myotis

When considering a national energy policy, we should make the most informed decision possible. How is this achieved? By weighing up the costs, benefits, dangers and so on. As I have clearly pointed out to you, I believe the benefits of nuclear power (namely due to the lack of a viable alternative) outweigh the costs and dangers. However, your point is valid so we'll address it. In keeping with the numbers theme: And how much does this cost? You have been making a lot of assumptions about this book. You've suggested that it's pro-nuclear, and I have responded that it is simply pro-arithmetic. I have no agenda and neither does the author. We simply want to see Britain realise it's goal of sustainable energy independence. If you are interested in sustainable energy independence, then I recommend it. If you want to keep your head in the sand, then carry on. I think the next question we should ask is "How can we make private companies adhere to strict safety standards?" instead of a blanket refusal to consider what could of great benefit to a sustainable future.

Read the book and find out, this is very easily quantified. and so on... The entire essence of the argument is this:

This is a trick question. I can pose many ideas for storing nuclear waste, but obviously all of them will have a flaw of some kind. I'll simply say that there are many places in the world where neither you nor I are allowed to go. I think that with good oversight and regulation these problems can be overcome. I think you are somewhat underestimating the sheer size of land that will be required for renewable energy gathering. A wind farm the size of Wales could power 1/3rd of a very energy efficient Britain. Good luck persuading every social class, RSPCA and a hundred other environmental groups that it's a good idea. This is not an argument about aesthetics, but practicalities. The necessary volume of renewables will have their own environmental and social impacts, you cannot avoid that.

I'm not supporting nuclear power per say and I hope my posts have conveyed that. I just think that saying no to nuclear should be tempered by the hard facts about renewable energy schemes. Perhaps we don't really have much choice in the matter - every solution to our energy problem has it's own mix of advantages and disadvantages, we will most likely have to settle for a compromise. If anything should be taken away from this discussion, it's that we should push governments to adopt stronger nuclear legislation for accountancy and safety. Nuclear can be successful if well managed - look at France (the positive public opinion is astounding). So the problems associated with nuclear that Simon mentioned must be weighed up against the problems of not using nuclear. I don't think I'm really qualified for that decision.

Jesus Christ, this illustrates perfectly just how much emotion comes into play when talking about environmentalism. Do you consider yourself well informed? Do you view all sides of an argument before making a decision? Have you read anything I've written or just cherry picked a few points to counter? It takes years to build anything. An equivalent area of wind turbines to a nuclear power plant is 100km2. You think that can be done in a few years? Have a look at this: Oh yes, my bad. I ment to say really, really big. Whats the difference? The costs and political considerations are still astronomical. Yes, we can do all that, but there are limits. See what I wrote above about embedded energy use above. Also don't forget that us frugal, tree-loving eco-warriors are still a minority. Most of my friends are highly educated and morally conscious people, but they remain uninformed and apathetic about the environment. I'm the only person I know that has bought carbon offsets for flights. Don't be fooled by the internet, it creates an illusion by bringing like-minded people together. This is a fair point, I concede that energy use will decrease, but not to the extent that countries with a high population density can cope with just renewable energy. It's great if Sweden can get by and even export energy (though methods for storing it during wind lulls and night time will be needed for a truly carbon neutral country). So, you guys are sorted, as are several other European nations with a good resource to population ratio. What about the rest? Don't you find it at all disturbing that the UK, with such an abundance of renewable options and efficiency measures accounted for, won't be able to power it's own needs? I've said this several times, but seem to have been ignored. Do you have a source for this? A renewable energy surplus is good, a fossil fuel surplus is bad. How will the field change once we go green, can you still predict the majority of EU will have a surplus? In terms of sustainability, uranium won't last forever, but it will last a lot longer than you think. See page 161 of the book I recommended for a thorough evaluation (there is much uranium to be found in sea water with not such a bad cost of extraction). But I wanted to save this point for last, because it is at the very core of my thoughts on this subject. At this point, we should accept any and all emissions reductions we can get. Halting the deployment of nuclear plants is only prolonging our dependence on oil and gas. So if you have a better idea, lets hear it. And remember not every country is Sweden. What do you think we should do? Maybe you should be in charge of telling all those people that they should have wind turbines on their beautiful countryside or offshore shipping lanes. Maybe you should tell house owners that they should pay for solar panels and heat pumps. This is what I object to the most about my anti-nuclear environmentalist comrades. They seem to envision the future as some kind of eco-topia where all problems are solved with a little hard work and co-operation. Please build an opinion based in reality. It doesn't matter what is fastest, cheapest or best. We need them all. Please, please read this.

Scotland has a small enough population density that they could actually pull this off. Yay go Scotland!

I think you're right in arguing that lifestyle changes are required, but as these cannot be forced upon us, I am skeptical about the scale of change we can implement. Replacing incandescent light bulbs is a no-brainer and we've known about it for over 15 years now, but I bet you have a friend or two who still use them. Realistically, the government needs to overhaul the tax system to provide market incentives for going green. UK Lib Dems seem pretty keen on the idea, but other major (and more popular) parties are lagging. I'm sure that once we get our act together about heat pumps, solar heating etc. then a lot of wasted energy can be saved, but there will be a few setbacks: - Firstly, much of our energy use is embedded. Everything we use and consume has a footprint, including goods and services made abroad. Once you factor this into the equation (if we start producing locally, or take responsibility for imported energy), our per person energy consumption increases. - Secondly, energy use is projected to increase. 5 years ago we didn't have broadband internet. 10 years ago we didn't have mobile phones. 15 years ago we had very few personal computers. All of these gadgets consume vast quantities of energy. Think about what will be available to us in the future. You would be surprised at the crazy amount of power is used by going online. Efficiency gains in electric components should be wiped out by these developments. So there are obviously limits on reducing our energy use, disregarding massive lifestyle changes or a population decrease and if we want the public's support on this, we can't change too much too fast. If renewables cannot supply our needs then we have to use clean coal, nuclear, or import energy. I don't know anything about lobbying or the politics behind this. I don't see why that is an issue, the most important thing we need right now for any climate platform is a realistic social, economic and scientific model. Of course I don't like it. Where I am currently living, the state owned power company tricked a minority tribe (they were illiterate) into leasing a small part of their island; it was used to dump leaking barrels of nuclear waste and has been ignored ever since. But as it stands nuclear is on par with wind for fatalities/GWyear, the numbers really are insignificant. I've no idea where this came from, why don't we have a constructive conversation?

I'll acknowledge the lovelock quote: nice find. The important thing to note here is that he is talking about CO2 reductions, an altogether different cup of tea. Sure we could bury lots of charcoal to combat climate change, but where are we going to get our electricity from? How can Britain's energy use become sustainable? I think I said quite clearly that MacKay takes into account all natural resources available to us. You should read his book. He proposes putting a solar panel on every south facing roof in the country, filling the whole Atlantic shoreline with wave power, the whole North Sea shore with offshore wind, tidal power where we can, changing crops to biofuels and hydro in Scotland. Even an optimistic estimate falls far short of our energy needs. It's no good hyping up offshore projects and localized solar if it's only going to produce a small percentage of our energy needs and remember that the UK has some of Europe's best natural resources. We desperately need change now. Perhaps nuclear is one option, just until we manage to build a massive European grid and a few country sized solar arrays in North Africa. EDIT: I'm not saying we shouldn't get those solar panels and turbines up, just that we should stop saying no to other options.

Please see my post here for some more info on the subject.

Hi all, I came across your website and just registered to post a wee comment about this nuclear issue here. I think it is important to talk about what is physically possible when having a discussion on sustainability. I would like to recommend David MacKay's book Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air for some information on this subject. It is written by a Cambridge researcher who does some fairly basic calculations and attempts to create a renewable energy plan for Britain. You will be surprised at his findings. People always talk about how many homes a wind turbine can power, but they fail to mention that we would need country sized areas of these renewable generators to power our current lifestyles. He takes into account every natural resource we have available to us and we still fall short by a significant margin. I believe that nuclear will have to have a place in any realistic energy plan, regardless of Al Gore's economic concerns or Greenpeace's ineffective protests. It's either that, carbon capture coal or importing energy from desert states. I would also like to point out that James Lovelock says nuclear is our only hope and he's a guy worth listening to. MacKay's book is available free here: http://www.withouthotair.com/ Thanks :)