Nuclear plants ban is 'tragedy for Scotland'

Published on Wednesday 27 January 2010 21:57

THE political block on allowing new nuclear power plants north of the Border is "a tragedy for Scotland", the UK's energy minister claimed yesterday.

Lord Hunt told The Scotsman that SNP ministers' ideological opposition to nuclear power would cost Scotland jobs and expertise which it could have imported around the world.

The minister re-entered the debate on using nuclear power on a visit to Scotland yesterday to announce the 26th round of offshore licensing for the North Sea oil and gas industry in Aberdeen.

He claimed there was a chance for Scotland to lead the world in nuclear expertise, in the same way as it does in the oil industry.

"Wherever I go in the world to discuss oil and gas, I meet somebody who has been through Aberdeen," he said.

"I remember coming back from Kazakhstan and the plane was full of Scots coming home.

"There is a tremendous supply chain of expertise that is being exported around the world and that is what we need to build on."

He said this would be lost from the nuclear industry, which at present had a large presence in Scotland.

"I was up at Dounreay recently and I was so impressed by the expertise there," he said.

"I thought what a pity it was that these people would not have the chance to work on the new nuclear power stations. It is a real tragedy for Scotland."

The Scottish Government continues to argue that Scotland should concentrate on renewables through wind and wave power and that the cost of disposing of nuclear waste as well as its toxic nature mean that it should not be part of the future energy mix.

However, Lord Hunt dismissed these arguments.

"Nuclear is a low-carbon source of fuel; it is also something we can produce at home and therefore provides energy security as well as jobs and should be part of the future energy mix," he said.

There is also disagreement with the SNP's calls for transmission charges for electricity from renewable power sources to be cut.

Currently, costs are much higher than the south of England and First Minister Alex Salmond and the power companies have got together to call for parity.

However, Lord Hunt said he saw "no hard evidence" that the charges were wrong and warned that any change would only see increased costs for the customer.

Where the UK energy minister and the SNP agree is in Scotland's potential with renewable energy and the new carbon capture technology which will allow clean coal energy production.

On Tuesday night, Lord Hunt met with the academics leading the way on carbon capture in Edinburgh. He was also full of praise for the project being considered at Longannet, but refused to discuss its chances of winning the government's competition to be the first to try the technology at an industrial level.

He said: "Carbon capture is vital, because if you look at the future projections on energy production much of it is going to come from coal."