This week please panic about: Nuclear PowerIn this week's Ecologist newsletter, a Solar Panel salesman called Jeremy Leggett, brings up the old canard that the government is "suppressing" investment in "renewables" in order to favour nuclear power. If he had bothered to check the real figures he would find that the British government spends £2 billion a year subsidizing "renewables" - which supply less than 1% of our electricity - and just £1.4 billion a year subsidizing waste processing for our (ageing) nuclear plants - which supply 20% of our electricity. (Which one is the bargain?)
New nuclear plants will receive no government subsidy but "renewables" will require more than £40 billion a year if they can ever possibly provide 20% of our electricity - which is very unlikely.
The Ecologist should read this article from Spiked-online.com:
Ten Myths About Nuclear Power
Greens opposing nuclear power muddle every issue from terrorism to uranium supplies, in order to besmirch the only proven safe and cost-effective way to generate large amounts of electricity that won’t produce large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. One would think that greens don’t want a world with abundant energy and a stable climate!
These are some of the myths we are likely to hear from greens debating nuclear power over the next few weeks:
1) Uranium is running out
According to Greenpeace, uranium reserves are ‘relatively limited’ (1) and last week the Nuclear Consultation Working Group claimed that a significant increase in nuclear generating capacity would reduce reliable supplies from 50 to 12 years (2).
In fact, there is 600 times more uranium in the ground than gold and there is as much uranium as tin. There has been no major new uranium exploration for 20 years, but at current consumption levels, known uranium reserves are predicted to last for 85 years. Geological estimates from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show that at least six times more uranium is extractable – enough for 500 years’ supply at current demand (3). Modern reactors can use thorium as a fuel and convert it into uranium – and there is three times more thorium in the ground than uranium (4).
Uranium is the only fuel which, when burnt, generates more fuel. Not only existing nuclear warheads, but also the uranium and plutonium in radioactive waste can be reprocessed into new fuel, which former UK chief scientist Sir David King estimates could supply 60 per cent of Britain’s electricity to 2060 (5).
In short, there is more than enough uranium, thorium and plutonium to supply the entire world’s electricity for several hundred years.
The other myths:
2) Nuclear is not a low-carbon option
3) Nuclear power is expensive
4) Reactors produce too much waste
5) Decommissioning is too expensive
6) Building reactors takes too long
7) Leukaemia rates are higher near reactors
8) Reactors lead to weapons proliferation
9) Wind and wave power are more sustainable
10) Reactors are a terrorist target
Read about all the myths at:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4259/
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