Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, it is an honour to be moving the first amendment in our Committee deliberations on the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill. It is fair to say that this is a probing amendment in the true meaning of the term. If I had received an answer on the issues relating to nuclear fusion when I raised them at Second Reading, I would not have needed to have tabled this amendment now.

Amendment 1 proposes to insert the definition that

“‘Nuclear energy generation’” includes the generation of energy by either nuclear fission or nuclear fusion.”

The Bill is clearly intended to serve as a long-term framework for the financing of nuclear projects. It could hardly be otherwise, since the cycle of agreeing a location for a new nuclear facility, securing all the necessary consents, getting a credible financial package into place and then building the facility, testing it and engaging it with public electricity networks takes over a decade, and probably two, to bring to full fruition. It is by definition a long-term project, and all the uncertainties arising from such long-term gestation periods are what make this Bill necessary.

It is in this context that I tabled Amendment 1, relating to nuclear fusion. Many people may mutter, “Nuclear fusion? But surely we’re many decades away from that becoming an economic possibility.” Yes, it is true that for most of my lifetime nuclear fusion has been the big white hope lurking just over a distant horizon. Back in the 1950s we were told about what I think was then called the Zeta project, which could harness abundant fuel made from seawater, as was quoted, in a process that was far safer than nuclear fission and whose waste product had a half-life of less than 100 years. That project stuttered on through the 1960s, seen as having the possibility of producing an inexhaustible source of energy for future generations, but with scientific and engineering challenges that seemed then to be insurmountable.

Then in 1997 there was a breakthrough, and, excitingly, only last month scientists at the Joint European Torus project, JET, at Culham near Oxford, succeeded in generating by fusion 11 megawatts for five seconds—a small amount, yes, but an indication of things to come. This came shortly after American scientists, using the world’s largest laser, achieved burning plasma, a major stride towards self-sustaining nuclear fusion energy, and in America the National Spherical Torus Experiment will be fired up in the autumn of this year. So at long last we are at a credible position where nuclear fusion may be a practical proposition for the second half of this century. As such, that possibility should be on our agenda as we map out the means of funding the production of electricity with a very low carbon footprint.

However, there is a problem as far as we in Britain are concerned. Last year EUROfusion decided to end JET’s operations at Oxford next year after 40 years, and according to reports the UKAEA intends to decommission the experiment. The focus of research is sadly moving from the UK to France, where the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor—abbreviated as ITER—is being built, funded by the European Union, the United States, China and Russia. When it is fired up in 2025, it will be the world’s largest fusion reactor. If it works, it will make fusion power a viable source of energy, with realistic hopes of it being in commercial operation between 2030 and 2035. It will generate usable electricity without carbon emissions and with low levels of radioactivity.

So we are falling off the bus just as it moves towards its destination. Does this not just encapsulate the botched manner in which successive UK Governments have dealt with the nuclear industry? I want to see a pledge from the Government that they have some commitment to nuclear fusion technology and that they would be prepared to put their money on the table to help make this happen.

In the context of this Bill, Amendment 1 would ensure that projects related to nuclear fusion would be fully entitled to seek funding through the avenues opened by the proposed legislation before us today. The best way of ensuring that this possibility does not fall by the wayside is to accept Amendment 1 and provide that nuclear fusion is included on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I will make just a brief intervention. I do not disagree at all with the noble Lord’s amendment, except that clearly we should not use this form of funding for research until we know that we are building something that is going to work. It would be absolutely wrong to use this sort of funding for the research side. In defence of this Government and previous ones, in the area of fusion we have probably been more consistent in terms of our policy and research than we have with nuclear power— so that was probably slightly unfair criticism of the Government in that regard.

At this stage, without getting into heavy weather, the point I want to make is that we have an energy crisis at the moment, which makes this Bill slightly less relevant than anything else. I would be interested to have a statement—just a short sentence—from the Minister on what BEIS is doing at this moment to accelerate the alternative forms of energy that we have in the UK, particularly renewables, given the situation that we are now seeing: not just even higher energy prices but energy prices that will probably remain high for a long time, and the wish and absolute need of the West—Europe and the UK—to disinvest from supplies of Russian energy. I realise that is not great in terms of the UK, but we are as much subject to these global markets as anyone else.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, before we begin, I understand that the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, is unfortunately unwell and therefore unable to join us here today. I wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to welcoming him back to the House soon. It is a pleasure to open for the Government in response to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. Mae’n ddrwg gen i am beidio a roi ateb i chi yn barod—I am very sorry that we have not given you an answer already. I think that somehow passed me by after Second Reading.

The Government share the noble Lord’s enthusiasm for the potential of fusion energy to play a role in our future energy system. However, I do not believe that the noble Lord’s amendment is necessary or appropriate here. First, the term “nuclear energy” is sufficiently broad that fusion projects can be regarded as already falling in scope. This makes a specific amendment on this point unnecessary.

I also want to make clear to the noble Lord that, despite recent technological advances and increases in private investment, fusion remains a comparatively early-stage technology; prototypes are not expected to be deployed until the 2030s or the 2040s. The Government are supporting the development and deployment of fusion demonstrator facilities by investing in R&D programmes and facilities and developing a proportionate regulatory framework. Indeed, there is already significant private investment in a number of fusion projects both here in the UK and in the US.

None the less, the Government intend to develop an appropriate funding model for commercial fusion energy facilities in due course, as fusion energy moves closer to commercial deployment. This funding model will reflect the nature of this means of energy generation. I hope that I have provided adequate reassurance for the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, that the Government share his goals and that this amendment is not necessary for achieving them. I therefore hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

On our support for renewables, we have enunciated the breadth of work that we are doing in this area a number of times. We have made numerous statements in the House on this issue recently. I would be happy to write to the noble Lord with more information about the Government’s plans, but I do not think it is appropriate just to give a brief statement of our current intent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

What I was trying to ask is whether BEIS is getting itself into gear—and I realise that the Government will probably look wider than renewables—and getting its act together now to really look at how we move forward in this area. Can the Minister assure noble Lords on this?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am sure that this is upmost in the minds of the Secretary of State and the Energy Minister. The Prime Minister has also made statements to this effect, and it is very much on every morning’s agenda. We have a ministerial meeting and it is the first topic at every one of them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her response and for the interventions on the points that I raised. A moment ago, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, appeared in the uncharacteristic role of being a protector and defender of the Government on these matters, and I am sure that that will be bankable by the Government at some stage. This is not a party-political point because it is not party politics; I am speaking on my behalf, as my own party has divisions on these issues. Over the past 30 years, we have had “stop-start-stutter” with regard to nuclear; if you do not want nuclear, perhaps “stutter” and “stop” are good options. But if nuclear is going to play a role, it has to be treated in a serious and coherent manner. It needs to be transparent, and we will be coming on to questions of transparency in a number of later amendments.

Returning to the core of my amendment—

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I hesitate to interrupt, but I was relating only to fusion, rather than fission, in my comments.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

I accept that clarification, of course. With regard to fusion, I accept that successive Governments have been generous in helping to sponsor research but, over the last couple of years, we seem to have had some difficulty with our European partners as to the ongoing role of Oxford, which apparently is coming to an end, and the fact that the Russians, Americans and Chinese are providing finance for the location in France where the major project is going forward. I very much hoped that we would have been involved in this, because so much of the work on fusion has been done in the United Kingdom. It is something that we should be proud of.

I hope that, when this eventually comes through, it is something that is of benefit. That is why I want to see, if this Bill goes forward—and it has shortcomings, but any such Bill is bound to, because of the uncertainties that we have in this area—that we have full provision for fusion as one of the nuclear alternatives. The Minister stated quite categorically that fusion is included in this Bill, so that anyone who is considering fusion projects for the future may be able to rely—other things being equal—on this Bill as a source of finance and a framework within which to operate. That is a helpful clarification and, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

Yes, indeed. In 2010, the Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government proposed that 10 new nuclear plants should be built. Of course, they have totally changed their opinion.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

Perhaps the noble Viscount will explain how the Labour Party in government has made some of the biggest U-turns on nuclear power ever seen in this country.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

No, I am not in the business of explaining that. There has never been consensus in the party but, right now, I think there is consensus as never before. The party is facing up to realities. I hope I shall have the opportunity to describe what those realities may be if we were to follow the prescriptions of the Liberal Democrats. I think that we would be looking at a scenario of misery and—

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

We all agree with the principle that the polluter pays. I believe that we also have a principle in life that we should not pollute if we have no way of solving that pollution during the time for which we are planning. The issues here are complex, but I do not think they are necessarily quite so straight- forward as the noble Viscount describes.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I had rather a nice time working with the Liberal Democrats in the Cameron Government, when, in an enlightened way, they were strongly in favour of nuclear power. It appears that they chop and change from time to time, but those were the days.

Before I speak further, my noble friend Lord Trenchard has reminded me that I should have made it absolutely clear that I have an indirect interest to declare, in that I advise Mitsubishi Electric, which is concerned with the power sector and indirectly therefore with nuclear construction. I suppose that I also have a sort of interest in the sense that I was Secretary of State 40 years ago and tried to build nine new reactors, of which only one, Sizewell B, was ever built. I think that I am allowed to reflect to this Committee that things would be much nicer for us if we had got the other eight built as well. They were all low-carbon and would have helped greatly in the present crisis, but that is all history.

On these amendments, it is absolutely true, as the noble Lord, Lord Oates, observed, that the radioactive waste issue requires careful handling and examination, and it must be addressed fully and with all the knowledge that we can bring to bear to establish and meet the many understandable concerns about it.

As for value for money, we will come to that in the next amendment. Of course, there are enormous difficulties in defining what value for what money, but we can debate that in more detail in a moment.

What is not true is to imply that there has been no technical solution to the absolutely safe—nothing is 100% but it is highly safe—burying of high-radioactivity nuclear waste for thousands of years. It is certainly more than 40 years since the late Walter Marshall explained to me that vitrification and burial two or three miles down in a stable geological formation was very nearly foolproof. There was a faint possibility of corrosion of the glass vitrification case around the radioactive material, but otherwise it would be safe for hundreds of thousands of years. He added, rather cynically, that if before then people wanted to dig it up and eat the glass, they may have more problems than radioactive waste. The vitrification option is there; it can be done.

In the great debate going on in America about the Yucca Mountain development as a waste disposal centre, I noticed that the statistics produced—I have the precise figure here—say that all but one in every 10,000 waste packages going into the repository, if it is built, would be secure for more than 150,000 years. So we are talking about the most minute dangers. The danger is there, but it is minute, and has to be weighed against all the other problems—we will come to value in a moment—of abandoning an area of low-carbon electricity which will be reliable, will stop a great deal of the suffering that we have today, and will be not only a stepping-stone to but a crucial adjunct and back-up of the renewable and clean energies that we all want to see dominate when conditions allow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

Which do you think is more impactful—an artillery shell, or an airliner or F14 fighter flying into the side of the reactor? They are designed for this. They have regular safety protocols and procedure which they go through in considering what should happen in a conflict situation like this. You are really not speaking from a position of information to understand this, I am afraid. I should not use pronouns; I should have said that the noble Baroness should really study this more before making proclamations such as this. It derails this essential effort.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, of course, the problem is actually flooding, as was shown at Fukushima—and bad maintenance, even in an organised society like Japan. The Tokyo Electric Power Company is probably seen as one of the most reliable companies in the world, but it did not do its job and caused a lot of the problem when there was the tsunami. I am not suggesting that a tsunami will hit Ukraine very soon, but there are issues.

I want to move away from the polemics. I thank Labour Members of the Committee for giving us a headline on opposing such facilities, but I admit that it is not the Liberal Democrats who have determined that they have not happened so far; it is the local communities that have rejected them. Maybe that will change. I have huge regard for the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. I said this at Second Reading and will not go through it again: if you want nuclear, you do not do it this way. You do not build one big facility at 22 billion quid, and decide five years later to build another. You organise it in a different way, perhaps as South Korea did, with a fleet of the bloody things; sorry, I should not say that. This is the most inefficient and crass way of building nuclear power in this country.

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

We are doing series building. The existing Hinkley Point is two reactors built in series, and these will be another two built in series. That is four, so that is not bad—and they are large reactors, double the size of the existing PWRs. You get what you pay for. You will get an enormous amount of reliable, secure and clean electricity that will be the backbone of our grid. It will flex to allow us to accommodate huge proportions of renewables, and it will be a system where we can produce hydrogen from nuclear. There is absolutely nothing for one to be concerned about in this proposal. I am a fan of alternative reactors; there are other ways of doing nuclear that are inherently safe and would not have led to the Fukushima accident, because they could have been designed differently. However, I ask the noble Lord: how many other reactors sustained themselves through that tsunami? It was unprecedented—10,000 people lost their lives—yet there was only one reactor problem, because it did not allow a release of pressurised air with water and vapour. That was what went wrong, not maintenance. There was a political call, and the reason for that was the world’s media focusing on it because of the radiophobia that has been spread, I am afraid, largely by the green movement over the last 30 years.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I can see the Government Benches starting to go for a refreshment break; never mind. I am trying to make a serious point. I have been to Hinkley C; I understand it all, believe me, but this is the wrong way to do it—the technology is obsolete. The question I want to ask the Minister outside the polemics is about the Nuclear Liabilities Fund, which he will be well aware of. Its current value in assets is £15 billion, largely through the Government’s sale of British Energy. We heard from my noble friend Lord Oates that the potential future liability is some £53 billion. EDF pays into the Nuclear Liabilities Fund at the moment.

My question is around the problem of there being a future liability that cannot be met. How does the Minister see that developing? Will the fund be able to meet the costs in the future? I am particularly interested in understanding whether the fund is in a bank account somewhere or is just an item on the Treasury’s balance sheet, so it is not really there and is just absorbed into public expenditure. It is a serious question. I would like to understand the previous methods that have been used to make sure that there is not a liability in the future. The figures just seem totally inadequate. Even if we do go through these types of facilities, how will we make sure that the liabilities can actually be met?

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

I quite agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has just said; indeed, I feel somewhat pre-empted. However, before I address the amendment, I shall talk about cost overruns.

The cost overruns have been substantial in Flamanville and Olkiluoto but they are mainly attributable to the fact that there was a long hiatus in the process of constructing nuclear power stations, so the skills that constructed the majority of the French and our own power stations had evaporated. It is worth looking back at the history of our original nuclear programme to recognise both how rapid and effective it was and that it was not accompanied by the kinds of problems we have witnessed on these large power stations.

Be that as it may, Amendment 4 from the Liberal Democrats is predicated on their opposition to nuclear power and the proposal that nuclear power projects should be assessed in terms, as we have heard, of their value for money. I presume that they wish the assessment to be based on commercial accountancy, and that they hope and expect that on that basis the projects will be judged to be too expensive to pursue. The proposers of the amendment should know that when a nuclear project is financed by commercial funds, the likelihood is that more than 50% of the cost of the project will be attributable to interest costs.

In other words, the costs of projects pursued in this manner will comprise a substantial transfer payment by the beneficiaries of the project, who are the consumers of electricity, in favour of the financial sector. Are the Liberal Democrats happy to see major investments in social and economic infrastructure evaluated according to the criteria of commercial accountancy? If so, they are aligning themselves with a political ideology that I would have expected them to reject.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

That is not what the amendment says.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

Be that as it may, when we talk of value for money, we usually have in mind the amount of money we would be paying for an item that is subject to immediate use or consumption. The concept loses its meaning, as we have heard, when considering something where consumption is to be deferred and is liable to take place over an extended period. In such cases, we must attempt to envisage the circumstances likely to prevail in the future. This is surely the case for a nuclear power station, the construction of which may take a decade and which is intended to provide a carbon-free supply of electricity for many years. It is envisaged that such power stations will be able to supply the plentiful electricity needed to power a carbon-free economy and to assist in averting climate change.

The appropriate means of determining the value of a nuclear project is to consider the associated opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is a technical term in economics that denotes the opportunities that are forgone by pursuing—or not pursuing—a particular project. It requires a degree of imagination to assess the opportunity cost of a nuclear project, which far exceeds the imagination required in pursuing an exercise in commercial accountancy. I invite the Liberal Democrats to assess the opportunity cost of forgoing nuclear power. In particular, I encourage them to envisage the consequences in terms of economic and social misery that will arise if we fail to create an ample and carbon-free supply of electricity. Their policies are inviting such a failure.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

There is a concept in economics—which I am sure the noble Viscount is aware of—of opportunity cost.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

That is exactly what I have been talking about.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

Exactly. My point about it is that, first, it is the Government’s Bill says there will be this assessment. We are trying to find out is what it actually is, in the interests of transparency—which I am sure the noble Viscount would not disagree with. In terms of costs, there are opportunity costs of other forms and ways of meeting climate change targets. That is the point. You can reject opportunity cost, which means other ways of doing this. I do not think the noble Viscount’s enthusiasm for nuclear—which I understand—should disregard some of the other ways of achieving these objectives.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

Let me answer that. Looking at the alternatives proposed by the Liberal Democrats, I could go into a long discourse to outline what will happen to our industries if we forgo an ample supply of electricity to power them and maintain our economy. This is what the Liberal Democrats are inviting. They simply have not faced up to the realities of their proposals. The noble Lord says the Bill already asks for an assessment; I think that is a trivial point, because I am trying to tell him that such an assessment is probably not the appropriate way of proceeding—as we have heard very eloquently from the noble Lord, Lord Howell. I am not defending the proposal that a value for money assessment should be made. I am suggesting that such an assessment should be put aside because it is irrelevant and inappropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

As I was saying, large nuclear power stations are the only proven technology available today which provide a continuous and reliable source of low-carbon electricity—

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

Geothermal.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

Can I please proceed uninterrupted, then we can have a real set-to later?

Nuclear power plants have never been afflicted by significant unplanned outages, albeit that, as they have aged, their maintenance needs have increased. These have been fully accommodated by planned outages. Nevertheless, the closure of the Magnox reactors has led to an increase in load factors, which are now considerably above their historical average. The average has risen from an historical 60% to its current level in the high 70s. The recent unplanned outage at Hunterston B, which can be blamed on the age of the plant, limited its nuclear power generation for much of 2018. It was accompanied by an average load factor throughout the industry of 72.4%.

This amendment flies in the face of reality. We must turn the matter around by asking the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, who are averse to nuclear power, how they propose to accommodate the intermittence and unreliability of the renewable sources of power they are so keen to advocate. Perhaps I should not raise the temperature by declaring this, although I fear I must, but this amendment is a blind and is a transparent piece of nonsense.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I will not respond to that hugely, except to say that the really important amendment, which I think we will all treat seriously, is the one on the cost of energy and the fact that this will add to energy prices. The proposition that we should exempt fuel-poverty households from this is serious; we should discuss it, because it is very current and important.

I gently suggest to the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, with whom I have enjoyed serving on the committee for many years, and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, that they have somehow fallen into the wrong idea that it is renewables versus nuclear. That is how the argument has gone.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

If I could interject, we are objecting to the complete exclusion of nuclear, which is the agenda of the Liberal Democrats. It is madness.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

The answer to intermittency comes back to opportunity cost. As I said at Second Reading, the most effective way of reducing it is energy efficiency. That should be the prime objective. Does the noble Viscount disagree about energy efficiency?

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

No, I do not, but that is not the point. Continue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

There are all sorts of ways of dealing with intermittency. Interconnectors have been quite effective, and I congratulate the Government on their policy of increasing those. Energy storage has been mentioned, in terms of hydro. On baseload, I agree that there are other ways of doing that in terms of geothermal starting, although I understand that is very young. There is a whole plethora of other strategies that work here.

I purely wanted to suggest that one of the most important matters here to the people outside this Room is the cost of energy and how we deal with fuel poverty in terms of this specific financial model, and to emphasise that the argument is not just around nuclear versus renewables.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, surely no one is suggesting that these are alternatives, or if they are then that is not what any sensible assessment would allow. Of course the aim for a decarbonised world has to be sought through many forms. All that is being said is that to leave out one of the major areas of decarbonised electricity is asking for trouble, unless one can begin to assess the enormous costs of trying to fill it in in areas where it may not even be available.

The example of Germany is one that the noble Lord should perhaps bear in mind. The rumour is that, having tried to do without nuclear power and got down to its three remaining nuclear stations, there is strong talk that if it is to move into the new world that we are facing now, which has all sorts of implications for the future, a large chunk of reliable low-carbon nuclear capacity must be either retained or developed to add to all the other highly desirable things for net zero and all the other projects, including of course energy efficiency and a far greater use of every kilowatt of electricity for output, which is the secret of considerable improvement without too much electricity. If that is what is being argued, we are all for it, but nuclear electricity is an unavoidable part and to drop it seems a bit odd and very high-cost indeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

Before I formally call this amendment, I need to inform the Committee that there is a mistake on the Marshalled List. Amendment 11 should begin:

“Page 2, line 14, at end insert—”.


In relation to Amendment 5, the amendment proposed is:

“Page 2, line 14, at end insert”


the words on the Marshalled List—and Amendment 11 would come at the end of that.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly. In the last group, I mentioned some of the countermeasures to the variability of renewables, including interconnectors, energy efficiency, demand-side management and many more. But I also mentioned battery storage and I should have declared an interest: I was not expecting to get on to battery storage, but I am a director of a company involved in the development of battery storage. I apologise to the Committee that I did not raise that interest during the debate.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly indeed. I have added my name to Amendment 27 in this group alongside that of the noble Lord, Lord Foster; I did so with particular regard to my strong feelings on new paragraph (e), proposed by the amendment, which concerns

“how decommissioning costs of the project will be met”.

Of course, this issue appears in sub-paragraph (iii), proposed by new Amendment 5, which refers to

“an estimate of the costs of decommissioning the project”.

As I indicated in our earlier debates, I feel that this is a critical aspect of the Bill that needs to be covered and where assurance needs to be given, whatever the mechanism of doing so. I would have thought that the Government could recognise that and say that, whether or not these amendments meet the standards that are acceptable to them, there may be some way of giving an assurance that the questions asked by these amendments can be answered—and that the answers will be forthcoming to this Committee.