Election Special: Energy Policies (Cont'd)

Nuclear Power
The parties also differ on their stance on Nuclear power: both Labour and the Conservatives view Nuclear power as a safe and dependable low-carbon energy source, essential to the UK meeting its carbon emission reduction targets. Labour have identified ten potential sites for new nuclear power plants. The Lib Dems, by contrast, are strongly opposed to Nuclear, with its “dirty legacy” and “global security risks,” as well as its high cost hindering spending on the development of renewable energy resources. The Green Party are also against the use of Nuclear power and would impose “a deadline for phasing out nuclear power,” as well as ending all importation of uranium.

Waste Energy
The possibilities of generating energy from waste, by processes such as anaerobic digestion, are also being explored by the political parties. Labour intends that the proportion of fuel used in vehicles coming from waste energy sources in the 2010-11 period should be 5%. The Conservatives believe that more needs to be done to capture the potential energy from waste and that biogas from food and farm waste should replace half the fuel needed for domestic heating. The Lib Dems aim to “end the use of landfill” and are interested in the possibility of anaerobic digestion to generate energy. The Green Party is also interested in anaerobic digestion and energy from “methane from existing landfill sites,” whilst they oppose “the mass incineration of municipal, commercial and industrial waste.”

Carbon Capture
To reduce the impact of existing fossil fuel burning power plants on the environment, Labour intends to build “up to four” Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) demonstrations, in order to capture and store carbon dioxide, thus preventing it entering the atmosphere. They also say that any new coal power station must be designed to capture, transport and store at least 20 million tones of CO2 and be capable of being retrofitted with CCS. The Conservatives too advocate CCS, and propose that any new coal-fired power plants created by private industry should be developed to incorporate CCS technology on a scale that is capable of limiting carbon emissions in line with the Emissions Performance Standard. While the Liberal Democrats are against any new fossil fuel generators, they support the use of CCS as a transitional measure. The Greens go further still, pointing to the cost of CCS, which they see as a waste of money, which due to the recession is badly needed: “carbon capture projects wouldn’t start delivering either emissions reductions or jobs for the next decade,” they say, and would invest instead in renewable technologies and energy conservation programmes, which they say could achieve both these objectives.

Furthermore, the Greens’ ‘Carbon Quota’ system (see previous post on transport policies) aims not only to find renewable, sustainable energy sources but also to reduce usage of and therefore demand for energy. They also propose massive government investment in renewable energy generation as “the private sector has not yet responded to the challenge of renewable energy with sufficient vigour and investment.”

For further commentary on the party policies, see these summaries from international legal practice, Norton Rose.

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