It is only when there is an unusual weather event that you can truly judge how well our energy supplies fair. It is good to have a balance of different supplies. But here is my case for why are reliant on the nuclear option.
Wind Power
When we have a prolonged cold snap, it is caused by a high pressure weather system being in place for a long time. High pressure means no wind. This means no energy supply. And after all, when it is cold, we need lots of energy don’t we?
So, wind power has it place. I am all in favour of it. But it can only ever contribute a smallish amount to the nations supply. As at January 2010, wind farms account for about 5% of the UK’s power generation. In the cold spell we have just had, it accounted for just 0.2%. This was due to the lack of wind.
Coal
Coal is a historic energy supply. But recent years has seen its decline. I do not know what percentage of the nations supply it now produces. But it cannot be a truly significant amount. And this is unlikely to change either.
Many coal fired power plants will be closing in the next 10 years in any case. Why? Well, they don’t comply with EU regulations.
Gas
We have got ourselves into a right muddle over this one! Firstly our North Sea Gas supplies are slowly drying up. This causes shortages and price volatility – that is entirely of our own making. The answer was building substantial pipelines across the North Sea. Also, we have now built new Liquid Gas installations for more importation.
So all this is good, but we are now becoming more reliant on imports. And as we will use more when it’s cold, expect prices to change accordingly! Now the obvious way around this is to dramatically increase storage capacity. That way you buy when cheap, store it and it’s used when we have adverse weather. And yes, you’ve guessed it; we make a hash of this. The UK’s maximum storage facility is an average 16 days worth. In France its 91 days and Germany is 73 days. Hence the price volatility issues – we have them, France and Germany do not.
And the latest news is that new gas fired power stations are to be built. The aim is to increase the output capacity by about 50%. Gas power plants are cheap to build and are less controversial than the nuclear option.
Nuclear
And so onto the last option: nuclear. Do we really have any other choice? Or do we want to be more reliant on importing gas and then suffer a pricing structure that we have no control over?
As usual in these debates, the ultimate bottom line is all about “price”. Decisions are being made right now that will have an effect on pricing for many decades to come. And yet there is very little media coverage.
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