[Wildwell]

The UK's energy debate has been framed wrongly, argues analyst Kevin Anderson. He believes we should be looking at issues of demand and efficiency, and not so much at the problem of supply.

The UK government's energy review is an event welcomed with a mix of anticipation and trepidation by manufacturers and operators of different and often competing forms of electricity generation.

For others concerned with the future of the UK's energy system (demand and supply of heating, transport and electricity), it is less the review's pronouncement on the appropriateness or otherwise of different generating options that is of interest, but more the premise of the review.

Why is yet another review deemed necessary just 23 months after the government published its much heralded Energy White Paper (EWP)?

The launch of the EWP, with its vision of renewable energy allied with energy efficiency providing a low-carbon, secure and affordable energy future was met with delight in some quarters, disbelief and derision in others, and scepticism by a few.

The absence of any real policy initiatives to bring about the EWP's vision left some analysts questioning whether it really disguised a charter for nuclear power.

The government's continued reluctance to institute meaningful energy efficiency policies, the narrow focus of its latest review, and the lengthening roll call of minister and MPs now prepared to voice their support for nuclear power, all combine to suggest the sceptics were perhaps onto something.

Personally, I'm ambivalent about whether nuclear power remains a major source of electricity generation within the UK.

However, despite my ambivalence over nuclear power per se, I'm increasingly disturbed by the abysmal level of much of the debate - informed as it so often is by prejudice and ignorance.

The arguments commonly voiced by many of the antagonists are dangerously simplistic and highly misleading in terms of policy.

For example, given that nuclear power provides only 3.6% of our final energy consumption, the argument that the UK cannot meet its carbon dioxide targets without building a new generation of nuclear stations to replace the existing and aging generation is evidently wrong.

Similarly, the argument that nuclear power is too costly, does not take into account the security costs associated with attempting to maintain fossil fuel supplies from what are often perceived to be unstable regions of the world.

How much, for example, have the UK's forays into Afghanistan and Iraq cost the tax payer? Until such costs are factored into the analysis, economic comparisons between fossil fuels and nuclear are essentially meaningless.

Exacerbating the absence of any dispassionate quantitative and qualitative analysis in relation to nuclear power, is the reluctance to recognise that the issues we face in terms of sustainability and security require a broader vision of the energy system as a whole.

The current blinkered interpretation of energy as an issue of supply, particularly electricity supply, is likely to lead to inappropriate, wasteful and ultimately ineffective policies.

Across the board, Tyndall research found substantial reductions in emissions are available using currently available technologies; with often the most efficient technology consuming just 30% to 70% of the typical product sold within that class.

It is the sheer scale of energy efficiency's "low hanging fruit" that led the Tyndall's DUK report to conclude that the government should, as a matter of urgency, implement and enforce a phased programme of stringent minimum efficiency standards.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4633160.stm