Energy policy: Atomic dreams

Editorial
The Guardian, Tuesday 10 November 2009

"No government has sought to influence me in any way whatever," declared Sir Frank Layfield before giving the go ahead for the last nuclear power station to be built in Britain. His Sizewell B inquiry, which occupied Aldeburgh's Snape Maltings for much of the early 1980s, was tortuous and expensive. Its successor, Ed Miliband confirmed yesterday, will be swift and restricted, its scope directed by government to an almost Napoleonic extent.
Mr Miliband is a convert to the nuclear cause, arguing that the price of not building a new generation of plants, in the form of higher carbon emissions, trumps the environmental and financial cost of going ahead. Yesterday he issued the new Infrastructure Planning Commission with its orders. There will be no drawn-out public inquiry into each new nuclear site, windfarm or power line. The IPC will review specific applications, and consult, but its remit will not allow it to question whether such things should be built, only where.
The new planning process is already controversial and will become more so once it swings into full operation next year. Decisions will be taken quickly and once made cannot be overturned by ministers (a point the Conservatives intend to change). There are promises of consultation, but no right of veto for local people on big projects. Applications for smaller wind farms below 50MW will continue to be decided by local government – which might throw the industry's focus behind bigger ones. But Mr Miliband is right to set out an energy policy, and right that planning policy had to change to accommodate it. "Saying no everywhere would not be in the national interest," he told the Commons. His aim is a near-zero level of carbon emissions from electricity production, but even if Britain faced no pressure to cut pollution, it would need to replace ageing power plants to keep the lights on and avoid a dangerous dependence on expensive imported gas.
Half the energy secretary's statement concentrated on clean coal technology, glossing over its erratic progress, and the reality that even if carbon capture and storage is made to work, it will only have a marginal impact on emissions by 2020. The big focus was on nuclear, the planning challenge underlined by confirmation that all 10 possible sites are next to existing nuclear plants. It is hard to dispute Mr Miliband's logic that, if Britain is to meet its carbon targets, extra nuclear power will be required – though some will ask why, ruling out Dungeness because of the risk of floods, he is happy to build at Sizewell, on an eroded coastline. Yesterday's statements also leave the issues of funding and waste management unresolved. Fast-track planning is only the start.