Energy Policy

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I cannot assist my noble friend with announcements about Sizewell C—but, as always, I shall say “in due course”. My noble friend is right to point out the costs of nuclear; that decision has been made. What we are talking about here is a potential decision to generate electricity at three times that price at a time when the cost of, for example, offshore wind had come down so dramatically. That is why we had to make that decision, and why we have made it. It is possible that for other nuclear power, in due course, if more work is done in the world of modular nuclear power stations, the cost could come down. But we have made the decision on Hinkley, and have now made the decision not to go ahead with Swansea—but we will continue to look at all possible sources of energy to make sure that we have green energy and secure energy.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, like others, I find this decision depressing. On the other hand, I recognise the Minister’s dilemma. The figures that he quotes at us appear irrefutable, even though they are somewhat at odds with those from Charles Hendry’s report and any long-term view. This seems a similar decision to the closure of the carbon and capture elements in Peterhead. In effect, we are not looking over a long enough timescale.

I have two quick technical questions and two strategic ones. First, were the costs clearly incorporating the benefit of having attached to this not only tidal power but some offshore wind power, which was part of the project, and—as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said—a significant amount of storage of electricity, which would be of great benefit to future lagoon technology, were this to be proven?

Secondly, can the Minister really envisage a situation whereby, in 50 years’ time, these islands will not in part be powered by wave and tidal energy? We have a huge natural advantage and a huge relative benefit around our shores of having power that is predictable, not intermittent, as other technologies are not. We would be a world leader in this, and abandoning this project makes it more difficult. However, I take some comfort from the Minister’s reference to other projects. Which other projects does he have in mind and how soon, given the delay on this decision, can we get a decision on some of those? Are the Government still committed to looking at wave and tidal technology as part of our long-term future?

[Lord Henley]

I correct the noble Lord on just one thing. He said that tidal power was predictable—and I agree with him that it is predictable—but it is also intermittent because, as he knows, tides go up and down and there are slack periods as well. The intermittency is variable, so it is predictably intermittent, which makes for complications—but it also leads on to the noble Lord’s point about storage.

Obviously, with all these sorts of renewables, storage becomes very important, and developments on that front will change over the coming years. The noble Lord asked us all to look 50 years in the future. First, most of us will not be around in 50 years—but we can all remember 50 years back, and we all know just how much things have changed over those past 50 years. The point that I am making is that it would be wrong for me to predict what might happen over the next 50 years.

I want to make it clear that we have not ruled out tidal power. As the noble Lord says, we have some of the best tides in the world. I am reminded of those lines that noble Lords will remember from “Lochinvar”:

“Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide”.


It comes in very fast in those areas and goes out very fast. The variation in the Bristol channel is as good as anything that you will get anywhere else in the world, except I think in the St Lawrence estuary.

Much can be done, and we should certainly look at those in future. I cannot say which might then turn out to be suitable. Some of the other tidal power projects being looked at here could offer electricity somewhat cheaper—but only somewhat—than the Swansea bay, because the Swansea bay one is relatively small. We should look at any project on its merits. But I think that the noble Lord, who is as diligent as I am about the view that we must preserve taxpayers’ and consumers’ money, would not want to go ahead with a project that was going to cost three times as much as electricity from, say, Hinkley Point.