Being that this is a weblog, I ought to provide links, but frankly the net is so full of links, it would be quicker to Google or to search your favourite news source.
Last week Tony Blair reiterated his support for nuclear power stations and I believe it stinks. Actually the one thing that nuclear power stations don't do is stink.
The issue has been reopened because we have squandered our natural gas and North Sea oil reserves and all but closed our coal industry; in addition, a sizeable and vocal minority of people are increasingly concerned about carbon emissions and Climate Change - I for one, not normally an Attenborough-watcher, will be recording Are We changing Planet Earth? on Wednesday.
As far as I know, nuclear generation does not directly increase carbon emissions and thus superficially does not contribute to Climate Change. So, it's alright then?
Only, it's not.
It's an issue I have felt strongly about since I was in Sixth Form. I recall an article in the New Socialist that I read and re-read, about nuclear energy. Also about renewable energy. And I have read and read on the subject in the intervening twenty-odd years.
Renewable energy has never been given a chance in this country. At that time, the amount being invested in research for renewables was a fraction of a percent of what had been invested in nuclear. I daresay it has increased since but it is still a skeleton. We have never given renewables a go. In the 50s, nuclear was hailed as The Future, zero cost. We were supposed to get free electricity as a result...have you seen your electricity bill recently? And yet we are an island surrounded by sea, the furthest you can get from the sea in Britain is a little over fifty miles. We have wind in abundance and we don't lack sunshine, especially on south facing slopes (although we could do with a bit more...!)
Development of wind farms have been stymied by protests. I can't say that I would care for a wind farm on my doorstep (although, frankly preferable to jerry-built concrete System Built Yuppie flats) but the options are viewed as being windfarms or nothing, whereas the reality is windfarms or fossil-fuelled power stations, but, hopefully, on someone else's doorstep.
Uranium needs to be mined. CAFOD has recently launched a campaign to combat the destruction of gold-mining; it would be naive to assume that uranium mining is somehow miraculously humane. It then has to be transported, by ship across the globe and by train or lorry locally. We don't know fully the long-term effects of depleted uranium, which we are just tossing out to sea, but we know enough for alarm bells to be ringing - for example, the cluster of cancers in people born in Bray Co. Wicklow whose gestation coincided with a massive (covered-up) leak in 1956 from what is now called Sellafield.
I became even more agitated about nuclear power when Chernobyl happened. This coincided with the US/UK bombing of Libya and there were a few people reflecting on the consequences if someone like Gaddafi decided to bomb nuclear installations. It seems so obvious, although the fact that it hasn't yet been done makes it fanciful. Although it was seemingly a big issue in Jersey last week. the splendid Coast programme shown a few months ago demonstrated how reactive the beach around Dounreay is, and to be frank, that worried me.
I think it's a cop-out and an abrogation of responsibility to endorse an increase in our nuclear capability. Yes, there is progress in alternative power sources and in energy conservation, but too little, too slowly. I would have thought that the biggest challenges for political leadership are the 3 Ps: Peace, Poverty and the Planet*. All the rest is administrative detail, best left to administrators. Politicians must address the 3Ps and lead the people in doing so, not amke themselves vulnerable to attacks of being in the pockets and pay of the Nuclear Power lobby
* I've just invented that: due credit, please
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