Potential Energy

Potential Energy has reached the end of its ten week lifetime. Thanks to Kat, Gia and Caspar for their deep thinking, soul searching and high-quality writing.

Thanks also to everyone who has followed the blog. You can help to evaluate the project by filling out this online survey. Everyone who does so will be entered into a prize draw to win a snazzy Skype® phone. The survey will be open for two weeks, and after that I’ll be posting the results and evaluation report here.

For those who have arrived at this blog for the first time, only to find it’s over, I encourage you to delve into some of the content. You can use the ‘cloud list’ in the right hand menu to narrow it down to posts on a particular subject.

Best wishes,

Sam Rae
Outreach Officer
Institute of Physics

When I started Potential Energy in May my secret hope was that I’d be able to find some kind of anti-nuclear info that stood up to scrutiny. I was hoping that I’d uncover something that backed up all of those bad things I’ve heard about nuclear power my whole life.

I failed.
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And now the end is near, and so I face the final posting. This blog was commissioned to run for ten weeks, and by my reckoning the time is up. As I confessed in my first post, I came to this issue as a relative ignoramus in the energy debate. I also came as a blogging virgin, and with some trepidation. Since then, it’s been a steep learning curve, and I feel I’ve barely started to scratch the surface of the issues involved.

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Not always the quickest kid on the block, I am one of those still coming to terms with the UK government’s Energy Review and its possible ramifications. I aim to make some more considered comments in an upcoming article for Interactions, the IOP’s member newspaper, that will also reflect a few thoughts from Kat, Gia and I on what we have learnt during Potential Energy.

The key thing though, as Deep Throat always said, is follow the money. Here are a handful of interim observations. (more…)

The G-8 summit is currently taking place in St Petersburg, and as well as making hideously embarrassing gaffes, the leaders of the free world have been discussing nuclear power. In the light of rising oil prices, and Russia’s stranglehold on European gas and oil supplies, the leaders announced that “We recognize that G-8 members pursue different ways to achieve energy security and climate protection goals. … Those of us who have or are considering plans for the use and/or development of safe and secure nuclear energy believe that its development will contribute to global energy security.”

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Radiation is everywhere – at least in the media. Last night, the BBC’s Horizon programme investigated the effects of radiation, from the Chernobyl disaster to the atomic bomb. The show also examined the fascinating concept of hormesis - a phenomenon which could almost be described as “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.

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In Nuclear future, Gia lists objections to nuclear power as follows:

‘Nuclear power is dangerous’
‘Nuclear power is unsafe’
‘If attacked by terrorists, nuclear power plants can explode and kill millions’
‘Radiation is the most dangerous thing on the planet’
‘Chernobyl could happen here’

But this misrepresents of the views of reasonable people opposed to nuclear new build in the UK now (which is not the same as opposition in all places at all times for all eternity).

From the beginning of this blog I have referred to what I consider to be one (among several) of the more coherent sets of arguments against nuclear new build in the UK now — those advanced by the UK government’s own Sustainable Development Commission. None of these are accurately reflected in Gia’s words above (more…)

Great! So the government announced that nuclear will be part of the future energy mix.

Apart from all of the issues Caspar and Kat have raised, the one thing that concerns me most is…

Marketing and PR.

Like it or not ‘nuclear power’ doesn’t elicit the most positive response from the vast majority of people. One of the biggest problems getting new reactors built won’t be finding investors, making up the skills gap nor even working out what to do with the waste. The biggest obstacle blocking the way of a nuclear future is ‘the average citizen’. (more…)

The energy review has landed, as brought to us by Alistair Darling and his performing eyebrows. You can read the full 218 pages here. As I am a bit busy right now, and have a short attention span, I will read it all later when I can’t sleep. But I’ve read the news, and listened to the House of Commons debate following the announcement of the report. It comes out pretty much as expected.

Yes, we need an energy mix. Yes, it will include nuclear and we need to build new power stations. Yes, we all need to remember to switch the lights and heating off. Yes, we need to invest in renewables. But from what I understand, the report is a bit thin on the ground as to what we actually do next.

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So, the energy review has been published. It says, as expected, that Britain should build new nuclear power stations as well as renewables. It also contains some language about getting power companies to sell heat and light to their customers rather than just energy — something from which advocates of demand management may take a little comfort.

What then of the concerns expressed by the Government’s own Sustainable Development Commission, which concluded in March that there was not a good case for nuclear new build? Have they been shown to be wrong? (more…)