HEWITT.MOBI
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Wednesday, July 12, 2006
So our government's energy review finally reports. As expected, as a result of growing uncertainty over the security of foreign gas supplies from the Russian Federation, & our growing reliance on these foreign supplies of gas to power our increasing number of gas powered power stations, the review recommends replacement of our existing nuclear stations on their original sites with new stations.
Whilst this recommendation is to be welcomed from an energy security point of view, questions remain to be answered regarding disposal of waste & the final cost of building new stations. The government has said that the capital expenditure for new build & decommisioning should come from the private sector. So far no private investors have expressed any interest in building these new stations, primarily because the energy market in it's current configuration gives no certainty to investors about return on capital.
Disposal of waste remains an ongoing problem, we currently have no deep level storage facilities for nuclear waste indeed most waste is stored above ground at existing facilities. The existing waste which by some estimates is enough to fill the Albert Hall needs to be dealt with. Another issue which remains to be answered is the site of these new stations. Most existing stations are located on the coast, obviously looking into the future this is far from ideal. Rising sea levels may put at risk many of our existing & new stations.
There are also questions about wether we want an electricity grid designed primarily for the delivery of power from large power stations. A decentralised power grid capable of handling small power wind & solar generation is not suitable of handling the needs of a highly centralised system. That said our energy hungry society needs a significant amount of baseload supply which can only be supplied by traditional fossil fuel or nuclear generation.
Readers of my site will know of my ongoing interst in this issue. I don't personally favour building new nuclear stations, my electricity is supplied by a renewable power only company. I recognise however that renewable energy may in the future supply upto 50% of our power. Any more causes problems with our power distribution system. It is with reluctance that I welcome this first step towards energy independance from our government.
This, my generation might be the first since the second world war to experience real problems with electricity supply. Time will tell, no one can predict the future with any degree of accuracy. So broadly I welcome the energy review statement. But wether the lights go out over the coming years well that remains to be seen.
hewitt.mobi Posted at 9:26 am |
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All this will not be finished in the first hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. - John F. Kennedy
