2016-08-30 If it's jobs they want, Labour and the unions must back renewables, not Hinkley C
Original article: 2016-08-30 If it's jobs they want, Labour and the unions must back renewables, not Hinkley C
Four of Britain's major unions are big supporters of nuclear power, writes Ian Fairlie - all because of the jobs. Now Labour's shadow energy minister has joined them in backing Hinkley C - even though renewable energy is a far better job-creator than nuclear, and already employs three times more people.
On July 28, the Prime Minister's Office announced a delay until the autumn to allow a review to take place re the nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C proposed by the previous Government. Since then, press criticisms of the mooted Hinkley C have continued unabated led by flagship editorials from the FT and The Economist. These echo widespread concerns by the National Audit Office (NAO) in its recent preliminary report - Nuclear Power in the UK.According to EdF Energy, only 900 direct permanent jobs would be created at Hinkley C, were it ever to be constructed. Even this is a likely overestimate, as on average UK nuclear power stations only employ about 600 workers. Although about 4,500 jobs would exist each year during any construction, EdF has admitted most would be temporary and filled by overseas workers.
And these permanent jobs would come at a hefty price. Independent analysts estimate each nuclear job at Hinkley would cost consumers an extra £800,000 per year compared to jobs in renewables in terms of increased costs of electricity.
Although ill-informed leaders of a few large unions support nuclear for jobs reasons, many trade unionists do not. The excellent 2014 report A Million Climate Jobs by 24 energy analysts and trade union officials reveals the large potential for jobs in the renewables and explicitly eschews nuclear power.
Trade union leaders may think that nuclear power is a major provider of jobs. It is not. The recent analysis of jobs in the energy sector published by the Office of National Statistics reveals only 15,500 direct jobs in nuclear power compared with 43,500 direct jobs in renewables - including renewable heat, renewable combined heat and power, bioenergy and alternative fuels in 2014.
Of course it may be that the four main unions backing nuclear power - GMB, Unite, Ucatt, and Prospect - do so not for the sake of jobs, but only for the sake of jobs within their unions. That would be understandable - but if that's the case they should admit this and stop saying nuclear provides lots of 'jobs'.
UK renewables already employ three times as many people as nuclear
In fact, the ONS figure is flattering, as about 9,000 of the 15,500 workers are engaged in nuclear reprocessing at Sellafield in Cumbria. The reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is a filthy, dangerous, polluting and essentially useless activity which produces not a single watt of electricity and consumes a great deal of it. It also accounts for most of NDA's whopping ~£3 billion annual operating bill which taxpayers are forced to pay. We shall return to the nonsense of nuclear reprocessing in a future article.
If we accept the ONS estimate, the renewables sector employs about three times as many people as nuclear. In future it is clear this ratio will increase as the number of nuclear jobs is declining with the closure of old nuclear power stations.
Four of Britain's major unions are big supporters of nuclear power, writes Ian Fairlie - all because of the jobs. Now Labour's shadow energy minister has joined them in backing Hinkley C - even though renewable energy is a far better job-creator than nuclear, and already employs three times more people.
Recent articles
2024-09-17 Britain’s Atomic Bomb Scandal (Channel 4 programme)
Channel 4 made a multi-part series of programmes with this title.The sub-title was: The dramatic, shocking story of Britain’s race for the nuclear bomb, the devastating fallout for the servicemen at the tests, and the veterans’ long fight for justice'. I watched all the parts, and made notes.Then I typed up the notes and followed up mentions and links to produce this document.2021-09-29 Nuclear Power and the EU Taxonomy
Around September 2021, the European Commission considered the inclusion of nuclear power in the taxonomy for future investments in energy. This was based on a single report from the European Joint Research Centre, which still has close links with the nuclear industry and is widely perceived as playing a promoting role for nuclear energy within the European Union. The JRC Report ignored the report of the German Ethics Commission for a Safe Energy Supply of 2011, which had lead to Germany phasing out nuclear power by 2023. The European Commision also ignored 'Sustainability at risk, A critical analysis of the EU Joint Research Centre technical assessment of nuclear energy with respect to the "do no significant harm" criteria of the EU Taxonomy Regulation, of 2021-09 by Dr. Christoph Pistner, Dr. Matthias Englert and Dr. Ben Wealer, for the Heinrich Boell Foundation.2023-06-06 Nuclear Power Has No Future
The UK government proposes to build nuclear power plants totalling 24 GW.This implies Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C and about six more of similar size.The Labour party proposes to include nuclear power in it’s new ‘green’ energy policy.Yet nuclear power has no future, as shown in this document of 3 pages with 52 references. The first section shows that nuclear fuel may be effectively exhausted before 2050, when the climate targets should be met. The second section shows that the costs of nuclear power have risen over time, and are now uncompetitive. So nuclear power must be replaced by sustainable and affordable options such as energy savings and renewables like wind, solar and storage. The third section shows that nuclear power conflicts with energy savings and renewables, so impairing the business case and deterring investment.So the UK should phase out nuclear power and join the rest of the world in deploying energy savings and renewables.Although this document is published after the latest Government and Labour Party proposals,I have published many earlier documents on nuclear power, dating from 2006-0-19. (See below).Most notably, my report on the Fukushima disaster was published on 2012-04-11, with copies sent to several MPs and Ministers.2022-10-05 Nuclear Nonsense
The new UK government appears to support the previous government’s proposal of building new nuclear power plants. The Labour party proposes to include nuclear power in it’s new ‘green’ energy policy. However such nuclear proposals are nonsense, as shown in this 4-page due diligence assessment.2022-08-13 Nuclear Power And Weapons Are Killing Us
The Manhattan Project in the US covered every stage of the production of nuclear weapons. This included the mining and refining of uranium, enrichment to 80 to 90% U235 for uranium bombs, fuelling nuclear reactors with uranium to produce plutonium, and reprocessing the spent fuel to extract the plutonium for plutonium bombs. It was recognised from the beginning that these processes and plants would give rise to radioactive releases that would be harmful to the plant operators and the general public, yet they were never informed. This continues to the present day, when the nuclear weapon and power industry does everything in its power to deny and understate the many and extensive harms done to all living things. To this has been added the use of uranium in bunker-breaking bombs and tank-busting shells, that spread the dust so formed over their own forces, the enemy forces, and innocent bystanders, harming them all for generations to come. The human harms include many and extensive cancers, and also non-malignant diseases such as stillbirths, deformities and mental impairment and heart disease. With so much harm already done to humans that will take up to lifetimes to express, and so much nuclear debris laying in wait to harm even more humans, it is essential to identify every strategy and measure that can reduce the total harm.This document covers the first warnings of nuclear harms in the 1950s and - following studies beginning in the 1960s - five books of evidence by Dr Ernest Sternglass in 1981, Mr Harvey Wasserman et al in 1982, Dr John Gofman in 1990, Mr Paul Zimmerman in 2009, and Professor Chris Busby et al in 2010.2022-08-12 Stopping Sizewell C and all nuclear power in favour of a rational energy policy
Among the last acts of the Johnson government was the approval of a new nuclear plant - Sizewell C. The claim was that it would increase energy security and reduce carbon emissions. But the invasion of Ukraine has underlined that all nuclear sites are targets, and reduce national security. Also nuclear power would be far more costly than energy savings and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, with storage, and could not be generating electricity before 2030. They need uranium for fuel, yet almost half comes from Russia and Kazachkstan, so that the money and carbon costs would increase twice as fast. Moreover, they require huge amounts of energy to manufacture and build, so reducing energy security until construction is complete, and this energy repaid. Yet Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C are coastal sites, at risk from flooding by sea level rise and storm surge by 2100. As decommissioning and site clearance would take at least 50 years, they would need to be shutdown before 2050. Many reasons for stopping Sizewell C and all nuclear power are given in this collection of five documents.2022-06-14 Energy Transition Technologies
This is prompted by the Energy Hierarchy of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. From the most to the least sustainable, Tier 1 is Energy Demand Reduction, Tier 2 is Energy Efficiency, Tier 3 is Utilisation of Renewable, Sustainable Resources, Tier 4 is Utilisation of Other, Low-GHG-Emitting Resources, and Tier 5 is Utilisation of Conventional Resources as we do now.2022-06-18 Nuclear Insecurities
This is a three-page re-cast of 2016-08-09 Nuclear Insecurities (below).It includes 16 criteria under the original 10 headings, supported by 21 references.2021-06-09 The Futility of Fusion - A Dream Too Far
For the Presentation, Conclusions and a document with references, click on Read More. Nuclear fusion power on earth poses extreme technical challenges. One is the attainment of at least 100 million degrees C for long enough to produce net energy. Another is that any power plant fuelled with Deuterium and Tritium must 'breed' enough Tritium to sustain itself. Yet fusion power is futile because it cannot be deployed at a meaningful scale before 2050. This is the target date for Zero Carbon - hopefully limiting Global Warming to less than 2 C. So by this date all energy must be supplied from proven renewable sources such as Solar Photovoltaics, Wind Power, Hydro Power, sustainable Biomass and Solar and Deep Geothermal Heat.2016-12-19 Limiting Global Climate Change
Global climate change is the most urgent problem faced by humankind. Professor Will Steffen of the Australian National University and co-authors have shown that the earth is liable to many tipping points, several subject to positive feedbacks.Unless there is a rapid transition to 100% renewable energy, humankind will lose control of climate change, with the planet entering the Anthropocene era. Severe global warming of 4 - 8 C would disrupt world food supplies, leading to mass starvations, migrations and war.
