Transition Culture

30 Jan 2006

Nuclear vs. Wind Farms Debate - rather misses the point.

On Radio 4’s [Any Questions](http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/anyquestions.shtml”AQ”) last week (for those of you from outside the UK it is a political questions and answers type show with leading politicians on the panel), the issue came up of whether nuclear power was the way forward for the UK. The panel included Micheal Meacher and the dreadful Sir Bernard Ingham, who was Mrs Thatcher’s press secretary, and who for me embodies the true face of the British Conservative Party, rather than the few young and trendy green leaning Tories who David Cameron is now claiming represent his new ['compassionate conservatism'](http://transitionculture.org/?p=166″Tory”).

The discussion went as follows. Ingham (right) said we have to go nuclear, there is no other choice and anyone believing otherwise was dreaming. Nuclear, he said, is safe and is our only option.

Meacher (left) said that nuclear was too expensive, too dangerous, and that renewables could provide for our needs. He didn’t talk about peak oil, which was disappointing seeing as he has often spoken at peak oil conferences and seems well informed on the subject. Ingham came back at him and said that anyone who promoted the view that renewables could power the UK was an ‘enemy of the people’ (to stunned gasps from some of the audience).

On the same day as this programme went out, The Times, rarely a place for enlightening thought, published an article called ["Transport experts have seen the future, and it's got pedals"](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-2011758,00.html”Pedals”) by Ben Webster. It quoted Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientific adviser as saying;

>“I think it is very likely that as we move forward, the implications of energy provision mean we are going to see less demand for transport. People could not count on being able to travel in 2055 as much as they did today and would have to find other ways to have satisfactory lifestyles�.

The report basically says that there is no way our current transport system can grow, and that the impacts of peak oil will be profound. One of the scenarios they evaluate concludes that;

>”an acute oil shortage and lack of affordable alternative energy source triggers a global depression. Economies collapse as businesses can no longer afford to move goods and people. People survive in increasingly isolated communities that have to learn to become self-sufficient, with most journeys made by bicycle or horse”.

You can read this excellent report [here](http://www.foresight.gov.uk/Intelligent%20Infrastructure%20Systems/Reports%20and%20Publications/Intelligent_Infrastructure_Futures/Index.html”IIF”). To call it the UK’s [Hirsch Report](http://www.hilltoplancers.org/stories/hirsch0502.pdf”hirsch”) might be going a bit far, but its conclusions are equally far reaching. The reality is that peak oil means, as Hirsch points out, a depleting availability of liquid fuels for transportation. As this new report and the Times article point out, our transport infrastructure will inevitably contract, sooner rather than later, and rapidly.

What both Ingham and Meacher missed was the fact that neither nuclear power nor wind farms can run our cars and lorries. Localised energy grids using as much local energy resources as possible are the only option for domestic energy, especially when you consider the energy losses from a nationalised grid, but keeping 75 million cars on the road just isn’t going to happen. The diagram below is from the recent and wonderful Greenpeace report, [Decentralising Power](http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/7154.pdf”DP”) (essential reading).

Whether we connect nuclear, wind, tidal or whatever into the grid, it is still wasteful. Building windfarms on community’s doorsteps is often unpopular, especially when the community obtains no direct benefit from it. Experience from Swaffham in Norfolk and the work of Baywind in Cumbria has shown that when the community benefits directly from wind turbines, they tend to embrace them rather than rallying against them. Both Meacher and Ingham assumed that business-as-usual is an option, we just need to change the power source. Ingham didn’t mention that fact that uranium is a finite resource, a point which Paul Mobbs explores in his recent excellent [Global Public Media interview](http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/628″Mobbs”). The fact that this argument is becoming polarised into an either/or debate is missing the point. Peak oil is here, it will radically affect how our societies are designed and how they function, the age of the car is drawing to a close, the age of air travel even sooner, we have to begin building the infrastructure of a new more local society.

The awareness is dawning on Government, Stephen Ladyman, the Transport Minister, is quoted in the Times article as saying “we have two choices, we can stumble into the future in the hope it turns out right, or we can try to shape it.â€? The future of energy is one of not putting all our eggs into one basket, be it a nuclear one or a wind one. We will need a pallette of local energy sources, a diverse array of technologies that feed local grids. It is a far more exciting and empowering challenge than either wind or nuclear, and one that could unite rather than polarise public opinion, and educate rather than bamboozle and confuse. ‘Enemies of the people’ your time has come.