ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Tory MP Ian Taylor attacks Greenpeace's "hypocrisy" in opposing nuclear energy

Tory MP Ian Taylor, Chairman of the Conservative Party's Science and Technology taskforce, has issued a statement today urging Britain to embrace nuclear power:

"Unless the Government moves quickly to boost the nuclear power station rebuilding programme, there is no hope in meeting the non-fossil fuel targets. Wind and wave power alone will not suffice.  Greenpeace shows sheer hypocrisy in pressing its objections. Members should resign in protest if they are seriously 'green'."

In the video below Mr Taylor describes the belief that a little more wind and wave power will deliver energy security as "emotionally confused".  Only nuclear power, he says, will help Britain to substantially reduce its dependence on oil from the Middle East and gas from Russia.

The initial Cameron position on nuclear power was to regard it as a "last resort" but that language is no longer being used.  The Tories now believe that as long as there is a fair and equitable financial regime, nuclear power should be an important part of Britain's future energy mix.  The Liberal Democrats remain firmly opposed to any more nuclear power plants.  12% of Tory members agreed with the LibDems' opposition to nuclear power.  85% disagreed with it.

Early last month David Cameron gave a speech to Greenpeace, promising a decentralised energy revolution where people are paid for the energy they produce.

Related link: Of kettles and car engines - why nuclear power is not the solution to energy security by Peter Franklin

Stopping grassroots-leadership tensions going nuclear

A little earlier I posted an overview of this morning's Cameron press conference.  I asked one question myself - on nuclear power.  The ConservativeHome Members' Panel suggests that you love nuclear power stations almost as much as grammar schools!  I asked David Cameron how he planned to avoid another grassroots-leadership row when Gordon Brown makes it clear that he's backing nuclear power.  My question at least produced the biggest laugh of the press conference... Please watch David Cameron's answer below.

Tories put faith in 'green energy revolution'

Today sees the Conservative Party publish the interim findings of its energy review (see BBC report) and it steers something of a middle course between Tony Blair's enthusiasm for nuclear power and the Liberal Democrats' blanket opposition.  This pragmatic policy - partly designed to encourage the kind of cross-party consensus on energy that will need to underpin long-term investment in new generating capacity - will also satisfy most Tory supporters.  A ConservativeHome survey just last month found that only 12% of Tory members agreed with the LibDems' opposition to nuclear power.  85% disagreed with it.  David Cameron will tell the Local Government Association:

"Where the government sees nuclear power as the first choice, under our framework it would become a last resort; where the Liberal Democrats rule out nuclear power, we rule out subsidies and special favours for nuclear power."

Mr Cameron will go on to say that global warming represents the greatest long-term threat to the economy.  Speaking to ConservativeHome last night, Alan Duncan MP promised that the overall tone of Mr Cameron's speech - in tune with the energy review - will be optimistic.  The Conservative Party believes that we are on the verge of a "green energy revolution" that will transform the debate about Britain's energy security.  Sceptics, however, will wonder if these technologies will mature fast enough to replace the the eighteen nuclear power stations and other gas and coal-fired plants that will be retiring over the next decade and which account for 25% of current UK generation capacity (Bloomberg).

Mr Cameron will tell the LGA that he is optimistic about the possibilities of local power generation - "I want Britain to be at the forefront of the green energy opportunity and I want local government to be in the forefront of Britain's environmental progress... The future of energy is not top-down, it's not centralised - it's bottom-up and decentralised."  Woking is the 'poster-council' for this approach.  The BBC has reported that a cross-party consensus on that council has reduced "energy consumption and pollutants by 44% and carbon dioxide emissions by 72% between 1990 and 2002."

Conservative policy will also emphasise energy efficiency.  The party has been strongly influenced by findings by the Rocky Mountain Institute which suggest that every pound invested in energy efficiency yields "seven times more "solution" than a pound invested in nuclear" (Zac Goldsmith in the Independent on Sunday).

Related link: On yesterday's YourPlatform David Dundas wrote that Britain must embrace nuclear power if we are to secure our energy future.

Liam Fox: A strategy for keeping the lights on

Liam Fox, Shadow Defence Secretary, has given a 'big picture' speech this morning on energy security and the way Britain's defence capacity must underpin that security ('Over_A_Barrel'_speech.pdf).  Key sections of the speech are quoted below:

Labour's financial starvation of Britain's armed forces: "This year we will spend only 2.2% of our GDP on defence – the lowest proportion of our national wealth contributed to security since 1930."  Related link: The whole British army will be able to fit in the new Wembley stadium.

The three underpinnings of long-term energy security: "We are all competing for the same natural resources to feed the economic system. The potential for terrorists or even nation states to interrupt this supply to cause widespread – rather than just local – disruption increases enormously... In the years ahead energy security, economic security and national security will be inextricably linked. If we want to ensure that we can keep the lights on in Britain then we need to develop a comprehensive energy strategy. It is simply a matter of risk management. Such a strategy will need to have three components: diversity in the type of fuels we use; diversity in the geographical sources of those fuels and the security structures that will guarantee the safe transport of these fuels."

Are Cameron's Conservatives now opposed to privatisation?

I've just received a press release from CCHQ with the following headline:

"Government plan to privatise Sellafield ‘neither wise nor honest’."

The release continues:

"Commenting on newspaper reports today that the government are set to announce tomorrow that control of Britain’s most controversial nuclear site, Sellafield, will move into the private sector through the sale of its state-owned operator, British Nuclear Group, Shadow Trade & Industry Secretary Alan Duncan said:

"Making this statement on the day the House rises for Easter is typical of Labour's sneaky practices.  'This announcement is being made in the middle of the Government's Energy Review, in which the crucial question of how the nuclear sector might work with Government is being examined.  Making this announcement now is neither wise nor honest.  'Gordon Brown did not mention the disposal of British Nuclear Group in the budget statement last week.  To dump fifty years of dubious waste onto the private sector with none of the guarantees that only Government can offer needs serious public debate before they should think of going ahead."

Alan Duncan's charge of sneakiness is spot on.  Labour probably wanted to avoid criticism from those anti-capitalists who think that the private sector can't be trusted with sensitive assets like prisons and nuclear power.   It's a bit rich, however, when those sentiments are being expressed by the party that gave privatisation to the world.

FT: Tories may not back Blair on nuclear power

"We must make the case for civil nuclear power to tackle the energy crisis with least damage to the environment."

- Conservative spokesman on energy, October 2005

I have always been "instinctively hostile to nuclear because I'm suspicious of the dangers it poses."

- Conservative spokesman on energy, February 2006

The shift in emphasis has come with a change of policy spokesman.  The October 2005 statement was made by David Willetts to the Conservative Party Conference.  The second statement was made by David's successor as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alan Duncan.  The FT interprets the new stance as "unexpectedly hostile" to the endorsement of nuclear power that will likely be made by Prime Minister Tony Blair's energy review.

Mr Duncan uses an interview with today's FT (subscription required) to emphasise the difficult economics of nuclear energy:

"The economics are absolutely crucial. The only power station anyone's going to build in a free market at the moment is a gas-fired one.  On the nuclear side, there's a massive question mark over whether, if a nuclear generating company were made to meet all its costs through the entire life cycle of the project, that they would ever build a nuclear power station. That calls into question, given the nuclear decommissioning costs... the relationship between the nuclear sector and government.  If, and again this might come out of the review, it looks as though coal and oil can capture and not emit carbon, then they can contribute to an emissions target."

But is Mr Duncan's premise correct?  He talks of a "free market" in energy but, in reality, it is a heavily (and, perhaps, unfairly) regulated market.  The poor economics of the nuclear industry are partly blamed by some on reactionary over-regulation (see here and here for an American context).

In any case... should cost be the only consideration when it comes to the 'nuclear option'?  Environmentalists such as James Lovelock believe that a major expansion of nuclear energy is the only way to beat global warming.  Others believe that embracing nuclear power is necessary for energy security.  For the second time in a very short time I find myself agreeing with Chris Patten.  In yesterday's FT he asked...

"Do we really prefer dependence on Vladimir Putin, Russian president, and Gazprom or nuclear power?"

My guess is that we probably need a diverse mix of energy sources.  Some will be cheaper at different times as technologies and market conditions evolve.  The Conservatives should support Tony Blair if he takes the nuclear option.  The need for long-term solutions to both the energy and pensions crises demand a degree of cross-party consensus.  The Tories shouldn't play politics on this issue.  Let's leave that to the LibDems...

TODAY'S FRONTPAGE OFFERS NEWSLINKS ON BUSH'S NEW ENERGY POLICY ANNOUNCEMENTS.

Chris Patten urges stronger line against Tsar Putin

It's not often I agree with Chris Patten but he talked a lot of sense on last evening's World Tonight (Radio 4).  The former EU foreign affairs commissioner and former Tory Chairman was reacting to 'GasGate' (as I shall call it) and Russia's apparent attempts to punish Ukraine's Orange Revolutionaries for rejecting its preferred presidential candidate.

The man who has been Chairman, Governor, Commissioner and is now Chancellor and Lord argued that the EU (and the west in general) had been too soft on Russia for too long.  The EU has attempted to bring Russia into the family of western democracies by treating it with kid gloves, inducements and membership of the G8 (even though its economy doesn't warrant it).  Rather than accepting these encouragements to become more democratic Mr Putin has become increasingly authoritarian and, says Patten, bullied its neighbours.  As an illustration of policy pusillanimity we have recently witnessed Gerhard Schroeder behave in an ethically dubious way by taking a €1m pa job from Russia's Gazprom for involvement in a project he rushed through in the dying days of his Chancellorship of Germany.

Lord Patten recommended tougher treatment of Russia.  He said that it was "extraordinary" that Putin had been allowed to assume the chairmanship of the G8 even though it was going "backwards on democracy".  He urged the other G8 leaders to tell Russia - privately or otherwise - that its recent behaviour was unacceptable.  He also urged the EU to be warmer to Ukraine's aspiration to Union membership.

Chris Patten said that the west had done nothing about Russian misbehaviour in Moldova and Georgia because it was afraid of upsetting a major supplier of its energy needs.   The west should remember, he said, that Russia's narrow economy hugely depended upon Europe's custom and it needed to be more assertive.

Energy policy is likely to be an increasingly important theme in coming years.  World competition for oil, for example, has seen an increasingly thirsty China form strategically close links with Venezuela, Sudan, Iran and other ugly regimes.  The Wall Street Journal noted only yesterday how Big Oil companies only account for 16% of the world's current production.  The real powers in the world are "the Saudi state oil company, the Iranian state oil company, the Venezuelan state oil company, etc".

If Mr Cameron is looking for a big issue to face up to, they don't get much bigger than the looming energy crises.