Nuclear Energy

Debate between Simon Hughes and Robert Smith

Tuesday 22nd June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Sir Robert Smith]

The EU cannot keep inventing new schemes. I think that we need to make the ETS work now that we have embraced it and we actually need to deliver it, because at least it uses the market to try to come forward with the best and most efficient solutions for achieving the low-carbon future that we need to embrace. So that is an important point.

There is another situation with nuclear. When we on the Energy and Climate Change Committee were looking at the planning statements, it struck me that the long-term solution for nuclear waste may well be a deep repository, but the plans now are to keep the waste on site for a considerable time. Therefore, all these communities must be managed for a long time, to protect those waste sites. They are all in low-lying floodplains, so we had this vision of little islands of nuclear waste being protected by flood defences, as the sea level rises and the legacy of the new nuclear generation is left for future generations to pick up.

So it still seems a major challenge for this country to go down that route of nuclear if we can embrace other technologies, such as carbon capture and storage and marine. We have a massive tidal resource around our coastline, which we have failed to tap and failed to launch. Those of us who are committed to marine renewables and the alternative technologies have been frustrated about the legacy of so many resources going into nuclear. That has diverted resources away from what could have been another great export industry and a very substantial source of low-carbon energy for this country, and it does not pose the risks of pollution that we would still face with nuclear.

[Simon Hughes]

I just want to make one other point. My hon. Friend has huge experience in all of these areas. However, the statutory body that advises on waste and nuclear waste, and that gave the official advice to the last Government, has not said so far that there is a safe method of disposing of nuclear waste. Yes, it has accepted methods of storage of nuclear waste, and the communities where that waste is produced and stored understand that, but there is not yet an agreed safe method of disposing of nuclear waste. Going ahead with a programme of new nuclear without a safe method of disposal being objectively agreed would be another folly.

[Sir Robert Smith]

Yes. It seems that we should deal with the legacy that we already have before adding to that legacy.

I am conscious that other Members want to speak. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North West said, we have the serious challenge of ensuring that the lights stay on. We need electricity to be generated. There is also the serious challenge of producing a low-carbon future. We need long-term investment, and we need the incentives that have been mentioned. I think that a price on carbon is an important incentive to low-carbon energy industries and that nuclear is not the great white hope that will solve the problem, although it is portrayed as such.

I also think that we need to embrace marine renewables and carbon capture and storage, and ensure that we achieve the most effective gas production from our own gas resources before we waste them and leave them locked in the ground. There is a low-carbon future in which we can keep the lights on, but I do not think that nuclear is the means of achieving that future.