Lords Sitting of 1 February 1978

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Salisbury.

THE CUSTODIANS' UNIFORM AND BADGES
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask the Chairman of Committees at whose request are changes being made in the uniform and badges worn by the House of Lords Custodians.
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, the changes being made in the uniform and badges worn by the Custodians are consequential to the integration of the Custodian force into the Metropolitan Police.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he can give a rather better Answer than that? This Question has nothing to do with security; it deals with man management. Can he say what is the advantage of changing the well-known badges on the uniform which these men proudly wore and putting a label on their shoulders, unless it is to show that they are lesser mortals in the eyes of some? Can he not give an assurance that, even if we cannot continue exactly as we were, at least there will not be labels on their shoulders distinguishing them in this way?
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, the Custodians' uniform is different from that of the police. I do not think it demeans their status; I think that perhaps it even enhances it to have "Metropolitan Police Security Officer" on their shoulders—which equates with other security officers in the Police Force. I am quite sure that the integration is in the interests of the security of the Palace of Westminster.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I say that I never in any way criticised the need for integration operationally, and that I am simply asking the noble Lord to look again at these changes in uniform which seem quite purposeless and are not always altogether popular?
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, I think that opinions vary about this. I have had other views expressed to me. I know that change is never very pleasant to anybody and especially a change in uniforms; but I think that those of your Lordships who have seen the new uniform will not feel that it is other than a dignified uniform. I may add that we are all conscious of the excellent service that we get from the Custodians.
Lord PARGITER: My Lords, may I ask whether the staff were consulted in connection with the change?
Lord ABERDARE: Yes, my Lords, they were. The changes were accepted by the Civil Service Union and no indication has been given that the men's local representative or the union headquarters have any objection.

CONDUCT IN PUBLIC LIFE: SALMON REPORT
2.37 p.m.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made in the consideration of the Salmon Report on Standards of Conduct in Public Life.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, our consultations with interested bodies on the Royal Commission's proposals as a whole have produced many helpful and constructive comments, which are now being studied by my right honourable friends who have responsibility for various aspects of the Commission's report. This is a major task which will take some time to complete.

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Meanwhile, I hope to be able shortly to inform the House of the action we are taking on one matter arising from the Royal Commission's report on which legislation is not required. This is the question of special police procedures for handling allegations of corruption, a subject dealt with in Part IV of the report. New procedures have now been worked out in consultation with chief officers of police, which I hope can be introduced in the near future.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he can feel satisfied with that reply? Does he recall the panic stations that the Government went to during the Poulson scandals of 1974 and the hurried setting up of the Redcliffe-Maud Committee? That Committee's report was immediately referred to the Salmon Commission, which was set up in December 1974 and reported in July 1976. The matter was debated in this House a year ago and only the first beginnings of action are being taken today. May I ask my noble friend when we may see concrete proposals brought before both Houses of Parliament to implement the main recommendations of the Royal Commission?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I cannot give a specific date; but it would be wrong to suggest that this is the first action which has been taken as a result of the Royal Commission's report. I can give another example. That is on the question of selection of contractors and consultants, which was the subject of another recommendation of the Royal Commission, and on which the Department of the Environment issued advice in the summer of last year as to procurement procedure. It would be foolish of me to suggest that it would be possible to give a firm date. We want to make as much progress as swiftly as is possible, but this is a highly complicated matter and legislation will inevitably be involved.
Lord PANNELL: My Lords, will the Government start from the view that there is very little corruption in public life compared with the good old days? Corruption really means the falling away from standards which were once high. Perhaps the Government or the Home
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Secretary can tell us the high point from which we are presumed to have fallen.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I do not think thet even my right honourable friend could answer that particular question. Nevertheless, I think that we accept that there is a real problem here and it is dealt with in the report of the Royal Commission. Action is being taken on a number of recommendations which will not require legislation, but, inevitably, legislation will take quite a long time to prepare.

BROADCASTING OF PROCEEDINGS
2.40 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when it is intended that the broadcasting of proceedings in this House is to begin, and what further preparatory steps have to be taken in the meantime.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Pearl): My Lords, the preparatory steps which have to be taken before regular sound broadcasting of Parliamentary proceedings can begin are that the work on the temporary accommodation for the broadcasters in No. 1 Bridge Street has to be completed, and a decision has still to be taken on the appropriate form of Parliamentary oversight of these broadcasts. Work on No. 1 Bridge Street is progressing according to plan and, subject to Parliamentary agreement, I would hope that regular broadcasts could begin immediately after the Easter Recess.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord the Leader of the House for that Answer, may I ask whether he is aware that this Question was put down a good time ago and before the relevant debate in the other place? May I ask him also whether it would be possible to start broadcasting from this House even if for reasons—possibly of shortage of time—it is not possible to get agreement in another place on the exact form of the oversight there?
Lord PEART: My Lords, I cannot accept that. I know that the Motion was talked out in another place, but I am fairly certain that they will deal with this issue effectively. I think the plan on which we have agreement will go through.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, may I pursue that point? I took part in the debate upon the construction of the booth in the Press Gallery and the experiment which followed. Will the noble Lord make it clear that, whatever happens in another place, and if they revise what happened the other day, the decision in this House will be a separate one, and that when he said that Parliamentary approval is required, he did not mean the approval of both Houses?
Lord PEART: My Lords, we ought to act jointly on this. There was the desire to set up a Joint Committee. I do not think that we should start to quibble about matters in another place which, I think, will be resolved sensibly. So long as we fulfill the programme, that is what we want.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, will the noble Lord bear in mind that this House has always taken a rather more progressive and far-sighted view about broadcasting than another place? Whereas it would be desirable that we should wait, must we always wait for the slow coaches in another place when we have an opportunity to start broadcasting our proceedings to people all over the country?
Lord PEART: My Lords, I must admit that I was always called a reactionary on this issue. Since I have been here for a short period, I am prepared to accept that we need to broadcast proceedings from this House. Of course I believe that the broadcasting of this House will show to the British people that this House has an important place in our Constitution.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, will the noble Lord bear in mind that the longer the delay is, the better pleased I shall be, because I do not want it done at all?
Lord PEART: My Lords, may I say to my reactionary noble friend from the area I once represented, the North East, that this matter has to go through.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, would the noble Lord be so kind as to confirm that it is the Government's firm intention to reintroduce the Motion that was talked out the other day in another place in time for broadcasting to start when it was supposed to start, immediately after Easter?
Lord PEART: My Lords, I think they will act. I am certain that there will be agreement on this.
Lord MAELOR: My Lords, will the Minister agree that this preparation is a waste of good money in view of the fact that the Labour Party Conference decided to abolish the House of Lords?
Lord PEART: My Lords, that is another question.
Lord PANNELL: My Lords, does the noble Lord think that the broadcasting of our proceedings will help to abolish this place?
Lord PEART: No, my Lords. The debates in this Chamber—and my noble friend is an asset to this Chamber—are of a different kind. We are going to have an energy debate later and we shall have contributions from distinguished experts who are Members of this Chamber. I think this will be to everyone's advantage.

HUMAN RIGHTS: THE USSR AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA
2.46 p.m.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have sought positive assurances from the Soviet and Czechosolvak Governments that they will cease persecuting members of monitoring groups and other individuals who draw public attention to breaches of the promises made about human rights and personal freedom by their Governments at the Helsinki Conference; and, if so, with what results.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, the British delegation at the Belgrade meeting is pressing strongly for the inclusion of appropriate wording in the concluding document which is now under discussion at Belgrade, endorsing the principle that organisations and individuals have a clear role in the implementation of the Helsinki Final Act. If this could be achieved it would be a big step forward in the direction desired by the noble Lord.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I am very grateful indeed for that encouraging and forthcoming reply. May I ask whether the noble Lord thinks it doubly important that this should be done, bearing in mind that all the original signatories of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, and many leading citizens in the Soviet Union and several other Warsaw bloc countries, have been imprisoned or forced into exile? That is of course totally contrary to the letter and spirit of the Helsinki Agreement where human rights are concerned.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, certainly the noble Lord reinforces the views put forward by the British delegation at Belgrade. It would be extremely unfortunate and might have serious consequences on détente itself if certain prosecutions or persecutions were engaged in during the session in Belgrade or after it. We have made this view very clear to all Governments who might be concerned.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister this, while passionately agreeing with the purpose of the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood: Is it not the case that we are more likely to influence the situation in the Soviet Union by the kind of persuasion that has been expressed by the British delegation at Belgrade than by aggressive confrontation? For example, is not this shown by the decision of the Soviet Union to lift the ban on BBC broadcasting in the Soviet Union? Are there not many other issues which were raised at Belgrade which are being satisfactorily progressed which might be prejudiced if an attitude of abrasive confrontation were taken?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords. I am quite sure that my noble friend is right when he says that the technique and tone of discussion in Belgrade was rightly one of non-confrontation, however robust it was in defence and in the promotion of the rights and purposes that we all have at heart. I agree entirely with him that, in expressing our disappointment at the meagre progress made in certain directions so far in these exchanges, we must not lose sight of certain advances which have been made. He has instanced one or two this afternoon.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister this: Is it not true to say that abrasive confrontation is part of the Soviet propaganda and not part of our propaganda at all? Would the Minister not agree that certainly in the United Nations—from where I have just returned—this is definitely so? I might add that we keep too low a profile on these matters.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, this is, in the end, a matter of judgment. I think it is within the recollection of the House that, in the last two years or so leading up to the meetings in Belgrade, I have constantly stated on behalf of Her Majesty's Government that it was our intention, which we have carried out—but there are deeper feelings, as evinced by my noble friend—to present solid argumentation, rather than engage in sterile polemics. That attitude was progressively and comprehensively accepted by our friends and allies in the Nine, and was faithfully carried out by them. So it is a fair consensus of view in Western democracy that this is the right way to go about this kind of conference. We shall see what comes out finally from the conference. We shall not accept a purely cosmetic document. We shall insist on there being a substantive, concluding document and we are working on that now. But we shall see what comes out of it, and look forward, possibly, to a continuing discussion and another meeting of the Belgrade type in some other venue in, perhaps, two years' time, with constant work in the interim on these grave and very difficult, but fundamentally important, matters.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, would the Minister agree that there has been a

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slight movement in the right direction in Eastern European countries? Perhaps the Minister will allow me to inform him of a visit of young Conservatives in the Federation of Conservative Students, who were recently given the podium at a youth meeting in Budapest where their speeches were very much welcomed. Would the Minister encourage this kind of activity among youth movements, where so much good work can be done?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords. Indeed, I very much welcome the contribution of young Conservatives to European détente. I am sure that, in so doing, nobody would wish to accuse the young Conservatives of bearing a low profile, of being less enthusiastic than the rest of us on behalf of human rights, or less critical than the rest of us of the enormities of totalitarian systems. I very much welcome that information and I wish them well in the future, if I may recoin a judicial phrase. On the fundamental importance of the noble Baroness's supplementary question, which is an extremely prescient one, it is undoubtedly a fact that the mere holding of this kind of European conference yields dividends for the West. This is a democratic process and therefore must support democracy. To get totalitarians—and I am not mincing words—to a democratic process of discussion, even though we do not emerge with major agreement, is in itself of historic importance and we must not underestimate it.
I repeat what I said in reply to my noble friend. It is absolutely vital that we maintain a posture—one may like to call it a low profile—of democratic argumentation, rather than one of special propagandist pleading, because we are addressing ourselves not only to systems and Governments which are basically unwilling to come to agreement with us, but also to an element in the world and in Europe—the neutral and non-aligned. As I see it, this is the second great gain for the democractic West from what has happened in Belgrade; that is, that there has been an increasing accord between the Western democratic nations and the nations of the neutral and non-aligned world. That is a very great gain indeed.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the great satisfaction
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that will be felt at the fact that the British Government have taken the initiative in Belgrade, and proposed amendments to the Final Act which will give the right to groups and individuals to monitor the Final Act? This is a very great step forward. Will the Minister, though, bear in mind that, whatever the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, says, outspokenness on human rights has its place in relations between the East and the West, as well as in behind the scenes diplomacy? Does he not agree that it would be very difficult, for instance, for us in Britain to see the Helsinki Agreement as having very much of a future, so long as individuals such as Anatoli Sharansky, Yuri Orlov and Alexander Ginsburg, who are in prison for the only crime of trying to monitor the Final Act, remain in prison and are put on trial for this so-called crime?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I take once more the opportunity, on behalf not only of this side of the House but of Her Majesty's Government, of denouncing and deploring profoundly any legal or quasi-legal action against the kind of dissidence that the noble Lord has mentioned. I say that again. As to being outspoken, there is a time and a place for being outspoken, and I am sure that advice is hardly necessary to be handed to my noble friend who is always outspoken, who has been as outspoken as any of us about infringements of basic human rights wherever they occur, and who has a splendid record of active protest against these enormities, whether in the East or in the West.
Lord DUNCAN-SANDYS: My Lords, in view of the noble Lord's earlier reply, in which he somewhat widened the Question to include the non-aligned world, and, again, in view of the last question, may I ask him whether Her Majesty's Government will do something to give a lead to try to bring an end to the fearful hypocrisy and double standards in judging human rights which are applied in the United Nations and elsewhere?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, indeed, my Lords, This is a continuing concern, and we should welcome every help from any quarter in order to evolve a sustainable, consistent and practical policy. I have said more than once that we find ourselves obliged—and I think

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that this would apply to any Government—to apply principle and practice case by case, country by country. There is a shifting sand of basic performance by countries and systems which overtakes even the most clear-cut governmental decision as to policy, and it is a continuing matter to restore, to refurbish, our policy in this regard. May I take advantage of what the noble Lord has said and say that I fundamentally agree with him, and also may I add to what I said to the House in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. We have taken the initiative in some 20 amendments during the Belgrade meeting, and I mean that the British initiative has been very marked indeed. There have been other amendments which we did not feel we could support, but 20 very important amendments owe very much to the activity of the permanent British delegation, so ably led by Ambassador Parsons, and among those initiatives are some designed to further the purpose of the Question put by the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, this afternoon.

EEC:MEETING OF FISHERIES MINISTERS
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Oram will repeat a Statement on the European Community's Fisheries Ministers' meeting.

ENERGY: ALTERNATIVE SOURCES
2.58 p.m.
Lord WYNNE-JONES Lord WYNNE-JONES rose to call attention to the importance of developing alternative sources of energy; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in putting a Motion like this before your Lordships, I naturally lay myself open to the question: What is meant by the word "alternative"? I think I know this House sufficiently well to appreciate that if I give a definition no one else will pay any attention to it, and that your Lordships are extremely adept at turning any Motion in the direction in which you wish to it go.
I would say that the word "alternative" was meant to call attention particularly to those sources of energy which have not been conventionally used on any large scale. This is fairly wide, and "alternative" obviously changes its meaning as time goes on. Also I want to call attention to the fact that there are certain sources of energy which might be alternatively used—that is to say, not used simply as sources of energy. They might, indeed, be better employed in other ways. That is the general significance of the wording of the Motion, but I leave it to your Lordships to decide what to do with it.
If one goes back historically one finds that energy in different forms has been supplied from a variety of sources. Wood was certainly used at one time, and also wind and water power. Later we carbonised wood; we had charcoal. Then we used coal. It is interesting to notice that whenever such changes take place there are also changes in manufacture. For example, I believe that glassworking in this country was originally carried out to a very large extent in the Forest of Dean. This was because the Forest contained a plentiful supply of wood. Charcoal was used for the furnaces in which the sand and alkali were melted in order to make glass. I believe that originally many Huguenots worked in the Forest of Dean. Then the local population decided that they did not like the environmental consequences of the wood being chopped down, so there was pressure to drive away these foreign glassmakers from the Forest of Dean. Then they went up to Newcastle where coal was available.
For a certain period—it was not a very long period and lasted only about 100 years—the glass industry in Newcastle was extremely important not only for making glass for ordinary commercial purposes but also for making excellent artistic wares. The Newcastle tumbler is quite famous. It is a very elegant type of glass, with two or more knops on the stem. Newcastle glass is scarcely made now. In other words, a whole industry moved up to one part of the country but has now almost disappeared from that area. These movements occur as a consequence of the availability of energy. In other words, energy is crucial to the whole working of our manufacturing system and, indeed, to our daily life.
It is important to note something else about energy. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I am a little academic at this point, but I notice that at times people use the word "energy" in ways which I do not regard as quite legitimate or at least appropriate for reasonable discussion. While it is true that all forms of energy can be regarded as equivalent, they are not interconvertible and the lack of interconvertibility of the different forms of energy is rather important.
May I differentiate heat, which is a low form of energy, from what I should like to call energy proper. From an energy point of view, heat is of very little use unless it can be raised to a sufficiently high temperature. If, for example, one has the equivalent of a bath full of hot water at the top of a skyscraper one can obtain more energy out of that water by allowing it to drive a turbine and fall down to the ground than one can obtain from the heat in a bath of water. In other words, the heat is of a low grade and from a high energy point of view is a rather useless form of energy, whereas energy like electricity is very useful indeed.
I believe that we tend to mix up the two things. People often speak about how waste heat can be used for all sorts of purposes. All one can do with heat is to keep the temperature of a house a little above the outside temperature, to warm the water for one's bath and things of that kind. Certainly one could not drive a vacuum cleaner, or work a washing machine, or drive an electric saw with heat. That is to say, there are very many things which we cannot do with heat alone; we require what I am referring to as energy. Therefore noble Lords will forgive me if, somewhat pedantically, I emphasise that there is a difference between low-grade energy or heat and high-grade energy, and that one cannot convert low-grade energy or heat into high-grade energy on a one-to-one basis.
When people speak about the efficiency of a power station being only 30 per cent., one must remember that it is impossible for it to be more than approximately 30 per cent. efficient. Its efficiency is governed by the second law of thermodynamics, which lays down quite clearly that it is the temperature which decides how
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much heat can be turned into useful energy. If a great deal of heat is discharged from a power station it can be discharged only at a low temperature, and that is useful only for warming purposes; and it is not altogether useful in that way unless you are able to transport the heat. Therefore I am really concerned with energy, although heat is part of the problem.
If we look back over a period of only 30 years we see that the main source of energy in this country was coal. We had a very bad winter in 1947. Many noble Lords will recollect that the winter was so severe that there was an overall shortage of heating. The Government asked the late Lord Ridley to investigate the problem of coal supplies. When the Ridley Report was published, a production target of about 250 million tons of coal per annum was laid down for this country alone. It is interesting to note that that figure of 250 million tons of coal per annum is now the target for the whole of the European Economic Community by 1985. That is the extent of the change which has taken place.
Today we are producing only half of the amount of coal that was the target 30 years ago. The reason for this is that cheap oil became available. More recently, nuclear power has been introduced, but not yet on any large scale. Most of our energy has been supplied by coal and oil, but to a steadily diminishing extent by coal. This has created enormous problems for the country, and it is as well that we should appreciate the problems which are created by these changes.
May I suggest that it is it little irresponsible to speak about Governments not having plans for energy. It his been almost impossible to have plans, for the very simple reason that no one knew what source of energy would be available next. Thirty years ago, there was not a nuclear power station in the world. Nuclear power on an actual commercial scale linked to a grid was first produced in this country, although I believe that the Russians had a station at almost the same time, but it was a smaller station. Nuclear power can now be produced in a way that it could not be produced at that time, and today nuclear power is

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cheaper than either coal or oil for generating electricity. It is cheaper to use a nuclear reactor and to have nuclear fuel than to use coal or oil. Of course this does not take into account one important factor, which is the immense amount of effort and the enormous resources that have gone into developing nuclear power; and one might well ask whether one would not have had as good results from coal if even a tenth of the resources that have been devoted to doing research on nuclear energy had been put into research on the uses of coal. Even today, in my opinion, we are not putting anything like enough in the way of resources into research work into both the winning and the use of coal.
So we are faced here with problems which vary continuously with time and it will certainly take a genius—which I am not—to predict what the position will be in 20 years' time and possibly in 10 years' time. It is pure guesswork to make such predictions. But one can notice the trends which are taking place and one can ask whether sufficient effort is being put into different directions in order to ensure that we have energy available when we want it.
The position is made a little strange, perhaps, by the fact that ever since 1973 we have been talking about an energy crisis and the risk of not having enough energy. In fact, the European Commission at Brussels put forward a scheme in 1974 in which it proposed that the dependence of Europe upon oil should drop to 50 per cent. by the 1980s; that we should have a much smaller reliance upon oil. Yet previously our dependence on oil was steadily increasing. The question is, how do we go about this? The Commission proposed a scheme of absolute reliance upon nuclear energy. Your Lordships may recollect that, some time ago, we debated a report from your Lordships' Committee on the Community legislation in which it was pointed out that the European Commission's proposals were quite impracticable. Indeed, they themselves have now admitted that and said that we cannot have the reliance upon nuclear energy which at the time they suggested.
But there is a consequence. If we do not get energy from nuclear power to the
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extent that was hoped, then do we get it from coal? We have already been running down our coal industry. The coal industry of Europe is almost completely run down. The coal industry of the Netherlands has gone, the coal industry of Belgium has gone, the coal industry of France has virtually gone, the coal industry of Germany is producing very much less than it could and they are still running it down. Our coal industry has also been run down but we are the only country which has kept up a substantial coal industry. Therefore, the alternative must be oil for a lot of Europe. That takes us back to where we started, the oil crisis. It is interesting that in today's Times there is an article from their energy correspondent referring to this problem and the consequence for the coal industry. It is a very interesting point. I called attention to it briefly in a supplementary question the other day, but here it is very clearly stated:
"An apparent abundance of all forms of energy at relatively low prices is jeopardising the European Community's objective of maintaining coal production at between 250 and 255 million tonnes by 1985".
Here we are in a most extraordinary situation; that is, that although the price of oil has gone up, the availability of oil is now so wide that, if we are not careful, by 1985 it will almost certainly be cheaper to buy oil than to buy coal, although at the present time the price of oil has risen above coal. If this kind of thing goes on, it can mean that all the plans that have been made for stimulating the coal industry may founder.
In addition to that, Europe as a whole is today importing something like 45 million tonnes of coal per annum from outside the Community. In the development of coal, we are really in a situation which I find astonishing and indeed dangerous. Everyone realises that by the end of this century we shall be needing coal extensively because oil will have reached a plateau of production and will almost certainly be on the downgrade. Therefore oil will become less and less available after the turn of the century. One cannot predict the exact time; one does not know exactly what the resources are, but one has a reasonable idea. Coal will be there in plenty, but if we have run down our coal industry between now and the end of the century it will mean an enormous investment in order to develop the coalmines

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which have been run down or not brought into use; the cost is very large. I believe the cost of developing the Selby coalfield is of the order of £3,000 million. That is for developing one coalfield with a production of 40 million tonnes of coal. That is much more than the cost of building a nuclear power station, but it is so important to realise that our problems are by no means over.
Lord LOVAT: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, could he perhaps dwell for a moment on hydro-electricity? I speak advisedly on this, as at the moment we have 20 ft. of snow in Scotland and when it melts all that will be flowing through dams in the Highlands.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: Yes, my Lords I certainly will. I apologise because I have taken rather too long in talking about the problem of coal. I intended to come to the other question, but I thought it was important to refer to coal because coal is almost moving out from being a main source to being an alternative source of energy. I thought it was worth while calling attention to the problems with which we are faced with regard to coal.
To come back to the other alternative sources, I gladly agree that the other ones, such as hydro-electricity, are important. But this is where we have to be a little careful. We have to ask ourselves whether we are speaking about minor additional supplies or major supplies. If we are talking about competing with nuclear energy it has to be major. Nothing less than something of the order of the equivalent of 40 or 50 million tons of coal per year is in that league.
So far as hydro-electricity is concerned, there are places where it is important, but I am sure the noble Lord will agree that, whereas there are a few places, especially in Scotland, where it can be used, the best of those have already been developed, and to go further would probably produce relatively little for fairly considerable expense. I think that in any case no new technique is required; the techniques are well-known. Consequently it is largely a matter for evaluation by the Electricity Generating Board as to where they think it is appropriate to do it. I quite agree that it should not be neglected.
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Other sources are well worth bearing in mind. One is tidal energy. Reference is often made to this, and there are one or two places in the world where tidal energy is being used; for example, in France, the Rance estuary—for nearly 20 years they have had a scheme for using tidal energy, and it has been very successful. It has often been proposed—I think going back to the last century—that we should use the estuary of the Severn by building a barrage there and employing that. This is on a totally different scale, I should say, from Rance. I believe it would be about 50 times as great in production of energy as the Rance scheme.
It looks attractive. There is a very high tide; it is the highest tide in Europe. I think it is about 8.8 metres, which is pretty considerable. I think the biggest in the world is at the Bay of Fundy, about 10½ metres, but the Severn tide is very considerable. It has been carefully investigated. In fact, the Department of Energy has produced one of these booklets on it, and it has gone into it in very considerable detail. The figures which are given there are quite interesting. This investigation was carried out by a Netherlands research group who are very familiar with the problems of building barrages at sea. They come to the conclusion that a barrage could be built from Lavernock Point—which is between Cardiff and Barry—across to Brean Down, which is close to Weston-Super-Mare. This barrage raises problems because the tide is such that apparently they could not use caissons, which are the floating type of support; they would have to have enormous concrete pillars. It is estimated that the cost of this at 1977 prices would be £4,000 million, and the estimated energy produced would be equivalent to 2 million tons of coal per annum.
This is a valuable addition, but when you bear in mind that in 1975 our Generating Board consumed the equivalent of 109 million tons of coal per annum, you see that the Severn barrage would add 2 per cent. to our electricity supply and would cost £4,000 million. It would also have environmental effects which no one fully understands, but one of the effects is certain; that is, that it would alter the tide all the way up the Irish Sea even as far as Morecambe Bay, and apparently the tide would be raised by

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about 1 ft.—the mean tide would be raised by about 1 ft. in Cardigan Bay and would be raised by 6 in. in Morecambe Bay, which is an enormous distance away. So one can see that the environmental consequences are not simple; one does not have a full idea of what would happen. I would add that, whereas Morecambe Bay could be used, the scale is much less than for the Severn, and in addition to that I believe that the silting of the small harbours around Morecambe Bay, if a barrage was built, would be quite serious.
If one looks at some of the other sources, one which is often referred to is wind power. This is quite natural because a great deal of wind is available. But the trouble is that the wind is most readily available on hilltops. If you covered all the hilltops of the country with windmills I think there might be a considerable outcry from a lot of environmentalists; and I would not blame them, because I would not like it myself. But a calculation has been made about this: it is that if we had 3,000 aero-generators—they do not call them windmills nowadays; they call them aero-generators—on hilltops, and another 7,000 on open sites, and assuming an average wind velocity of 14½ knots on the hilltops and 10½ knots on the other sites, then, if this were continuous, they would produce enough electricity to save 8 million tons of coal per annum. So you can see that even that is still not up to the 40 or 50 million tons I have mentioned.
This is our problem wherever we look. Wherever we look for alternative sources of energy we find that they just do not produce the quantity we will require—with one exception. I do not want to go into it in detail, more especially as I know my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder during last week was able to make detailed inquiries in the University of Edinburgh about this. It is wave motion, not tidal motion. There the estimate is very interesting, because whereas wind is variable wave motion is practically the same all the year round. You may get much bigger waves and so on, but you always have wave motion, and the amount of energy in the waves is enormous. It is reckoned—figures cannot be exact at the moment, but they are the best I have been able to get—that with an adequate development of wave motion, using what are called
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little ducts which flip backwards and forwards on the sea, one would be able to get the equivalent of something like 60 million tons of coal per annum. There we are up into the right region. Therefore, it seems to me from my examination of the situation that that is the one alternative form of energy which will be of great value to us, if the technical problems are solved. I do not want to mislead your Lordships; the problems are not yet solved, either those of production or those of distribution. If they were solved, then there indeed we have a valuable source of energy which could play a very important part, fully equivalent to the part that is expected of nuclear energy.
If I might for one brief moment refer once more to coal. May I remind your Lordships that coal, like oil, is something very precious for the production of chemicals. Our whole petro-chemical industry is at present dependent upon oil, but there was a time when that sort of industry was dependent on coal. I can remember when at the ICI Works at Billingham there was an enormous plant for coking coal for the company's own purposes. That plant has entirely disappeared because they found they could get oil more cheaply; they could put it on a smaller site and distribution was easier, so they have gone over to oil entirely. But when oil is not there then coal will come into its own.
Therefore, I would ask Her Majesty's Government to pay enormous attention to the development of these alternatives—alternatives of uses as well as alternatives of sources. The alternative use of coal is going to be quite vital for the future of this country and in this respect we are better off than most countries. It would be criminal if we did not develop it. I hope that in replying on this debate my noble friend will give us some encouragement, and I hope that something approaching the resources that have gone into the development of nuclear energy will now go into the development of these other forms of energy because it is vital for the future of this country. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.32 p.m.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I thought it would be for the convenience of the House if I intervened at the beginning in

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order to explain the Government's views of and reactions to the problems that have been raised by my noble friend. This is the second occasion on which I must congratulate my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones on his timing in raising a debate in the House. He brings to it a lot of knowledge and erudition; his experience in the field of chemistry and other matters makes him an expert on the subject and I think the House listened very carefully to his proposals.
In the very full and informative debate on energy policy that we had last May, I referred to the new initiatives being taken by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy in opening up the formulation of energy policy to wider public debate. Much has happened since that time. I therefore welcome the opportunity that my noble friend has provided for us to review recent events and to consider the Government's policy on the development of alternative energy sources.
In discussing alternative energy sources, I think it most desirable to include the question of energy conservation since, although it is not strictly an energy source, it can, for future planning purposes, be considered to be at least as effective as one. And the potential for energy saving through conservation measures and the development of more energy-efficient equipment and appliances is very large indeed. Accordingly, I shall refer later on to the Government's initiatives in the field of energy conservation.
In reviewing recent events, I should first mention the work of the Energy Commission. The Government seek to develop an integrated energy policy in a way that enables the widest possible range of interests to contribute. The holding of the National Energy Conference in June 1976 was one step in this direction; the setting up of a broadly based Energy Commission is another. The Commission, chaired by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy, held its first meeting at the end of November and had before it a working document on energy policy prepared by the Department of Energy.
It is the intention that this document, together with the Commission's comments
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on it, should form the basis of a Government Green Paper which will be published as a further step in the development of a long-term, co-ordinated and integrated energy policy for the United Kingdom. The working document fully recognises the potential long-term importance of the renewable sources mentioned by my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones—such as waves, sun, tides, winds and geothermal energy—as world reserves of fossil energy become scarcer.
Secondly, the House will be aware that, last September, the Select Committee on Science and Technology published its reports on the development of alternative sources of energy for the United Kingdom and on the exploitation of tidal power in the Severn Estuary. The Government are considering the Select Committee's conclusions and recommendations and will be giving their replies to both reports as soon as possible.
I should now like to turn to the Government's research and development programmes on renewable sources. Most renewable sources of energy are at an early stage of development. There are now substantial programmes of further work to establish whether they are feasible and acceptable and to help to make them competititive. Our purpose is to develop the potential of these renewable sources so that, one by one, they may become economically viable and attractive options. Once fully-engineered systems have become available for large scale exploitation, it will then be a matter for decision how large any investment programmes should be. As the current work yields results, expenditure will be increased to allow further development work to proceed as appropriate.
I would impress on the House the need to consider these alternative energy sources in the context of the country's total energy supplies. Important though they are, they must be seen in perspective. We have no proven reserves of uranium ore, but we have substantial reserves of oil and gas, and very large reserves of coal. Indeed, we can expect coal to continue as the cornerstone of our energy policy—as my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones stressed. The total known resources of coal in the United Kingdom are put at 190 billion tons, of which the Coal Board assess that 45 billion tons—or

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more than 300 years' life at current extraction rates—may ultimately be economically recoverable.
With present estimated recoverable oil reserves from the Continental Shelf equivalent to 5,000 to 7,000 million tons of coal and proven gas reserves equivalent to some 1,100 million tons of coal, with a further 900 million tons from probable and possible gas reserves, the United Kingdom can expect—even after the period of self-sufficiency is over—to have substantial indigenous energy reserves. As the House will know, we will have an option to go in for a fast breeder reactor programme for the supply of electricity. If we choose this path, then the reserves of depleted uranium resulting from past operations of our nuclear programmes will be worth the equivalent to some 40 billion tons of coal.
To date, the Government have announced programmes on renewable sources with projected expenditure of £10 million. We have made it clear—indeed, we have already demonstrated—that further funding will be provided where current research and development give encouraging indications and where increased Government expenditure on proving the engineering concepts appears appropriate. The sources being investigated are wave, tidal and wind energy—again referred to by my noble friend—which would be used to generate electricity, and solar and geothermal energy which could provide low grade heat for domestic and industrial application. Vegetable materials and biological waste which are being studied as part of the solar energy programme might be exploited to provide fluid fuels.
Wave energy offers great potential for the United Kingdom. In principle, some 1,000 kilometres of wave energy devices placed off the North-West of Britain could supply energy equivalent to about half of our present electricity requirement, which confirms the view of my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones. The original programme for £1 million over two years has been expanded to £2.5 million over two to three years because of favourable progress, to allow testing of more advanced devices of a larger scale size, and to permit investigation of related problems. Trials under representative sea
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conditions are proceeding in Loch Ness and the Solent, and the National Engineering Laboratory is conducting work in its wave tanks. Problems such as launching and servicing, and bringing power ashore, are being studied. The aim of the wave energy programme is to conduct trials of a full-scale prototype at sea by the mid-1980s.
The United Kingdom has one of the most suitable tidal power sites in the world in the Severn Estuary. Schemes currently proposed might provide energy equivalent to several million tons of coal annually. An appropriate project would take some 15–20 years to complete and would cost £3,000—£4,000 million. Studies commissioned by the Department of Energy on closing a barrage and its effect on the tidal range have recently been published and reviewed in Energy Paper No. 23. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy is considering them in the light of advice from his Advisory Council on Research and Development for Fuel and Power. But the Department of Energy has already initiated the collection of further data important to barrage design and construction, by the use of wave rider buoys.
I now turn to wind energy. The potential contribution of wind energy in the United Kingdom was reviewed for the Department of Energy by its Energy Technology Support Unit and published as Energy Paper No. 21. It indicates that the number of sites offering favourable wind conditions is limited. Sites are concentrated in the West and North-West. But the use of some of these areas for large wind machines could well be unacceptable to the public, as my noble friend said.
The Department of Energy has commissioned a jointly funded design study of a large machine with an industrial consortium, and the Scottish Electricity Boards are contributing work to the study. The report on this study is expected shortly and will be considered by my right honourable friend's Advisory Council. In addition, the Department is providing funds for development work by industry on a vertical axis wind machine. The Department also plans to examine offshore siting in some detail since this may increase the potential of this energy source.

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The Government are supporting research and development in the solar energy field. In February of last year the Department of Energy announced a £3·6 million four-year programme bringing total Government support over the period to £6 million. The use of solar energy for water and space heating has been identified as the area of greatest potential return in this country. The principal aims of the Department of Energy's programme are to stimulate the development of solar water-heating systems, to explore the performance of solar space-heating systems and to encourage the development and manufacture of cost-effective components and complete installations.
Much of this work is being carried out with Government support for industrial initiatives through joint-funding contracts. The Building Research Establishment of the Department of the Environment is managing field trials of panels and other components which constitute an important part of the solar heating programme.
The Government's support is also being given to research on special crops and biological wastes. Preliminary assessments indicate that even in a densely populated country like the United Kingdom the processing of these materials might eventually contribute useful quantities of liquid and gaseous fuels. The United Kingdom participates in the related programmes of the European Economic Community and the International Energy Agency.
I turn to geothermal energy. The prospects for geothermal energy in the United Kingdom were reviewed for the Department of Energy by the Energy Technology Support Unit and published in Energy Paper No. 9. In July 1976 a three-year £840,000 programme of more detailed research and assessment of resources was announced. The major items in this programme have been accepted as part of the geothermal R and D programme of the European Community and are jointly funded by the Commission and the Department of Energy. It concentrates on the investigation of deep geological basins, on regions with natural warm springs, and on areas which could constitute a site of hot rocks.
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I would remind the House that, for the very long term, controlled nuclear fusion which we are thinking about, may prove to be a practically limitless new energy source. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority's fusion programme at Culham has been for a number of years an integral part of the European Community's nuclear fusion programme. After lengthy negotiations within the Community—to which we referred in our debate last year—it was announced in October last year that the Joint-European Torus (JET) would be built at Culham. This will be the centrepiece of Euratom's fusion research programme for a number of years ahead. In addition to being the host nation for this important international project, the United Kingdom, through the Atomic Energy Authority, will continue to play its full part as a participating member country.
To sum up the Government's position on renewable sources, I would say that we are seeking to establish those options which could make useful contributions to our future energy supplies and which are likely to repay the investment in them. And—given the current state of the technologies involved—we are pursuing their development vigorously.
I cannot emphasise too strongly the important part which energy conservation has to play in extending the life of our coal, our oil and our natural gas; in giving further time for the development of alternative sources of energy; and in minimising the call on scarce resources. But I must also emphasise that energy conservation is about improving the efficiency with which energy is used. Decisions about the use of energy are made every moment of the day by everyone at work, at home and on the roads. The Government surely cannot intervene individually in those decisions. But what Government can do is to establish and pursue policies which help people to use energy in the most cost-effective way.
The policies which the Government have adopted so far have contributed to energy savings estimated to be worth some £2,000 million over the last four years. Much of this was achieved by realistic pricing, backed by a full range of general and specialist information and advisory services for industry. There was

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a major development last December in the announcement of a 10-year programme costing £320 million over the first four years, of measures which could lead to savings of up to 10 million tons of oil-equivalent a year—worth some £700 million a year at current prices. This latest package is aimed at selected targets across the whole energy consuming field—conservation in public buildings; insulation of public-sector housing; new building regulations; more advice and help for industry; and better information and advice for the motorist. This programme taken with the measures previously adopted is a major step forward. But it can be developed further and we shall seek to do this.
I would emphasise that we do not intend this country's energy riches to blind us to the importance of energy conservation. The Government have recognised the importance of giving a lead and have given one. There is great scope for cutting costs in industry and commerce, for improving our industrial competitiveness, and for saving in energy costs in the home through the adoption of cost-effective ways of using energy. Many of these cost-effective ways are well-known, and have been featured in the "Save It" campaign. That campaign will continue, and we shall go on developing policies aimed at maximising the benefits to firms, to individuals and to the country as a whole which come from energy conservation.
In conclusion, I would say that the Government's attitude towards alternative sources of energy is both responsible and imaginative. It is our view that the country's energy requirements in the longer term will be met through increasing attention to energy conservation, through making maximum use of our substantial coal reserves as oil and natural gas supplies decline, through our growing nuclear electricity generating capacity and by developing the technologies of renewable energy sources so that they can be readily introduced in the light of our future energy needs.
I am sure the House will agree that this Government have shown that they are prepared to allocate substantial resources to the development of energy options for
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the future once it has been shown that the commitment of such resources is both technically and economically sound.
3.51 p.m.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, last night I was somewhat critical of the Government and so perhaps I can try to redress the balance by saying how much I welcome the fact that we are supported by no less a person than the Prime Minister, who said that he thought suitable use for some of the North Sea oil revenues would be the development of alternative sources of energy. So we start right at the top.
Having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, and having looked at the list of speakers, I feel sure that the noble Lord the Leader of the House shares with me the slight feeling of being a layman among a minefield of experts. However, he has the advantage, which I do not share with him, of a fair number of experts at his elbow.
The noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, began by pointing out that we have a terminological problem. We use the expressions, "alternative sources of energy", "unconventional sources of energy", "renewable sources of energy", and sometimes these are referred to as the "soft energy options" or the "benign sources". It is an unfortunate fact that, at the moment, we do not have a good global word to cover the kind of thing that I believe we shall talk about this afternoon.
However, I want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, in distinguishing some of these sources from energy made available by the consumption of capital resources of fossil fuels and fissile fuels, which are usually used on a large scale and which, at least in the case of fossil fuels, usually give rise to considerable levels of pollution. In passing, may I also agree with both noble Lords that the indications are that, around the year 2000, we shall need a much larger contribution from nuclear power than we already have.
I particularly welcome the constant references throughout the speech of the noble Lord the Leader of the House to the Government's devotion to the cause of energy-saving, about which I confess I have in the past always had some doubt. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord

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affirming this once again. Even with careful attention to energy-saving and even with the development of alternative energy sources on a world scale, we shall need nuclear power. It is worth repeating the comment made the other day by Sir John Hill, that it is up to the sophisticated and developed countries, such as the United Kingdom, to use the more complex sources of energy in order to make available the simpler sorts of energy—which are basically the fossil fuels—for use in the undeveloped countries which will be unable to cope with the more complex and sophisticated sources.
I do not know whether the noble Lord would care to tell the House, but recently I have heard that there is a great deal of interest in the United States in the possibilities of very deep gas resources below the levels of 20,000 feet, which have not previously been explored in the course of the search for oil and gas. These reserves are considered to be very large. I believe that they are associated with brine, and there is some question as to how widely available these resources may be and what might be the cost of realising the resources in the long run. But, within the definition of what we are talking about today, these are not strictly speaking what we call "alternative sources".
Noble Lords have referred to water power which, in some sense, is in an intermediate situation. It is not really an alternative source. Indeed, it might be considered to be a conventional source in the sense that—as the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones said—historically, it was the main source of motive power prior to the advent of steam. It is now usually exploited in the form of large capital-intensive installations, and it is not a very significant source in this country as distinct from, for instance, Norway, where I believe it produces 80 to 90 per cent. of the total energy requirements.
However, I should like to suggest that we think very carefully about the aggregate contribution that can be made by small units which, I think, could be significantly greater than is generally realised. Recently, there has been developed a new form of low head turbine which might have a contribution to make here. I was rather hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Energlyn, might make a contribution on this because, we should no doubt have
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heard about geothermal energy. I am sorry to see that his name is not on the list today. However, I see the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of High Wray, and I have a feeling that he may have something to say about water. I hope that he may possibly try to persuade the official mind of the difference between abstraction of water for use in things like irrigation and consumption, and using water, dropping it through a certain distance and returning it to the river bed for the use of water power.
The inability to make this distinction appears to have given rise to some perfectly extraordinary claims by the water authorities. I think that the most flagrant case was that of a firm in Wales which used to pay a water rate of around £60 a year. It was suggested that it would be suitable if the firm started to pay £13,000 a year. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that the firm was not very happy about that. I believe that the case is still proceeding, so maybe we shall be told that it is sub judice.
It is also worth making the point that we must try to distinguish between the production of energy and the transport or distribution of energy. Electricity is merely a means of transport with very considerable losses and expenses involved in the process. The gas grid is slightly different in the sense that it is a primary fuel going through a distribution network. It is also worth pointing out that, so far, there is very little sign of any alternative to the fossil fuels for transport purposes themselves. I realise that the railways can use electricity and there has been a suggestion that possibly hydrogen or methanol might be suitable fuels. I am told that there are very much more serious problems with hydrogen than most people realise, in that, under pressure hydrogen has a nasty habit of going straight through pipes and valves which look solid to the ordinary mortal. It is basically rather nasty, dangerous stuff, although given a chance it goes up into the atmosphere and disappears. Provided it is free to do so, everything is all right.
Global transport by wind power is an old concept, and I have recently become associated with a group which believes that it is once again a commercially sound proposition to carry things about the world under sail. Whether we shall

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succeed in convincing people of this remains to be seen. But it is an interesting point that, if this came about, it would, in itself, constitute a major saving of energy on a world scale. We believe, incidentally, that it might be an opportunity for a new venture for British Shipbuilders, and a contribution to world shipbuilding.
I also have a rather special interest in wind energy in that, if you look at any map of the wind energy of this country, the place where I live off the north-west coast is right on the highest line. There is a special point about this, in so far as areas like the remote parts of Scotland are particularly difficult and expensive to get mains supply to; they have a particularly hopeful wind pattern. The wind has the great advantage that it tends to be available mostly in the winter, which is the time when it is particularly needed.
The variability of wind clearly demands storage of the resulting energy, and this in turn tends to mean that wind energy is more suitable for heat generation than it is, for instance, for light generation, because it is rather easier to store heat energy than any other form of energy for, shall we say, a period of something like 10 days. Here I was particularly interested to hear the noble Lord the Leader of the House tell us that a report about wind energy is to come out shortly.
There is also the fact that, if you have wind machines scattered around the country, there is a decent chance that, in any given area, there will be enough wind to make a net input to the grid. I have always been inclined to believe that the environmental effects, at least in the remote areas, have been overrated. I happen to like the look of windmills, and so perhaps I am prejudiced in this respect. Noble Lords may have seen that there has been a proposal—I do not know how hairy and way-out it is—to put offshore windmills over the depleted gas wells and store some of the wind energy in the form of pressure in the gas wells on which they would be standing. There would be no environmental objection to an offshore windmill, although I do not know what the ship operators would have to say about it.

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Most renewable sources call for some kind of storage possibility. Of course water is itself sometimes used as a storage medium to pump storage systems, such as Loch Awe. There are two levels of storage problem. One is the daily variation as between peak loads and non-peak loads, and the other is the problem of seasonal storage, which is most obvious with solar energy, where one is trying to store up the energy in the summer for use in the winter. That is a much larger problem than simply trying to damp out peak loads, but of course this is what reservoirs are used for. Here again, as a boating enthusiast, I often feel that the environmental objections to reservoirs are rather overstated.
This also applies to the tidal power concepts, particularly those that have already been referred to. The Severn Estuary is the most attractive one. I gather that the Dutch reckon that they can solve most of the engineering problems. The capital required is enormous, and my understanding is that it is even worse than some people imagine, in the sense that the single-basin plan, which would give a fluctuating power output, really is not of much value. What you have to have is something that would give a base load, which means a two-basin concept, which is even more expensive than the original single-basin concept.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, will the noble Lord, forgive me for a moment? The figure I quoted of £4,000 million is for the double-basin scheme. That is the figure that was given me. It is not for the single basin. I think that his statement is perfectly correct, in that the double basin scheme is more expensive, but is preferable.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, because I do not believe that the single-basin scheme is a starter at all. Again, speaking as somebody who enjoys leisure on the water, it is an attractive thought that one could potentially be creating an area of the size of the Solent which would be satisfactory for water recreation, whereas anybody who has ever gone boating in the Bristol Channel with even the kindest possible concept of it would agree that it is not a

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wholly satisfactory area now, with its colossal tides and enormous acreage of mud. There are spin-offs in the possibility of creating an airport, and also improving communications across some of the dams that it would be necessary to build.
Wave power has already been referred to. Whether you say that it could potentially produce a third or a half of our energy needs, at least we are in the right scale here. Again, we know a thing or two about that in my part of the world. Actually it might tend to reduce the seas round where we are, so that would be an advantageous spin-off in the long run. I have had representations from an ex-naval officer who believes that it is a crazy concept, that the maintenance and the mooring problems are enormous, and that we should do much better to have a shore-based installation which would exploit the much lesser energy available from the waves. But I have a feeling that the energy available there is so very much less that, although it gets over some problems, it ends up by being less attractive. Nevertheless, we should not underrate the problems either of generating the energy or of getting it ashore, nor forget that, when you do get it ashore, you tend to do so in a place which is remote from the areas where you really want to use it.
Solar power is fundamentally the biggest contributor of all. In the United States, they are devoting far more research to this than we are. I believe that they are putting in something like 100 times the research and development effort that we are. In the long term sense, solar energy can be harnessed through the biomass—through growing things. The simplest example is growing trees, cutting them down and burning them in a furnace. There are also possibilities of electrolysing water into hydrogen, and so on. I am led to believe that these are very long term prospects.
When you come to the more direct uses, there is the problem that solar energy is very diffuse. The intensity of it is very low indeed. The effect of that is that solar energy is not yet cost-effective, anyway in this country, where the solar environment is not all that favourable. Nevertheless, there are potentially earlier contributions here than with perhaps almost any other source that one can think of.
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This leads us to another point that has nothing to do with alternative energy, as such. There are devices, such as the heat pump, which have the capacity to concentrate and upgrade energy. When they have a coefficient of performance of three to one, the impression is that you are getting 3 kilowatts out for every one you put in. This is not, strictly speaking, true. What in fact you are doing is taking energy, which is ultimately solar energy, but upgrading it into a usable form.
Then there is a beautifully simple device which is gradually coming into use now. It is commonly called the heat pipe, which is a simple form of a heat pump, and it enables you to transfer bits of heat from one place to another where you can use them more effectively. These kinds of project are attractive because they can help to make better and more flexible use of the sources of energy we have available to us.
If you go back to the remote areas such as the place where I come from, I believe that these are the areas where we should be trying out some of these possibilities as the first shot. Electric energy generated by diesel generators tends to be of the order of four or five times more expensive than it is on the ordinary main, and this is the kind of environment we are used to. Here is a point I have never seen made: it is probable that the electricity supply industry's policy of evening out charges as between remote areas and the closer areas tends to obscure the true marginal cost of supplying electricity to these remote areas. This unfortunately upsets the accounting which might be done in comparing the possible alternative sources of energy in those parts of the world. If one could lop off some of the more expensive energy which is supplied by the electricity supply companies, it is conceivable that at the end of the day the average cost would come down. I fear I am explaining in a rather complicated way what is a fairly simple concept.

In a remarkable book with which most of us would disagree almost entirely, Anthony Lovins in Soft Energy Paths makes the point that there is a very powerful case for generating energy on the scale for, and close to, the places where it is to be consumed. This again brings one back to the use of some of the alter-

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native energy sources in some of the remoter areas where the main energy sources are more difficult to make available. This leads me to support Lord Wynne-Jones in wondering whether we are right to have a preponderance of something like 100 to 1 on the amount of money we are now spending on nuclear research as opposed to the other forms of energy.
It seems to me that the basic message coming through in this debate is that we need to invest to have the alternative options open when we need them. I hope this means that we shall be devoting the money to applied research and not to deep theoretical research, which is on far too long a time-scale. But because the time-scale is so long, Government support may be needed. Here I welcome the assurance given by Lord Peart that there are further funds available for suitable projects which appear to be showing possibilities. In the meantime, in the interests both of energy-saving and the long-term availability of the other sources of energy, I hope the Government will pay attention to the possibility of removing the impediments, both fiscal and others, to some private developments and that they will be giving the maximum possible support to research and innovation in this very important field.

EEC: MEETING OF FISHERIES MINISTERS
4.13 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The Statement is as follows:
"I beg leave to make a Statement about meetings in Brussels of the Council of Ministers on 30th and 31st January on agriculture and fisheries at which I represented the United Kingdom.
"At the beginning of the fisheries Council on 30th January, I raised the question of the devaluation of the green pound which had been blocked by three delegations the previous day. Accordingly, the Danish President
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called a special meeting of the Agriculture Council for 31st January.
"In the Agriculture Council, the German delegation confirmed that they did not wish to make a link between the devaluation of the green pound and the fisheries negotiations. However, the German, Netherlands and Belgian delegations explained that they saw some connection between the devaluation and the negotiations on common price levels for 1978–79. I explained the United Kingdom attitude to the negotiations on farm prices in terms identical to those I have used on many occasions in this House.
"Eventually it was agreed that the green pound should be devalued by 7½ per cent., according to the following timetable. For beef and pigmeat, a devaluation of 5 per cent. on 2nd February; the additional 2½ per cent. for these commodities, and 7½ per cent. for milk and milk products, to take effect when the Council's decision on prices and other measures for 1978–79 enters into effect; for all other commodities, the full 7½, per cent. to take effect at the beginning of the marketing year for each commodity.
"I regard this as a very satisfactory outcome. It implements the decision of this House to seek a devaluation of 7½ per cent. It gives substantial immediate help to the pig and beef sectors, which need it, and it defers the adverse effects on consumers of a devaluation for as long as possible; I estimate that the saving to British consumers as a result of the Council decision, by comparison with an immediate across-the-board devaluation, amounts to some £50 million over the next six months, or about £3 on average for every family.
"In the Fisheries Council, agreement was reached authorising the Commission to continue negotiations with third countries on fishing opportunities for 1978.
"There was less progress in discussions on the internal régime, and none of the major issues were resolved. It was clear early in the meeting that agreement on a definitive Common Fisheries Policy would not be possible, and accordingly attention was focussed on the arragements to apply in the meantime.

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"The Council was unable to agree to a United Kingdom proposal that the existing standstill arrangements should be continued for a further short period. For my part, I could not agree to an alternative proposal to adopt, on a provisional basis, the Commission's latest proposals on quotas, conservation and enforcement, which would have left aside the basic issue of coastal preference and other important issues. I maintained the Government's position that the elements of the Common Fisheries Policy need to be considered as a whole and not adopted piecemeal.
"In the absence of agreement, the Community's so-called standstill arrangement lapsed at midnight last night. Other Member States declared their intention to observe, for the time being, the Commission's proposal on quotas and conservation. I made clear the Government's intention to take action in accordance with agreed procedures to maintain existing conservation measures; our right to take further appropriate unilateral conservation measures is, of course, unimpaired.
"I also made clear the Government's intention to continue to work for a settlement which would meet the United Kingdom's essential requirements."
That is the end of the Statement.
4.19 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Oram, for repeating that Statement. It falls into two parts; one relates to the green pound and the other relates to fisheries; I will deal first with the green pound point. I am sure the whole House will be glad that the right honourable gentleman the Minister of Agriculture has come to an agreement with his European colleagues; this is a welcome step forward. Indeed, the Minister says in his Statement:
"I regard this as a very satisfactory outcome. It implements the decision of this House to seek a devaluation of 7½ per cent.".
Of course it does nothing of the kind, because although we welcome the agreement, we are dismayed that the Minister has failed to achieve what the other place required, which was a 7½ per cent. devaluation forthwith. What he has achieved is only a 5 per cent. devaluation forthwith, and that on beef and pigmeat only, with nothing immediately on dairy products.
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It is of course the livestock side of British agriculture which is suffering immediate and substantial trouble, and it is precisely this area which, by this agreement, the right honourable gentleman has failed adequately to alleviate. The Statement goes on to admit that, by achieving less than what the other place required, this has saved the consumer £50 million in six months. This, of course, can be only at the expense of British agriculture. Will the noble Lord be kind enough to tell us what that cost is to British agriculture?
I am bound to say that some of us who have watched this game being played, knowing the Minister did not want the full devaluation of 7½ per cent. and knowing that the Germans, the Dutch and the Belgians did not, either, wonder how hard the Minister has tried. The Italians got their devaluation, and they got it in full. It is only the British who did not. One wonders whether we are to anticipate our future requests for devaluation being either blocked or modified simply because they come from the United Kingdom.
If I could just turn to fish, we support the right honourable gentleman's efforts in the Council of Ministers to solve the fisheries problem and all the very complex issues which surround it, and we applaud his efforts to ensure that our fishermen retain a proper livelihood. Certainly we hope that the negotiations will eventually bring this to a satisfactory conclusion. But what happens in the meantime? As, according to the Statement, the Council have not agreed to the standstill arrangements, which ended last night, being continued, what is the situation now? Is it a free-for-all? Can any Member State fish where it likes? Are catch quotas to be continued? Presumably not; but, if they are, who is going to monitor them? The Statement says that the Government's intention is to ensure that some kind of policing is carried out. It would be helpful if the noble Lord would explain what this is going to be; and, indeed, if he could say what are the next steps in this dispute. Is there going to be another meeting; will it be of the Council of Ministers? If so, can he give us any idea when it will be held?
4.23 p.m.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, we, too, are grateful to the Minister

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for repeating this Statement; and, like the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, we must give it a very qualified and (to use the words of Damon Runyon) small welcome. It will of course do some good to the pigmeat producers to devalue at the present time by 5 per cent., but it will not in any way solve the problem of the pig producers. The breeding herd has declined by something over 20 per cent. I cannot give your Lordships the exact figure—the noble Lord no doubt knows it—but it is one of the most serious declines in a very efficient industry that we have seen since the war. The days are long gone when the pig industry in this country was behind the Danes in efficiency, and I think this cannot be regarded as in any way reversing the process and allowing the industry to build up to its former, extremely useful contribution to the economy of this country.
Nothing is said about another factor which is almost as important as the level of the green pound, and that is the method of calculating the monetary compensatory amounts or the export subsidies which the Danes get for sending their beef here. This is of great importance, and it is a subject which ought to be negotiable because it is demonstrably unjust and unfair. I should like to know what the Minister has to say about that. With regard to the further devaluation, I presume that milk will come in April, and we are now talking about the 7½ per cent. devaluation in regard to cereals and the other farm products taking effect in the autumn. I must say that it is not really a tremendous thing. I do not think the housewives will be dancing in the streets at the thought of saving 11p per family a week, which is what it works out to; whereas £50 million to an important industry which is in decline might make a considerable difference invested for the good of the country.
Turning to fish, I think the position is extremely disturbing. We appear to be making no progress at all. I have just seen on the tape that Commissioner Gundelach has said that Britain does not state its case—" We do not know what Britain wants". I think the position is extremely disturbing. It is disturbing from another point of view, in that, if I
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may say so, we always put our case in the worst possible way. Quite frankly, I do not think the Minister should have ended his Statement by saying:
"I also made clear the Government's intention to continue to work for a settlement which would meet the United Kingdom's essential requirements".
I have just come back from Brussels, and I must say that our reputation there is not exactly "Communitaire". It is time we started putting things in at least an apparently more respectable way. The thing which worries my Party about the fishing arrangement is that there is no experience in policing these agreements; and it is for the good of the whole Community, and not only for the good of Britain, that the arrangements are practical. I am sorry to be critical in this matter, but it is extremely worrying, and I should very much like the Minister to comment on what I have said.
4.27 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I welcome the fact that the two noble Lords who have spoken at least began their remarks with a welcome, however modified that welcome became as they proceeded. But, as the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said, at least we can all feel satisfaction at an agreement having been reached. The noble Earl quite rightly pointed out that, whatever the effect on agriculture as a result of this phasing arrangement, there are consequential benefits to the consumer—and that, I do not think, should be lightly set aside. But, quite understandably, he was anxious to know what the effect of the arrangement that I have reported would be to the agricultural industry. I am afraid I cannot give him any precise figures in monetary terms, because, for example, it is difficult to predict the effect on arable farmers of a price increase for their products being introduced in the middle of a marketing year. There are obvious difficulties of calculation in that respect; but we should note that, for livestock farmers, there is an advantage in having the devaluation applied in their sector before it is applied to cereals—and I recall that in another place recently, during the debate upon the green pound devaluation, when the decision on that issue was taken, it was the problem of livestock rather than arable farmers that was mainly at issue.

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The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, then turned to the question of fish and asked what the situation now is, mentioning, among other things, quotas. I would inform him that no Community quota arrangements apply at the present time, and it remains to be seen how the other Member States propose to fulfil the obligations which they have undertaken. For our part, we shall discuss with the industry how best to discharge our responsibilities in the waters which are under our jurisdiction; and the Government intend to maintain, under national legislation, all conservation measures, including Community conservation measures, which were in force within British waters on the 31st January.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie, also began his remarks by welcoming the Statement that I repeated, and then went on to emphasise, as has been emphasised here before, the great needs of the pigmeat industry. I hope he noticed it was acknowledged in the Statement itself that the Government recognise that and that that was behind our making the arrangement for the immediate application of the 5 per cent. devaluation to the pigmeat industry. In terms of recognising the need of the industry there is nothing between us. There is something between us, of course, as to the amount of the devaluation in respect of that industry.
He asked me a question about the formula for calculations and I must ask him to excuse me from commenting on this point. I will seek the information that he has asked for and will let him have it. If he feels that it is something that the whole House should also be acquainted with, we can arrange for it to be published through a Written Answer. He said that he presumed that the arrangements in respect of milk and beef prices would apply from 1st April. That, I agree, is the normal date but I should not like to be categorical about it because one would have to wait the outcome of the negotiations.
On fish, he was rather more general—rather more general in his condemnation of the approach of my right honourable friend to this question. I would only say that his noble friend, speaking from the Liberal Benches in connection with a statement last week or two weeks ago, urged my right honourable friend to
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stick to his guns. I would say in the outcome of the negotiations that that is what my right honourable friend is doing. It may be that, as a result of sticking to his guns, the atmosphere in Brussels in respect to this country's attitude is that we are not entirely au fait with the Community. That may be so; but I took it from the exchanges which occurred earlier—that is, a week or so ago—that the whole House was well satisfied with the fact that the British Government in negotiating on behalf of our fishing industry were adopting broadly the right strategy and doing so with vigour. I believe that this is true of the recent negotiations in which my right honourable friend has been engaged.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, will my noble friend realise that there is no need to be dismal about the qualified reception of his Statement by the two Front Benches opposite? What he ought to be doing is striking a note of triumph that a member of his own Administration stood up for the rights of Britain and the British people. It is such a rare occurrence that we find the Liberal spokesman almost breaking into tears. There is nothing to cry about. I am delighted that his right honourable friend has gone to Brussels, and to wherever else he goes, speaking for the people of this country, determined that British interests should be put in the forefront and, if possible, brought to a triumphant conclusion. There is every reason for pride and none for sorrow.
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords. Perhaps I may repeat, in support of what my noble friend has said, one sentence from the Statement that I read earlier:
"I regard this "—
says my right honourable friend—
"as a very satisfactory outcome".
He regards it as a satisfactory outcome for Britain and for the British people.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one thing in regard to the costs to British agriculture. This is important. I quite see, as he says, that it is difficult to anticipate what the costs will be if one alters the devaluation of the green pound in the middle of the cereal year; but where there was a devaluation proposed of 7½ per cent. on beef, it is

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going to be only 5 per cent. forthwith; and where there was to be a 7½ per cent. devaluation on milk, it is now nothing. Those figures must be available. I do not expect the noble Lord, Lord Oram—he is not the Minister chiefly concerned—to have them, but I think that they are important and I should be grateful if he could find out what are the costs of this alteration in the decision from the House of Commons to what is proposed now, and let me know.
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords. I recognise that it is important that we should all he informed about the difference between the straight-across-the-board 7½ per cent. devaluation, which was the decision of another place, and the effect of what I have reported to the House. Those details that the noble Earl has mentioned I will certainly seek and we can have an exchange of correspondence or questions to bring those to light.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, will my noble friend realise that use of the word "cost" in this context is tendentious? It is not a cost. It may be that it has cost the agricultural community something, and it may be even that supporters of the Tory party are that much more worse off. But we should not be talking about cost, because it represents a saving to the British housewife—and that is not unimportant.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, far be it from me to support the noble Earl in this matter, but I think he specifically wanted to know the cost to the agricultural industry. That is how I understood it. I fully accept what my noble friend said, that cost, in a more general sense, is many-sided and that there are benefits from this as well as cost to a particular sector of the community.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I have no objection to the figures being given—
Lord PEART: My Lords, I hope that noble Lords will realise that we have an important Energy debate to continue and we have been on this matter for 23 minutes.

ENERGY: ALTERNATIVE SOURCES
4.37 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Viscount SIMON: My Lords, I think that all of us will be as sorry as I am that my noble friend Lord Thurso, who wanted to take part in this debate and who is much better qualified that I to do so, is snowed up in Scotland and that, as a result, his mantle has fallen upon my unworthy shoulders. I am sure that if he were here he would have wished, as I wish, to thank the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, for bringing this very important matter before the House and for the very interesting speech he made in presenting his Motion.
I particularly enjoyed the noble Lord's excursion into history, although I think that he would agree that we cannot draw any parallels from that. It may have been possible in the days of which he was speaking for industry to follow sources of energy; but now that we have a fully developed industrial society here I should have thought that that was no longer possible. Supposing that it is found that wave energy or wind energy can be successfully harnessed—and the North-West of Scotland is a splendid place for waves and winds—I cannot see the great industries of this country being able to follow energy up there. I was going to say to the noble Lord—and I am sorry that he is not in his place—that I had greatly enjoyed his description of having a hot bath on the top of a skyscraper; but I respectfully suggest—and he will correct me later if I am wrong—that he would have enjoyed his hot bath before he pulled the plug and set the turbine going.
I hope that, at this stage of the debate, we may take it as agreed that before the end of the century we shall need more energy. All nations will need more energy and, particularly, some of the underdeveloped nations of the world. My only quarrel with the estimates that have been made is to wonder whether the needs of the developing countries have been sufficiently taken into account in trying to estimate the energy needs of the world in the year 2000. I feel that, from their deplorably low position at present

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in the consumption of energy, a very substantial increase will be needed.
I do not apologise for talking globally because I hope that we in this country realise that, although we are for the time being rather fortunate in having indigenous sources of energy, we are part of the world and must not get into an attitude of "We're all right, Francois!" or "We're all right, Umberto!" when we think of other people who are not so fortunate as ourselves, even if they are Members of the Community of which we are a Member.
If it is accepted that we will need more energy—and I do not think that it has been sufficiently underlined so far that this arises not merely from a falling-away in the present conventional sources, in particular the supply of oil, but it arises from an increased demand—I suggest that every possible source of energy must be explored. That, I think, was the main theme of the noble Lord's speech. In this context, we all welcome the very careful and comprehensive report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology in another place to which the noble Lord the Leader of the House has drawn our attention. The major additional sources in the time scale in which we have to work must be coal and nuclear power, and, of course, conservation. I agree with the Leader of the House that this is certainly a source for this purpose because it provides valuable help in making other sources go further.
If I may say a few words about conservation, we had an exchange of question and answer recently on the subject of home insulation. One point was raised to which I think the Government did not reply. I venture to repeat this, although I am afraid I cannot remember which noble Lord raised it. It was whether the ordinary householder who is being told that if he improves the insulation of his house he will get his money back in lower fuel bills, will then find that the rates of the house have been increased. It is unfair to ask the noble Lord who is replying to this debate to answer that because it is outside the particular purpose of this discussion. But if, later, he could ask his noble friends to look into the matter, perhaps we might put down another Question and get an Answer to it.
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Another conservation measure which would be helpful is not so much, as has been suggested, increasing the price of fuel—and I am thinking at the moment of the price to the motorist—as reintroducing the horsepower tax for cars. This would automatically reduce petrol consumption because people would go for the smaller car. It will not hurt people in the country, who usually use smaller cars anyway. I do not believe that at this stage it is going to hurt the manufacturers very much. The market for great big cars must be failing anyway. Would it not be much wiser to turn our motor industry to producing small cars?
Home insulation is not the only place to which we look for economies in the use of fuel. There is a great deal to be done in factories, as has already been mentioned, both in insulation, in the use of process heat and in improving the method of applying energy in factories. If my noble friend Lord Thurso had been here, he would have contributed several ideas about the non-conventional sources which have been mentioned, several of which he has studied in some depth. I had the opportunity of speaking to him on the telephone and he said that, on wind power, he had considerable hopes and thought that quite a lot could be done, though he admits that, overall, it may not make a large contribution to our energy needs. But it is a number of pennies that make up a pound. In the future we shall have to look to every possible contribution that we can get from any source of energy.
I am glad to hear that we are to learn more about wave energy from the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, because my noble friend is somewhat concerned about that. Perhaps the noble Lord, will be able to give some comfort when he speaks. My noble friend is worried about the fact that the installations, which I understand are massive, have to be in some way securely anchored to the seabed. We all know the tremendous power that can arise under storm conditions, and he was wondering what would happen if, under storm conditions, one of these massive installations—he told me the dimensions but they terrified me and I have forgotten them—were to be carried away and washed up on a shore. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, will be able to give some help about that.

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My noble friend is also interested in solar energy, in which he has made some further researches. He believes that this could well be introduced for domestic water heating, and, although it would not take the whole load, it could substantially reduce the load now taken from the electricity grid. He is less optimistic about space heating, and I would have thought that in that he was right. I have visited, as have other noble Lords, the zero energy house in Copenhagen which is entirely serviced by solar heat. But that was built for the purpose and there is an enormous tank underneath the house which contains water which accumulates heat during the summer and is drawn upon during the winter. It would be very difficult to apply that technique to an existing house. My noble friend Lord McNair is going to say something about tidal energy, so I shall leave that to him.
If I may briefly go back to the other two main sources of energy, I find myself in complete agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, has said about coal. If there is going to be a gap, coal has to go a substantial way towards filling it, even though we may know, as he reminded us, that coal could be much better used for other purposes. If we accept that in 15, 20 or 30 year's time coal will have to take over a substantial slice of electric power generation from oil, we ought to consider whether we should even now start the reconditioning of our coal fired power stations, many of which are old and old-fashioned. We should consider bringing them up to date, to introduce new equipment, new methods for burning coal, so as to make them more efficient. If that is done now, why should we not use more coal for that purpose now and use the oil which we still have for either the industrial purposes which have been hinted at or even sell it to somebody else?
I realise that this is a difficult suggestion because it means accepting now a rather more expensive method of producing electricity than we can get by burning oil. That might be worth doing if, in the long run, we shall have to do it. This would overcome the fear which has been expressed in, I think, circles associated with the Coal Board that if they go on increasing the production of coal as they are planning
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to do, they may have difficulty in selling it. I was glad to hear Sir Derek Ezra on television the other day playing that down and saying he felt no doubt that they could sell any coal they could produce. I know that there are difficulties here about price. That is why I say that we might accept the more expensive coal to produce our electricity now so as to save the oil for other purposes.
Regarding nuclear energy, I feel very glad that two new stations have now been ordered, and that there is talk of a third. Looking further ahead, I feel strongly that we must try to push on with the fast breeder reactor. There is still a lot of research to be done on this and it will take time. We do not have much time. Since supplies of uranium are by no means unlimited, the sooner we can get on to this type of reactor, the better. In this connection, it is clear that the public need to be reassured. I find that a lot of the opposition that is building up—and one finds it all over the country, with small groups of people saying Do away with nuclear energy "and, particularly," Do away with the fast breeder reactor "is based largely on a lack of understanding, and it is partly the duty of Parliament to try to explain the truth of the matter, and the fact that without this help we may have many uncomfortable decades from the 1990s onwards.
I come back to what I believe is the real task before us: that is, to persuade the man and woman in the street that there really will be a shortage of energy unless we do something about it, and that that shortage of energy could be very uncomfortable. We have lived so long with cheap energy that we take it for granted, and most people regard all that is said in this vein as so much doom being preached. But I suggest to your Lordships that we should make a conscious effort to persuade the people of this country that there will be a shortage unless decisions are taken now.
In this context, I want to make just one more point. I have once before in your Lordships' House pleaded that on issues of tremendous importance to the nation we should try to get an all-Party approach. Of course, the Government of the day have to take the ultimate responsibility, but I do not believe that noble Lords on the Government Front

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Bench think that they will be in power for the next 30 years. Nor do I believe that noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench think that they will be in power for the next 30 years. We in the Liberal Party do not believe it, though we hope within 30 years to have some share in the government of this country, if we have a proper electoral system. But, quite apart from that, I should like to feel that in 30 years' time—I shall not be here then, and I expect that other noble Lords will have gone elsewhere—we shall not have the Government of the day blaming the Opposition of the day for something that they did in 1978, or whichever way round it is. Why cannot the Parties all get together on this matter and get an agreed policy? A policy has to be based on certain assumptions: those assumptions may be wrong, but let us enter into it all agreeing on the assumptions and on what we are trying to do. That should not be impossible when we are dealing with a matter which clearly has no political content.
4.53 p.m.
The Earl of HALSBURY: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, for putting down this Motion this afternoon, and also for giving me an enjoyable opportunity to make a weekend trip to Caithness in the last few days. I should also like to say how much I enjoyed his own lead, and how interesting I find the speeches of other noble Lords.
I shall take a rather generalised view of what we mean by the word "alternative". I take it to mean whatever we are not doing today which we shall perhaps be doing tomorrow. So that the development and application of advanced technology in a conventional field is included in my interpretation, and within that I shall now be selective. I shall not deal with solar power, most available where it is least wanted, in the centre of the Sahara; least available where it is most needed, in mid-winter. I shall not deal with the fitful vagaries of wind and waves nor tides nor underground gasification of coal, blessed by Lenin with as little effect as anything else on which his encomia rested. The Russians, because of that blessing, have been working on it for two generations to no effect; the National Coal Board has done some inconclusive
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experiments, one of which has not yet been fully published, and the Americans have started it up again in America. My instinct is to leave it to them and buy the process and pay royalties, if they make a success of it. What I shall concern myself with is the interactions of coal, oil and nuclear power as alternatives to one another, because I believe that this is the reality as opposed to the fantasy that lies at the heart of our subject.
My basic assumption, on which my policy rests, is that technology will continue to advance—I think that that is a fair induction upon experience—and that in 50 years' time we shall be able to operate processes which we have not even thought of today. If you make that assumption, then a reasonable policy consequence is that you put off the evil hour of decision-making as long as you can, so as to be able to solve whatever problems arise, by the exhaustion of one kind of fuel, with a more advanced technology at a later date than you could solve them by with a less advanced technology at an earlier date. Of course, the first thing we ought to do is to economise as far as possible in the use of oil. We ought to economise in the use of energy all round. As the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, amused your Lordships by saying recently, a woolly waistcoat is a very cost-effective alternative to a central heating system.
The noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, told your Lordships that two-thirds of the heat input of our power stations ends up in the atmosphere. We really ought to try to exploit this in district heating and so on, if we can. Whenever coal and oil are interchangeable, we ought to prefer coal to oil in usage, and build up and maintain a healthy and viable coal industry in parallel with conservation of our oil supplies. The National Coal Board has invested a lot of R and D in coal winning and coal processing, which is just starting to bear fruit; and the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, told us something of Selby, which will be the largest and most modern min in the world. But I shall not deal with coal, because I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, who follows me, and who is very interested in it, will make a lot of points better than I can. I will however mention two challenges which I invite him to take up if he cares to do so.

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The first is that the current process of mechanised retreat long wall mining leaves 40 per cent. of the coal behind. That is a challenge which we have to try to meet. The other is the social position of the miner, psychologically isolated in our community. My introduction to coalmining was a spectacular one. I went down my first mine at Merthyr in 1928, I think, 50 years ago. As I was going down one of the headings, the roof collapsed with a crash and I had to crawl through a two-foot space, with blocks of stone falling from the roof, following my guide who conducted me to safety. I was thereby inducted into a belief and it took no time at all to induce that belief in me. The lesson was instantaneous, and has lasted a lifetime, that coal-mining is a dangerous occupation, and that to treat the miner as a means to our ends is quite wrong.
It is wrong not only in our economic relationships to the miner, but because it is the wrong way in which to treat human beings. They should be treated as ends in themselves. The tendency has been for a mining community to be isolated. Towns grow up at crossroads. Pitshafts are sunk where it is most economic to sink them, and then the mining villages grow up around them. One of the best things that has happened at Selby is the imaginative attempt by Sir Derek Ezra to try to integrate miners in the district with the rest of the community in the district. That is all I intend to say about mines.
We shall always need a transportable liquid source of power. I cannot see the electric battery as a prime mover for a vehicle. Maybe electric power is all right for the railways, but for inland transport on roads we must have petrol or a petrol substitute. This means that we must keep work on the hydrogenation of coal going at a level which will keep the technology advancing. We do not want to spend too much money on it, but we want to keep it going so that, at the point where increasing gasoline costs catch up with decreasing coal costs, the technology will take off, as it were, and become self-activating.
I now want to turn to my main matter, having left the point that we should be coal based, except for when we must use
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oil and for when we must keep technology advancing by keeping a viable industry going. The main matter is nuclear power, and I do not think that we ought to make any over-commitment to a particular kind of reactor while this technology is still relatively in its infancy. But that still means that we must keep the nuclear industry going with new forms of reactors as a means of allowing technology to advance.
Let me therefore take your Lordships through the position as it is now. I spoke on this subject last week in the context of the Government's Statement about the two AGRs. The first generation Magnox reactors have done yeoman's service. They were a marvellous piece of design and a tribute to the engineering skill and genius of the team recruited under him by the noble Lord, Lord Hinton. I notice that the noble Lord is not in his place this afternoon. I hope this does not mean that he is on the sick list; if he is, I should like to take this opportunity, as I am sure all noble Lords would, too, of wishing the noble Lord well.
After an unhappy history of teething troubles, the reasons for which I will go into later, the AGRs now bid fair to aquit themselves as highly economic generators of electricity. The electricity authority is placing an order for the two more which were the subject of the Government's announcement last week. The American pressurised water reactor, we were told, is being considered for 1982–83, though personally I feel that it would be an unhappy choice. If noble Lords do not believe me, then they should ask the Japanese, whose availability on it is only 30 per cent. One component has to be made in America because we cannot make it with our engineering resources here. That represents 35 million pounds of imports. Is that good sense? Another component has to be made in Japan because we cannot make it here.
Then the best that they have ever done in America with the boiling water reactor is to obtain a 70 per cent. availability. That has to be compared with the 97 per cent. availability that we have had out of the prototype fast reactor at Dounreay during the last 18 months. Many of these American reactors are now operating all over the world, some of them in unskilled hands. Sooner or later a mistake will be

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made and what is fashionable to call an incident will occur. Because of past history, that incident will be blamed on the design. Then all past history will be resurrected and there will be a public demand to shut down those PWRs. Do we want to have our PWRs shut down?
To make a slight pun, the whole project seems to be a sop, if not to Sir Berus at least to Sir Arnold. We all know that Sir Arnold Wienstock is a whizz-kid in the field of consumer durables and that given any standard product, an ill-organised loss-maker, he can turn it into a profit centre quicker than wink. All of this I concede. Sir Arnold Weinstock is a most remarkable man who has given magnificent service to the British electrical equipment industry. He has solved problems that everybody else failed to solve, but in the field of advanced technology he seems to be the industrial equivalent of a hypochondriac. He is always smelling the imaginary disease called advanced technology and trying to cure it with radical surgery: "Buy it in America and quit" I hope that I am not being unfair to Sir Arnold Weinstock. Certainly I do not intend to be discourteous to him, but I just do not think that his remarkable gifts are those of an innovator. I believe that to get this absolutely advanced technology into good service we must have an innovative mentality.
I come next to the Dragon, the high temperature reactor developed at Winfrith Heath as part of the European venture. It has been shut down at Winfrith for a European consortium to open it up. Four years ago when the Sizewell "B" programme was announced I said that it was in trouble with its fuel elements. That trouble continues. This brings me to the steam generating heavy water reactor. I referred to this four years ago, and also last week. I still feel that it ought to be an open option. Constructionally it is a "honey". You can build the callandria and nuclear boiler in a well-equipped engineering works and transport it to the site. Compared with that, very largely the AGRs have to be constructed on site with somewhat unstable camp-housed labour, representing a hazard to good standards of inspection. Everything about the SGHWR is in its favour.
Last week I quoted the Press without taking responsibility for it, to the effect
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that the SGHWR could be a thermal breeder reactor. I have been into the matter since and find that this is not correct. It is a thermal convertor reactor. It can transform one class of fissionable material into another and thereby open up the thorium cycle which would double the fissionable reserves of the world if we could get it going.
Finally I come to the commercial fast reactor and the prototype fast reactor at Dounreay. In order to ensure that my contribution to this debate was as well informed as possible, over the weekend I flew up to Dounreay and spent Monday speaking to the director, cross-examining him all the morning on just those points that I know your Lordships wanted to know about when we had the debate on the Flowers Report initiated by my noble friend Lord Sherfield. I went on cross-examining the director on these points, which were not answered on the occasion of that last debate, until I got the answers in a form which I knew would be simple and readily intelligible to everybody in the House, whether or not he is an engineer.
My first visit to Dounreay was in 1956, 22 years ago, when the plant was being built. That is the time to learn the geography of a reactor, because one can crawl about it. If I may make a lighthearted interpolation at this point, sometimes one finds very remarkable things when one does this. Crawling around inside what were to be the burning bowels of Dungeness "A", I found that one of the workmen, with artistic skill, a pot of red lead and some tar, had painted a large mural of the devil cocking a snook. As impotent as Dante's Satan, buried up to the waist in the ice of Malebolge, so far as I know he stays there cocking the snook still, although a slightly radioactive one by now. I often wonder what, several hundred years hence, the industrial archaeologist will make of him when the reactors have cooled off and they find him. But if they are students of Hansard they will know exactly what it was. It was a joke.
I returned to London primed with the information that I had set out to obtain. First let me deal with the safety of these fast reactors. As I will explain in more detail, they are intrinsically safe. If the brakes of a car fail when we are going

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downhill this is intrinsically dangerous, for the car accelerates and plunges forward; but if the brakes fail when the car is going uphill this is intrinsically safe, because the car merely slows down. In this sense, a fast reactor cannot run away.
The temperature coefficient of the reactor is negative. I do not want to blind your Lordships with jargon. For every one degree rise in the temperature of a fast reactor—that is, the PFR at Dounreay—there is a two megawatt reduction in the power level. As the temperature rises the power goes down. The power level of the PFR is 600 megawatts, so a 300 degree rise in temperature shuts down the reactor. It ceases to be a reactor. That is the simple truth of the matter that was so much vexing us on Lord Sherfield's motion.
Then we must look at what the 300 degree rise in temperature does to the liquid sodium coolant. The working temperature at the exit point is 562 degrees. If it is raised by 300 degrees, that means it rises to 862 degrees, which is still 138 degrees below the boiling point of liquid sodium (generally taken as 1,000 degrees centigrade in round figures). Therefore, whatever happens you cannot boil the coolant. That has always been one of the fears. The reactor has been so well designed that it is quite safe from this point of view.
Let us suppose that was not so and that 600 megawatts were used to raise sodium to boiling point. We should have five tons of fuel and 1,000 tons of liquid sodium in interaction. It takes 36 hours at 600 megawatts to raise the sodium to its boiling point, so you have 36 hours in which to do something. But the automatic safety system works very much faster than that. On a shutdown being requisite, within one-tenth of a second the shut-down rods start to move, and within one-third of a second they are rammed home. At that point there has been an instantaneous reduction of the power level from 600 megawatts to 30 megawatts. At one second, the 30 megawatts has fallen to 18, and at five seconds it has fallen to 10, which is the basic residual radioactive level of the reactor; and that is coped with by ordinary convective cooling. You do not need any pumps; the thing simply shuts itself down.
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The next point concerns fire hazard—could the fuel catch fire? No, the fuel is oxide fuel. It has caught as much fire as it ever can. You could no more set it on fire than you can set the ashes in your grate on lire. They are burnt out and the plutonium and uranium are fully oxidised so that cannot catch fire. If, however, they rose in temperature one knows that they have a melting point of 3,000 degrees centigrade so that they would melt their way right through the steel shell of the reactor, through the cement that surrounds it and into the granite of Caithness. There something remarkable takes place: a chemical reaction between the granite and the fuel and the effect of that is that the nuclear process in it comes to a standstill and what remains is a large patch of radioactive granite in the foundations of Caithness. All the sodium coolant circuits are double-walled with argon under a slight positive pressure in the jackets, so that if anything leaks out, argon is leaking out, not air leaking in.
The primary coolant surface of the whole of the reactor and the liquid sodium is below ground level. It cannot spill because there is nowhere for it to spill into and the secondary coolant circuits are provided in duplicate: one goes to the boilers and the other goes to an air-cooled system so that one can switch over, switch off the boilers, shut the plant, switch over to the air-cooled circuit and take the heat out of the reactor in that way.
The commercial version of this reactor involves very little redesign. It will be designed so that the fuel rods will be almost identical to the fuel rods used in the prototype. The boilers will be identical to those used in the prototype. There will simply be many more of them and they will be feeding in parallel into very much larger electrical generators; that is, the full-scale 660 megawatt conventional generators. If the CFR is sited at Dounreay, as it should be, it will be sited where it is wanted, because people at Dounreay and Thurso and Scrabster like this fast reactor which has brought so much prosperity to their district. There is already a line of pylons going South from Caithness which merely needs to be duplicated so that any environmental inquiry is unnecessary because the pylons

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are there. And there need be no transportation of fuel elements.
A factory to make fuel elements, put them into the reactor and process them, if it was only doing it for one commercial fast reactor would be sub-optimal from the standpoint of economies of scale, but it would not be so sub-optimal that the entailed dis-economies would in any way make much difference to the economics of the process. So there need be no plutonium transport, no plutonium to be hijacked. It would all remain within the perimeter of the site, with the power station being operated by the Central Electricity Generating Board and the fuel processing by British Nuclear Fuels.
The terroristic hazards of a plutonium colony do not yet have to be faced under these circumstances. Building a commercial fast reactor is an insurance policy by way of confirming how to be committed to a plutonium economy without any actual commitment in terms of the here and now. I must make this clear, as it were, "calling all terrorists": getting near enough to a fuel element to touch it is death. You cannot come near it; it must be handled by remote control and there will be no transport of it. It would be quite easy to take the fresh fuel elements and render them active enough to make them lethal to anybody who tried to handle them.
The fast reactor cannot go off like a bomb, which is everybody's great fear. Because of the way in which plutonium is generated—because it is generated with a lot of other isotopes which are themselves subject to spontaneous fission and because plutonium is quite unlike uranium 235—it is very difficult to make a plutonium bomb go off. It is always trying to be a reactor; it does not want to be a bomb. To make a bomb of plutonium metal one has to pack it round with an enormous amount of explosive, implode it and generate a shock wave which alters the specific surface of it. Fast reactor fuel is not metal, it is oxide. I am not a weapons man; I do not know whether you could make an oxide bomb; I think probably not, but I have not inquired.
I should like to end on a note concerned with human relations. The most exciting people want to get into the most exciting projects. That is human nature. Deep
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calls unto deep. In fact the fast reactor is a challenge. It attracts and recruits our very best people. We must not discourage our technologically best by failure of leadership among our politically worst. A decision to build a CFR is now due—perhaps overdue. Whatever problems have been tackled in parallel at Dounreay over a 20 year period have mostly been solved. They have been magnificently and imaginatively solved by not saying, "We will cross that bridge when we come to it". They have tackled the difficulty about what one does with the actinides, the very long-linked radioactive transuranic heavy elements. Experiments are being made now with burning them up in fast reactors. The principal problem to be solved is the best method of extracting them from the spent fuel rods.
The staff at Dounreay have done what we asked them to do most superbly and I think they deserve our support. If we do not give that support, I think we deserve their contempt as well as the contempt of future generations who will see us as having a magnificent prize within our power and failing to take it.
I am sorry that my speech is a little longer than the 10-minute target that I try to comply with, but if I may reinterpret what the noble Lord the Leader of the House told us—40,000 billion does not really mean very much. It is such a huge number that one cannot envisage. But the depleted uranium that we bought and paid for and stripped of its 235 content is the single largest fuel reserve in this country. It is a little larger than the total accessible coal reserves of tilt country. If to that we add all the spent fuel elements which have not been processed but are lying around in ponds waiting to be processed until the inquiry at Windscale is finished, then we get something very much larger than our total coal and oil. But it is all paid for; it is all for free.
The advance technology has almost all been done. Scaling up this reactor and getting it working is something that we should begin. The job you do not begin takes the longest to finish. We could not possibly commit ourselves to a plutonium economy, as it has been called, until we have had 20 years' experience of working a fast reactor. The time to start getting that experience is as soon as we have learnt how to do it, and I believe that the

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noble Viscount, Lord Simon, mentioned that there is a lot of research and development to be done. There is certainly some research and development to be done, but I am sure that the big subsidiary problems can be tackled successfully during the induction period while the design is being finished and the work is starting. It will take 10 years to build, 20 years to run. Thirty years from now takes us to the year 2008, and we ought to begin now. I thank your Lordships for a very patient hearing and I apologise for having spoken longer than I usually do.
5.19 p.m.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will say that 25 minutes of that is worth 50 minutes. Every second of it was enthralling and I can only say that to speak after the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, is a difficult, embarrassing and humbling thing to do. I should just like to say, because I am not going to pursue the nuclear angle, that I heartily welcome his support for an early decision to have the commercial fast reactor. He probably does not know that I also have—or had—certain connections with Caithness and I have much interest in what went on there.
I am sure that we all want to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, for moving this Motion, although perhaps the terms of it invite dispersal rather than concentration of wisdom. Perhaps they would be inclined to encourage the holy glow of scientific confusion. But the noble Lord firmly balanced the offbeat propositions with the serious ones and a number of noble Lords will certainly support (as I do) his firm, emphatic charge that nothing like enough is being spent on research and development in coal as compared with nuclear power.
I need to make two apologies: the first is that this debate was put on at relatively short notice and my ability to take part is conditioned by the fact that I have to leave here about six o'clock to catch a plane. Therefore, I am afraid that I cannot be present either for Lord Ritchie-Calder's speech, which I should be particularly interested to hear, or indeed for any of the others. That is my first apology to the House; it is sincere, but I have no alternative. The second is that I owe an
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apology to the House, through the House to the Government, and through the Government to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for a very unworthy supplementary question on conservation that I put to him the other day. I suggested to him and to the House that a major paper before the Energy Commission had dismissed the subject of conservation in a few lines. Well, the noble Lord was good enough to write me a letter pointing out my error, which is huge, and I would like to make it plain to the House, to the Government and to Lord Strabolgi that I apologise most sincerely for what was a quite unworthy supplementary question.
It would be a pity to miss one point that was made interrogatively by the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, during Lord Wynne-Jones' speech. He asked about harnessing the melting snow in the Highlands. Well, it is perhaps worth recording that, just as with railways the problem is constant supply and varying demand, the problem with energy is varying supply but constant demand. If there were snow all the time, no doubt it could be harnessed in the sort of way that Lord Lovat would wish to see. Having said that, may I say that the mind does reel after all the expertise that has been displayed before us. We have had figures of millions of tons of coal and billions of tons of reserves. We have not had, as I rather thought we might have, percentages; perhaps they are still coming. It is well to remember that,
"Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour
Content to dwell in percentages forever".
There is a certain tendency to take refuge from the simple realities in figures of great scale and also in avenues of curiosity. My fear about this debate and about the subject is that we may in fact miss the wood for the trees.
However, in all the grim vortex of our time there is surely common ground on several points. Western Europe's oil and gas is likely to turn down in the 1990s; that is common ground. Fusion is probably 50 years away. After listening to the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, I am not quite sure I am as confident as I was half an hour ago about saying that the difficulties of nuclear power have yet largely to be overcome, but it is the case that the PFR has taken a long time to bring to its present stage—I think about

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10 years—and certainly it is well to remember that building conventional nuclear power stations involves consuming in their construction something like five years of the energy that they are going to produce.
That is one reason why it was suggested recently that the European Commission's wish to see the European nuclear sources of energy multiplied by a factor of 14 in as many years was not only imprudent but was in fact beyond either the energy resources or the engineering resources of the countries concerned. As a matter of fact, that proposition, so widely advertised, has now been, if not cast aside, at any rate greatly reduced. We are agreed, surely, that, whatever the figures are, the industrial West and the industrialising developing countries will need much more energy than we can foresee being available, and, if that means one thing, it certainly means that energy prices will go up and world living costs with them.
Now, as regards the alternatives, it is, of course, tempting to bask in the sun, to swim in the sea and to enjoy the waves. I think we have to be frank, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, was quite frank in his opening speech, and say that the potential of any of these is relatively small. But I quickly welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Peart, said about allocating a further £10 million or so to the development of wave energy. Here, I have an interest to declare. I am interested in a small "grey matter company", as we call them in the trade. It has been working for some time on wave energy which has a completely different principle from any of the three projects which have now been chosen by the Government for special support. May I enter a plea that if this company, Submerged Buoyancy Structures Limited, has another go at penetrating the Department of Energy it may perhaps get a rather more sympathetic and rapid reaction than it has in the past? We have been disappointed at the rather slow reactions to our enquiries.
What we have to ask ourselves, surely, is what are the main alternatives. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, has linked dramatically the inter-changeability of coal, oil and nuclear power, and, as he rightly anticipated, I do want to say something about coal. Perhaps it is of interest to know what the oil industry says
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about coal. I have here a document called World Energy Prospects, supplied by the Shell Briefing Service and dated October 1977. It quotes an analysis by the Workshop on Alternative Energy Strategies, known for short as WAES, which was published by McGraw Hill and was indeed referred to in our last debate. Shell says,
"It came to one major conclusion: that the change from a world economy dominated by oil must start now. Coal has the potential to contribute substantially to future energy supplies. Coal reserves are abundant, but taking advantage of them requires an active programme of development by both producers and consumers … The energy field requires the will to mobilise finance, labour, research and ingenuity with a common purpose never before obtained in time of peace, and it requires it now."
The Shell Briefing Service goes on to say:
"There is a significant potential for coal development in many parts of the world. The WAES analysis shows that world coal production could reach three times the present level by the year 2000."
And it adds:
"A major long-term use for coal is conversion to liquid or gaseous fuels. These could use existing oil and gas distribution networks and consuming equipment."
So much for a well-informed oil industry comment on coal generally.
The noble Lord, Lord Peart, quoted the Coal Board figure for coal resources in place as 190 billion tons in the United Kingdom. I think he did not go on with the next figure which is that recoverable coal is put at 45 billion tons in the United Kingdom, enough for 300 years' consumption. Three hundred years will see a lot of us out, and possibly this building as well—not the institution, of course, but the building. The Coal Board's figure is that operational reserves at the moment are 4 billion tons and operational reserves at new mines another 2 billion tons. That means that only some 12 per cent.—the only decline into percentages of which I shall be guilty—of the recoverable reserves are at the moment operational. The question we must address ourselves to is surely this: How can the recoverable reserves be raised to operational reserves, especially—and this is a tragically critical factor—during the present climate of price-cum-energy glut, and the preferred choices that make oil easier to use, and quicker, cheaper, cleaner and so on.

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It is this price glut environment of political choice which is responsible for the Coal Board's tragically low horizons. Their horizon is a target of a mere 170 million tons at the year 2000, out of 45 billion tons of reserves—a general flavour of mild decay. This general vesture of decay also extends to the European Community. There current policies aim at little more than maintaining the coal industry in Europe at its present level. If coal is to stay the cornerstone of our energy policy, as the noble Lord, Lord Peart, reminded us, and as the Prime Minister himself has said, can this very limited target of 170 million tons a year by the year 2000 really be the last word of the Department of Energy? If so, better call it the Ministry of Science Fiction.
The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, dismissed in a few lines, with all the vigour of his epigrammatic skill, the Russian experience of underground coal gasification, but then went on to say that surely the current method of mechanised retreat long wall mining leaves much to be desired if it leaves 40 per cent. in place. He also said, "What about the miners?" Perhaps that makes the case for looking again at underground gasification of coal. The oil industry says that liquefication and gasification are really the answer for coal by the end of the century provided work starts now. But in fact the Government have told us that at the present time they are waiting on American experiments and that these experiments will mature only several years hence.
Are not the Government and the Coal Board being too hesitant? With all the confidence of a great nationalised industry, the National Coal Board in its own most recent appraisal of underground gasification, available in the Library and also from the Coal Board itself, says that UGC the short acronym for underground gasification, is one source which is sufficiently promising to be held open as an option and therefore should be kept under review—only under review. It is also a possible means of exploiting coal reserves which may otherwise be unminable. It is really dismissing it as a side show—wait for results somewhere else and keep it for coal that you cannot get at more easily. Then it goes on:
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"but present costs lie at the upper end of the range of energy costs and would have to be reduced if the process were to be operated on a commercial scale".
Here we find ourselves home and dry in the world of wonderful nonsense.
The firm which did the practical experiments for the Coal Board and the Ministry of Supply on underground gasification was a firm called Humphries and Glasgow—a quarter of a mile from here in Carlisle Place. What did they say about it? In their own house journal published last summer they referred to the work and the only practical work which has been done in this country—which they did at Newman Spinney in the 1950s and early sixties. They state in their house journal—and I believe this needs a serious answer some time—
"calculations done both on the basis of a 3 ft. seam and also for a 6 ft. seam … in 1960 the latest figure available for the cost of deep mined coal were 3·55 pence [that is old pence] per therm".
They then went on to say that their
"calculated cost of underground gasification to a power station using the cheapest of the methods studied was 3·5d [not 3·55] a therm front a 3 ft. thick seam and 2·1d [not 3·55] a therm front a 6 ft. scant".
So the first question is: Will the Government really get the NCB to look at this seriously? No doubt in due time we shall have a further note or word about it.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, as the noble Earl said he is not going to be here at the end of the debate, perhaps I might say that one of the difficulties is that lignite and sub-bituminous coals appear to be the most suitable for this process, and British coals do not mainly fall into these categories. There is also the question of the seams; many of the seams are vertical, which are also not suitable. That is the reason why we are not going into this in a very big way, but are watching experiments in other countries, namely the United States. It is not that we are dragging our feet; there are great practical difficulties.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, who is always so tolerant when I pull his leg a little and so ready to help both myself and the House. May I just make this remark about the bituminous point. I have heard word that it was being

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said that the quality of the coal, the bituminous characteristic, was a difficulty, and I did check with Humphries and Glasgow who said that to their knowledge this was not so. So without wishing to be engaged in an argument about chemistry perhaps I may just put that in the record. I know the noble Lord will take it in the spirit in which it is meant.
Speaking generally, I think we must ask the Government whether they endorse the rather negative approach of the Coal Board. From what the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has said, that is so. Will the Government look more seriously at the possibility of raising the whole target for coal production at the end of the century? Granted this needs enormous investment, granted that enormous investment is being syphoned into nuclear; but are we satisfied that we are doing enough about some 300 years' worth reserves of coal that are under our feet?
This general issue was in our debate last May, and after that the noble Lord, Lord Peart, was kind enough to write to me and to all those who had taken part in that debate about the plans which set the target I have mentioned. I quote:
"We are already actively considering the right place for the coal industry beyond the planned period".
So, with respect, I ask the noble Lord whether he can tell us now or later what are the Government's conclusions.
5.38 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, we are meeting here today and even your Lordships' House cannot revoke the second law of thermodynamics, so we are trying to arrive at a lot of answers which are extremely restricted, but not on the imagination. With all due deference to people who want to be hard-headed, one of the things we are hampered with is that you will find in most of the things we are contemplating that the people who are going to come through loud and clear, are the people who have the real kind of imagination. That applies in the most conventional industries as well. We have a problem of terminology in our title.
We are talking about alternative sources of energy. What are the priorities to be applied to the various sources. By and large, alternative sources of energy are being used as the less conventional
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sources of energy. At present I am working on a book on energy. I hope that I shall be able to find a terminology that will meet your Lordships requirements.
I have been involved in "alternative sources" of energy through my very considerable concern about the less developed countries which are largely deprived of any energy of any kind whether conventional or novel, except for muscle-energy of man and beast which is the most expensive energy of all. In terms of food calories, a unit of muscle-energy of the poorest-fed man or beast is 20 times as much, in cost, as a unit of energy from a nuclear power plant. The British production worker with a flick of a switch commands slave-electrons equivalent to 100 galley slaves. It is to that problem of how we can provide alternative sources of energy—in this case, alternatives to muscle power—that I have given a good deal of my attention. In fact, I have lost count of the desert miles that I have covered with my old friend the late E. W. Golding of the British Electrical Association, who, on loan to the United Nations, used to go around looking for sites for windmills in the Middle East, Somaliland and Latin America—indeed, covering the world and helping them to make windmills, for example, with basket-work sails from native raffia. The problem, and we are giving it close attention today, was always storage because winds are variable and storage batteries are expensive. However, there must be ways around the problem and there will be ways around it.
I was also on the secretariat of the United Nations Conference on New Sources of Energy in 1963, in Rome. That was a laugh! There was only one paper on nuclear energy. Every other paper presented at that conference which went on for a fortnight was on the oldest sources of energy of all: solar energy, wind energy, wave energy, tidal energy, hydraulic energy, geothermal energy and so on. The great experts from the advanced countries were wagging their fingers at the less developed countries and telling them how to do it themselves, but 15 years ago their own countries, flourishing extravagantly on cheap oil, were doing damn all about those sources of energy. Weare only now learning the lessons that we were teaching them.

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That is a sobering thought. It took a very curious incident called OPEC to remind us that all life is energy; not just the source of our livelihood, but all life is energy. Therefore, we have been ignoring the paramount questions and trying to treat them as though it were merely a question of commercial considerations. The commercial considerations may be important, but the real ultimate point is that the energy question is paramount for the entire world.
I shall not, like the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, indulge in percentages of noughts. In your Lordships' House there is always a great chance of getting lost not just in the points but in the zeros. I do not think that such an exercise is worth while. I recommend to your Lordships a very useful overall report in the Crown Agents Quarterly Review for winter 1977–78. I do not know how many of your Lordships receive that publication, but I think that I am one of a number. There is a first-class article by Noel Bott, the consultant engineer, and it gives all the figures and decimals that we are trying to dodge today.
We are talking about energy options. Now we have nuclear, oil, coal, oil and shale, natural gas, solar, biomass, geothermal, wind, sea-wave, tidal, hydroelectric and so on. Those are our options. However, in many cases they are restricted. Some people have pointed out that there is a limitation to the possible sites for windmills and someone else said that there may be arguments about substituting a windmill for an electricity pylon on one of our better landscapes. Those are considerations that we cannot ignore.
However, I was very impressed—and I am sure your Lordships must have been—by the extraordinary and very meritorious presentation by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, of a case for the fast nuclear reactor. I say that in order to flatter myself because I, like the noble Earl, did my industrious homework for the purposes of this debate, not at Dounreay but up the road at Edinburgh University. I was asked, but I did not need to be asked, to say something about wave generating. I find this subject tremendously imaginative. I do not want to talk specially about the Edinburgh or the Stephen
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Salter experiment, because I think that the whole process is extraordinarily imaginative. There are, in fact, six different systems being encouraged and the tank, or the custom-built wave laboratory about which I am about to talk, will be shared by several of the groups who are now being supported by the Government.
The great thing about the custom-built wave laboratory, which the Government have financed at Edinburgh University, is that there are now possibilities for really measuring—and measuring with a finesse more than commendable—all the problems which one could anticipate, and which apparently the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, who is absent, did anticipate, about what would happen in large-scale operations of wave generators. That applies to any system about which we talk and not just about the Salter system.
I saw what unsentimental scientists call a beautiful experiment. The tank is the size of a public swimming pool. It is 89 ft. long, and in it, with computerised control, he can reproduce 50 different types of wave system. That is fundamental wave research. One can see for one's own eyes, scaled-down waves equivalent to 22 metres high that would stand the "Queen Elizabeth II" on her tail, and one can have any combination one likes of wave system—even some that nature may not have thought up. One can have the equivalent of any wave system in any part of the world. One can orchestrate an Atlantic storm or expose a wave energy generator plant, such as we are thinking of, to the worst possible conditions—just predicate the worst and it can be reproduced. Every natural contingency can be taken into account.
Salter's own device is the "duck" to which I know my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones referred. I like that description because it is like a duck. It bobs up and down like a duck; it is shaped like a duck and it behaves like a duck, and in the process of bobbing it converts the prodigious energy of an ocean wave into electricity in situ. If noble Lords want to know what the prodigious energy is, I would refer them to the article in the Crown Agents Quarterly Review, because it is prodigious.

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The number of megawatts that one can get from an Atlantic roller is fantastic. This can be fed into a cable on the sea bottom to be fed into the national grid ashore. I should like to assure the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, through the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, that it is likely that at least the first of these enterprises will feed into Caithness, but they will not come from the Pentland Firth because not only are the waves of the Pentland Firth difficult, but it has very difficult currents. So it looks as though we shall have to go out further into the Atlantic, beyond the Hebrides—we might even pick up the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, on the way back, collect his wind power and feed it into the grid as well.
This is a fascinating project, but I am not just saying this in support of one particular system. This is an utterly clean, non-polluting system and it is entirely and constantly renewable. The environmental hazards, apart from the drifting systems (the breakaway systems) of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso—to which I shall return in a moment—are nil; they do not exist. The ducks are like the vertebrae of the spine; they can be articulated to any length—even 1,000 metres. Unlike a massive dam system, the ducks will be pliable; that is, they will move with the waves and adjust to the kind of situation that may arise. What is more, all these vertebrae are units which can be taken out and replaced. It will not be quite as simple as replacing a fuse, but they can be replaced.
The capital cost is still high—as high as all these things we are talking about must be; it is about £30 million, or about the cost of a breeder reactor. But there is no fuel cost, and, of course, there is no likelihood of a fuel shortage. By next summer a complete model, one hundred and fiftieth of the actual size, could be completed if—and I ask my noble friend the Leader of the House to bear this in mind—the next stage of Government support is forthcoming. As I have said, this is only one of six energy research projects which the Government support, and it involves genuine competition and not uncouth rivalry.
But think of the British coastline and imagine the possibilities by the mid-1980s. What appeals to me about Salter's system
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is that, although our scientific knowledge of wave behaviour—with which the project in Edinburgh is at present concerned—has to be advanced and perfected, the technology of the system is conventional; that is, the bits and pieces can be ordered off the shelf now. They can be made by any workers experienced in concrete and metal work; the actual ducks, the units, can be fabricated by ordinary methods.
This should commend itself very highly to those of us who feel that perhaps half our trouble is that we are venturing onto the frontiers of science—not just as they are doing in this research, trying to establish the science—and anticipating in our technology science which has not yet been fully established. I do not want to remind noble Lords of the fact that for 30 years we have been living with that kind of thing in the nuclear field. There is nothing wrong with this. People are justified in feeling suspicious of new systems with which they are totally unfamiliar. Immediately people get used to the idea that the systems being introduced are not only underwritten by scientists but are familiar in general experience, we shall get much further faster in these developments.
I should like to emphasise one matter. I am not looking at this merely in terms of Britain. I am not looking at this in totally sentimental terms worldwide. I believe that for ourselves and for the entire world we, in this country, should be pushing ahead very vigorously and that we should plough back a great deal of the windfall that we had in the shape of North Sea oil into finding the alternatives to that oil, which we shall presently exhaust. However, there is one other point. I want to see my country get into this new industrial revolution—the revolution of redemption of industrial energy and the securing of the environment. I think that we can dc it. We have the conscience to do it and the skill to do it, and we should provide the resources.
5.57 p.m.
Lord KINGS NORTON: My Lords, I too must apologise for the fact that I shall be unable to be present at the end of this debate. I have a longstanding appointment at seven o'clock, and when I allowed my name to stay on the list this

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afternoon it was because I calculated that I should still be able to keep it and attend the whole debate. But it is taking longer than I had calculated, and I apologise for my miscalculation.
First, I want to add my thanks to the thanks already given to the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, for initiating this discussion on what is one of the most important of matters not only for this country but for Europe and the world. We are all agreed that unless we develop sources of energy alternative to those now current, we shall be in a global fix by the end of the century. What is more, we must exercise our powers of anticipation to the utmost.
The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, promised us a rather unpleasant decade in the near future, but I believe that we must not wait for our problems to harass us before we get on with the job of solving them in a practical way. In this context I hope that I did not misunderstand the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, but his philosophy shocked me a little. He seemed to be saying that we should postpone decisions because tomorrow we shall be able to do something better than we can today. I would never stand in the way of advancing technology, but there is always a time when we must decide to go into production if we are to have something ready to deal with the practical problem in time.
The counter-philosophy to the one the noble Earl seemed to be enunciating—and I am sorry he is not here to put me right if I am wrong—is that "the better is the enemy of the good". We have to have our solutions ready and our development done so that we can move smoothly into what are fresh régimes. I really take comfort from what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said about the Government's programme. I think he called it "responsible and imaginative". I believe it is. I think too that it is very comprehensive, but later on the Government—this Government or some other Government—will be faced with some agonising appraisals of the situation because they will not be able to proceed with everything. They will have to decide which are the lines that are going to be chosen for the solution of our problems.
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Naturally, the problems of alternative sources have long been exercising the collective mind of the Commission in Brussels. I feel strongly that we must collaborate with them to the utmost, and should expect the utmost collaboration in the energy field from the other countries in Europe. However, I hope that we shall, in the areas where we know we can go it alone, go it alone and not wait for EEC decisions in determining our own policy. EEC decisions seem to take a long time to fructify, and our own not too rapid processes seem almost dynamic in comparison.
Furthermore, as has been made evident today already—I fear I am repeating something which has been said before—our national problems differ radically from the problems of most other countries and I have no doubt but that the best contribution that we can make to the solution of the problems of the EEC and of the other countries, wherever they are, will be to solve our own problems and offer the results where they are applicable.
When I remarked on the difference between our national problems and the national problems of other countries, I had two matters particularly in mind. One of them was the alternative mentioned first by the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, and so interestingly elaborated on by the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder: the alternative of wave energy. This is of little interest to some countries—Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Luxembourg immediately spring to mind—but it is of great interest to us because of our enormous coastline. It must be an extremely attractive possibility.
What we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, was absolutely fascinating and gave us great cause for hope. I was surprised at the estimate which the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, made of what it could contribute. I think he said that it was about 60 per cent. of our present electrical demand. That would of course be a tremendous contribution. I did not know that it could do so much but, if it can, the case for pressing on hard with development is indeed very strong and much stronger than I had previously thought. I am glad to learn from the Leader of the House that the experiments are receiving such strong

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Government support. There are undoubtedly great difficulties to be overcome. The upgrading of low grade energy—and that is what we have in the case of wave energy—needs ponderous and expensive apparatus. The power will inevitably be generated peripherally when we shall want to use it centrally, but the prize is undoubtedly immense and worth a great effort.
The other way in which our circumstances differ greatly from those of most other countries has already been made evident this afternoon. I think that, with the exception of West Germany and Poland, our deposits of coal are practically unique in Europe. This debate, as has been said, is about alternatives, and I think we are all interpreting that very liberally. The conventional sources are taken to be coal, oil, gas and nuclear energy, and nothing could be more conventional than coal. However, as other noble Lords have said this afternoon, coal will, in the end, have to be regarded as an alternative to oil and gas. It is probably going to be the most important of all alternatives in the next three decades.
Coal production in 1960 was 195 million tons per annum—and I hope that that is not too many noughts for the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder. In 1976, it was 122 million tons. Although the Department of Energy is understood to believe that it will be 135 million tons in 1985, other prophets rate it at around 95 million tons; 95 million tons to more than satisfy the demand that they estimate at 85 million tons. These figures are indicative of a dangerous decline in production; a decline which will somehow have to be arrested. The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, gave us one clue as to how that might be done by deliberately burning coal at power stations which are burning oil at the moment, and by revamping the old coal stations.
In 1985, oil and gas production is likely to be about 350 million tons of coal equivalent. If it is true that oil and gas production will have seriously diminished by the end of the century, then it will be far below that figure of 350 million tons. What will be the feasible alternative to remedy this loss? One, no doubt, will be nuclear energy, but it never seems to progress quite as fast as we hope, and there are great pollution problems which
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have to be solved. I do not believe that they are solved. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, gave us a great deal of encouragement about the safety of nuclear power stations, but the disposal of waste is still a terrifying problem.
Another of the alternatives may—and it is still only "may"—be wave energy. But there are big difficulties which the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, would not underestimate still to be overcome before we have a practical system. The only utterly dependable alternative will be coal. Unless we are in a position to mine vastly more than we do now, and indeed vastly more than the 170 million tons which I believe is the NCB projection for the end of the century, then we shall be in serious trouble.
I believe that of all the alternative sources of energy, coal—and this is not new; it has already been said more than once this afternoon—is, for us, the most important. As the oil and natural gas diminish, so must we, I believe, replace them by coal in some form or another. Our new non-nuclear power stations must be able to burn coal as well as oil, and I suggest that we must plan for the end of the century with coal as the primary source. In other words, I am underlining what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said about coal being the cornerstone of our energy policy. The noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, made it clear that there would be enough coal. There is a tremendous amount of it, not only under the ground here but under the sea—and under our part of the sea as well! The research and development to get it—and to try to get some of it by present methods would be very expensive—must be a priority.
I believe that the National Coal Board is alive to all this, but it has to work commercially. On demand prophecies for the next decade it will reduce, not increase, production. But it is essential, as I think many noble Lords must agree, that a plan for a rapid increase in production in the last decade of this century should, somehow or other, be achieved. Perhaps it would be wise to mine well in excess of demand in the years immediately ahead and store the excess output. But the National Coal Board would object that this is scarcely a commercial proposition, so, if it were to be made a

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practical proposition, there would have to be assistance in some form or another from the Government.
I am sure that the part coal should play in the next 25 years is worthy of, and is getting, the most careful examination. When I say that I am sure it is getting it, I mean that it is some comfort to know that the means to examine this and the related energy problems about which we have been talking exist. I recall that, in the debate we had towards the end of 1975, several noble Lords—I can certainly remember two of them; one was the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, and the other was myself—urged strongly that we should have an Energy Commission. We now have one. It had its first meeting in November, as we were told by the Leader of the House, and I imagine that it will meet frequently in future.
However, as well as that high level body, which must, I suppose, range over the whole field of our energy policy, there is the Advisory Council for Research and Development in the fuel and power sphere, which is under the distinguished chairmanship of the Energy Department's chief scientist, Sir Herman Bondi. This seems to me to be a key body in the prosecution of the research and development on which we will depend for our comfort at the end of the century. I am sure it is looking at wave power, but I hope it is also looking at the vital role of coal. I hope, too, that unlike the Commission in Brussels, it will not overestimate the rate at which nuclear energy can expand its contribution.
I also hope that it will give all possible support to the one source on which, sooner or later, we shall, ineluctably, have to depend—and it may be sooner rather than later—namely, the power of the sun. We know enough to use the sun's heat directly through heat exchangers—to heat our swimming pools and, to a limited extent, to serve our houses—but we still have a lot to learn about using the light of the sun photo-voltaically to produce electrical current and photo-chemically to produce fuel. These are matters which are still at the basic research stage, but they are of vital importance and I believe that photochemical processes will prove to be our
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ultimate salvation. I think those are a better bet than nuclear fusion and, therefore, that they should receive at least as much support.
6.14 p.m.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, for providing us with an interesting and fascinating debate. Britain and all industrial countries are so vulnerable to shortages of energy that we have to look round for all conceivable substitutions. Apart from the new scientific discoveries, our best idea is to protect ourselves from blackmail whether it is caused by nature or by man. I have always been rather dubious about the enthusiasm for coal, as shown by the Energy Secretary and several noble Lords in this debate. Undoubtedly the coal is there, but will we get it to the surface? Miners are now able to earn very high wages at the coalface. Will they merely take more days off or will they go in for a higher standard of living and spend as much time underground as they do now?
I remember that about 30 years ago I made a speech in your Lordships' House in which I said that the National Coal Board should start providing car parks at the top of each mine labelled, "For miners' cars only" because cars were rather scarce in those days and were about the one conceivable luxury for which people were prepared to work. Today I do not know what sort of inducements could be put forward. Will the miner go down for, say, three days a week and be content with the Costa Brava or can he be induced to go down for four and a half days a week and have his holiday on an island in the sun? That is the problem. Moreover, if we have a flood of coal tomorrow then, as some noble Lords have explained, we shall not be able to use it because nobody will want to buy it; it will merely go into stock, unless we can export it.
I have always been an advocate of more nuclear power, more pump storage to deal with the main peaks and more turbine generators to deal with the short top peaks. We have the last two and it looks to me as though we are going to get the first, in the shape of our two new reactors. I was impressed with what the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, said about the

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fast breeder. Everybody seems to have thought all along that the fast breeder must be the thing, but it has been rather a mystery to me and the noble Earl has now put the matter fairly clearly as to what are and what are not its hazards. The main problem in the long term is obviously to produce a substitute for oil. Noble Lords have been speaking tonight as though oil will suddenly run out, but of course it will not. They go on finding oil all over the world. But if we go on using oil at the increasing rates we are doing now, it will be remarkably expensive, and therefore it will be most uncomfortable if we depend too much on oil.
Many of our problems regarding oil would vanish if only somebody would come up with a much more efficient method of storing electricity in batteries. I appreciate that all over the world research is going on into this subject, but I do not know whether there has been a breakthrough. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, obviously thinks it is impossible, but I would remind him that the impossibilities of one generation of scientists become the possibilities of the next, so that possibly his children or grandchildren will be able to produce the answer.
I am on the board of a service company which, along with two others, is doing an experiment on behalf of the Road Research Laboratory. We are putting on the road in London 30 cwt. delivery vans worked by electric batteries. The capital cost of these machines is heavier than diesel but the maintenance cost is so much lower that it pays to use them. Moreover, the drivers like them, and we are now increasing the size of the fleet One does not get much saving in oil through changing to electricity something that runs only 30 miles a day, but if the battery breakthrough comes about it will be possible to use electricity for a variety of other vehicles, and in that way there could be an important switch from oil to electricity, which could be generated by coal, nuclear, as well as oil.
Eventually we may have to use oil produced from coal and I do not know what the arrangements are in this country for doing this. I believe the South Africans do it now. I should have thought it would be a very good idea, even from the point of view of resisting blackmail by the oil countries, to have in
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Europe at any rate a number of these stations which would be producing a certain amount of petrol from coal. After all, we have a very large margin of cost in the fact that Governments levy such a huge tax on petrol at the moment.
Many countries in the world have bankrupted themselves, and are bankrupting themselves, in trying to pay their oil bills, and anything which decreases their dependence on oil is greatly to the advantage of the world, not only from the point of view of the oil situation but also because of the fact that we in the more prosperous countries of the world will not have to provide the so-called loans, which they can never possibly repay, to enable them to pay their oil bills. Perhaps solar heat is a great help in the rural districts of Africa and India. I do not think the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, is correct in saying that the Sahara is the only place where the sun shines very strongly. I have been in places, not in the Sahara, where it was remarkably hot, and if you could get a cheap cooker worked by the sun it would save a good deal in kerosene to say nothing of our old friend the dung of the cow.
One of my friends in Sussex has fitted his house with a solar water heater, and Sussex is so sunny that he is very satisfied with the apparatus. Of course, you have to have an apparatus already in your house which it is not too difficult to adapt, but it did not cost him many hundreds of pounds to put this heater in and he is very pleased with it. Four or five years ago I saw a lot of houses in Cyprus which were being fitted up with these, and I believe that in Australia, too, they are using a lot.
Some time ago the Central Electricity Generating Board sent me a booklet devoted to the novel projects and researches going on in connection with this subject, some of which have been mentioned tonight. The Board did not evaluate most of them very highly, I must say. The conception of a 1,000-kilometre barrage of machinery floating out in the Atlantic is one which rather appals the mind, though it seems to find some favour with scientific noble Lords. So long as I do not have to be the service engineer who has to go on the thing when it goes wrong, in a force 10 gale, I do not mind; but I have a feeling that it is not a starter.

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However, I expect some of the more practical projects are being researched behind the scenes. We must not be frightened of big projects. We are rather apt to be so. We say that a thing costs so many hundreds or thousands of millions of pounds; but the larger the cost the more likely it is to be spread over a very long period of time, and provided the Government can borrow the money without going to the banking system—in other words, without creating inflation—and, at the same time, without paying through the nose for the money, as they were doing last year, there is no reason why we should be frightened of any such schemes. In fact, the climate has changed so much in the last year that, as a Keynesian, I would say that this is the time when they ought to be doing something of this nature.
However, it is the United States who are the trend-setters in the solution to this problem, and it is their consumption of oil which, unless it is checked, is going to ruin the lot of us. I can only hope that President Carter will get some of his provisions through Congress, and that that irrepressible gang of spoilsports, "The Think-Tank", will not come out with the theory that to give every American a woolly vest will cost more in oil than President Carter will save.
6.24 p.m.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, I do not think we can too strongly emphasise that until well into the next century there is no viable alternative energy source to oil, coal and nuclear fission which can meet the anticipated energy gap. Nuclear fission is essential, and the breeder or fast reactor is also likely to be so. It would be folly if we did not develop it fully, although a decision to rely on it can be taken a little later on. In the speech T made in the last debate I raised the various objections to this, and I am fully aware of them. But I think it is now a question, not of public debate but rather of educating the public to the fact that we simply have to have nuclear fission and as to the real dangers and difficulties. I think the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, went a long way this evening into telling us that these dangers and difficulties need not be anything like as great as they have been painted by some people.
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The anti-nuclear lobby seems conveniently to forget three factors. First, there are the consequences of an energy shortage on the Western World, and, worse still, on developing countries, whose requirements must necessarily increase in the future if their standard of life is to be improved. A lack of fertiliser, which requires energy to produce, could be catastrophic. The prices of it are already, in many cases, almost beyond their means. Secondly, there is the economic cost of some of the alternative sources if used on a grand scale.
I take, for example, solar cells. One power station in our own latitude would have to have an equivalent of 50 square kilometres of surface, and the cost of solar cells is at least in the order of magnitude of 10 times more than other methods of energy generation. And, of course, there are many other problems as well. Thirdly, there is the environmental effect, and most certainly, I think, the Friends of the Earth could well give greater prominence to this when they consider, if they consider at all, viable alternatives to nuclear fission.
Now I come to coal. I think that probably nearly everything that can be said on coal has been said, but, just to summarise, first of all we have the difficulty of increasing mine production. To do so, Governments will have to be pretty resolved if they are going to get an effect which is worth while in the time-scale that we anticipate. The alternative is perhaps opencast coal production—not very nice from an environmental point of view, even though you put the ground back. Then, of course, there is the other argument, that sooner or later the petrochemical industry will once more have to rely on coal for much of its chemicals, and we do not want to run the stocks down too far. Finally, of course, there is a school of thought which says that if we were greatly to increase the amount of coal or fossil fuels simply burnt in power stations it would increase the carbon dioxide, and this could have an effect on our climate. But, in spite of everything, I am myself sure that we have to face this and increase coal production to some extent—and do it now.
On the whole, my Lords, I am in favour of pursuing the various possible alternative energy sources. None of them will

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make a very great difference, but all of them put together can possibly produce something significant; and, in suitable circumstances, they can have other advantages in various areas. There is, in fact, a very great number of alternatives. To mention just a few, we have wind; wave; tide; hydro-electric energy; geothermal; solar; vegetable and other biochemical processes dependent on the sun; recovery of energy from waste products such as methane gas from sewage works—and that, incidentally, is really commercially viable—the burning of refuse and to some extent, although there are considerable problems, low-grade heat from power stations.
A lot has been said about solar energy, It might just be worth mentioning one thing. The enthusiasts tell us that there is sufficient energy from the sun falling upon the Sahara to provide the energy at present used by the whole world. This sounds fine; but if you do it by solar cells you straight away reduce this to one-tenth efficiency at the very best for solar cells are not yet developed sufficiently. Then there is the problem of the energy being intermittent because there is no sun at night. That, coupled with the fact that you have got to push the energy around the world, if you are going to use it that way, means that you must have some intermediary such as, perhaps, hydrogen economy; and unless you develop your fuel cells to cope with those sort of powers you are getting down to about 1 per cent. Furthermore, of course, there is the tremendous political problem. So, attractive as all this sounds, it just is not practical politics at the present time, or, I think, likely to be so in the future.
There is another area which shows potentially far greater gains than almost any other energy source, wave power and the rest. That is economy. Noble Lords will probably remember that the EEC estimated that it was possible to make a 10 per cent. reduction—and this is a really significant contribution. Thermal insulation is, obviously, one of the easiest and most cost-effective methods; and at last the Government have done something in this direction, but I am still to be convinced that it is enough. It would seem that they are not tackling the insulation of factories and, on the domestic sector, cannot still bring themselves to zero-VAT
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fibre-glass insulation on the apparently flimsy grounds that the material is used for purposes other than insulation.
The domestic sector takes about 24 per cent. of our total energy consumption in Britain. The potential gains of insulating existing houses are very considerable. There is plenty of manufacturing capability for fibreglass and the cost of energy continues to rise much faster than that of fibre insulation. This means that amortisation periods, usually of about two years or less, continue to decrease or that thicker insulation—we are now talking about 4 in. or more of fibreglass—is more than justified. Other countries, for example Belgium, have already done much more to give a direct financial incentive to the consumer. Although I applaud the £350 million—if that is the figure—that the Government propose to spend on this and on other projects, they really should take this matter even more seriously than at present: increase the standards for new building further than they have and bring pressure or incentives to bear on industry to do something about insulating some of these factories which consume an immense amount of energy in just heating them.
6.34 p.m.
Lord WILSON of HIGH WRAY: My Lords, I rise with considerable hesitation to address your Lordships after the astonishingly good speeches which have been made this afternoon upon this subject. However, I think that I must accept the advice of Pliny the Younger, that the shoemaker should not go beyond his last, and I propose to discuss only the question of conventional hydro-electric power. Water power was first used in this country by the Romans in the 3rd century and at the time of Domesday there were about 5,000 water mills in the area surveyed. Later it was used in the simple textile machinery of pulling and other processes, to work forge hammers and mine pumps, and even supplied London with that marvellous water from the River Thames. But it was the shortage of water power which led to the development of the steam engine in the early part of the 18th century and during the 19th century.
Most of your Lordships will know that the textile industry moved entirely from

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East Anglia to the hills of Derbyshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Welsh Borders and the southern counties of Scotland; but it was not sufficient to provide the power and hence we got the steam engine coming to fill in, even as nuclear power in this country came to fill in when the output from the coalmines was falling disastrously at and after the end of the war.
Here, I must declare a financial interest. I am the non-executive director, the chairman actually, of a small firm employing 210 people which manufactures pumps and water turbines. My financial interest is relatively small and I can only give your Lordships my assurance that this afternoon I address you as an engineer and not as someone "on the make". There is a sort of idea that conventional hydro-electric power is out, particularly in this country; and there is no doubt about it that the Central Electricity Board, the South of Scotland Electricity Board, and even, I am afraid, the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, have apparently lost all interest in generating electricity from the waterpower which is still available in the United Kingdom.
I agree that the amount of waterpower available is extremely small, almost infinitesmal, but as other noble Lords have pointed out, we must explore all avenues; and it seems a shame, almost an act of stupidity, that we should not be examining the sources of conventional hydro-electric power that are available to us and which have no effect at all upon the atmosphere or on the water which passes through the turbines and which is replaceable with the sun as our boiler.
I think that we should first consider the role played by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. This was formed in 1943 and its terms of reference were
"… to exploit the waterpower resources of the Highlands of Scotland by producing cheap electricity which would help to regenerate the local economy."
It has been extraordinarily successful and now, according to the latest reports, by the end of this year some 99 per cent. of the inhabitants of the North of Scotland will be receiving electricity at prices comparable with the prices paid by those who live close to our most economic coalfields.
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I think that a few figures of cost comparison are worth mentioning. I will not go into billions and I have, in fact, rounded off the prices to produce not more than two or three figures which are not very difficult to remember. If we consider first the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, the cost per unit generated by hydro-electric power is 0·69p and by thermal power or imported power 1·20p. There is a lot of interchange between the North of Scotland and South of Scotland Board. For the South of Scotland the difference is even more remarkable. The cost for hydro-electric power is 0·27p and the cost for thermal 1·17p. The reason for that is obvious: the Galloway power scheme (which is really the only extensive hydro-electric power used in the South of Scotland) was built by the English Electric Company in the late 'twenties and early 'thirties when interest charges, wages and costs were low. They have largely been paid off and that gives that astonishingly low cost for generating by hydro-electric power.
We might also look at some of the proposals for further hydro-electric developments which were referred to in the annual report of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board for the year ending 31st March 1965. Four schemes were almost ready to go to tender. The installed capacity would have been 98 megawatts, and the units generated about 300 million per annum. Ten schemes were under survey. The installed capacity would have been 380 megawatts and the units generated about 1,000 million. In addition, there were other unnamed schemes being considered, and, if all these schemes had gone ahead, they would have added 640 megawatts of generating capacity, drawing its power from natural sources and supplying over 1,850 million units in an average year. Even if, at first, the cost had proved high because of the high capital cost, inflation—which appears to be with us to stay—would soon have reduced the cost of electricity produced by conventional hydro-electric power to a reasonable figure. By the following year, most of those schemes had been dropped except for the four which had been fully engineered. There has been no mention of further development in Scotland, except for pump storage, to which I need not refer as it is merely an accumulator.

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In November 1973, there was a conference on energy organised in London by the Royal Society. I raised this question of further investigation into the viability of conventional water power in view of the greatly increased fuel charges then occurring. But I was told by Mr. Vernon, the deputy chairman and chief executive of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, that there were no more viable hydro-electric schemes in the United Kingdom. Quite recently, I checked the Economist list on basic fuel prices. I imagine they include petrol, and so on. But they are staggering. Taking 100 as the unit in 1970, it was 92 in 1965 when the Hydro-Board was investigating its further schemes, and that figure has now risen to 704. I believe the schemes which were not viable when Mr. Vernon made that statement, when the price was 164, may well be viable now and should be examined.
Before the recent high increases in fuel costs, two hydro-electric schemes in England were being considered. One was in connection with the Kielder Dam and the other with a certain section of the Manchester Corporation aqueduct. These schemes would have totalled 6 megawatts and would probably have generated between 15 and 20 million units per annum. From an engineering point of view, they were absolutely first class. They were using up surplus head. Putting water through a turbine and generating power is much the best way of destroying surplus head. Tenders were called for by the respective area water authorities, but subsequently nothing has been done, nor have the tenderers been told why the schemes have been dropped.
This apathy towards the use of small hydro-electric schemes comes from the fact that the Central Electricity Generating Board wants to build only very large power stations and is not interested in anything small. The area boards want to buy all their electricity from the CEGB and they do not want small schemes feeding into their mains. It can be done perfectly easily; it is done in Scotland and it creates no difficulties at all. The water authorities do not want to get mixed up with generating electricity as a side line. I am particularly disappointed with the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. When they were going ahead with their construction schemes they were putting in sets as small as 50 kilowatts—0·5 of a
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megawatt—to feed into the grid wherever this was commercially possible. Now they are not even considering larger schemes.
I must conclude on one other note: there is a very serious shortage of work in the civil engineering construction industry. Equally seriously, it is becoming more and more difficult to give young engineers that invaluable site training which they must have if they are to reach the top of their profession. I would remind you, my Lords, that there are no better dam builders in the world than those trained in the United Kingdom. There has been no serious dam failure in this country since that at Dolgarrog in 1925. This compares very favourably indeed with some of the appalling disasters which have happened in other countries in recent years.
By all means let us spend millions of pounds investigating potential sources of power, many of which cannot be available in less than 10 to 20 years; but, in the meantime, let us invest some capital in schemes which we know will yield valuable power, bring valuable employment, and yield valuable dividends within less than a decade.
6.48 p.m.
Lord WOLVERTON: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House is most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, for raising this very important matter of energy conservation and new forms of energy production in this House today. I am most grateful to him. In the last debate we had on this matter last May I raised the subject of the further electrification of our railways in the next 10 or 12 years to save oil. I was gratified that the noble Lord the Leader of the House, in winding-up, said that he agreed with a great deal of what I had said. The electrification of the line from Euston up to Glasgow has been a tremendous success.
Today I put only one important matter to the Government; that is, to save uranium in the next 10 to 15 years. In my opinion, the availability of uranium will be much reduced due to the large number of atomic power stations which are being developed. The only alternative possible is to develop the fast breeder reactor station, as based so successfully at the Dounreay experimental station, which

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has been so well described tonight by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, who visited Dounreay specially by air to investigate the matter. I was disappointed when the Government announced permission for two more AGR stations, one for England and Scotland—which I welcome—but they did not announce consent to build one fast breeder reactor station in this country. We were the pioneers of this type of station, which saves a great deal of uranium fuel.
Already, France and Russia are starting to build stations of the fast breeder reactor type. I understand that Her Majesty's Government have announced that, very shortly, a public inquiry will be held to look into the possible risks of plutonium getting into the wrong hands. We must all hope that the inquiry will prove that the risk is not so serious as some people believe, and that permission will be given in the near future to build a large station.
The country must largely depend on coal, which, luckily, we have in good quantities, and on uranium. There should be further research into solar energy, winds, waves and dams systems for generating electricity, and I hope that the Government will be generous in this regard. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Peart, said that a sum of about £10 million would be forthcoming for further development along these lines. But, of course, they will only scratch the surface. As I said in May, 75 per cent. of electricity in this country is today being generated by coal, so that is still king and is likely to be for a number of years to come. Also, in the future, coal will be wanted much more for chemical extraction and, possibly, for oil extraction. I understand that the latter was done successfully by the Germans during the war, although their brown coal was not of a very high grade, and I do not suppose that ours would be of a very high grade either. But it is very important to put across to the people of this country the fact that we are trying to provide for the future generation of their energy needs, which is so vital.
6.53 p.m.
Lord COLLISON: My Lords, I want to deal with just one aspect of energy; that is, the use of the sun to provide heat
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in domestic houses. I am very grateful indeed to my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones, for making it possible for this debate to take place. Your Lordships may feel that it is rather strange that I, of all people, should be wanting to say a word about energy. But, in a way, that is understandable, because I and other agriculturalists know so very well that all the energy which the earth receives has come from the sun, and is still coming from the sun.
It has taken millions of years to produce the coal and oil that we have been talking about. The people on this planet can squander—and one might almost say that they have squandered—those resources in about 2,000 years, and they will come to an end. I am not suggesting for one moment that we should only look for sources of renewable energy. Supplies of fossil fuels will last for some time yet. We have heard this afternoon that underground coal stocks will last us for 300 years and we have been blessed by the discovery of gas and oil in the North Sea. But we should certainly look for the supplementation and replacement as far as possible of energy from non-renewable sources.
I wanted to say a word, because I have satisfied myself, by practical means, that there is a viable usage of solar energy in the home, producing hot water and going some way towards providing heat. Your Lordships will remember that in 1976 we had a magnificent summer, and public interest in the sun's power began to stir itself. I read articles in newspapers and journals and began to get interested. Many people, whom I have met both before and since that time, displayed a high degree of scepticism, and it is difficult to make them believe that one can use solar energy in this way. But I determined to experiment for myself. I had timber, and a friend gave me a sheet of copper. I bought some 28 mm. copper piping and attached it to the panel with clips, fitted glass on it, put it out in the sun and filled it with water. After a very short time, I ran out the water and was completely astonished at the result. It was so hot that I could not put my hand into it. Encouraged by what had happened, a handyman friend and I connected this to a tank in order to collect the hot water, and we set it up to work on the thermosyphon principle.

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It gave me satisfaction to keep a complete record of our results, and every day I took the temperature of the water in the tank. Indeed, we had it plumbed into the house and were using that water for bathing and for showers, and it was very often hot enough for washing up. I monitored the temperature of the water each day, as well as the gas consumption, in order to make a comparison with what had been consumed earlier. I built this system in 1976 and it is working now, but in order to make a comparison I had to go back to what our gas consumption was in 1975.
Over the year, including the worst months of December and January, the average temperature of the water was 82°F, while in the summer months we were achieving temperatures averaging well over 100°F, and at times 150°F, and 160°F. There were only about four occasions in mid-winter when the water from the tank did not increase the temperature of the tap water. For the rest of the time, we were gaining an advantage from having plumbed the supply into the hot water system. The proof of that pudding was not in the eating, but in the records of gas consumption. In that regard, the gas consumption in 1975 was 744 units, while in 1977 it was 448 units, showing a reduction of 296. So that we were using only 60 per cent. of what we used in 1975.
I am very conscious of the fact that people who become involved in schemes such as this tend to overestimate, to cheat and to fool themselves, and I have been anxious not to do that. I must tell your Lordships that, although the house had been properly insulated before I started work, when one starts on an exercise of this kind one becomes energy-conscious. We were careful to turn off the gas taps and not to let the kettle boil for too long. Also, my wife and I decided to have showers rather than to bathe, and later in the year I built a solar oven.
If I may say a word about that, it will perhaps be of interest to noble Lords, for the solar oven has been mentioned in the debate. Since September of last year, when it was finished, until now we have been able to use this oven when the sun has shone. We were able to use it just two days after Christmas to keep food
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hot or to warm it up. It is a glorified haybox. There is a copper insulated box inside the oven, double glazing on top and four wings which reflect the sun. What its performance will be in the summer I do not know, but in September we brought a pressure cooker up to pressure and by putting it on the oven it continued at that pressure. Whether the housewife would want to trot down the garden every time she wanted to use a pan or a kettle I do not know, but I believe that this is a matter of interest and significance.
Having learned about the saving in gas consumption, which came to £45—I worked it out on the present rate per therm—I tried to find out what was the cost of producing this solar collector. I told noble Lords earlier that I had been given the copper plate. Also I had the timber. I had to buy the piping and do the plumbing, and I had to fit the door myself. The overall cost came to £139. Since then I have built another solar collector because I believe that one can get better results. It is twice the size of the other solar collector. It will give us about four square metres of collecting surface and it will be double glazed. It is not up yet, but I wish I could report the results next year, because I believe that something interesting, significant and encouraging will happen.
At a saving of £45 and a cost of £139, the payback period is relatively short. The cost of the new solar collector which I have built will be over £70. Even on a do-it-yourself basis, the total cost will be in the region of £200 to £230 Commercially this solar collector would cost £400, and I have seen a quotation of £750 as typical of the commercial charge in this country. Therefore the pay-back period would be in the region of, at the best, 10 years. This is a disincentive. I readily agree that if a householder has money to spend and wants to save energy and money, quite clearly the first thing for him to go for is insulation. The return on insulation is much quicker and you get much more for your money. However, the rising cost of the energy produced from fossil fuels—and it is bound to rise because of the shortage of supply, a shortage which will get worse over the years—means that this kind of apparatus will become a much

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more economic proposition and that more and more people will take it up.
I have not mentioned, nor did I wish to do so, any of the other aspects relating to alternative sources of energy. So much has already been said today on this subject. The help which has been given to me by listening to the speeches which have been made is quite remarkable, and I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. However, I wanted to speak in the debate because scepticism is still very strong. People do not believe in this kind of apparatus. My neighbours have looked at my collector and said, "Surely that's not big enough. It won't work". So I say, "Come in and see for yourself". My neighbours then come in and see for themselves and, more often than not, they say, "I wouldn't have believed it".
There is scepticism about the viability of this kind of apparatus due to our latitude. There is also a certain amount of scepticism about the cost of the material that goes into the production. Therefore, although I do not know who will read my speech, I wanted to take this opportunity to put the record straight. In my view and from my practical experience, I am happy to say that the use of solar energy to heat water is viable and ought, I am sure, to be taken seriously. I am very glad indeed that money is being set aside for research. I wish that it were very much more. I agree entirely that we have a duty to conserve energy. This is one way of doing so.
On that note I shall sit down. I simply wanted to ensure that somewhere on the record went the opinion, if you like, but in my view the knowledge that this kind of provision of hot water for domestic use is viable. We cannot expect results yet when it comes to house warming. However, the time may come for that. The construction of a house is a matter of siting, architecture and so on. We have never bothered about these aspects in the past because the energy derived from fossil fuels has been so cheap. It is not cheap now and there is going to be a revolution in thinking. To ensure that that thinking is put into practice, we need more and more knowledge and more and more research.
7.7 p.m.
Lord McNAIR: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords wish, as I do, that they were half so handy as the noble Lord, Lord Collison. I came to the debate with one object in mind: to describe the Severn Barrage project. I used to live near to where one end of it will probably be. Several noble Lords have already mentioned this project. When one comes so late in the order of speaking as this, one feels that there is tremendous pressure put upon one to be brief. I shall try to be brief.
First, may I give a definition of the project. It is a two-basin, tidal power station which is designed to store off-peak electricity from thermal stations at night and to generate by day for up to 15 hours. I had hoped to describe what the project would look like, but I must not do so now. However, the most likely line is about eight miles long. It would, we think, be wide enough on top to take a motorway and/or a railway link. Further upstream, though, there has to be a second longer barrier which will start—probably from the English bank, although this is arguable—and loop around back to the English bank. In other words, it will not interfere any further with the current or the tide. This is to provide a second basin.
The object of this is simply to provide storage. It is to convert the tidal energy from the lunar cycle on which it operates to the solar cycle on which we operate. Therefore, we are pumping up the water all night, using the surplus generating capacity, of which there is such a great amount in the Severn Estuary. When the sun comes up, then we let it out again through the turbines and we cook our breakfasts, power our commuter trains and get our production lines going.
I believe that this storage capacity is perhaps a unique feature of this form of alternative energy. I do not intend to go into the costs because they are so debatable. Various people have made various estimates and it will save time if I do not go into those costs. The point I want to make is that one cannot see this simply as a project for the CEGB. One cannot look at it purely in terms of energy, unit costs and how much per kilowatt, because there are so many other advantages that may accrue from it which have nothing to do with energy.

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The first obvious advantage is the durability, the longevity. When the barrage has been built—resisting the temptation to break into Greek—we have a "thing for ever", something that will go on generating electricity for so long as we need it. Put up one of the high technology power stations and all too often it will be virtually obsolete before it is finished, simply because of the pace of development and technology behind it. But this is simple and it will provide electricity for so long as we want it. Then there is the transport link. I believe that the transport authorities are already aware of the need for another link between South-West England and South Wales, to take the pressure off the Severn Bridge and the tunnel.
Third, we believe that there would be an agricultural advantage. At present the very high tides in the Severn play hell with the land drainage and bring salt into all sorts of places where it is not wanted. We would eliminate those tides and that should enable some land which at present is fairly indifferent to be brought up to the very high standard of the Vale of Severn land at its best.
Another big environmental plus is that in building these vast embankments we can use a great deal of material from the coal tips in the Welsh valleys and also from the china clay tips in Cornwall. I am a little out of my scientific depth, but I am told that by sintering the minestone and combining it with the china clay—and of course cement—one can get an acceptable concrete. Then there is the surely not negligible factor of job creation. There would be a tremendous amount of work spread over many years. Some estimates are a figure up to 35,000 jobs, not all in the immediate area but many of them would come on the Welsh side where jobs are needed.
Last—and, in my view, this is the big factor—there are the recreational consequences. We would be creating a huge inland lake. The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, has "pinched" my best line: as he said, it would be roughly the area of the Solent. We might multiply by 10 the yacht moorings available in that part of the world, and if we look ahead to the longer holidays and the shorter working week that we confidently expect for our grandchildren, that will be very important indeed.
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There may be other disadvantages and we do not want to duck any of them. We must not forget the salmon; they must be able to get up the Wye, but that can be attended to. We have an important local industry of elver fishing which must not be made impossible, and the Wild Fowl Trust must be consulted. But I believe all these possible disadvantages may be found to be unimportant. However it must be studied. We need a full-scale study and the question is, do the Government think it is worth a million or two? We shall need hydro and dynamic models because, as some noble Lords have already mentioned, it affects tides, not only there but right up as far as Morecambe. I put it to the Government that it is worth another million or two, if necessary, to work out these consequences and if (or, I should rather say, when) we build it we shall be providing ourselves with some electricity—some estimates are as high as 5 or 10 per cent. of our needs—for as long as we want, and we shall be using a fuel which is free and clean and quite inexhaustible.
7.15 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, we have had a most valuable debate and I have had the great good fortune of being able to listen to every speech. We are indebted to my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones for having initiated it. The debate has been comprehensive in its scope, both as to subject matter and to time span. The House has looked no small distance into the future in assessing the problems which the United Kingdom will face in meeting its future energy needs and many noble Lords have taken the opportunity to state their views of the central priorities in preparing now, through research and development, the foundations of the future of our energy economy.
Noble Lords have also stressed how very fortunate we are in this country to have the enormous resources that we have, first in North Sea oil, which of course will not last so long, but particularly in coal and also with the researches which have been made into nuclear energy, as was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, in his most notable speech. There is a healthy diversity of views on what the priorities should be—a diversity which should prove to be a source of strength in the crucially important task

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of adapting to the very substantial changes which can be expected in connection with energy.
The most important parts of the debate were devoted to coal, nuclear energy, tidal energy including wave power, and solar energy, in that order, with one or two "also rans" which I shall try to deal with. Also I hope to have something to say on the question of the Government's campaign to encourage people to save energy and the vexed question of the rates. But first perhaps I may turn to coal. On coal the Government have been working with the management and the unions to reverse the under-investment of the 1960s, which I think all now agree was a great mistake in policy for which all Parties must share the blame, and allow coal to prove its capability for taking a greatly increased role in future supply. The Plan for Coal, announced in 1974, is aimed at a production of 135 million tons a year by 1985 with an investment of over £4,000 million at November 1977 prices.
My noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones raised the very important question of the future role of our large resources of coal. The Government fully recognise the importance of research and development in both coal mining and the utilisation of coal and coal products and I was interested in some of the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, about the other uses of coal. I agree with a lot of what he said.
With regard to coal extraction the objectives of the National Coal Board's mining, research and development programme are the extension of remote and automatic control and monitoring of all aspects of mining systems and the development of fully mechanised systems for working at the coal faces and the face ends and improving the reliability of machines and equipment. The last objective is vitally important in increasing the efficiency of mining operations and is essential for the successful application of automatic and remote control techniques.
Current expenditure by the National Coal Board on mining R and D is running at about £15 million per annum. This of course is research to improve—and continually improve—methods of extraction
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because, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Kings-Norton, we have coal under the sea going down to 15,000 feet which has not been tapped at all yet; we have coal under our land to extract, for which we only go down 4,000 feet although it goes down much deeper than that, and the intention is that with improved extraction techniques we should be able to make and transfer the potentially recoverable reserves to operative reserves, so that, as consumption goes up and coal is used to replace oil and natural gas, we shall be able to extend the time basis, which was given as 300 years, by improved methods of extraction. Therefore, mining research and development forms part of the programme which is annually appraised by the Advisory Council on Research and Development for Fuel and Power on behalf of the Secretary of State. Problems of immediate concern are being tackled, and consideration is being given to some that might confront the industry beyond the turn of the century, including in situ conversion, and, of course, the underground gasification of coal which was referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale.
The National Coal Board also has a considerable programme of research and development into coal utilisation, and its total expenditure in 1976–77 on research and development alone amounted to £21 million. With regard to coal conversion, an R and D working party set up under the coal industry tripartite group, comprising representatives of Government, the National Coal Board and the mining unions, is studying a number of proposals prepared by the National Coal Board and the British Gas Corporation, which, if accepted, would take present work to the pilot plant scale and establish a foundation for the technology we shall need at around the turn of the century.
The noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, asked whether we were doing enough to produce the coal. The present target will require great effort to achieve and it would be unrealistic to expect that it could be exceeded, but, as well as enabling us to meet demands for coal up to the mid-1980s, plans for coal investment will also provide the necessary base for a modern and efficient industry capable of further expansion towards the end of the century.

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I was also asked when the Government would endorse Plan 2000. Coal for the Future said that the Government recognised the coal industry's need for planning objectives and stated that the decision on these would be reached in the context of national energy policy. This is a matter my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy will be pursuing in conjunction with his Energy Commission.
Several noble Lords spoke about nuclear energy. The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, said, rightly, that we must press on with this; the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said that the dangers of nuclear fission had been exaggerated, and the noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, said that the Government must save uranium. I should like to comment on the relative levels of spending on nuclear and the alternatives. Comparison of the priority given to programmes in terms of expenditure on them can be misleading. Each has its appropriate rate of expenditure. What one has to judge is the appropriateness of the call of that programme on Government funds. The Government are satisfied that the alternative energy sources that are being developed have a valid call on Government support and that that support and the policy behind that support is right. The level of spending on each source is, of course, kept under continuous review. The Government have stated several times that, as the results of present work become available, the expenditure on alternative energy sources will be increased, if appropriate, to allow further work to proceed.
It should also be borne in mind that the nuclear programme has reached the stage of including major demonstration projects, while the alternative energy sources are in many cases at a much earlier stage of research, as has been said in this debate. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, said that he opposes PWR. The Government consider, having regard to the importance of nuclear power and present knowledge of the different systems, that the United Kingdom's thermal reactor strategy should not at this stage be dependent on an exclusive commitment to any one reactor system. Thus, in addition to the AGR, we are developing the option of adopting the PWR system in the early 1980s. This view is also supported by the electricity supply industry.
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May I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, on his remarkable exposition of fast reactor technology? He and several other noble Lords called for progress on building a commercial scale fast reactor. The Government, I may say, have fast reactor policy under review, but have made it plain that any decision to proceed with the CFR must be subject to wide-ranging public inquiry. Noble Lords will also wish to bear in mind that the report of the Inspector on the Windscale Inquiry is relevant in this context. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment received this report only last week and the Government will need to give it careful consideration.
Several noble Lords spoke about wave energy and also tidal energy, and my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones said, I think rightly, that this was a very valuable potential source. My noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder also spoke about the project in Edinburgh, and the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, said, again I think rightly, that this was of great interest to us in view of our long coastline. But, of course, there are still certain difficulties.
If I may comment briefly on these interesting and valuable contributions, which the Government will note carefully, I would only remark that wave power has been seen as potentially the most promising of the alternative energy sources for the United Kingdom: although it is at an earlier stage of development than most of the others, the Government do see this as one of the front-runners. The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, whose moderate and very constructive speech I greatly appreciated, spoke about windmills on gas rigs and oil rigs. The structures have not been designed for the purpose and in the present view of the Government would not be suitable. In addition, one has to give consideration to the designed life of the structures. On the other hand, we will take note of his interesting suggestion.
My noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones also asked about R and D funding. The Government must have regard to the statutory responsibilities of the nationalised fuel and power industries for funding research and development relating to coal, gas and electricity supply, and here

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we will certainly take careful note of what my noble friend Lord Wilson of High Wray said in his very interesting speech about this subject. In the development of renewable sources much work is fully funded by Government, but we are seeking to involve industry wherever possible building on existing initiatives and encouraging joint funding where appropriate.
I was also asked about heat pumps. Heat pumps are of considerable interest in the United Kingdom because of their potential energy conservation benefit both in space and water heating and in industrial applications. Currently available designs are largely American and are unsuitable for British climatic conditions in which heating only, and not full air conditioning, is required. The Department of Energy's Technology Support Unit has been working to identify the potential future role and necessary development of heat pumps. It published a report of the findings of the United Kingdom Workshop on Heat Pumps in November 1977.
I was also very interested in what my noble friend Lord Collison told the House about his experiences with solar energy in his home. We will certainly take note of all he said. Of course there is a good deal of research going into this and, as noble Lords may know, our representative attended the World Energy Conference in Istanbul last autumn and we put in a paper about this.
I was also asked about the question of insulation in the home and, as I said, the Government are committed to a vigorous energy conservation programme and are keen to remove all obstacles to effective investment in energy saving. None of us therefore would claim to be happy about the idea—and I am certainly not happy about it—that investment in energy saving in the home might have the effect of increasing the rateable value. As often happens in this kind of problem, it is one thing to feel concerned about this; it is quite another to find a solution. In the extensive interdepartmental discussions which have taken place we have discovered that this is by no means easy.
The problem is deep seated in that the fundamental basis of rates is the value of the property, and any additions or improvements aimed at making the
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property a more pleasant place to live in are likely to have the effect of increasing that value. Nevertheless, the Department of Energy recognises that some people are likely to feel discouraged at the idea of paying an extra amount in rates even though that may not be payable for some years, and we shall continue with other Departments to find a solution. In conclusion, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate for their most valuable contributions. We shall take careful note of everything that has been said.
7.32 p.m.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, in finishing the debate I should like to thank all those who have taken part, and particularly the noble Lord the Leader of the House, and also my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, for being prepared to come and speak. I should also like to add that to me it has been a particular delight that this debate, which I think has been one of the best debates we have had on energy, succeeded in bringing along the noble Lords, Lord Wilson of High Wray, Lord Collison and Lord McNair, with unusual contributions which were different from the type that we normally expect in a debate on energy. With that, my Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.