Coley warns Salmond: We need nuclear to meet green targets

Published on Sunday 16 September 2007 01:23

BILL Coley, the chief executive of British Energy, has cranked up the pressure on First Minister Alex Salmond to reverse the SNP's anti-nuclear policy.

Speaking out for the first time since the First Minister announced Scotland's first Green Energy Day, Coley insisted there was no way the country could meet its commitment to slash carbon emissions without replacing nuclear power stations.

He said: "I do not know how you can meet your climate change objectives without nuclear at the price that people would be able to pay. As an engineer I do not know how you would do that."

And he stressed the contribution BE makes to the Scottish economy through its 1,400 staff and 90m annual wage bill. The group will move to a new head office in East Kilbride shortly, taking staff there from its administration centre in Livingston and engineering base in Renfrew.

Coley said he was willing to discuss energy policy with Salmond and his team, including Enterprise and Energy Minister Jim Mather, but he had not received an invitation to do so.

His comments followed Salmond's designation of September 7 as Green Energy Day on the basis that Scotland's renewable power capacity had overtaken its nuclear capacity. The First Minister said: "Scotland neither wants nor needs new nuclear power stations... we can have secure energy supplies without landing future generations of Scots with the burden of toxic radioactive waste."

But Coley said the SNP's use of a statistic for renewable capacity, rather than actual energy generated, exaggerated the significance of wind farms and hydroelectric power stations: "It is a bit like having a car with a 200 horsepower engine. If you can only run it at 100 horsepower, then that is all you get," he said.

Climate change experts point out that coal- and gas-fired power stations, rather than nuclear plants, contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions.

Not all SNP politicians appear to support the drive for greener energy. British Energy is behind an application to build Europe's biggest wind farm on Lewis, but has run into opposition from the local SNP member at Holyrood, Alasdair Allan.

Coley believes a new generation of nuclear power stations can be built close to existing sites, including Hunterston and Torness, by 2018. That assumes five years to draw up plans and get planning permission, and five years to build the stations. But he conceded that might not be possible in Scotland: "If the political climate is such that new nuclear build investment is not wanted then of course we will focus that new build investment elsewhere."

BE is talking to more than 10 potential partners who could get involved in building nuclear power stations. Coley said any station was certain to follow one of four designs which had been tried and tested elsewhere in the world.