After years of dithering by the government and a slick PR campaign by the industry, the UK government is set to approve a new generation of nuclear power stations today.
The business secretary, John Hutton, will tell MPs that new stations must be built to ensure future security of supply and help produce a balanced energy mix. The decision is a victory for the nuclear industry, and will outrage environmental groups.
The executive director of Greenpeace, UK John Sauven, told the Guardian: “There is a lie at the heart of the government’s coming announcement on nuclear power. Ministers’ own research found that even 10 new reactors would only cut the UK’s carbon emissions by about 4% some time after 2025, and the so-called energy gap will open before new nuclear power stations can be built. We need energy efficiency, cleaner use of fossil fuels, renewables and state-of-the-art decentralised power stations like they have in Scandinavia.”
No one is mentioning nuclear proliferation either… the elephant in the room..
My bumper sticker here in the good ole USA says “Drill Alaska, Tax Gas, Go Nuclear”