It wasn’t always like this. In 1986, in the wake of
Chernobyl, the TUC backed a nuclear ‘moratorium and review’ policy. In the same
year, the Labour Party had confirmed its 1985 anti (civil) nuclear power
stance, with a two thirds majority for phasing it out. The then quite dominant
Transport and General Workers Union said it was ‘clear and unambiguous in
its position on nuclear power. We support a halt to nuclear expansion and a
safe and planned phase out of nuclear power in this country.’ So what has changed?
The
Labour Party had gone into the 1987 national election with a manifesto talking
of ‘gradually diminishing Britain’s dependence upon nuclear energy’, but
was unable to unseat the Tories, whose subsequent electricity privatisation and
liberalisation programme (continued by Blair) put the unions on the defensive -
they sought to protect energy jobs across the board. And Blair then switched to
a pro-nuclear policy.
A
sub-text to that may have been the low level of conviction by most of the
unions at that time that renewables could provide viable alternative
employment. In its 1988 Nuclear Energy Review, the TUC said ‘renewables are
not going to make a big contribution to Britain’s energy supplies over the next
20 years’.
However,
the unions still seem unsure, and some have taken to recycling dubious
statistics and arguments to try to undermine the case for renewables. At its 2016 annual Congress the GMB
Union’s National Secretary, Justin Bowden, noted that ‘over the last 12 months there
were 46 days when wind was supplying 10% or less of the installed and connected
wind capacity to the grid’ and
insisted that ‘until there is a
scientific breakthrough on carbon capture or solar storage, then nuclear and
gas are the only reliable shows in town which those advocating a renewable
energy-only policy have to accept.’ www.gmb.org.uk/newsroom/low-wind-days
This doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. For over half of
those 46 low-wind days i.e. outside of winter, and for most of the nights,
overall energy demand would have been low, so a low wind input would not
matter. When it did, existing gas plants would have ramped up a bit more to
provide the extra energy needed e.g. as they do any way to meet daily peaks. As
more renewable come of the grid, other balancing measures can also be used, so
there is not really a problem. But inflexible base-load nuclear plants are no
usef or this - they can’t vary output regularly, quickly and safely. They just
get in the way of the flexible supply and demand approach that is needed.
The unions are not unaware of the
the benefits of renewables and do offer support for them as well as nuclear. In
her 2016 article, Frances O’Grady said ‘while nuclear is an important part of meeting
our future energy needs, renewable energy projects need more investment too.
Cuts to support for solar power in the last few years have led to the loss of
half the 35,000 jobs in the sector. We need sustained investment across the
renewable energy sector if we are to achieve our ambition of a carbon-free
future, and seize the chance to deliver more high-quality jobs’.
However, that’s a replay of the ‘more of everything’ approach beloved
by the TUC, inherited from the days when they sought to avoid conflicts between
members in coal, gas, oil and nuclear, the code phrase used being ‘a balanced energy system’.
There seems to be no awareness of the
opportunity cost issue. Given inevitably limited budgets, choices have to be
made: e.g. money spent of nuclear can’t be spent on other options, and for most
of the last few decades nuclear has got the lions share of what was available
for new energy technology. Thankfully that is beginning to change, although for
the pro-nuclear unions that is a cause for regret. Indeed, some say that some of the big unions have ended up
as corporate stooges, backing nuclear jobs at all costs: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/26/labours-clive-lewis-accuses-nuclear-unions-of-being-voice-for-big-business
Certainly, with renewables booming and eclipsing
nuclear (direct UK nuclear employment is now at around 16,000 and 65,000 in
total including indirect jobs), the nuclear unions are on the defensive. And
defending options like Hinkely is getting harder by the day. The GMB is also
finding it hard to accept the governments plan to let China fund, and maybe
build, reactors on the UK: http://www.gmbwalesandsouthwest.org.uk/news/caution-over-chinese-pop-up-nuclear-reactor
While that battle plays out, there
are some signs of a more positive approach, notably CaCC’s excellent 1 Million Climate Jobs campaign. The
Unions are also broadly supportive of Labour’s new energy policy, with its
emphasis on public ownership and democratic control.
Indeed, this years Trade Union Congress backed that, with a broad climate and
energy policy motion being passed: https://www.cacctu.org.uk/tuc2017climatemotion But that doesn’t specifically mention
nuclear. The otherwise excellent policy developed by PCS, the Public and Commercial
Services Union (see my next post), also in effect ducks out of the nuclear issue.
The Labour Party leadership, Corbyn at times
apart, still seem to be mostly pro-nuclear, as witness the manifesto commitment
earlier this year, and the views expressed at this years Party conference by Labour’s Shadow
Secretary for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Rebecca
Long-Bailey (she backed the Moorside project), along with Nisa Landy and Caroline Flint (nuclear offered lots of jobs). However, Labour
is also strongly pro-renewables and the Party is taking an interest is some of
the political issues associated with renewables. The
Repowering Britain sessions at this years
Labour Party Conference were prefigured by this commentary: ‘Our energy system will be radically
transformed with the rise
of
wind, solar, tidal & energy storage. This clean future
should be democratically -run and owned by the people, delivering hundreds of
thousands of decent jobs for decades into the future. What does this look like? We have all heard about the
small-scale energy co-operatives building solar and wind projects. But the
future also needs a bigger scale. Who will build and own the mega offshore wind
farms and tidal lagoons that will bottom line our electricity supply for the
next century? Publicly owned
companies are at the forefront of building the offshore wind energy
infrastructure of the future - but they’re Danish, Swedish and German. Only
0.07% of our offshore wind is owned by the UK public’. http://labourenergy.org/labour-conference-2017/
At the Conference, Shadow
Chancellor John McDonnell said that ‘Labour
will ensure we become world leaders in
decarbonising our economy. With a publicly owned energy supply based on
alternative energy sources…Ours will only become an economy for the many, if we
significantly broaden ownership. That means supporting entrepreneurs, small
businesses, the genuinely self-employed and massively expanding worker control
and the co-operative sector.’ http://press.labour.org.uk/post/165721772504/shadow-chancellor-john-mcdonnell-speech-to-labour
That’s an interesting debate, but it seems
pretty clear that nuclear is not a
candidate for local ownership, or even UK ownership! So maybe at some point
there will be a change in view- given enough grass roots agitation. That’s what
happened in the 1980s, with grass roots groups like SERA doing much of the foot
work. While, sadly, on nuclear, it may seem that we are back where we were in
the 1980s, starting all over again to build opposition, the rapid growth of
renewables, and their continuing cost reductions, does change the situation.
For
a full account of the twists and turns of Trade Union and Labour Party policy
on nuclear power in the 1980s, see the series of OU Technology Policy Group
reports I produced: TPG Occasional Papers No. 4 (1981), 14 (1987) and 17
(1988). I can supply copies.
