UK ENERGY NEEDS

Intro: Britain is facing a pressing problem in coping with its complex energy demands

DELAYS to the construction of the controversial Hinkley point raises a number of important questions on how the UK might meet its future energy needs. Pressingly, as the UK searches for options in how its future baseload power can be met without heavily polluting the environment, a solution in bridging the energy-gap will soon be required.

Britain is facing a pressing problem in coping with its complex energy demands. It needs to provide extra energy to meet rising demands for power in the future but at a reasonable cost – while also reducing carbon emissions by considerable levels in order to meet its climate change commitments. This will not be an easy combination to achieve. Hinkley Point, however, was considered by many experts to be a crucial determinant in reaching these goals.

Equipped with a massive 3.2bn watt capacity, Hinkley Point C has capacity in providing 7% of the nation’s electricity if completed. That would help to generate the power that would keep the nation working while renewable energy sources, mainly wind turbines, would provide the rest of the electricity needed by domestic households and firms. As one spokesperson from the Grantham Research Institute said: ‘You have to have some baseload source to provide power when it is utterly calm and renewables are not providing energy . . . Gas and coal plants – which can also supply that baseload – will no longer be viable in the future because of their carbon emissions (which cause global warming). You are then left with nuclear.’

This dilemma exposes a major drawback that affects renewable energy. Wind and solar plants are intermittent power supplies. They often provide power when it is not needed but fail to provide it when it is most needed. Until a method of storing energy on an industrial scale is developed, this drawback will continue to impede its deployment across the country. Research into ways to store energy on a large scale is now being pursued across the globe but may take decades. Other game-changing energy projects are also being worked on.

One of the most important of these future developments is fusion power (see annotation below).  This aims to recreate the process that provides the Sun with its energy. Nuclei of hydrogen atoms are fused together at colossal temperature inside huge reactors to create helium nuclei. The process also creates vast amounts of excess energy but with little pollution or radioactive contamination. Nonetheless, current devices – in particular, the international ITER fusion reactor, being built as a collaborative programme in France with British involvement – are years behind schedule and vastly over budget. Few experts believe fusion will get us out of our current energy problem.

Alternatively, we could continue to utilise carbon capture and storage (CCS), a process which uses fossil fuel plants which takes their carbon dioxide emissions, liquefies them and pumps them underground into porous rocks. Furthermore, Britain has huge, empty North Sea oil fields which many geologists and energy experts believe would be ideal for storing liquefied carbon dioxide. Several test projects were set up in recent years, with the government pledging to provide funding of up to £1bn. In November last year, though, it abruptly cancelled the programme, halting work on all major CCS projects. As devastating that announcement was to those engaged in development work, such technology is critical for the UK’s economic, industrial and climate policies.

Annotation:

A fusion reaction involves the combining (or fusing) of two or more atoms to make one single atom. Fusion reactions are the ones which power our stars. In a simple fusion reaction shown, two isotopes of hydrogen combine to form one atom of helium.