According to the BBC the Lib Dem's Chris Huhne has been confirmed as Environment and Climate Change Secretary. As the below collection of his various utterings on nuclear power show, this appointment is seriously bad news for Wylfa B:
“No private sector investor has built a nuclear power station anywhere in the world without lashings of government subsidy since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The World Bank refuses to lend on nuclear projects because of the long history of overruns.
“Our message is clear, No to nuclear, as it is not a short cut, but a dead end. Yes to energy saving, yes to renewables, and yes to a sustainable energy future.”
9th May, 2006
“Ministers must stop the side-show of new nuclear power stations now. Nuclear is a tried, tested and failed technology and the Government must stop putting time, effort and subsidies into reviving this outdated industry.
“The nuclear industry’s key skill over the past half-century has not been generating electricity, but extracting lashings of taxpayers’ money.”
5th November, 2007
“The fact that the Government is still only at the beginning of the process to find a safe way, at great cost, of disposing of our existing nuclear waste shows why we should be wary of a new generation of nuclear plants.
“The cost of existing nuclear waste disposal is now put at more than £70 billion. It is a basic rule that you shouldn’t go into things without knowing how to get out of them.”
24th June, 2007
“Nuclear power is a tried, tested and failed technology, which is clearly a costly blind alley.”
15th May, 2007
“The doubling of our electricity generation from wind in a little more than a year shows what renewables can do, and gives the lie to the need for a new generation of nuclear power."
9th February, 2007
6 comments:
I'm sure Chris Hulmes will soon be informed of the realities, by a modern day Sir Humphreys, and they are:
Under European legislation, around 30 per cent of the UK's existing coal and oil-fired power stations are due to close by 2015. In addition, older, existing nuclear stations are already closing and according to current plans most will have closed by 2020 as they reach the end of their operational lives.
Even if we reduced our power demand by the maximum possible, double our current reliance on wind power and import around 2 twice the amount of energy that we do so currently, we would be some way from meeting the UK demand.
I suggest you to try the following BBC calculator:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/electricity_calc/html/1.stm
We will need nuclear power, I suggest a minimum of 4 new power stations.
The Blue Druid, nursing his wounds after a less than totally successful Election for the Bullingdon Boy Wonder, is, I suspect reluctant to accept reality.
Modern consumption demands energy that would be best supplied by alternative sources - how ever we are not in a position to provide that power by alternative methods in a timely manner, i think there was a liberal MP that suggested we should see nuclear power as a bridge - and whilst i am all for wind power at every level of production, please dont be confused by the argument that we have doubled our wind produced power - maybe it is twice but Amdahl's law clarifies the issues here: 2 times next to nothing is still next to nothing.
Nuclear Power is the only alternative, wind produced power looks good on paper but does not provide what we as a nation needs.
I agree with Gont Sais Cochyn, sadly there has not been sufficient investment in the development of the alternative technology. And even then i.e wind power is meet with strong opposition by Nimbys.
Not really sure you can equate Amdahl's argument to the production of electricity by means of wind power, not really about speed is it ? - more important questions are reliability of supply, storage during periods of surplus (battery technology getting better though), and real costs of production.
I see wind power as a quick fix, a partial and small stop gap to our need to reduce our co2 emissions. We really should be developing the power available to us in the sea that surrounds us, or the means of capturing co2 from coal power stations and safe means of storage (we have plenty of coal).
But time is running out, difficult decisions need to made soon, or we are in real danger of facing shortages in our electricity demand in the next 10 years.
bbc news says the coalition will push forward new nuclear stations, but the Lib Dems can abstain on any vote
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8677088.stm
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