Mining uranium requires fossils fuels. So does building a nuclear power station. And so does trying to dispose of radioactive waste. Over its lifecycle a nuclear power station produces as much carbon dioxide as a gas-fired power station (Van Leeuwen & Smith 2005). Better than oil or coal but not carbon-free. And it will get worse. In the not too distant future uranium will become so hard to mine that it will require more fossil fuels to extract it than the energy that will be produced from it.
2. Nuclear power will do little to reduce our carbon emissions
Even if
3. New nuclear power stations won’t be ready in time
The earliest a new nuclear power station could possibly be ready is 2017 but 2025 is much more likely. But extra capacity is needed in the next few years when a number of nuclear and coal-fired plants are set to close. New nuclear will come too late. We’d do much better to invest in wind, tidal, solar, hydro and biogas (from food waste, animal slurries, sewage and landfill).
We need to stop producing electricity in huge power stations hundreds of miles away which waste 60% of the energy they produce as heat through cooling towers and another 7-9% in transmission losses across the national grid. If we produce energy locally and use Combined Heat and Power (CHP), then we can reach efficiencies of 80-90%. Nuclear cannot and never has been made to work with CHP because to distribute the heat you need residents or businesses to be close by. But how many people want to live near a nuclear power station?
5. Nuclear power stations are a target for terrorists
If you can fly a plane into the
Nuclear has always been an expensive white elephant. We currently subsidise nuclear to the tune of £1bn per year. In 2005 the
7. Nuclear power is a diversion of bureaucratic energy
I know, from talking to a source in the government, that nuclear has taken up a huge amount of civil servant time over the last few years. That’s time that could have been spent on renewables, or energy efficiency, or carbon capture.
There has never been a day on record when the wind has not blown somewhere in the
Nuclear power currently provides 19% of our electricity but only 4% of our total energy needs. Most of the gas we use is for space heating, hot water and industrial purposes. Oil is used for virtually all forms of transport. Indeed 86 per cent of our oil and gas consumption is for purposes other than producing electricity. Nuclear power cannot replace that energy.
10. We still have no idea what to do with nuclear waste
I believe climate change is a moral issue and that we have ten years to deal with it before it deals with us, or rather before it deals with our children and our children’s children. But I also believe that nuclear is not only NOT the solution to climate change but that it is immoral to build a new generation of nuclear power stations when we still have no idea how to deal with radioactive waste which will stay dangerous for millions of year. What sort of future are we bequeathing to our children?
For these ten reasons I and the Liberal Democrats will continue to oppose nuclear power. Do not be conned – nuclear power is not green, it will not reduce our carbon emissions significantly, it won’t be ready in time to replace our current nuclear power stations, it will be expensive, it is inefficient, it is a diversion from the things we really need to do, it is a target for terrorists, it is not the only way to provide baseload supply, it will not safeguard our energy security and we still don’t know how to deal with the waste.
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