Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: N/A
Date: 09/05/2011
Event: Lord Adair Turner on moderating renewables targets for 2020
People:
Justin Webb: There's plenty of wind out to sea, and it's there to be used, harnessed as part of our low-carbon future, so many believe. But the independent body that advises the Government, on climate change has suggested that Government plans to spend billions on offshore wind right away might be a mistake. Too costly, when compared with nuclear power and other sources of low-carbon energy. Lord Turner is chairman of the Committee on Climate Change and joins us on the line now. Good morning to you.
Adair Turner: Good morning.
Justin Webb: And you're not saying don't do it ever, you're just saying don't do it at the moment.
Adair Turner: Well, we are saying do it at the moment. We are suggesting that one might slightly moderate the targets for 2020 whilst simultaneously putting in some pretty stretching targets for 2030.
Justin Webb: Why moderate?
Adair Turner: The danger is if you try to go too fast too quick [sic] you simply increase the cost of doing it. Um, and the offshore wind at the moment is more expensive than either onshore or nuclear. We think that the cost may well come down over time with new generations of turbines and cost reductions. So we are still committed. We are still arguing for stretching targets for 2020 but we think that if we just cap, take a little bit off the top of those targets in 2020 while combining those with stretching targets for 2030, we will have better, more coherent signals for the supply chain -
Justin Webb: What do you do instead, though? If you're not going to build offshore, if you're not going to do it right now, then what do you do instead? The same thing onshore?
Adair Turner: Let's be clear, there's nothing in what we said which has said "don't do offshore", I mean what one's talking about is maybe 15 to 20 per cent less offshore than one otherwise would. If we're going to do that, and still meet the 2020 targets for renewable energy, which we've agreed with the EU, you'd have to balance that with some more onshore, or with for instance the purchase of a low-carbon, er, electricity, for instance, from concentrated solar-powered systems in the, er, Sahara, or things like that, so you'd have to balance it. It's not actually a clear, straightforward recommendation that we're making - it's not our job to actually tell Government precisely what to do, but we are pointing out that it is offshore, it's the scale of the increase in offshore over the next ten years, in particular, which is just driving in particular the increases in electricity prices -
Justin Webb: Well exactly, and what a lot of people are going to say - opponents of this form of energy supply - is that actually it was always unrealistic, it was always hugely expensive and we, the payers of electricity bills, are being asked unrealistically to subsidise it.
Adair Turner: Well, I don't think that is true in the long term. First of all, onshore wind, to the extent that people are willing to accept it, in visual impact terms, is increasingly becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuels, and if people were willing to accept a bit more onshore, versus offshore, wind, that would reduce the cost -
Justin Webb: But that's the quid pro quo -
Adair Turner - but secondly, but secondly, the offshore costs are extremely likely to come down, which is why it should be part of the portfolio. And our key message today is: people say "How do you deal with climate change on the electricity side - do you use nuclear? So you use offshore wind? Do you use carbon capture and storage?" The answer is that we've got to have a portfolio, where we're investing in all three.
Justin Webb: Hmm. Nuclear unrealistic, though, following Fukushima?
Adair Turner: I don't think so. There's an interesting poll out today, a Populus public opinion poll, which shows that there is continued support. And I think that reflects people's realistic understanding that what's happened in Fukushima is: you've got a very old nuclear generator design on an earthquake zone. That doesn't immediately read over to the safety characteristics of the latest design of nuclear plant in a non-earthquake zone. Now obviously, that is something that the chief nuclear safety inspector is going to look at very carefully, but I don't think what's happened in Japan should be treated as a knockout factor.
Justin Webb: Just very briefly, the Cabinet's got to decide, hasn't it, soon, whether it accepts recommendations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60%, that's 60% on 1990 levels, by 2030. That's the recommendation -
Adair Turner: Yes.
Justin Webb: - of your body. How important is that?
Adair Turner: We think it's very important. We think this is a real test of the credibility of the UK's commitments to carbon reductions. We've made those commitments in Parliament, through the Climate Change Act. This is really the first point where we say "Are we serious or not?"
Justin Webb: Thank you very much, Lord Turner.
Adair Turner: Thank you.