When you’re in a hole, it’s best to stop digging. This week, the government was told there is simply no completely safe way of dealing with the 47,000 tonnes of radioactive waste produced by the UK’s existing nuclear power stations over the last 50 years.
This was reported by CoRWM , the government’s own Committee on Radioactive Waste Management. It suggested that the government adopt the least dangerous approach: that the deadly nuclear waste should be buried deep underground – following decades of “interim storage” – to allow for intensified research to address “uncertainties”.
This will mean leaving a deadly toxic legacy for future generations – and present a handy target for terrorists or combatants in any future conflict. But apparently we’ll just have to take the chance, as no one has come up with a better plan.
And yet the government refuses to see the hole and, as signalled in its long awaited energy review last month, is prepared to keep digging by authorising new nuclear power stations, adding to the nuclear waste mountain. The issue of nuclear waste was barely acknowledged in the energy review.
The energy review does talk up the issue of climate change and stresses the need for energy use to produce less CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. But this is an excuse to back nuclear power rather than a serious attempt to tackle the most pressing problem facing human civilisation today.
It’s not serious because it can’t work. Nuclear power simply can’t generate enough energy to make a sufficient impact on CO2 emissions, especially as the calculations don’t take into account the CO2 impact of either the construction of the plants or the energy-intensive fuel extraction and processing. And building new nuclear power stations, even if they could reduce our emissions sufficiently, would be a terribly expensive and inefficient way of doing cutting emissions. Four times as much energy could be saved over the next two decades through improved efficiency than we could generate by replacing all nuclear power stations over the same period.
The energy review concedes that nuclear power alone can’t solve the problem, by calling for a “judicious mix” of new nuclear power and the increased harnessing of genuinely renewable energy. But this can’t work either, as building new nuclear power stations will lock us into a centralised electricity system for the next 50 years, at exactly the time when opportunities for microgeneration and renewables are stronger then ever before. Nuclear power will also act as a magnet for public investment – of both cash and political will – that will stifle support for alternatives.
Rather than tie us into a future of new nuclear, oil and gas-fuelled power stations, the government should be adopting the solution that is staring it in the face: decentralising energy supply. Moving away from the National Grid may sound like a drastic solution, but a radical new approach based on energy efficiency, conservation and renewable generation is surely needed if we are to both secure future energy supplies and cut the emissions that fuel climate change.
Our centralised electricity system is not merely a symbol for what needs to change. Lost heat during generation and transmission means we waste over two-thirds of primary energy generated before it even reaches our homes under the current grid system. Real energy security can only be safeguarded by decentralising the electricity grid and replacing a small number of large power stations with a large number of small, diverse and highly efficient energy sources.
This is because part of the problem is structural, such as, peaking oil and uranium supplies, aging infrastructure and high maintenance and set-up costs. Also, existing grid-based electricity supplies are vulnerable to huge power cuts such as the recent blackouts in Italy, Sweden and the US.
A decentralised system, based on a mixture of renewable generation technologies near the point of energy use would, on the other hand, improve long-term security of supplies, cut losses in power production and transmission, reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and create local jobs.
Decentralised energy is already a reality in some EU countries. Denmark, for example, gets more than half its electricity from decentralised sources, and Latvia, Finland and the Netherlands between 35% and 40%. The UK languishes near the foot of the EU table, with just 8% coming from decentralised sources.
By concentrating on looking for a quick-fix macro solution, the government is missing the most obvious solution to the pressing problems of climate change and energy insecurity. It should be looking to those citizens who have already installed microgeneration turbines and those councils that are already requiring developers to build combined heat and power plants in new blocks. The government must facilitate this on a much larger scale before any contracts for new power stations are signed or it will be too late for another 50 years.
When you’re in a hole, it’s best to stop digging. This week, the government was told there is simply no completely safe way of dealing with the 47,000 tonnes of radioactive waste produced by the UK’s existing nuclear power stations over the last 50 years.
This was reported by CoRWM , the government’s own Committee on Radioactive Waste Management. It suggested that the government adopt the least dangerous approach: that the deadly nuclear waste should be buried deep underground – following decades of “interim storage” – to allow for intensified research to address “uncertainties”.
This will mean leaving a deadly toxic legacy for future generations – and present a handy target for terrorists or combatants in any future conflict. But apparently we’ll just have to take the chance, as no one has come up with a better plan.
And yet the government refuses to see the hole and, as signalled in its long awaited energy review last month, is prepared to keep digging by authorising new nuclear power stations, adding to the nuclear waste mountain. The issue of nuclear waste was barely acknowledged in the energy review.
The energy review does talk up the issue of climate change and stresses the need for energy use to produce less CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. But this is an excuse to back nuclear power rather than a serious attempt to tackle the most pressing problem facing human civilisation today.
It’s not serious because it can’t work. Nuclear power simply can’t generate enough energy to make a sufficient impact on CO2 emissions, especially as the calculations don’t take into account the CO2 impact of either the construction of the plants or the energy-intensive fuel extraction and processing. And building new nuclear power stations, even if they could reduce our emissions sufficiently, would be a terribly expensive and inefficient way of doing cutting emissions. Four times as much energy could be saved over the next two decades through improved efficiency than we could generate by replacing all nuclear power stations over the same period.
The energy review concedes that nuclear power alone can’t solve the problem, by calling for a “judicious mix” of new nuclear power and the increased harnessing of genuinely renewable energy. But this can’t work either, as building new nuclear power stations will lock us into a centralised electricity system for the next 50 years, at exactly the time when opportunities for microgeneration and renewables are stronger then ever before. Nuclear power will also act as a magnet for public investment – of both cash and political will – that will stifle support for alternatives.
Rather than tie us into a future of new nuclear, oil and gas-fuelled power stations, the government should be adopting the solution that is staring it in the face: decentralising energy supply. Moving away from the National Grid may sound like a drastic solution, but a radical new approach based on energy efficiency, conservation and renewable generation is surely needed if we are to both secure future energy supplies and cut the emissions that fuel climate change.
Our centralised electricity system is not merely a symbol for what needs to change. Lost heat during generation and transmission means we waste over two-thirds of primary energy generated before it even reaches our homes under the current grid system. Real energy security can only be safeguarded by decentralising the electricity grid and replacing a small number of large power stations with a large number of small, diverse and highly efficient energy sources.
This is because part of the problem is structural, such as, peaking oil and uranium supplies, aging infrastructure and high maintenance and set-up costs. Also, existing grid-based electricity supplies are vulnerable to huge power cuts such as the recent blackouts in Italy, Sweden and the US.
A decentralised system, based on a mixture of renewable generation technologies near the point of energy use would, on the other hand, improve long-term security of supplies, cut losses in power production and transmission, reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and create local jobs.
Decentralised energy is already a reality in some EU countries. Denmark, for example, gets more than half its electricity from decentralised sources, and Latvia, Finland and the Netherlands between 35% and 40%. The UK languishes near the foot of the EU table, with just 8% coming from decentralised sources.
By concentrating on looking for a quick-fix macro solution, the government is missing the most obvious solution to the pressing problems of climate change and energy insecurity. It should be looking to those citizens who have already installed microgeneration turbines and those councils that are already requiring developers to build combined heat and power plants in new blocks. The government must facilitate this on a much larger scale before any contracts for new power stations are signed or it will be too late for another 50 years.