FAST BREEDER NUCLEAR REACTOR

HL Deb 28 February 1980 vol 405 cc1627-69

8.22 p.m.

Lord NORTHFIELD rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have considered the Resolution (No. 720) in Document 4473 of the Council of Europe Assembly, and whether they will now announce approval for a commercial-size fast breeder nuclear reactor. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in putting this Question to the Government tonight I am aware that the subject of nuclear energy was debated on 20th November 1979, the debate being opened by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, who apologises that he cannot be here tonight. However, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, for being here yet again to deal with this subject. I plead that the reason for raising it a second time is that on 20th November the fast breeder, as such, was not really dealt with, and I consider it very urgent that public attention be drawn to this issue because there is far too much mystery and far too much emotion and a great need for an early decision by the Government on a commercial-size fast breeder reactor.

Before I turn to the case for the reactor, I hope that I may draw attention to the significance of the Council of Europe document which is mentioned in the Question. A great deal of work went into preparing that document by the Assembly's Committee on Science and Technology—of which I am proud to be a member—under the very expert guidance of the Rapporteur, my German colleague Mr. Lenzer. If noble Lords will look at the document they will see that we held two full days of hearings in Brussels in a fairly unique form: namely, we heard on the one side ministerial representatives, plus delegations from European and national technical institutions, plus independent experts and representatives of international organisations, including, I might add, environmentalists; and on the other side they were questioned by special Rapporteurs—they were grilled pretty hard—and a jury of parliamentarians.

If one looks at the programme of those two days, which is set out on page 5 of Document 4473 I think that no one would disagree that it was a thorough examination of the subject. The significance lies not just in the hard work that went into it, but in what came out of it, because in paragraph 13 of the resolution there was recommendation that: …it is in the general interest of Europe to keep open the option of having recourse over the coming decades to fast breeder reactor systems, and that current programmes in Europe for the development of fast breeder technology to the point of commercial-size demonstration plants should be continued".

The important point is that it was the Council of Europe Assembly that said that. The Council of Europe Assembly, of course, is mainly devoted in most of its work, as is the ministerial side of the Council, to matters concerning the environment and the protection of the quality of life. For such a body with such a preoccupation and with such emphasis in its work, to come down openly in favour of moving towards, or at least keeping open the option of fast breeder reactors, is in my view extremely significant, and I hope that it will be noted for that.

I now turn to the case for the fast breeder. When the debate took place in November the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, mentioned the latest upgrading by the Department of Energy of the energy projections. However, he missed out what I thought was a most important point. On the demand side, as far as one can see at the end of the century, from the Government's best projections in this document, demand for energy in our community will be something between 445 and 510 million tonnes coal equivalent—let us put it in the range of 450 to 500 tonnes—and that is allowing for a 20 per cent. achievement of conservation, which is a pretty strong hope. On the supply side, however, the Government envisage that there will be only 390 to 410 million tonnes of coal equivalent available and that—and now I come to the point that I think was not mentioned by the noble Earl—includes a four-fold increase in nuclear power.

So all I am saying is that on the best estimates that the Government can take, and with a very rapid increase in nuclear power in general, we are still going to have a most alarming energy gap at the end of the century. That is where the fast breeder reactor comes in. Our own gas and oil reserves will be running down in the 1990s. My plea tonight is that, given the lead time for constructing new installations of the size and complexity of a fast breeder, we really cannot delay beyond this year in making decisions, because it might take eight or nine years to build one—it will certainly take that long to build a second and a third, and to have them in operation in the 1990s when they will be beginning to be needed on a significant scale to prevent that energy gap causing us concern.

There is one other reason why I want to lay emphasis on nuclear energy generally before I come to the precise points about the fast breeder. I am referring to the effect on the Third World. If we have a large energy gap in the Western world at the end of the century, the great advanced countries will all be bidding up oil prices at an alarming rate. Also, the poorer countries and the Third World are heavily dependent on oil as their main source of supply for energy. So it is very important indeed that we should find a way of economising in the use of oil at the end of the century, otherwise we shall, in effect, be condemning many millions in the Third World to poverty and to stagnation in economic growth by the way in which we shall be depriving them of more and more expensive oil.

Let me turn to the reason why, in the 1990s, I hope that we shall be moving to the fast breeder reactor with the plans being laid now. First, as the Members of your Lordships' House who are better scientists than I will know, the important point about the thermal and fast breeder reactors is that the thermal reactor (the conventional reactor) uses only a small part of uranium; and at the rate we use uranium in the thermal reactors throughout the world, the world's supplies will not take us too far into the next century. Therefore, we now have to begin to think, for so many reasons, not only of economising on oil but about conserving and economising in the use of uranium.

Here the fast breeder uses the plutonium made by the thermal reactors and, if I may put a figure on it, makes 50 to 100 times more energy per tonne of natural uranium than the conventional form of thermal reactor which we have in operation today. Indeed, 20,000 tonnes of depleted uranium, which we have in stock in this country, in the fast breeder reactor is equivalent to about 400 years of our coal supplies, or five times all our North Sea oil. It is quite ridiculous that we should not move quickly to use these 20,000 tonnes in the fast breeder reactor, provided we can be sure of matters such as safety, with which I shall deal in a moment.

Recently I was in France when President Giscard d'Estaing was giving a Press conference on this same point. He made the same kind of claim for France; he said that if only France can get ahead with the fast breeder reactor, their own French reserves of uranium equal in energy source all the supplies of Saudi Arabian oil. Therefore, we must avoid the scramble in the 21st century for uranium. Here we have a magnificent supply of depleted uranium which will serve us for many years and stop the fast, forever diminishing supplies of uranium ore. That then is the first reason in favour of the fast breeder.

The second is that it was established—certainly at our hearings—that there is no really new technology in a fast breeder reactor. Everybody is frightened of the name. The environmentalist lobby is profiting from the words "fast breeder", which seem to indicate that there is imminent danger; that it is moving faster than any other kind of reactor; that it is breeding something that may harm us, and that the whole thing may blow up. It is very unfortunate that this great advance in science has a name which frightens everybody and which enables the environmentalist lobby unduly to criticise it.

The only really new element in a fast breeder reactor is that it is liquid sodium which is likely to be the conductor of the heat from the core. For the rest, of course, the liquid sodium so heated, becomes a furnace which drives the conventional power plant. There is, indeed, a considerable amount to be said for the fact that liquid sodium may be a good deal safer than pressurised water and some of the ways used to transfer the heat in the conventional thermal reactor.

The only main difference that makes these reactors fast and makes them breed is that something called the moderator is taken out of the core and allows the neutrons to do the work of converting more of the plutonium into energy. That is my second reason—that there is nothing very new or particularly frightening about it.

My third reason is that other countries are now going ahead very rapidly. We have had a great deal of experience. We had the Dounreay fast reactor, which gave us 18 years of great service, producing electricity. Then we went on to the PFR, the prototype fast reactor, in 1977 and that is in operation now. The French have Phenix and Super-Phenix, which is five times the size of our prototype and is going beyond that size. The Soviet Union has fast breeders and is apparently going to use mainly fast breeders after 1990. Therefore, we would not be striking out on some lone path that we have not already tried and which other countries of the world were not also trying, if we were to go ahead as rapidly as possible ourselves.

I come to my last two points in favour of the reactor, one of which is safety. One can simply say that there is no reason at all, given all the figures, to show that these reactors are dangerous or that the present methods of construction are in any sense likely to cause any great danger whatever. I do not want to go into that tonight; it would take me too long. But the facts and figures about this are well known. We all worry too much about this. I am sure that it is something that has to be carefully watched, but the extent to which there is danger is exaggerated.

My last point concerns the waste. Here everyone is now getting frightened that this kind of reactor, as well as the thermals, will produce large quantities of waste which will harm the environment. I looked up what Sir Fred Hoyle says in his recent book about it. He says that all the energy from our nuclear waste in any one year that has to be buried 3,000 feet underground amounts to about 100 vitrified cylinders, each 10 feet by 1 foot. That is approximately equivalent to a year's waste from normal nuclear energy use. That is not something about which we should be frightened. The American Physical Society has reported that there is no likelihood in the measurable future that the highly active waste, buried 3,000 feet below the surface, will in any sense harm our water supplies; there is no prospect at all that it will harm them in the measurable future if they are buried at that depth. Those are the advantages.

I shall now deal quickly with the alleged disadvantages. Of course, there is the first argument about plutonium—are we making plutonium that terrorists will get hold of in order to make bombs? Again, President Giscard was rather good about this at his Press conference when he said that a phosphorus match makes a flame, but you can have phosphorus bombs which make terrible explosions. The comparison is exactly the same. They are two quite different and distinct scientific techniques—the making of a flame or the making of energy in a power station, and the making of a bomb. That is the first answer: there is no comparison of techniques.

However, more important is the development that has arisen in recent years—and perhaps now is the time when this can be said openly—that, if countries or terrorists want to make bombs (and it is a very much more complicated process than people think), they can, by using centrifuges, now make them directly from uranium 235, and they will not need plutonium. Therefore, in a short time, even if not now, anybody who has access and, of course, all the scientific equipment the process would need, who wants to make bombs and be a nuisance with them, will not have to use plutonium any more; with centrifuges he can use ordinary Uranium 235. Therefore, the main argument against the plutonium aspect of fast breeders disappears out of the window.

I come to the last two criticisms. One is, of course, that reactors of this kind might explode like a bomb, which is nonsense. They cannot possibly do so. The second criticism is about accidents, with which I have already dealt briefly. I want to go no further because I want to be as brief as possible. I say to the Government that the urgency is very great indeed. The 1990s and the year 2000 are now approaching very rapidly. There is no chance of solar power and other forms of energy, much as we want them, making an impact by that date. We shall be left with an energy gap which will harm us, which will harm the Third World and which is utterly ridiculous to contemplate, given this new advance in science that is available to us. Above all, given the lead times, now is the time to make a decision so that we shall not be too late when the 1990s and the year 2000 are upon us.

In conclusion, I was reading again Sir Fred Hoyle's book where he describes most vividly, in a headline to his chapter called "It has all happened before" how all this happened before, when George Stephenson introduced the Rocket. In this book he explains that when Stephenson wanted to introduce a locomotive engine to draw trains between Manchester and Liverpool—the first one of its kind—there were all sorts of people pressing the need for efficient communications, just as today we all press the need for new energy sources. But on the other side there were equally just at that time all the same people talking about soft technology instead of hard technology; talking of the dangers of the railway; talking about the dangers of the science of all this. Opponents scorned his science. Distinguished scientists were put up against him, and there was a committee hearing in the House of Commons at the time in which Members doubted his sanity.

It was said that ploughing fields at the side of a railway line would be dangerous; that the costs would escalate. That one little bit of railway line would cost £270,000, although it worked out at £28,000. There were rumours during construction that the whole thing was blowing up and that horses had sunk in the works; that the works had been abandoned, and that railways were finished for ever. In the end, by the 1829 Act, for the Newcastle-Carlisle railway, Parliament gave the promoters a law to allow trains only pulled by horses.

In other words, yes, my Lords, we have been through all this before, and it is just the same now. You try to make us stick to conventional forms of energy, and even stick to thermal nuclear reactors. It is like telling George Stephenson in his day that trains should continue to be pulled by horses instead of by the new locomotive power that became available, and about which he was so decried at that time. I think it adds to the perspective with which I hope we will regard this issue. As Sir Fred Hoyle says in his book, as a country we have all been here before, and it is time now to realise exactly what we are going through and to get on with the job.

8.42 p.m.

Lord AVEBURY

My Lords, Lord Northfield's comparison between the development of railways and that of nuclear energy is about as absurd as President Giscard's attempted comparison between phosphorus and plutonium. I do not intend to follow him any further into his historical dissertations on the development of railways. As to the report of the Council of Europe, which is before us, I must say that such reports are not my favourite bedtime reading, and after studying this one I can say with some confidence that they are unlikely to hit the best-seller lists. We find the usual turgid prose that we expect from international Quangos, where they "have regard to"; they "reaffirm"; they "believe"; they are "convinced"; they "recall"; and then the committee sets out the aim of their public hearings, to which the noble Lord referred—two days in which they took evidence from experts. Then after a few pages of O-level physics the committee comes on to state the conclusions they reached as a result of this intense process of two days of hearings. We do far better than that in the Select Committees of another place, and I hope we shall do in your Lordships' House, than to attempt to reach far-reaching conclusions such as are contained in this report on the basis of two days' hearings. It is really quite absurd.

Nevertheless, this debate is to be welcomed, not because a decision is required, as the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, claims, in the immediate future on the fast breeder reactor, but as a warning of the powerful onslaught which is to be expected from the nuclear lobby if, and when, the Government initiate the major public inquiry which has been promised before any decision is taken on whether to proceed down this route. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, did not mention that, even though there is a reference in the Committee on Science and Technology recommendations to further democratic and open public discussions. I would have thought that he would have wanted to emphasise the need for that to take place, as has been promised I think by this Government and their predecessor, before any final decision has been taken.

I also welcome this opportunity of reiterating the Liberal Party's policy of opposition to the development of the breeder, as stated at the party conference in 1977 and indeed even before that when in 1976, we commented on the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution Report on nuclear power. On the Atomic Energy (Special Constables) Bill proceedings we drew attention to the threat posed to civil liberties by the plutonium economy. During the last general election campaign the Leader of the Liberal Party, Mr. David Steel, demanded a five-year moratorium on construction of a demonstration fast breeder, and in a special manifesto on ecology and the environment the Liberal Party stated that we were opposed to the drift towards an economy based on massive investment in nuclear power and fast breeder reactors". We expressed our alarm over the security implications of an expanded nuclear programme, and we demanded that instead there should be restraint on energy and raw material consumption.

I do not think that we pointed out then with sufficient force what is, in my opinion, the major objection to the nuclear option: if these technologies are really so wonderful as they are claimed to be, then the few nations that are fortunate enough to have them already could hardly be selfish enough to deny them to others. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, make mention of the needs of the Third World.

If we are going to extend nuclear technologies, what it means is that virtually any medium-sized nation would use plutonium fuel from which it would be technically possible to manufacture fission bombs. Already, as we know, several countries have succeeded in evading the safeguards in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it may well be that, in spite of all the precautions that are taken, we shall not succeed in halting the spread of nuclear weapons, but that the process has merely been delayed. I think, however, that the adoption of breeder technology, plus the reprocessing of the spent fuel from thermal reactors, which of course involves separation of the plutonium, would mean that by the middle of the next century, if the human race still exists, there would be perhaps 25 or 30 nations with at least a primitive weapons capability. Then it really would be simply a matter of time before a conflict of such destructive force was unleashed as to make all human life on this planet impossible.

One is bound to agree with the editorial in the Financial Times last week, which said: There was no 'technical fix', no way of preventing a nation determined enough to acquire nuclear weapons from doing so"— Whether by the centrifuge route mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, or otherwise. But I really do not see why we should make it easier for those who wish to take this option.

Lord WYNNE-JONES

My Lords, would the noble Lord forgive me for asking him whether he is aware of the fact that both Pakistan and India can at the present time, if they have not already done it, make an atom bomb without having any fast breeder reactors?

Lord AVEBURY

My Lords, I am indeed aware of that, and this is why I said that there are other techniques that nations have used already. I was coming on to mention the particular case of Pakistan, if the noble Lord had waited a few minutes. What I say is that we do not want to open up even more routes towards a weapons capability than exists at the moment.

May I draw attention to what was said on this issue at the Foratom Conference held in Lucerne last October, by Professor Dr. H. Grü mm, the Deputy Director general of the IAEA, and of course a proponent of nuclear power. I am using the report of his speech given in the UKAEA journal Atom for December 1979. Dr. Grü mm said that there were alreadly 66 tonnes of plutonium in non-nuclear weapons States under safeguard, and that this number was increasing by 10 to12 each year without any extension of nuclear programmes. He argued that new institutional arrangements were needed, like internationally controlled plutonium storage, to absorb all the plutonium not immediately needed in the fuel cycle and also to release the material under certain strict criteria and full safeguard control. In other words, he was saying that, in the absence of these arrangements, there was indeed a risk of plutonium being diverted to military purposes, or even, in the hands of a psychopathic régime, to the use of terrorists.

Now it may be contended that no responsible country would sell nuclear technology to régimes of that kind; but Governments change. Uruguay, for instance, which had the reputation of being the most democratic nation in Latin America, is today, according to Senator Church, the worst torture chamber in the hemisphere; and it is also possible for one State to develop nuclear capability through another, as indeed Libya is said to be doing through Pakistan. Everybody loves Pakistan today, because since the invasion of Afghanistan she is considered to be a bulwark against Soviet expansionism, and the story about the Pakistani spy who stole the secrets from Almelo has disappeared from the newspapers. But it is quite possible, as the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, reminded us, that Pakistan is indeed developing a weapons capability and that the work is being financed by Libya, with the latter having access to the results. It also appears that Israel and South Africa may have been collaborating with each other on weapons development.

With regard to the possibility of criminals or terrorists penetrating the fuel cycle, it is to be observed that so far in this country we have armed guards only at the sites where plutonium is held in separated form, as was provided for in the Atomic Energy (Special Constables) Bill. Further, President Carter has tried very hard, not with great success, to persuade America's allies not to take further steps along the path of fast reactors, partly because, in his opinion, it creates an additional element of risk. That was why the President launched the International Fuel Cycle Evaluation Programme as one means of persuading the rest of the world to postpone making any firm commitment to plutonium; and it so happens that during the course of those studies, world energy demand has been depressed by the huge rise in crude oil prices, and any decision which might have been necessary on a fast breeder reactor for commercial reasons has been deferred.

But does anybody imagine that the process of energy price rises has come to an end? For a few months there may be a glut of oil on the market, but the producer nations are likely to respond by curtailing production; and as energy becomes more expensive in real terms—and we can already see the absurdity of the assumption made by the Department of Energy in its Energy Policy Review at the beginning of 1977 that oil prices would only double by the end of this century from that time then consumers will have a much greater incentive to economise, and there will be nothing like the growth postulated in many recent studies, including that of INFCEP, which suggested that there might be a three to fourfold increase in the next 40 or 50 years.

Your Lordships have not had an opportunity of discussing in any detail the report by Gerald Leach on a low energy scenario for the United Kingdom which I mentioned in the debate last August; or the study more recently by David Olivier, who confirms that Britain could enjoy a very reasonable standard of living and use less energy by the year 2025. But even the Establishment have scaled down the figures they presented to us in the Energy Policy Review of 1977; we were talking about 500 to 650 million tonnes of coal equivalent by the end of this century, but the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, now says that it will be 345 to 510 million tonnes of coal equivalent, a considerable drop on the estimates that were made only two years ago.

In the meanwhile, the fears that were expressed a few years ago—that supplies of uranium at reasonable prices would prove inadequate to sustain a continuing programme of thermal reactors for very much longer—have proved unfounded. In most countries the expansion of nuclear electricity has been at a much slower rate than was thought likely in the 'sixties, while new deposits of high abundance have been discovered in several different parts of the world. Deffeyes and MacGregor, writing in Scientific American of January 1980 say, for instance, that at Jabiluka in Northern Australia there is more uranium in deposits of upwards of 10,000 parts per million in shallow ore bodies suitable for open-cast methods than was produced in the entire United States between 1948 and 1970. They conclude: The need for the liquid-metal fast breeder reactor could be postponed until well after the year 2000". That finding is echoed by Buckley and Mackerron of Sussex University in a study reported in New, Scientist only last week. The Sussex workers concluded: A rather low priority, on conventional economic grounds, should be accorded to research into technologies which attempt to conserve uranium". Yet another weighty opinion is that of the Stockholm Institute for Peace Reseach, which says in its 1979 Year Book: Plans for nuclear power have been considerably cut back. Earlier projections have been reduced in the face of falling demand for energy, political opposition to nuclear power, new regulatory demands and complexities, and stricter export conditions". Perhaps it will be maintained—I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, did not try to make this point—that even if there is enough uranium, nevertheless it would be economically wise for us to have a programme which included some fast reactors among the thermal ones. That certainly was the opionon of the Committee on Science and Technology which is referred to in the Motion, even though, according to their own figures, electricity generation cost would be almost 50 per cent. higher for the liquid-metal fast breeder than it is for the pressurised water reactor. They say:

The importance of the fast breeder does not lie primarily in generating electricity at especially low costs". What a masterly understatement! Economic Comparison of Breeders and Light Water Reactors, a study prepared for the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, published last July, showed that for the liquid-metal fast breeder to be competitive with the PWR, U308 prices would have to be as high as 218 dollars per pound compared with 40 dollars per pound, which is roughly the current price.

I must point out again, as I did in the House on 23rd April last year, that while Britain has taken no official decisions yet in regard to a commercial fast reactor, we are helping to finance the French demonstration reactor, the Super-Phenix, through our participation in the Euratom loan scheme. I accept, as was explained to me by the Secretary of State then, that the money for these loans is raised on the international money market and that, even in the event of default by a borrower, recourse would be to the particular Member State which benefited from that loan. But none the less, I think that as partners in the institution which makes the loans, we have the responsibility of deciding on lending policy.

In my view, it is disingenuous to say, as the Secretary of State did in a letter to me on 18th October last, that since the Community as such had no policy either on thermal or fast reactors, there was no basis for discriminating between them under the Euratom loan scheme. In effect, we have decided that our vote will be cast in favour of any other Member State of Euratom wanting to borrow money for building a fast reactor, while at home we shall still insist on an exhaustive public inquiry before proceeding. It may be of interest to your Lordships for me to add that in 1978 a co-operation agreement was signed between France and the USSR providing for co-operation on the Super-Phenix and the BN600 Breeders. Therefore, through co-operation with France, other West European nations are also involved in the pooling o experience with the USSR, and through Euratom loans we are even helping to finance Russian advance in this field. I am not sure whether United Kingdom taxpayers realise that this is what we are doing.

On an Unstarred Question it would be inappropriate to enter into these arguments in any detail. I only have to say that it would be in flagrant contradiction of the Government's policy in every other area of their responsibility if they were to accelerate work on fast reactors, as the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, demands, or even if they were to grant the fast reactor programme immunity from the cuts that have been imposed everywhere else. The economic case for the fast reactor is non-existent, otherwise it could be turned over to private enterprise. Let us turn our attention to the real problems facing Britain and put this one back in the file where it belongs.

8.59 p.m.

Lord STRABOLGI

My Lords, I should like to say how indebted we are to my noble friend Lord Northfield for initiating this debate on the fast breeder reactor which, as my noble friend said, was not discussed by your Lordships in our previous debate. I must say that the attitude coming today from the Liberal Front Bench is rather different from the one that we have become used to in our previous energy debates. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said; it is a point of view, but I do not think it is one that is at all realistic, as I shall hope to show. My noble friend Lord Northfield is a Member of the Council of Europe, and for all of us who take a realistic view of future energy requirements—unlike the noble Lord, Lord Avebury—it is most reassuring that the draft Resolution comes down fairly and squarely in favour of keeping open the option for the fast breeder, with the reservation that recourse to fast breeder technologies in Europe should be taken only after wide democratic debate. As my noble friend says, this is a most significant Resolution.

The great advantage of the fast breeder reactor is that it can be operated to produce new plutonium fuel from depleted uranium. Indeed, one gramme of new plutonium can be produced for every gramme of fuel that the reactor burns. This plutonium can be used as further fuel for itself and for other fast reactors. I understand that during the 25 years that we have had nuclear power in Britain we have already accumulated about 20,000 tonnes of depleted uranium from thermal reactors—the Magnox stations. If we were to burn and recycle this in fast breeder reactors, we could extract almost as much energy as from the whole of our proven coal reserves; that is, about 40,000 million tonnes. This is a point which I think the ecologists and the environmentalists' lobby should bear in mind. The fast breeder, therefore, has tremendous potential for our future energy supplies, and some idea of this potential can be grasped when we consider that one tonne of uranium, when used in a thermal reactor, is equivalent to about 14,000 tonnes of coal equivalent to produce the same electricity, but in the fast breeder it is equivalent to 2 million tonnes of coal equivalent.

It is, therefore, not surprising that most other countries in Western Europe, such as France, Germany, Italy, Holland and Belgium, have all made a series of agreements for long-term fast reactor work. It is also not surprising that France has the most advanced development, since, with little coal, and no North Sea oil—and being a realistic country—she must rely increasingly on nuclear energy. My noble friend mentioned France. By 1990 France plans to have 60 gigawatts of nuclear-generated electricity, while Germany will have 40 gigawatts, but in this country, at the present rate, we shall have only about 12 gigawatts.

In Britain there is the prototype fast reactor at Dounreay, which has been operating since 1974. I understand that a plant to reprocess the spent fuel from this prototype is being commissioned and will be the first of its type anywhere. Perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, will tell the House something about this development when he comes to reply.

A further vital reason why, in my judgment, we must consider the fast breeder option is the question of future supplies of uranium. As has been said, there could be very great pressure on the world supplies of uranium by about the year 2020, if not before, which means that by then thermal reactors will be coming to the end of their use—and this is only about 40 years away—and indeed some shortages could be felt by the end of this century. It is therefore important that we should be able to use the latent energy in uranium to the utmost through breeding and incorporating the bred plutonium into new fuel, thus leading in the long term to the eventual elimination of the need for new uranium; and we have no uranium deposits in this country.

Although a fast breeder programme would require a higher annual uranium requirement during the first 25 years of the next century, countries with fast reactor technologies should be independent of outside supplies of new uranium by about 2050.

Uranium is a useless material for any other purpose, in our present knowledge. Rather than burning up the last remaining oil reserves, or being profligate with our coal deposits, it is surely more sensible to recycle uranium, which is also finite, in fast reactors to produce tremendous new amounts of renewable energy.

I should like to ask the Government whether we have any idea about world uranium supplies, as there have been conflicting reports about how much there really is, and the matter is made even more uncertain by the reluctance of the Soviet bloc to provide any information. If there is to be a world uranium shortage within a few decades, a decision on the fast breeder and the attendant problem of the international control of plutonium will have to be resolved internationally as a matter of urgency.

On the question of nuclear safety, I think we must be concerned to read reports that the staff of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate is under strength by some 18 inspectors, due mainly to recruitment difficulties, as the salaries are too low and not competitive. I understand also that the decision to move the Inspectorate away from London for reasons of economy has not helped recruitment. I hope in this area at least that there will not be any shortsighted cheeseparing by the Government on economy grounds.

Of course, in the developing world there is hardly any opposition to nuclear power. It is only in the West that there is a measure of public opinion against it, as the more affluent nations are the only ones who can afford the luxury of protest. The richer the country, and the better endowed she is with alternative sources, such as coal, gas, and oil, the stronger and more vocal is the protest. There is, therefore, a great need for the public to be kept informed and made aware of the alternatives, if we opt out of the fast breeder.

How many pit casualties would there be during the next 70 years if we were to rely more and more on coal? What would be the standard of life of our great- grandchildren if we returned to what the protestors call a low-energy-consuming society? How many windmills would be needed on, say, the Sussex Downs to provide sufficient wind power for London? Perhaps we could be told, and perhaps the environmentalists could direct their minds to these problems.

Lord AVEBURY

My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt him? I do not know whether he has read Gerald Leach's report, A Low-Energy Scenario for the United Kingdom, but if he has not then I suggest he does so, and then he would not make stupid remarks about windmills on the Sussex Downs.

Lord STRABOLGI

My Lords, the trouble with the proponents of the low-energy society is that they look back to sunny, happy days before the Industrial Revolution, when they are usually in the manor house and not in the cottage, or they are riding in the rickshaw with someone else drawing them along between the shafts.

I hope the Government will help by describing what some of these alternative strategies could mean in practical and in human terms.

My Lords, I do not think that any generation has the right to deny to future generations the fruits of its technical discoveries. I realise that any decision to build a full-scale commercial demonstration fast reactor will be subject to a full public inquiry. In company with my noble friend Lord Northfield, I must therefore ask the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, as a matter of urgency, to tell the House when the Government intend to make a decision.

9.10 p.m.

Lord SHERFIELD

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for drawing the attention of the House to this Council of Europe report and draft resolution on the safety and economic effects of the fast breeder reactor; and I rise to make a few comments, if only to make it a bit of a field day. The draft resolution, as noble Lords have already said, is of special significance, because after a public hearing and debate it is positive in its attitude to fast reactor safety and on the need to continue work on its development, which it considers to be in the interest of Europe. This opinion on the safety of the fast reactor is nothing new to this House. Many noble Lords present, I think, will remember the powerful speeches of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, notably in the House on 22nd December, 1976, and I think again on a later occasion early last year—and I am delighted that the noble Earl is speaking again this evening.

Of course, there are those in this House, and out of it—and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is in sympathy with them—who are opposed to the development of fast reactors in particular, and indeed to the extension of nuclear power in general, sometimes as a matter of principle and even of dogma, on grounds of safety and for the other reasons, some of which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, gave us this evening. But, my Lords, if you start with demanding absolute safety for a technological development, you are bound to oppose it, since absolute safety cannot be guaranteed. I do not want to add to the arguments about the safety and other characteristics of fast breeder reactors which have been put forward this evening: there are no converts to be made on a debate on an Unstarred Question at this time of night. What is important is that the body of public opinion which is open to argument and ready to listen to a reasoned case should be reinforced, and this exercise by the Council of Europe is important for this reason.

Moreover, it does not stand alone in Europe. At its meeting on 5th February, the Council of Foreign Ministers adopted, subject only to minor drafting amendments, three resolutions: one on the reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuels; one on fast breeder reactors and one on a Community plan of action in the field of radioactive waste. These resolutions will, I am told, be adopted formally at the next meeting of the Council. These resolutions are all positive in tone. The resolution on the fast reactor records, inter alia, agreement that it is in the interests of the Community and of its Member States to preserve the option of making fast breeder reactors available on a commercial basis. Secondly, the resolution urges those States which have fast reactor programmes to get on with them, subject, of course, to provisos about safety, radiation protection and the protection of the environment. Thirdly, the resolution states that the Community will end its support to this work in appropriate ways. So the Council and the Commission are taking very much the same positive line as the Council of Europe.

But, my Lords, that is not all. This very week the International Fuel Cycle Evaluation Group is concluding its inquiry in Vienna, and its findings are being published by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Forty countries and four international organisations, including—and this is relevant to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield—a number of developing countries, have taken part in this inquiry which has lasted over two years, and not just two days, and in which the United Kingdom representative has been Sir Hermann Bondi. From the summary of the proceedings, it appears that the outcome is favourable to the development of the fast breeder reactor.

To take only two or three points, the relevant working party of the INFCE, as it is euphoniously called for short, with reference to the uncertainties about uranium supply, points out that a combination of thermal and fast breeder reactors could provide nuclear power deployment virtually free from uranium supply constraints. It adds that countries with nuclear power programmes will need robust policy options to guard against possible failure of uranium supplies in the future. Secondly, a comparison between the safety and the environmental impact of light water and fast breeder reactors gives the fast breeder reactor a marked advantage on nearly every count. Thirdly, on the issue of non-proliferation, the verdict is that the risk of diversion in the various stages of the fast breeder fuel cycle are no greater than in the case of other reactor types in the long term. Possibly, the noble Earl will not this evening be in a position to make a statement about the results of INFCE. I am not sure whether the final communique is yet available but I hope that he may be able to do so quite soon.

The important point that I want to make this evening is that in the course of two or three months a group of nine countries in the Community; the wider European group, 23 in all (I think) in the Council of Europe, and the group of 40 countries in the INFCE have all issued statements which are positive on fast breeder reactor development. I think this is a very significant international development.

The purpose of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, is to urge the Government to make up their mind to declare their intention, subject to public inquiry which has already been promised, to press ahead with work on the commercial fast reactor. Paragraph 10(g) of the draft resolution of the Council of Europe says that fast reactors are expected, notwithstanding their higher capital maintenance and construction costs, to produce electricity at prices comparable to the present generation of thermal reactors. Nevertheless, my Lords, the development and construction costs of commercial fast reactors are very heavy and there is a strong case for international co-operation in this work on the lines, for example, of Urenco, the European Centrifuge Company.

It is, I feel, a great misfortune that the last Secretary of State for Energy for reasons of prejudice (which can easily be guessed at) blocked two or three years ago the opportunity to collaborate with France and Germany on fast reactor development. No doubt it will be much more difficult to join this club now; but the effort should be made and, if we are rebuffed, we might consider collaboration with the United States which, in spite of President Carter's refusal to proceed with the construction of the Clinch River fast breeder reactor, still has a substantial research programme on fast breeders; although it has again been threatened with heavy cuts by the White House. However, clearly, it would be better to join a European programme, if possible.

A decision to embark on a multiple programme of fast reactors depends to a considerable extent on the availability of uranium supplies which, as the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has pointed out, is at present uncertain and the subject of controversy. The Government should not wait for this issue to be resolved before going ahead with plans for a commercial station. The project is such a long lead one; the preliminaries of a public inquiry, the selection of a site, and so on are so time consuming; the construction and commissioning time is probably so lengthy that, in my view, no time should be lost in making a start. I hope, too, that the Government will not say that they cannot make a positive statement because they must first study the INFCE reports. They must have known how these were likely to come out for some months now. So I join with the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, in urging the Government to make an early and positive statement on a commercial fast reactor programme.

9.21 p.m.

Lord BOWDEN

My Lords, I have to confess to your Lordships that I cannot go along at all with most of the arguments which have been so far presented for fast breeder reactors. I have read, for example, the Ford Foundation's analysis of the fast breeder reactor programme in the United States. They analysed the case very thoroughly and pointed out that the case for a fast breeder depends entirely on the economics of the situation. No one can be found to deny that a fast breeder reactor will cost very much more than a conventional type. The ratio has been variously estimated as five times. The Germans found their own estimated cost has escalated 10 times since they first started on the work. What the ratio is one cannot say. The possibility of competing at all with the type of reactor that we have depends entirely on the advantage which is ultimately to be obtained, we think, if the price of uranium rises dramatically.

The question of world uranium supplies has been much studied. Only last month the United States geological survey published their considered estimate of the amount of uranium to be found if one estimates the amount to be had at differing prices. Obviously, the more that one is prepared to pay, the more is likely to be found. It turns out that if the price of uranium increased, say, 10 times, then the fast breeder might become worthwhile. But it also turns out that if the price of uranium were to be doubled or trebled, the amount available would probably increase not merely once or twice, but about 300-fold. There are enormous amounts of uranium to be had at slightly greater prices than those we now pay for them, and this is according to an elaborate survey recently published by the United States geological authorities.

The remarkable feature is that this fact was foreseen several years ago as a result of work done by two Members of your Lordships' house who carried out the work 75 years ago. I refer to the work by Lord Raleigh and Lord Rutherford on the estimated amount of uranium in the earth's crust. From it, the Canadians deduce that there must be more uranium to be found than the then survey suggested. This result has been amply confirmed by the recent survey of the geological survey of the United States. There is ample uranium to be had, and the possibility of competing at all with conventional types of reactor depends for the fast breeder only on the conceivable risk that the price of uranium might escalate out of all reason.

The question of the safety of the reactors is very hard to dogmatise about in a debate of this kind. I read this paper which was submitted by the EEC and I found it at least worthy of mention that one reactor which is included in it was the Detroit Edison fast breeder which was instituted in about 1964. That had to be closed down within an hour or two of being switched on. If it had not been closed down, the whole of the city of Detroit would have had to be evacuated. This was the worst near-accident that was ever stopped by turning it off before it become out of control. This is nowhere mentioned in the document, nor is the enormous disadvantage of the very great capital cost of the fast breeders which so far have been built or proposed.

It is worthy of mention that the very first electrical power that ever was had from a nuclear reactor came from a fast breeder in about 1951, and it was about 150 watts—enough to light two or three lamps; and that was long before a commercial breeder of the more conventional type had been made. As you know, the first to produce significant power was built in England, but it was five or six years after the first generation of power had been demonstrated with a fast breeder. Ever since then people have been struggling with these enormously complex problems of making them reliable, making them safe and making them at a reasonable price. No one has done it yet.

My Lords, the Americans are very shrewd in their assessment of economic potential and they have decided there is no case for developing the fast breeder for several years to come because the reactors that they now have, that we have and the supply of uranium which is available, are all going to be quite all right for some long time. So I am afraid that if we go ahead with the fast breeder in Europe we shall repeat almost precisely the story of Concorde: it will be a technical triumph and an economic catastrophe.

This is not the time to discuss the other alternatives, but I would make one observation. It seems to me that if we cannot make Dungeness work, why are we messing about with a much more complicated, sophisticated and dangerous device in this country? I should have thought the first priority to which we should devote all our resources of skilled manpower in this country would be to get the reactors we now have working reliably. It is notorious that many of them either have not worked at all or have had to be closed down for a variety of reasons within the last few months. This is devasting: it is terribly important that they should be got right, because our survival depends on them; whereas the future, depending upon fast breeders, will hardly come in the lifetime of anyone here this evening.

I should like to make one other point before I sit down. The reactors we now have—both the advanced gas-cooled reactor and the pressurised water reactor we have been talking about—have both been described by impartial observers as "uranium guzzlers". There are other types of reactor which have been called near-breeders which get three or four times as much power per tonne of uranium as those to which I have referred. Furthermore, these reactors, ever since they were first built in Canada, have been the most reliable in the world. I have discussed this subject with your Lordships before, but it is true to say that the great reactors in Pickering and in Bruce, both of which I have seen, were for many years the best and most reliable in the world; and Hans Bethe who was a Nobel prizewinner and the nuclear physicist in America most concerned with nuclear power, said quite simply that the CANDU is a wonderful system; it always works and it uses uranium much more economically than ours do.

There will be opportunities for development, in collaboration with the Canadians, of a style of reactor which will get three, four or even five times as much power from a tonne of uranium ore as our present ones do. The amount of power we shall in practice get from fast breeders is nowhere near the theoretical amount postulated. It will almost certainly take at least 20 years before the fast breeder can double the amount of fissile material it has to start with. It will take several tonnes of plutonium to start off a fast breeder and, when it has been started, the plutonium and the blanket has to be taken out and re-processed chemically many, many times. It is almost certain that the total multiplication factor will be less than a dozen times in practice on any system which has so far been proposed and worked out in detail, whereas we can get three or four times by taking the much simpler route to a thermal reactor of the type developed in Canada.

I beg the Government to consider this as an alternative, and I beg them to think that we could have everything we want from these reactors. The calculation has been made, I think reliably, that were they to be used all the electric power that the world will need—this includes making a very reasonable allowance for electric power for the developing countries which have hardly any now—could be provided with the known resources of uranium and thorium—which I cannot elaborate on now—for several hundred centuries; not for merely a few years. If we can be satisfied for even 100 years, it seems to me that that is all we reasonably should bother about.

I therefore feel that to embark on this alternative scheme is wasteful of resources and is likely to be dangerous, for reasons which have been mentioned. As I said, they once nearly evacuated Detroit. It is likely to be dangerous because of the chemical processing involved; and I do not believe that the economic advantages will be obvious in the lifetime of anyone present this evening.

9.31 p.m.

Viscount THURSO

My Lords, not all Liberals agree with the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. I think that a very large body of opinion within the Liberal Party agrees with me that nuclear power will be necessary to the country, and it is the duty of people who sit in your Lordships' House and in another place to see that we achieve the best means of providing it. I therefore dissociate myself from the criticism by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, of the committee which produced the document that we are considering. I also dissociate myself from the Liberal Party's opposition to nuclear energy, and if it really persists for long in this I shall really have to look for some other Benches to sit on.

The Earl of GOWRIE

Here we are!

Viscount THURSO

Your Lordships can all woo me, if you like. I dissociate myself from the idea that to pursue the development of fast breeder reactors is to create a bomb hazard. This argument, to me, is rather like saying that if we sell cars we are selling the capability of making tanks, and therefore we must pack up the motor industry and go back to the stage coach. The argument that the fast breeder reactor is justified only if stocks of uranium are running low is, in my view, rubbish, because the fast breeder reactor is justified for all the other reasons of safety, efficiency, plutonium stock management and so on, which are adumbrated in this document. However, an Unstarred Question is not the time for family squabbles, so I will, if I may, turn to the document and to the supplementary questions which I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government.

Document 4473 of the Council of Europe excites my admiration of the European Parliamentary Assembly more than anything that I have yet seen coming out of Brussels, and I hasten to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, on the part which he played in adopting the report as he sat in the committee. I thank him for bringing it to the attention of your Lordships' House and for asking the Government what they are going to do about it. In asking some questions of the Government myself, I should like to underline and amplify some of the very important facts which this report brings to our notice. I should like, also, to update some of the information in it, and to ask the Government whether they agree with my reading of the latest state of readiness of the world's fast reactors. First, I am delighted to see the call for public information. Do the Government hear this call? Are they aware of the vital importance of responding to it? What are they doing to respond to it? Are they aware of how abysmally misinformed the media often are about fast reactors? Do they not agree that the BBC, in particular, is guilty of uninformed and prejudiced reporting about the fast reactor system? For instance, in a recent programme about atomic energy, chaired by Mr. Robin Day, the BBC deliberately led us to believe that the UKAEA made extravagant claims about thermo-nuclear reactors at the time of the opening of Calder Hall by showing a headline out of the Daily Express saying "Unlimited power for 1,000 years" and an extract from a printed pamphlet making similar assertions. This was done in an attempt to discredit the ability of the Atomic Energy Authority to make reliable forecasts.

In fact, the headline and the pamphlet were not about Calder Hall or thermonuclear power stations at all. They were about Zeta, the Torus research tool at Culham and about our still embryonic attempts to harness the energy of atomic fusion. If it had not been that I happened to have one of those very pamphlets in my files at home, I might not have known this. Clearly Mr. Robin Day did not know it, because he was completely under the impression that this headline and this pamphlet referred to Calder Hall. To my mind this programme discredited the ability of the BBC to carry out unbiased reporting of atomic energy issues. Therefore, I ask: what are the Government going to do to try and make the BBC show a more responsible attitude?

Pages 12 and 13 of Document 4473 describe clearly and succinctly the inherent safety characteristics of the fast reactor but they do not tell us about the fascinating experiments carried out at Dounreay which have demonstrated conclusively the designed safety characteristics of our own British version of the sodium-cooled fast reactor. Our depth of knowledge on fast reactor safety is the best in the world. We are probably the only country to have done a full set of experiments simulating power failures, safety circuit failures and human errors. Other countries may have made calculations or even done some of the experiments, but we have boiled the sodium, we have tripped the switches, and we know.

Where this admirable document is not quite right is in suggesting that, except in the special case of France the sodium cooled fast breeder reactor is still in the prototype stage throughout the western world". Our own PFR is a better and more comprehensive research tool than France's Phenix. It is true that France is building a Super-Phenix but that will only bring France level with us on fuel element design and boiler design. Phenix is only an expanded Rapsodie F whereas our own PFR deliberately contains fuel elements of commercial size such as will be used in CDFR and employs boiler and coolant pump designs of a commercial sort which will only have to be scaled up slightly for CDFR. Super-Phenix will have to use fuel elements and boilers of designs hitherto untested in practice, and will in consequence have a fairly large question mark hanging over it. The French approach to the the use of Phenix has been different from our approach to the use of PFR. The French have used Phenix largely as a power station while we have used PFR largely as an experimental tool. Therefore, when we each come to build our 1,200 megawatt power station ours will have been fully researched and the French one will be partly experimental.

My Lords, where we clearly and absolutely lead the world is in the field of materials reprocessing. We know more about fast reactor waste than the rest of the world. We really do know the answers to the management of the nuclear fuel cycle. In this connection, may I try to put some facts in perspective for your Lordships? A popular misconception is that plutonium is an evil, man-made metal, not known to nature and that its behaviour and the behaviour of its daughter isotopes is not known or unpredictable. This is not true.

At Oklo in Gabon where uranium mining was taking place the ore was found to be unusually depleted in U235. Investigations showed that some 2,000 million years ago water had entered the uranium deposits and had turned them into a water moderated reactor. This natural reactor produced energy for 500 million years, producing neptunium and plutonium just as they are produced today in the core of a thermal reactor power station. In the rocks of Oklo we can follow the decay life of plutonium and its daughter isotopes and their behaviour in a totally uncontained and unshielded situation. We, therefore, actually have much more information about the behaviour and decay of radioactive substances in nature than is commonly realised.

It is also not commonly realised that natural uranium is a comparatively innocuous substance. You can hold it in your hand with safety. It is no more hazardous to health than many sorts of coal. It is also not commonly realised that once atomic waste has been held in storage until it has cooled off and has then been made into glass blocks, this waste is less hazardous than many other substances that are used in industry and in the chemical industry in particular. It is also less radioactive than natural uranium. This, though, applies only to well-managed vitrified waste from fast breeder reactors. It is not true of the wastes produced by Magnox AGR or PWR types of reactor. Wastes from these reactors contain highly dangerous poisonous and radioactive plutonium. Therefore, Document 4473 is right in pointing out the importance of fast reactors to the safe management and regulation of plutonium stocks. I hope that the Government fully subscribe to this concept and that they will confirm it tonight.

Lastly, my Lords, before I summarise my questions to the Government, may I comment on the table on page 8 of Document 4473 and ask if the Government agree with my summary? First, although the Americans are spending massive amounts of money on atomic research, their progress with fast reactors is far behind Europe or Russia. EBRII is still running but FFTF is doing criticality tests only and work on CRBR has stopped. At the most optimistic estimate, US Comm 1 will not be operational before the early or mid 1990s.

Secondly, the state of progress in Russia indicates that BN600 is not yet critical and may not be operational until 1983 and although they are preparing to start on BN1600, they have a long way to go with its design, especially in the field of fuel technology.

In Japan, where they very much need atomic energy to meet their power requirements, they are very far behind schedule. Monju, scheduled for operation in 1986, is not yet in building and it is only the equivalent of our PFR.

The state of progress of the Italian PEC is not clear to me, but obviously they do not yet have any real fast reactor experience. In Germany, their KNK11 is only a converted thermal reactor and their SNR300 is delayed by legislation; while SNR2 is still only a gleam in their eye. In France alone is progress being maintained. Super-Phénix is going ahead although in my view they are behind us in fuel element and boiler design and have an unproved fuel cycle.

Here in the United Kingdom we now have PFR working smoothly—in fact a few days ago I was standing on the top of it—and we are poised and ready to start CDFR. Were it not for Mr. Wedgwood-Benn's long running fence-sitting act as Minister of Energy we might even now be holding our public inquiries preparatory to starting work on CDFR. As it is the Department of Energy should jump nimbly down from the fence and get on with the job. If they do and we allow a year for the necessary inquiry and then eight years to build CDFR we could even now be operational ahead of the date in the table on page 8.

My Lords, may I therefore, sum up my assertions as follows? We still lead the world in fast reactor technology. We know more about safety and more about reprocessing and waste disposal than the rest of the world. The fast reactor is the safest reactor. Fast reactor waste is the easiest waste to handle. Fast reactors are the most economic reactors. To build more thermal reactors without at least building CDFR creates unnecessary waste disposal problems. We cannot really afford more AGRs and new PWRs as well as CDFR, and we need CDFR; so does Europe and so does the world. We should, therefore, proceed as soon as possible to set up the necessary inquiry, as we have been enjoined to do by the Council of Europe. Does the Minister follow my reasoning, and how far do Her Majesty's Government agree with my conclusions?

9.46p.m.

The Earl of HALSBURY

My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to those of previous speakers to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject. May I at this point offer my congratulations to the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, for his faultless presentation of the facts which he has struck at with such scholarly command, thereby enabling me to economise on a lot of what I would like to say? Economy is much called for. Two years ago, somewhat euphoric because the Met. Office, of whose advisory council I am chairman, had successfully predicted a blizzard on Caithness some five days in advance of the actuality, I travelled to Caithness through all the hazards of those days and spent a very pleasant 24 hours at Dounreay, getting a lot of questions answered, which had been concerning me since the occasion of the motion of my noble friend Lord Sherfield. I returned so euphorically, to take part in the debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, on 1st February two years ago, that I spoke for 27 minutes, a calamity which I shall endeavour not to repeat at this late hour.

The danger is reduced because on the yellow page ii, paragraph 10, seven points are made all of which confirm what I told your Lordships two years ago, and since I have not changed my opinions in the interim it follows that I accept the document and I am greatly obliged to the authors for stating my case so well. I am also obliged to the editor of the Listener who has published two letters of mine in the last two weeks. Copies are in the Library and that enables me still further to economise on what I wanted to say.

Paragraph 10(a) in the document we are discussing states that fast breeder reactors are often misunderstood because of their name. They are fast in the sense that they work on fast neutrons, but all neutrons start life as fast neutrons, following fission, just as every golf ball starts life as a fast golf ball off the tee and ends as a slow golf ball in the hole; it is most unusual to hole out in one, though it is not unknown. At the same power level, for every 100 neutrons in a fast reactor there are about 45 fast neutrons in a thermal reactor. It is the case that fast neutrons are fast, but thermal neutrons are not all that slow. This is rather a rough way of looking at a complex matter, and experts could easily pick holes in what I have been saying, because there is no more than an arbitrary line of demarcation between fast and slow neutrons. But though not a perfect exposition of the matter, your Lordships will be less misled by supposing it true than by making the converse supposition and believing that the difference between the thermal and fast reactor is total rather than relative.

"Breeder" is also somewhat of a misnomer. The characteristics of these reactors can be adjusted so that they are between incineration on the one hand and breeding on the other. They can be net incinerators, or evenly balanced, or net breeders, in accordance with policy and the degree of collaboration with thermal reactors which can supply them with some of their plutonium. In fact you can think of this type of reactor as a device for getting rid of plutonium which you generate in a thermal reactor. Suppose I call them "low-waste" reactors instead of "fast"; this would be a very fair name in comparison with the PWR, because per unit of energy generated they produce less radioactive waste than a PWR would. Or what about calling them "high-yield" reactors? That again would be a fair comparison with an AGR because an AGR wastes—dissipates—about one and a half times as many neutrons as a breeder reactor, neutrons that get lost in the structure of the reactor, the biological shield and so on.

The report refers to another attractive feature of the breeder reactor in the sense that the liquid metal coolant is nowhere under pressure in contact with the fuel elements. This it shares with the Candu reactor which the noble Lord, Lord Bowden, talked about and, in common with the Candu reactor, a breeder can be made the start off for the thorium cycle. I would counsel your Lordships not to get, in the relative sense, too starry-eyed about the thorium cycle. Transforming thorium to U233 only generates a material which is easier to make bombs out of than plutonium and which is just as poisonous as plutonium is in the chemical sense.

The report mentions an explosion underground in America of reactor grade plutonium—that is plutonium taken out of a thermal reactor. The same grade of plutonium would represent the input to a breeder reactor—where of course it gets irradiated still further and poisoned still further with the even-numbered plutonium isotopes, so that it is still more difficult to make an atomic bomb out of than uranium. All the time it is going through these cycles it is getting more and more relatively difficult to make a bomb out of it and one would need all the facilities of a fuel reprocessing plant and a metal forming plant which, of course, are at the disposal of the American Atomic Energy Authority, but which would not be at the disposal of terrorists.

I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, in an interview recorded in the Press was asked if he could make some plutonium. I think he said, "Yes, if I was given a facility about the size of Imperial College to build it in." Of course, it cannot be done in a back street.

So much for the safety aspect. Let me now come to the characteristics of these reactors on page 8 which was so well summarised by the noble Viscount. My conclusion is very much the same as his. There is really only France and ourselves in it, but whereas he is absolutely right in what he said about the lead we had over France initially, I am very concerned with the way this is being overhauled, because if we go back to the days of the Dounreay fast reactor we then had a four-year lead on the nearest thing that the French were ever going to have to that. When it came to Phénix and the PFR, what had been a four-year lead had been converted by the time the reactors went on power, to a one-year lag. If we then look at the dates given in the table—1983 for the Super-Phénix and 1991 for the CDFR—we find that that one-year lag has stretched out to an eight-year lag. Remembering that we started with a four-year lead, we have lost 12 years in comparison with the French. I do not think that we can afford to do so.

Yesterday we had an interesting debate, which I regret that I could not take part in, on the report of Sir Monty Finniston. I could not help feeling, listening to some of the speeches—I was not able to attend the whole debate—that we were in very grave danger of applying a cosmetic cure to the situation in which this country finds itself. I do not believe that high technology, however good, can ever be a substitute for good management, good labour relations and commercial courage. Lack of them is what has undone this country, not bad engineering. If this was a nation of people who were commercially courageous, and capable of good labour relations, they would be able to hire good managers and the affairs of the engineering industry would adjust themselves accordingly, as they have elsewhere. If your Lordships want the proof of that, consider the enormous commercial success of the supertankers made in Japan. There was not one bit of new, advanced technology in any of those tankers; no new methods of welding were developed to build those tankers. They were built by conventional methods in conventional shipyards and were merely much bigger than anything there had been. What did the Japanese have that we did not have? We could have given work to our shipyard employees for years to come if we had built the world's fleet of supertankers. What did they have? They had the commercial courage to go ahead and build the first. That is what we need in the context of the fast reactor.

I come to the factors that stand in our way—the environmentalist lobby and protest movements in general. In the time available I cannot deal with this as I should like. All I can say here is that they abuse our tolerance for no good reason. The latitude given to objectors should not be exploited for the purposes of self-dramatisation, of which there is far too much in the environmentalists' lobby. As to Candu, the PWR and the remarks of my old friend, the noble Lord, Lord Bowden, I have always in this House stood up for the SGHWR and Candu as very interesting reactors. I would press the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, to keep an open mind about the relative merits of a public inquiry into the PWR as opposed to a comparative inquiry into the comparative merits of the PWR and the Candu. It has a feature equally attractive with one of the fast reactors: the moderating elements are not in contact with coolant under pressure.

I believe that difficulties tend to resolve themselves under resolute attack. To the irresolute all things appear impossible—c'est le premier pas qui conte;; it is the one step that the irresolute never take. So I add my voice to those who have preceded me in urging the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, to make a resolute reply and ensure that this new Government tackles this old problem with vigour.

9.57 p.m.

Lord WYNNE-JONES

My Lords, the speeches of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, have made it almost unnecessary for anyone else to speak except for the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, in reply. I have little to add to the excellent remarks that both of them have made. It is abundantly clear, not that we must have a programme of breeder reactors, but that we must go ahead to the next step of building a fully commercial breeder reactor.

My noble friend Lord Bowden spoke about the economics of it. We do not know the economics until we have built it. It is quite impossible to make economic speculation. Have we not had enough of economic speculation for years? It gets us nowhere at all. We must build one in order to find out whether or not it will work economically. Of course, it is perfectly true that the question whether the breeder reactor will be worthwhile depends upon the price of uranium. But I am surprised that my noble friend Lord Bowden should start speculating with some assurance about the price of uranium. Who would have speculated correctly 10 years ago on the price of oil? Who would speculate on the price of coal?

These are matters on which it is not possible to speculate. To say that there is uranium scattered all over the world in quantity is, of course, true. But the question is: How economical is it to mine that uranium and to use it? Those are questions that we cannot answer at the moment. They are absolutely impossible of answering. Therefore, the problem we are faced with is whether we will be prepared to have a breeder reactor, if it is required, at the end of the century. If we do not make a decision soon we know the answer: we will not have a breeder reactor, and this is absurd.

Mention has been made of the American experience. The Americans had a reactor at Clinch River which they closed down. This was not closed down for any technical or scientific reason at all. It was closed down because of a decision by the President of the United States, who was rather more ignorant than probably any Member of Congress—and certainly, I hope, than any Member of this House—as to what were the real problems. In fact after it was closed down the Comptroller General of the United States made an inquiry which was published last May, in which he went in detail into all the arguments which had been presented by the United States Department of Energy, and he showed that every argument that they presented was nonsense. He also showed that the arguments which came from the Department of State on the risks in foreign affairs were equally nonsense. The whole thing is published.

I had a copy sent to me from Congress in May. It is interesting reading because he absolutely destroys all the arguments which the Administration had used in order to close down Clinch River. There was one argument which they never published, and that argument was that the nuclear industry in the United States had run into such difficulties over their PWR programme that they did not want to divert any further energies towards continuing the Clinch River experiment, because they were fully occupied in repairing the errors which had cropped up with the PWR programme. It is not for us to tell the United States what to do; but equally it is not for the United States to tell us what to do, especially when they have shown no partcular understanding of this programme—at least on their Governmental side.

So far as we are concerned in this country we are faced not, I believe, with any immediate problem with regard to the generation of electricity. I do not think that the problem is serious for us over a number of years. Therefore, in my opinion, the most urgent thing for us to do is not to engage in a big programme of building thermal reactors, but rather to look to the future and start examining the problem of building a breeder reactor which may be necessary by the end of this century.

It may be argued that the cost will be high. I do not know what the cost will be, but I should guess that it would probably be not less than £2,000 million to build it, and it will take a number of years. Therefore there are two possibilities: first, that we feel we must go ahead and do it ourselves, or that we co-operate with the French and the Germans to build a commercial reactor—no longer a prototype; the prototypes have been built. If this could be agreed upon, if this could be done, then it would be a co-operative achievement for the Community which they have so far singularly failed to achieve in the energy field. Whether they would be prepared to do it I cannot say, but I would ask the noble Earl to consider this matter and put it before the Department of Energy to see whether they would be prepared to go ahead and could do something on these lines. If not, then it would be almost inevitable that, whatever the expense, we shall have to do it ourselves.

The Earl of GOWRIE

My Lords, the late poet W.H. Auden, who I had the honour of knowing slightly and admired very much, once said that when, as a literary man, he found himself in a gathering of scientists he felt like a shabby curate who had strayed into a room full of dukes, and that is somewhat the position in which I find myself this evening, as your Lordships' House is at its best when men are talking with passion about things they know well.

The debate has proved a most timely and worthwhile opportunity for us to review the considerations of fast reactor policy in the light of the recent resolution by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and I wish, whatever the deficiencies of its prose, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, to pay tribute to its work and to the work which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, contributed to it; and we are in his debt this evening for having raised this issue.

The first priority of the Government in the nuclear field has been to develop the policies on the nuclear programme and the nuclear industry that were announced by the Secretary of State for Energy in another place on 18th December and which I repeated here: The Government will now be considering policy on the fast rector over the next few months in the light of the advice of the Atomic Energy Authority and other bodies concerned, and such has been the quality of the debate that it is more than conventional for me to say that they will be considering it also in the light of what has been said this evening. As we have seen already, this is a complex subject of great importance for our long-term energy prospects. There are many closely related issues to be considered and we cannot reach conclusions quickly, but the Government are working on the issue and a Statement will be made. I note the representations which your Lordships have made about the urgency of the issue in view of the long lead times.

The debate has taken place at a time when our thinking is still in the melting pot and therefore, as I said, the views that have been expressed can be taken into account in policy formation. But as I have already explained privately to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, it also means that I will not be able to reply this evening in any detail in terms of existing Government policies and I hope noble Lords will bear with me on this point. The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, to whom I would add my congratulations for a magnificent speech, asked me a number of questions but I am afraid he has put me rather in the position of the parson in one of Sir Osbert Lancaster's wartime pocket cartoons. The parson was depicted in the pulpit and under him were two old ladies, one whispering to the other, "Since the dear vicar was made military chaplain to MI5, his sermons have got so non-committal".

In spite of being in this unenviable role, I should like to make some general comments on where we stand at the moment on the fast reactor, and to reply where I can to the points noble Lords have made. As both noble Lords, Lord Northfield and Lord Strabolgi, clearly said, the case for the fast reactor rests on its ability to make use of plutonium and depleted uranium that are the by-products of thermal reactors so that eventually something like 50 or 60 times as much energy can be produced from the same quantity of natural uranium. Without the prospect of the widespread introduction of the fast reactor, shortages of natural uranium would eventually begin to restrict further ordering of existing thermal reactors.

So the potential advantages of fast reactors were recognised from the earliest days of nuclear power, and fast reactor research and development has been under way in the United Kingdom for nearly 30 years, as I think was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. Our first experimental fast reactor was built at Harwell in 1951. In 1959 the Dounreay fast reactor, with an electricity output of 15 MW, was opened, and it operated successfully for the following 18 years. Its successor, the 250 MW prototype fast reactor, also at Dounreay, was completed in 1974, and is still in operation. The effectiveness of the fast reactor in conserving uranium supplies depends crucially on its fuel reprocessing cycle, and this aspect is also under development in the United Kingdom. Last September the Prime Minister opened at Dounreay a reprocessing plant that is the first of its kind in the world.

All this means that the United Kingdom now has a major investment in fast reactor technology and an important international position. Probably only the French, who now have a full scale fast reactor—Super Phénix—under construction, can be regarded as having a lead over the United Kingdom in fast reactor development. Some of your Lordships have expressed scepticism about whether that lead is absolute in technical terms, although as the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, reminded us, they are overhauling us in terms of time. I am afraid that the United States has been held back by the symbolic figure of Jane Fonda, and I think that this debate has been an admirable corrective to that kind of environmental emotionalism.

The fast reactor is not an economic proposition in the immediate present because, although its uranium requirements are much less than for thermal reactors, total capital, operating, and fuel cycle costs are considerably higher; and the noble Lord, Lord Bowden, reminded us of that. The question of whether fast reactors will become economic depends therefore on progress in refining the technology and reducing its cost, as well as on any future increases in uranium prices. This is something that has been looked at in some detail in the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (the INFCE), whose report has now been published. One of the points that emerged from their studies was that our knowledge of uranium resource potential is still very limited in many parts of the world. Of course, on the demand side, the future growth of nuclear capacity world-wide is also very uncertain. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, raised this point, and he asked me about world uranium supplies. My information is that more than 80 per cent. of the uranium reserves that are known to exist are concentrated in Australia, Southern Africa, and North America, and INFCE recognised that individual countries will see the need for the fast reactor, and the likely time-scale, very much in the light of their own circumstances. On present evidence it seems unlikely that uranium reserves will be found in the United Kingdom that would be significant in relation to our own requirements for civil nuclear power, and that is of course something that we have to bear in mind when we consider our fast reactor policy.

I shall turn briefly to some of the other issues that have been raised in this evening's debate. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who put a contrary view with verve and passion, as we would expect of him, raised the question of the proliferation resistance of fast reactor technology. That is highly complex, but it is also one of the issues that have been under consideration by INFCE. Discussion in INFCE has highlighted the fact that the proliferation of nuclear weapons is above all a political problem, and one to which there are no easy technical solutions. Many noble Lords have reinforced that view tonight. There are no nuclear fuel cycles whatsoever in the world that completely avoid the use of materials that can eventually be made into weapons. But the construction and planned misuse of fuel cycle facilities is not the easiest, nor the most efficient, route to acquiring materials for making nuclear weapons.

The question of fast reactor safety was considered in a report published by the Health and Safety Executive in 1976. On this general topic, I enjoyed the references made by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, to the Rocket and the fears of the early days of steam technology. However, while he was making them it occurred to me, as a Minister of the Crown, that the Rocket did succeed in killing one in the late and lamented Mr. Huskisson, so I am not sure whether his instance was quite as warmly received by me as it might have been by others. Of course, to be serious, safety is a technical as well as an emotive issue. But the Health and Safety Executive said that the faults that might lead to an accident in a fast reactor were similar to those that have to be considered for other reactor systems, and that the general principles involved in avoiding and, if necessary, in controlling such faults are similar to those adopted in thermal reactors. The Executive concluded that given, as seemed reasonably likely, a successful outcome to the development work in hand or envisaged, there should not be any reason why a commercial fast reactor could not be made safe enough to be licensed by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate.

My Lords, coming to that Inspectorate, the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, raised the question of the levels of staffing. The Inspectorate do indeed have to recruit in a highly competitive market, and it is true that they are at present somewhat below strength, and this is a cause of concern to me. But they are arranging their work so that necessary resources can be devoted to the site inspection work and to assessment work for the pressure water reactor and the AGR programmes. The Government fully recognise the importance of maintaining an Inspectorate of the right size and composition, and we will continue to keep in touch with the Health and Safety Executive and watch the staffing situation closely. As I am primarily a Minister of employment rather than of energy, I would of course remind your Lordships that health and safety does find its sponsoring department in the Ministry of Employment.

My Lords, there have been suggestions in the Press that the status and role of the Inspectorate is declining. This is quite wrong. The Inspectorate were moved from the Department of Energy to the Health and Safety Executive about five years ago. The purpose of this move was to enhance their independence by taking them away from the department which has the responsibility for developing nuclear energy and putting them under the newly-created and independent HSE. The Inspectorate therefore remain the highly-qualified body that they have always been. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, raised the spectre of dispersal to Bootle. The actual dispersal of posts from the HSE will be phased over some years in order to minimise any staffing problems, and the NII move will not be completed until the end of 1985—and the Inspectorate are, of course, perfectly informed of the timetable.

The noble Lord, Lord Bowden, has spoken before, as he did today, with eloquence on the scope for developing the CANDU reactor to a stage where it could represent a reasonable alternative to the fast reactor. It is certainly true that more power can be obtained from a CANDU reactor per tonne of uranium than from either a PWR or an AGR. Further savings of the order of 30 per cent. of uranium requirements are also believed to be possible by operating a once-through thorium cycle, as I understand it is called, which does not involve reprocessing in these reactors. But, my Lords, reprocessing is necessary if substantially greater savings ever the long term are to be achieved. So I do not think that CANDU can be regarded as an alternative to the fast reactor unless it is operated on the basis of processing; and, though we have corresponded on this subject and I am highly interested in the noble Lord's views, I myself think that some degree of caution is necessary in considering CANDU as a possible alternative to the fast reactor.

My Lords, one of the points on which the Council of Europe has rightly laid great emphasis is the need for public information and discussion on the fast reactor. I can assure the House, and notably the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, that it is the Government's policy, and that of all concerned with the nuclear industry in the United Kingdom, to be very open about nuclear safety issues. As I have said in this House before, we have in this country over 30 years' safe experience of nuclear energy, and we are well aware that public confidence is essential for the continued expansion of the programme.

I hope, in that context, that the BBC is learning its lesson and listening tonight. The organisations concerned generally have an excellent record of making information of general public interest available, for instance, through leaflets and journals. A great many people have recently visited the travelling exhibition on nuclear power organised by the Nuclear Power Information Group. The prototype fast reactor at Dounreay is open to public tours and more than 2,000 people went to see it last year. I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that the Government have also made it clear that any decision to build a full-scale commercial demonstration fast reactor in the United Kingdom would be subject to a full and thorough public inquiry.

The Government are now considering the next steps for fast reactor policy in the United Kingdom. Clearly the main issues will be the scope for international collaboration in carrying forward this very complex and costly technology and the case for building a full-scale commercial demonstation fast reactor here. In this context, I shall take careful note of what the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, has told us. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, if I may end on a personal note, that this is, of course, a House rather associated with ecological and environmental issues. I remember when, in the mid-1960s, I came to take my seat in your Lordships' House and wanted to work here, people said, "You will not enjoy that body much; it is always debating clean rivers and a better environment and other things like that".

My Lords, the terms of trade in that direction have rather turned in favour of your Lordships' House over the world; but I am glad to see that, on the evidence of tonight, this has not shown itself to be incompatible with entry into the nuclear age. I regret that I am not in a position to make an announcement this evening, but I am sure that the points that have been made during the course of this most interesting debate will be studied most carefully before any decisions are reached.