SPECIATOR
The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 020-7405 1706; Fax 020-7242 0603
LET'S GO NUCLEAR
The newly re-elected government has made one good decision, which is also a courageous one. Earlier this week, Mr Blair announced a comprehensive review of energy policy, to be chaired by a middle-ranking minister, Brian Wilson. He is the right choice, for he has two assets. He dislikes waffle and he is an advocate of nuclear power. When this government announces a review, we normally know what to expect: a controversial question is being swept into the long grass. Not this time. Mr Wilson's review will bring overdue realism to the energy debate.
Up until now, this government's energy policy has been incoherent. It has set a target, by which 10 per cent of British electricity should be produced from renewable energy by 2010, but it has done nothing to halt the decline of nuclear power. On present trends, it will supply no more than 3 per cent of Britain's energy by 2020. The government has also introduced a climate levy, but has imposed that tax on all energy use, instead of penalising carbon emissions.
These confusions are damaging, because Britain has a long-term energy problem. Before the end of the decade, the UK will again become a net importer of oil and gas. Again we will be reminded that fossil fuels are non-renewable, and that most oil reserves are located in unstable regions. But our problems are insignificant compared with the rest of the world's.
Energy is a wonderful servant, but a tyrannical master. The prosperity of recent centuries, the decisive break which the advanced world has made with previous eras of scarcity, were only made possible by rapid advances in energy technology. Freedom and energy go together. So do threats and energy. Once societies became dependent on fossil fuels, they also became vulnerable to blackmail by those who control such fuels, be they Middle Eastern regimes or the National Union of Mineworkers. Equally, once the burning of fossil fuels reaches a certain level, the ecosystem could also be vulnerable. It is not necessary to subscribe to Greenpeace to fear the greenhouse effect.
If there is one, it could get much worse, very quickly. In the developing world, there are billions of people who want to emulate the West's journey to affluence based on energy consumption. They are unlikely to be deterred by environmental considerations; it seems improbable that the Green party will find many recruits in China.
So unless there is a dramatic change in the pattern of energy consumption, the pressure on fossil fuels will intensify, as will the deleterious consequences of excessive use. Fortunately, there is an alternative: nuclear power. There are, of course, problems: cost and safety. Nuclear technology is expensive; nuclear fission is dangerous. It also creates waste that will remain lethal for tens of thousands of years. So by investing in nuclear power, we would be inflicting an awesome safety burden upon descendants who are as remote from us as we are from the cavemen.
Yet there may be a way of minimising these hazards. Let us unleash the power of science.
There is a paradox here. The prestige of science is much less than it was four decades ago, when leading scientists such as Sir Bernard Lovell were respected public figures. In the intervening years, we seem to have lost faith in science. But why?
Since the 1960s, advances in medicine and telecommunications — to name but two — have been remarkable, and there is much more to come, especially in genome-related science. Such advances often create moral problems, as questions of life and death move from the pulpit to the laboratory. But the scientists cannot be blamed if the ethical and political debate lags behind; if the rest of us cannot summon the intellectual energy to assess science's achievements. It is not the scientists' fault if public debate on science is bedevilled by sentimentality, ignorance, prejudice — and hysteria.
Those four horsemen have also confounded counsel on nuclear power. There should be no question of disregarding the safety risks. But a well-funded research programme could reduce those risks, If we secured the same advances in nuclear physics as we have seen in telecommunications and biology, we could make rapid progress towards the goal of safer and cheaper nuclear power.
Energy shortage is a major cause of poverty, and of conflict. In a world full of energy, the great mass of the world's people would at last be able to realise something nearer to their full potential. Though human beings would doubtless find new ways of making one another miserable, abundant energy would deprive human nature's blacker aspects of a formidable ally.
None of that will be possible without a massive enhancement of nuclear power. So Brian Wilson could be the right man at the right time. His appointment was greeted with dismay by the anti-capitalist lobbies, such as Greenpeace, who said that putting him in charge of the review was like putting a fox in charge of the hen-coop. But this ought to hearten those who take energy policy seriously. Mr Wilson not only has the right instincts; he also has the right enemies. Few ministers of state ever have the chance to make such an important contribution. Let us hope that he takes it.
Previous page
