It means that the 59 gigawatts that is spoken of may be less than is required; indeed, that is recognised in the last sentence of A.2.7. Can the Minister give us a precise figure? He said that not all the sites may be developed—my instinct is that they all need to be developed as much as they can. If all the sites were developed to their maximum perceived capacity, what generation would be achieved? I would be grateful for a reliable figure on that. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said that it was absolutely necessary to develop those sites. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, could not quite bring himself to say that it was absolutely necessary, but spoke of the energy gap which in my view makes it so. On what figures are the Government depending in this area? Without a huge contribution from nuclear, I fear that all the overarching policies will simply not add up.

Perhaps I may ask also about Scotland. I recognise that the identified sites do not include the Scottish sites. I have often driven past the rather splendid station just south of Dunbar, which seems to be a model of landscaping, with no cables in view. It is great pity that those sites are not envisaged. We cannot just assume that the SNP will be thrown out of government. How do the Government see the long-term position in Scotland?

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[Lord Marland]

As the noble Lord will know, I have enjoyed the fine wines of the south of France while visiting the Mox plant down there to make sure that we do this properly. Of course, part of our discussions involved meeting the Areva board to do that.

A number of noble Lords raised the subject of the geological storage facility. Of course, it is ridiculous that it is so far out—and, of course, there is a huge workload, so I have instructed a work stream to ensure that we can get a much closer period. But as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, knows, this is a voluntary decision made by the community. It will not be the Government jumping in with their jackboots and saying, “We will have it here”. This takes negotiation and long-term development and it takes partnership and working with the local community. We will take a very active role with the Cumbrian community to try to nudge this thing to a much closer timetable to the one that I have given you.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester asked about the maximum capacity available. If there was one reactor on each of the eight sites, using the current new reactor—it is not for me to determine which reactor is used—there will be between 10 and 14 gigawatts, which as the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, said, is considerably more than what we have at the moment.

As to Scotland, I regret to say that this is outside my control. If we have a Conservative Government in Scotland, I am sure that there will be a great push for nuclear.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

I am sorry to intervene, but can I press the Minister on this point? If even with the scenario that there is no increase in electricity need over the next 15 years, which with the increase in population and the other factors that I referred to seems an optimistic assumption, and you need 59 gigawatts of capacity by 2025 even on that optimistic assumption—if with those plans you get only that amount of additional capacity—there is something missing or short. Or am I speaking indeed as a fool and not adding my sums up?

[Lord Marland]

There are two erroneous statements there, if I may say so. First, we are not predicting that the demand for electricity will be as the right reverend Prelate is suggesting; we are predicting that it will be between two and three times what it is now in 2050. So we know the task ahead. We are also not sitting here and saying that there are eight sites and that is all there are going to be—and I want noble Lords to go away and understand that. We must obviously endeavour to have more sites. The Government will not sit back and say that all we have are eight sites. At the moment, I am answering his question about capacity. I was saying what capacity would be if we had eight sites and one reactor on each site; that is what we hope to achieve from those eight sites. Clearly, if we have 10, it will be more.

The noble Lord, Lord Broers, gave one of the finest speeches that I have heard—he was remarkably to the point, and talked about fusion. As he knows, that is a subject for BIS, which is fully supportive of the development of this particular form of future generation.

I do not want to disappoint the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, by not answering a number of her questions. She rightly asked how we quantified the cost of waste and its disposal when the Government say that the private sector is responsible for paying for it. Of course, over 100 years we cannot predict that, which is why there is a system for reviews of the mathematics, which will happen frequently, and I can give her more detail of that because it is published somewhere in our documents. She asked whether the Secretary of State would take advice on the decision. Of course he will—but the point is that this country and its electors will want the Secretary of State to be responsible for a decision on something as complicated as this, and he will make it. She asked whether the IPC would have a role in deciding adequacy of interim storage on site. Yes—and that is clarified in the draft of the NPS in paragraph 2.11.6.