Wednesday 22 April 2020

We need to “embrace nuclear” to get to net zero

We need to “embrace nuclear” to get to net zero

Building big things is going to be the way we get to net zero and that includes nuclear, so tough choices lie ahead.

That's the forecast from Peter King, Head of Energy and Utilities at Capgemini Invent. In a fascinating chat he delivered in soothing tones, a view of a future where we need to realise our net zero ambition needs commitment and an open mind.

Net nuclear?

One area that's often ignored is the importance of nuclear in the net zero argument and Peter believes we would be foolish to think we can achieve our goal without it.

"If we're going to shift away from fossil fuels, then we need to move to renewables. So we either need to build millions of windfarms or we need to embrace nuclear, or perhaps both," he said.

"Our calculations say we've currently between 10-20 nuclear power stations in the UK, they're all coming to the end of their life. Just to maintain existing demand we'll need to build 20 more but if we're switching off oil and gas at the same time, we need to build 20 more.

"So we are now at 40 but it's not always windy and it's not always sunny, so now we're at 50. France has got 58 nuclear power stations, so we as a society need to accept that we need to make some tough decisions."

Big infrastructure?

So to get to net zero do we still need to build big things?

"Unfortunately yes.

"I'm really intrigued by the people who don't think we need really large scale industrial infrastructure. The work we've done says it's just not possible for the individual to move at the pace that would be required.

"As much energy flows through a gas interconnector as flows through the entire electricity network in the UK. So we need to replace that energy somehow. That's not going to happen on an individual level, we need massive investment into that. It might be nuclear, it might be wind. It needs to be a mixed view of those."

Regulatory shift?

Peter also believes that small scale local distributed energy networks, community energy schemes and off-grid storage has a cruical role to play but only if the government has a rethink on regulations.

"If you want to participate in the energy retail business in the UK at the moment, you have to sign up to thousands of pages of regulations. Even if you want to set up a small peer-to-peer energy network in your local town, you've signed up to massive amounts of regulation and that's just not right.

"The government needs to move, the private sector also needs to come in and say we want to take that role. Then between the two of them, we can accelerate the pace of change.

"There will be lots of businesses out there who want to set up small scale battery, small scale EV and community energy projects and at the moment the legislation is very restrictive on that.

"There are some good reasons for that, as we don't want cowboys running our energy network but, the whole rulebook applying to everybody needs to change."

We also discussed the changing mindset of business and consumers post coronavirus and the positioning of the UK as a potential world leader in net zero. Watch the full conversation to find out more.

Written by

Bruna Pinhoni

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