Nuclear Energy

Debate between Robert Smith and Graham Stringer

Tuesday 22nd June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Sir Robert Smith]

That is why we have to convince the EU that, if it is going to deliver on a low-carbon agenda and if it has embraced the ETS, it will have to put a floor on carbon to make the ETS deliver the treaty commitments and other commitments to having a low-carbon future.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North West said that the world is facing the major problem of there being too much carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. There is no way of not putting CO₂ into the atmosphere unless we are willing to pay the costs of producing alternatives to CO₂. Nuclear is one alternative, which we do not think is the right alternative, but marine renewables also need a floor on carbon—all low-carbon energy systems, if they are going to take off and be delivered, will need a floor on carbon. That is the only way. The EU has decided to embrace the ETS and unless we actually make the ETS work, we will not deliver on all our commitments.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I think that this debate about the European ETS is at the heart of European energy policy. Would the hon. Gentleman go as far as I would and say that the introduction of that scheme has been a catastrophe, that the low level of carbon is actually subsidising polluting industries and that it would be better to start again?

[Sir Robert Smith]

The EU cannot keep inventing new schemes. I think that we need to make the ETS work now that we have embraced it and we actually need to deliver it, because at least it uses the market to try to come forward with the best and most efficient solutions for achieving the low-carbon future that we need to embrace. So that is an important point.

There is another situation with nuclear. When we on the Energy and Climate Change Committee were looking at the planning statements, it struck me that the long-term solution for nuclear waste may well be a deep repository, but the plans now are to keep the waste on site for a considerable time. Therefore, all these communities must be managed for a long time, to protect those waste sites. They are all in low-lying floodplains, so we had this vision of little islands of nuclear waste being protected by flood defences, as the sea level rises and the legacy of the new nuclear generation is left for future generations to pick up.

So it still seems a major challenge for this country to go down that route of nuclear if we can embrace other technologies, such as carbon capture and storage and marine. We have a massive tidal resource around our coastline, which we have failed to tap and failed to launch. Those of us who are committed to marine renewables and the alternative technologies have been frustrated about the legacy of so many resources going into nuclear. That has diverted resources away from what could have been another great export industry and a very substantial source of low-carbon energy for this country, and it does not pose the risks of pollution that we would still face with nuclear.