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Nuclear Power is not the answer

The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) has concluded that a new nuclear programme is not the answer to tackling climate change and security of supply. The Commission identifies five “major disadvantages” to nuclear power:

• The lack of a long-term strategy for dealing with highly toxic nuclear waste

• Uncertainty over the cost of new nuclear stations and the risk that taxpayers would be left to pick up the tab;

• The danger that going down the nuclear route would lock the UK into a centralised system for distributing energy for the next 50 years;

• The risk a new nuclear programme would undermine efforts to improve energy efficiency;

• The threat of terrorist attacks and radiation exposure if other countries with lower safety standards also opt for nuclear.

The Commission says the UK can meet its climate change targets and satisfy growing energy demand without building a new generation of nuclear power stations. It says there is “no justification” for a new nuclear programme. Sir Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the SDC, said a new nuclear programme “would be incompatible with [the Government’s] own sustainable development strategy.”

The SDC report says increased emphasis on energy efficiency and the wider use of renewable sources are a better way to tackle global warming. Doubling the UK's nuclear capacity would lower carbon dioxide emissions by only 8% below 1990 levels by 2035, it says. The government has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. The report warns that a new generation of nuclear power would undermine action to improve energy efficiency in homes and businesses by "implying that a major technological fix is all that's required". It also says massive investment in new nuclear infrastructure would lock the UK into a centralised system to distribute electricity for the next 50 years, threatening the growth in microgeneration technologies such as small-scale wind turbines on people's houses.

It also raised issues related to nuclear proliferation and terrorism: “If the UK brings forward a new nuclear power programme, we cannot deny others the same technology [under the UN framework convention on climate change].”

Sustainable Development Commission Report 6th March 2006

“Plan for new nuclear programme approaches meltdown after report”, The Independent, 7th March 2006

“Don't build nuclear plants, green advisers tell Blair”, The Guardian, 7th March 2006