ENERGY: ALTERNATIVE SOURCES

HL Deb 01 February 1978 vol 388 cc784-840

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 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.

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.

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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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: 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 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 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.

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 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.

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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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 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.

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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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.