Timothy Stone

Timothy "Tim" Stone, CBE (born 1951) is a British businessman and senior expert adviser with interests in infrastructure, finance, nuclear power and water supply. He is a Visiting Professor at the University College London's Energy Policy Institute in Adelaide, South Australia. He is a non-executive director of power company Horizon Nuclear Power and is a senior expert non-executive director on the board of the European Investment Bank. He was also a non-executive director of Anglian Water from 2011 to 2015. He has been referred to by The Independent as "one of the great sages of the PFI (Private finance initiative)." Stone has a DPhil in Physical Chemistry from Oxford University. He studied at St Catherine's College from 1969 to 1976.

Stone was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his service to the energy industry. In 2011 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the publication Infrastructure Journal.

Career

Public service

Stone joined the UK public service in 2007 on part-time secondment from KPMG where he held positions as the Senior Adviser to five successive Secretaries of State responsible for energy and as Expert Chair of the Office for Nuclear Development in the Department of Energy & Climate Change. He was initially tasked in January 2007 "to advise Government on financing the costs of decommissioning and waste management and disposal costs for new nuclear power stations." He reported to the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. During his secondment as a nuclear adviser, he worked on establishing a framework for the construction of new nuclear power plants in the United Kingdom.

He first began advising government on key policy initiatives in the 1990s. While working in the government's energy departments as a non-political advisor, amongst other activities he also worked on Carbon Capture and Storage projects and tidal projects. He has regularly said that he is keen to support all forms of electricity generation that are safe, low-carbon and the least expensive to society and is not in favour of any one form of generation over others but that all options must be considered as a system.

Stone has also worked as an external consultant to South Australia's Deputy Premier and Treasurer Kevin Foley on infrastructure projects, including the development of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, providing expertise in the development of public-private partnerships (PPPs). His work on PFIs in the United Kingdom led The Independent to dub him a "great sage".

Academia

Stone was appointed to University College London in 2010 where he continues to work as a Visiting Professor. He has taught at the Bartlett School since 2010, where he has described his role as "teaching graduates and supporting research into practical creation of projects and their financing and investment opportunities." In 2012 he began teaching graduate courses on energy policy, finance and supporting practical projects at UCL Australia's International Energy Policy Institute, based in Adelaide, South Australia.

Early career

Stone was the Chairman and founder of KPMG’s Global Infrastructure and Projects Group where he worked from 1995 to 2011. He was also Managing Director of S.G. Warburg in London and New York, where he was a founder of the operator of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, London & Continental Railways. He also worked in New York as a Managing Director of Chase Manhattan Bank.

Nuclear power

Stone has long-term interests in energy and electricity markets, finance and policy, and has supported the use of nuclear power generation as part of a low-carbon energy policy in the United Kingdom. He has spoken in favour of possible nuclear industrial expansion in Australia. During presentations on the future of the nuclear industry, he has discussed the role of renewable energy in the world's future energy mix, particularly the need to consider full system costs of all forms of generation. He has also discussed deaths per terawatt hour of electricity generated by different forms of electricity generation and noted that hydro and nuclear have some of the lowest death rates, lower than for rooftop solar. He, along with others, has also said that epidemiological studies on cancer clusters that were said to related to radiation exposure were controversial when analysed rigorously and noted that many studies were statistically problematic.

Stone has given presentations to a wide range of interest groups, from students to government and business associations in the UK, Singapore, Japan and Australia. Stone's association with the Japanese nuclear industry was strengthened through his 2014 appointment to the board of Horizon Nuclear Power, which was acquired by Japanese nuclear manufacturer Hitachi in 2012.

In 2009, Stone praised the concept of General Electric Hitachi's Advanced Recycling Centre (ARC), which is designed to integrate Generation IV PRISM sodium-cooled fast nuclear reactors and an electro-metallurgical separation process that would make a new form of fuel from spent fuel rods without separating the plutonium. He told Reuters:

"It's very clever. The principles have been known for a long time but the overall package is very neat ... A positive part of this is burning the worst radioactive waste."

In November 2011, Stone supported Prime Minister Julia Gillard's commencement of discussions regarding the export of Australian uranium to India, and urged Australia to extract more value from its uranium, rather than simply sell yellowcake.

2015 Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission

Stone provided commentary to the Australian media following the commencement of South Australia's Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission in 2015. He expressed his support for nuclear power in Australia, and delivered a number of presentations in March during which references were made to the Commission.

On 12 March he gave a presentation at an event hosted by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) called the SA Nuclear Energy Review. The event was intended to "lead discussion around what a Nuclear Energy future in South Australia could look like and provide opportunity for CEDA members to feed into the Royal Commission into Nuclear Energy." At the event, Stone claimed that nuclear energy was cheaper to generate than renewable energy, saying:

"When you work out the cost of the electricity over the life of the (nuclear) kit…it is a lot cheaper than the honest number for renewables... If you add the cost of that (production) plus the cost of intermittency support, it’s a lot more expense and this is the issue where we need to get rational conversations."

On 17 March, Stone presented at an event hosted by the South Australian Chamber of Mines & Energy. Nuclear power advocates Ben Heard of ThinkClimate Consulting and Ian Hore-Lacy of the World Nuclear Association also spoke at the event. Stone introduced himself as "kind of Chief Trouble-maker" before saying "I'm not actually pro-nuclear- provided it's cheap, safe and low carbon, I'm very happy and this is where nuclear fits in the process." His presentation provided background on nuclear power in the United Kingdom and offered advice for Australia. He said:

"You only get one chance at this, this is a really important point here in South Australia. You've now kicked this process off. This is a once in a generation discussion. If it goes wrong now, it's your kids who will have it next time round. It won't slip for an election period, because people's memories for this stuff are long."

He noted that polling in the UK had showed that women are more cautious than men when considering supporting nuclear power, and said that he would like to see more women enter the industry. He told the attendees that:

"Everything you do is about creating trust and confidence. People opening their mouths and coming up with bright ideas that in any way damage that, need taking outside and dealing with... This is about national economic competitiveness. This isn't about politics. This is really big stuff."

On 20 March, Stone gave a presentation at the Energy State of the Nation forum held by the Energy Policy Institute of Australia in Sydney. His presentation was entitled Challenges for future energy regulation and covered three topics: "Structural changes in energy markets, technological changes including nuclear technology and regulatory responses and accountability including implications for the SA Nuclear Royal Commission."

He was appointed to the Expert Advisory Committee for the same Royal Commission the following month.

Shale gas

Stone has advised on shale gas extraction in the United Kingdom. He is a co-author of the 2013 DECC publication Potential Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with Shale Gas Extraction and Use, also known as the Mackay-Stone Report. The report presented an evidence-based view of shale gas extraction and use in the UK and became a basis for the development of government policy on the regulation of shale gas development in the United Kingdom. A counter-report was subsequently published by the not-for-profit organization Talk Fracking which claimed that Stone and Mackay had "manipulated input data and produced an estimate for emissions that is a quarter of what it should be." The Talk Fracking report was firmly refuted by the Energy Minister, Matthew Hancock, in a letter dated 15 September 2014.

In 2013 Stone expressed his opinion that "the resource we have is potentially extremely important for Britain's future, and we need to find ways of extracting and using it responsibly – not just for our sake but also for that of our great-grandchildren."