This news from a day or two ago was shared with me by a friend and regular reader who knew that this kind of article would prompt a blog post.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/03/19/anger-as-birmingham-city-councils-wheelie-bin-audit-asks-homeowners-are-you-gay-3548754/

Just in case you don’t follow the link, the piece is about a wheelie bin survey carried out by Birmingham City Council (BCC) that included a random and completely unnecessary question about the respondent’s sexual orientation.

Unsurprisingly the news coverage is amusing and derisory and justifiably so.

Now Birmingham is a city I have some affection for given that I lived and worked in Brum for many years and I bought my first house there.  I don’t want to mock the local authority in the way that the Metro does but I am concerned about this survey from a data capture perspective.

As a database manager, I have lived with the Data Protection Act (DPA), and the need for compliancy with it, for many years; in simple terms data needs to be accurate, up to date, relevant for the purpose it has been gathered for and securely stored.

By way of illustration, in my last job role (utilising the Siebel On Demand system), we didn’t use the database to record the birthdays of our customers or the names of their wives and children. Those details could be useful for a salesperson building and maintaining a relationship but they weren’t relevant to our business and weren’t therefore collected/recorded.   

In BCC’s case, I can think of absolutely no relevance for the collection of sexual orientation data in conjunction with a survey about bins! Assuming that the data captured is being recorded in a database in some way (and that the responses aren’t anonymous) then I think that the council is at risk of attracting the wrong kind of attention from the custodians of the DPA. Assuming that BCC has an internal data protection official (and businesses when they register, need to have a nominated officer), that person might want to study this survey because there’s negative publicity (like the Metro article) and then there’s really negative publicity.  

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My engagement with my local MP, Chris Heaton-Harris has produced a ‘substantive’ response to my nuclear energy questions from the illustriously sounding, Baroness Verma of Leicester, the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

I have attached the correspondence for your reference. 

The response over two pages doesn’t exactly answer my earlier questions, requires me to read a 140 page report to find some of my own answers, and presents something of a nuclear energy sales pitch as well; but it is good to get a personalised response from an MP and then a senior Whitehall figure too.

The report from the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency, referenced by the Baroness, can be found here; https://www.nda.gov.uk/documents/upload/annual-report-and-accounts-2011-2012.pdf

My observations are these:

As far as I can tell my question about the overall cost of Sellafield decommissioning, current expenditure £67.5 billion, is not addressed in the report (that is older than the article that I based my original article on). The NDA report and accounts from 2011/2012 references the following on page 31.

Given the extended timescale over which decommissioning will take place, and the uncertainty over how challenges will be overcome, the NDA considers that there are a range of possible outcomes for the Provision, these show a potential range from £48.9 billion to £59.6 billion.

Hmmmm! We are already £8 billion adrift of the higher estimate and my question about how much it will eventually cost is not answered. Maybe the 2012/13 annual report and accounts will help. The thing is though that they probably won’t be audited or published for a while yet.  

My question about the future decommissioning of existing UK sites has been answered with a reference to the Nuclear Liabilities Fund (NLF) meeting future costs. I am no accountant but £8.7 billion pounds of assets (£5.1 billion existing liabilities) doesn’t sound nearly enough when Sellafield is already at £67.5 billion! There are eight shut down sites and nine in operation.

In answer to my question about the costs of building new nuclear power stations, the Baroness makes it clear that is a private sector investment opportunity and by implication not a burden on the UK tax payer. My follow-up question here is that if companies like EDF can fund the building, will those companies also be required to fully fund the decommissioning (and make funds like the NLF unnecessary)?

In terms of the sales pitch, the Baroness points out that nuclear energy is low cost in terms of cost per megawatt hour (MWh) and has a low carbon impact. I get the economics but what I don’t appreciate is if the decommissioning costs are factored into the cost per MWh or if these costs are separate. A low carbon output is desirable but does this offset the risk posed by a 100,000 year toxic legacy. Are the negative effects of long term radiation risk better than the negative effects of higher carbon production? I don’t know; I am sure it’s a delicate equation that takes into account sea level rise, the potential loss of East Anglia to water ingress and a complete disregard for the massive and increasing carbon output of China. 

Interestingly even as I write this piece, Ed Davey is expected to give planning permission to EDF to build a new nuclear reactor at Hinkley. The power company may still decide not to bother if it can’t agree with the government that it can charge whatever it likes to UK consumers for the electricity generated. So Baroness, correct me if I am wrong - even if the MWh generation costs are low, the MWh charge out to consumers may be a lot higher. 

I am a bit disappointed to get no answer to my question about the value for the UK economy created by Sellafield across its operating life but I am not surprised! Whilst the Baroness can’t answer, and it’s not her fault that she can’t, it’s the kind of question that should have an answer and it’s poor that the insight is not available. My view, the energy companies building new stations should be required to keep this detail into perpetuity – not just seven years.  

I have to state that whilst the exchange of notes with the politicians has been fun, it has not really resulted in illumination. The answers only raise more questions.

So Chris, if you read this note, and I hope you do, would you pass my supplementary questions/observations on to the Baroness for further comment? Thanks for your help. Adrian

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