Meltdown: Why nuclear Power is Not the Answer
“To present nuclear power as one of the main ways of combating climate change is shortsighted ... nuclear power simply does not represent a viable option at present. “Given the costs associated with nuclear power and current uncertainties surrounding the problems of dealing with nuclear waste, making the UK more energy efficient is a far safer, cheaper and more realistic solution ...” – Philip Sellwood, Chief Executive of the Government’s Energy Saving Trust
We’ve always been assured that nuclear power is cheap, clean, and safe. This is just not true. The UK government is planning to accept responsibility for up to £5 billion of privately owned British Energy’s liabilities. From April 2005, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority takes on the liabilities of BNFL and UKAEA, which are thought to amount to some £48 billion. Nuclear power is not cheap.
The nuclear chain reaction itself doesn’t create CO2 emissions, but the mining, refining and processing of uranium ore are all highly polluting.
Over the whole fuel cycle, nuclear power creates significant CO2 emissions, radioactive emissions – both permitted and accidental – and radioactive waste, hazardous for millions of years. Nuclear power is not clean.
Nuclear power station leaks, accidents, disputed clusters of childhood leukaemia and now the terrorist threat, exacerbated by the industry’s interest in AP 1000 reactors which replace double containment systems with single, mean that nuclear power is not safe.
Greens do not believe nuclear power can ever be a solution to climate change. Investment in nuclear power diverts resources from more effective measures of reducing CO2 emissions.
Because of our ready access to wind, wave and other clean energy sources, Scotland could be self-sufficient in renewables. But to lead the world in this technology, we need the political will and the investment, which only the Scottish Greens would provide.
Green MPs will work to:
- devolve all energy policy to the Scottish Parliament;
- implement stringent and effective energy conservation measures to minimise our energy requirements;
- rule out building any new nuclear power stations – we don’t have to choose between unsustainable climate change or unsustainable nuclear power;
- set targets to make Scotland the world’s first “fossil-fuel-free” state by 2050 without resorting to nuclear power.