The maths are simple: by 2020 Britain will need 120 gigawatts of generation from whatever source – gas, nuclear, oil, coal, etc – that might be available. As of now, we generate 76 gigawatts, and by 2020 25 gigawatts of that capacity will be shut. We are running out of time…
Light, not darkness: rebuild all our electricity-generating industries
WORKERS, DECEMBER 2008 ISSUE
It is nearly 30 years since the dismantling of Britain’s state owned energy industries started – first gas, then coal, then electricity generation and all the twists and turns over nuclear, the National Grid etc. The concept of an integrated energy industry, with a mix of fuels guaranteeing heat, light, industry, protection against the elements and nature is in tatters.
The result is that the ownership of Britain’s energy industries has passed not just to foreign energy companies but foreign financial houses. The future of energy in Britain is perilous: the driving interests are the market and greed, not the interests of the people of Britain.
Workers in Britain need to face up to reality. By the year 2020 Britain is forecast to need 120 gigawatts (GW) of generation from whatever source – gas, nuclear, oil, coal, etc – that might be available. Leaving aside that all energy forecasts are notoriously inaccurate we still have to deal with an accurate figure of 76 GW of generation as of now and a closure of 25 GW of that capacity by 2020.
The market response
The market responds to this impasse by higher prices, effectively rationing supply, despite making unprecedented profits. The government stalls and refuses to challenge the multi-national energy companies with whom it has been in cahoots for the last 30 years, be it a Tory or Labour administration.
The government hides behind EU directives that carbon emissions must drop by 80 per cent by 2050. No other government in the EU has signed up to this proposal in deeds rather than lip service. Britain has said it will generate 35 GW from wind power. That will require 15,000 wind turbine generators festooning and polluting Britain’s countryside. Each wind turbine will be nearly 350 yards high – dwarfing most buildings.
Ironically, the wind farm turbine makers are already going out of business due to the capitalist economic crisis. In Germany court cases still rumble on as to who actually owns the wind and is one wind farm stealing the wind of others! Let alone the impossibility of these wind farms being built, do the people of Britain want to be surrounded by 350 yard high monstrosities across every moor, fell, highland, dale and theoretically windswept beauty spot? The answer will be a resounding NO!
A rational response
The rationalisation of power station building in the 1960s and 1970s, in answer to the last major energy shortfall crisis, was to build the networks of stations on the Trent and Ouse – linking water to coal. Giant stations were built of almost gothic size, beauty and originality, plus nuclear stations in remoter quarters – Dungeness, Sizewell etc. The tiny inefficient and inadequate pre-First and Second World War power stations were closed and Britain moved into a situation of guaranteed stability and supply. This has been destroyed by privatisation and market forces.
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| Coal stations on the Trent (above) and the Ouse were the response of the 1960s and 1970s to the energy crisis then. A similar coordinated approach is needed now. |
The argument that renewable sources of energy – wind, wave or sun – will replace nuclear, coal, oil or gas, fails on grounds of intermittent and unpredictable supply versus constant, consistent and reliable. The wind is not guaranteed to blow. The sea becomes becalmed. Britain has had its worst summer for years. You cannot bottle electricity. The renewables argument is that of anti-science, anti-industry, anti-working class and reaction. Leaving that aside, the simple fact is that the costs of such science fiction dreams are undeliverable. It is estimated that such unreliable renewables would cost an estimated £25 billion more than the already estimated £100 billion required to rebuild Britain’s required generating capacity.
To guarantee Britain’s sustained and improved standard of living, let alone that of the other 5 billion human beings on the planet, real long term planning and commitment is required in the energy arena. To build a new power station takes approximately ten years. The energy gap, when power cuts will kick in, will be 12 years. That 10-year figure assumes planning, logistics, skills, design being ready to proceed. It does not assume blocking and resistance by the anti-industry lobby.
In the 1984–85 miners’ strike the slogan which unified the working class was Coal not Dole. Posters, stickers, badges covered Britain. This is now counterposed by Stop Coal stickers and posters from so-called climate change campaigners. This slogan equates with green fascism. These are the same who clamour under the green agenda that Britain’s only sustainable population should be around the 6 million figure – a return to medieval days and presumably genocide in the process.
Clean coal
Only industry can resolve the shortfall of energy in Britain and the world. The coal industry has developed clean coal technology (despite brutal opposition and closure under both Tories and Labour) coupled with carbon capture and storage technology. This is a more serious contender to stopping carbon emission than any wind turbine, trading in carbon footprints on the stock exchange or tree-planting tax fiddle dreamt up by a Canary Wharf whizz-kid. Why ignore it when Britain is an island of coal with 1,000 years of reserves?
If we are going to rebuild our nuclear industry then the decision has to be taken now. It has produced safe storage for nuclear waste supplanting any previous designs. The only drawback is that the government has deliberately excluded any British company or design from any potential construction. The government defers solely to the US where no new nuclear generation has been commissioned for nearly 40 years.
Britain cannot rely on a strategy of imported gas, as political instability abroad and soaring price increases lead to further chaos. Likewise to call for windfall taxes on the gas and oil companies is very worthy and pious but is not going to resolve the fundamentals of the energy crisis. What is a life and death choice to a pensioner – paying the food or the gas bills – should be removed from the equation by the energy industries being returned to working for the national interest.
The energy crisis is no more a crisis than any other difficult problem we have to resolve. We require clear decisions and a long-term strategy to grasp the issue. The first is commitment to rebuild and re-equip our generating industries. This challenges the very core of who owns these assets and where the decisions are made.
To commit £100 billion to rebuilding electricity generation is small change compared with the trillions used to bail out the banks. Commitment to rebuilding requires skilled workers, construction, science, industry, education, design, planning, taming the atom and recycling waste. Reliable energy to meet need should be the slogan, light not darkness, heat not cold, conquering nature not being dependent on it, progress not medievalism.