Nuclear Power? No Thanks

With the majority of Britain's nuclear power stations due to close in the next 20 years, the debate about our nuclear future is heating up once again. Arguments deployed by the nuclear lobby are, however, very easily cooled.

Firstly, it is irresponsible in the extreme to suggest building a new generation of nuclear power stations, which would produce more radioactive waste, when no safe solution has been identified to deal with the waste that we already have. Radioactive waste that can be dangerous for millions of years.

Secondly, the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency's estimate for managing already existing radioactive waste has gone up from £48 billion to more than £70 billion. That's so that the taxpayer, not the nuclear industry, can deal with the existing mess. If the nuclear industry had to pay for clearing up, storing and safeguarding their own mess then they would go bankrupt tomorrow.

Thirdly, nuclear power reactors, unlike any other form of electricity production, create a serious target for terrorist attack or theft of dangerous materials to make 'dirty' terrorist bombs. Unlike any other form of electricity production, nuclear power is also an international threat because of its link to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. While the British Government complains about Iranian ambitions for nuclear power, we are on the verge of our own major expansion of our nuclear facilities.

As for climate change, nuclear has been described by some as a carbon-free technology, but it is nothing of the sort. Nuclear power generation and the construction of nuclear power facilities create a considerable carbon footprint. The carbon footprint of a nuclear facility is equivalent to around a third of that of a gas-fired power station over the lifetime of its existence, when one takes account of the mining of uranium, transport and decommissioning.

The financial costs of nuclear are so enormous that it will undermine investment in energy efficiency and renewables, as it has already done over the past 40 years. Unlike renewable energy, such as wave and tidal power, nuclear power is not a sustainable energy source. If the world were to copy Britain and build new nuclear reactors, the whole of the world's known supplies of uranium would run out in 14 years.

We have an opportunity to transform the way in which we power Britain by cutting energy demand, developing a range of renewable energy sources and using cleaned-up fossil fuels such as coal, with carbon capture technologies. Three years ago the Government White Paper on energy said Nuclear simply was not a viable option. Now Tony Blair has overruled his own experts and ordered that the policy be rewritten in favour of nuclear. This crass folly must be opposed.