The 1950s technology of "nuclear power":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power won't stop "climate change":http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2014683,00.html, it will actually leave us more dependent on foreign fuel imports than the decentralised energy alternatives and is a scandalous waste of hot air - quite literally in fact. Like all old-fashioned centralised power stations, two-thirds of the energy these nuclear reactors could be using is thrown away in the form of heat into the cooling water; doing nothing but heating up the oceans. With coal and gas power stations most of the energy is wasted up the cooling towers. This wasted heat is equivalent to all the heating and hot water needs of every single building in Britain.
Less than one-third of the gas we consume in this country is used for electricity generation, so if we are really concerned about importing our gas from Russia, nuclear power, which is only used to produce electricity, can't help much. The best way to reduce fuel dependence is to make the most efficient use possible of the gas we have left, or import. That means decentralising our energy system -generating heat and electricity next to where it is needed in combined heat and power stations that can be up to 95% efficient - more than doubling the energy we currently get from these fuels.
Ten new nuclear power stations will only reduce UK CO2 emissions by 4%, and not until after 2020. To play our part in stopping "climate change":http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change we in the UK need to cut emissions by at least 80% by 2050. The best way to achieve this is to capture all that wasted energy we currently throw away by decentralising our energy system, saving energy and in the home and harnessing clean, renewable energy as fast as possible.
Or of course we could rely on nuclear, which even if we replace our existing fleet will only produce 3.5% of the UK's total energy, and it still leaves us dependent on gas for all our heating and most of our electricity. That's only if you can ignore the other "threats":http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/nuclear of nuclear - waste, accident risk, terrorism etc.
Perhaps if the government had been honest about all these facts in the first place they wouldn't have had to force through their "sham energy review":http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,2014459,00.html quite so bullishly. Perhaps we wouldn't have had to take them to court, and maybe the public wouldn't have lost total trust in yet another government stitch up unravelling before their eyes.
We sincerely hope Gordon Brown will do a better job than his predecessor. Right now, the government's spin doctors might be wise to take note of that old saying - "when in a hole stop digging" ...
The 1950s technology of "nuclear power":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power won't stop "climate change":http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2014683,00.html, it will actually leave us more dependent on foreign fuel imports than the decentralised energy alternatives and is a scandalous waste of hot air - quite literally in fact. Like all old-fashioned centralised power stations, two-thirds of the energy these nuclear reactors could be using is thrown away in the form of heat into the cooling water; doing nothing but heating up the oceans. With coal and gas power stations most of the energy is wasted up the cooling towers. This wasted heat is equivalent to all the heating and hot water needs of every single building in Britain.
Less than one-third of the gas we consume in this country is used for electricity generation, so if we are really concerned about importing our gas from Russia, nuclear power, which is only used to produce electricity, can't help much. The best way to reduce fuel dependence is to make the most efficient use possible of the gas we have left, or import. That means decentralising our energy system -generating heat and electricity next to where it is needed in combined heat and power stations that can be up to 95% efficient - more than doubling the energy we currently get from these fuels.
Ten new nuclear power stations will only reduce UK CO2 emissions by 4%, and not until after 2020. To play our part in stopping "climate change":http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change we in the UK need to cut emissions by at least 80% by 2050. The best way to achieve this is to capture all that wasted energy we currently throw away by decentralising our energy system, saving energy and in the home and harnessing clean, renewable energy as fast as possible.
Or of course we could rely on nuclear, which even if we replace our existing fleet will only produce 3.5% of the UK's total energy, and it still leaves us dependent on gas for all our heating and most of our electricity. That's only if you can ignore the other "threats":http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/nuclear of nuclear - waste, accident risk, terrorism etc.
Perhaps if the government had been honest about all these facts in the first place they wouldn't have had to force through their "sham energy review":http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,2014459,00.html quite so bullishly. Perhaps we wouldn't have had to take them to court, and maybe the public wouldn't have lost total trust in yet another government stitch up unravelling before their eyes.
We sincerely hope Gordon Brown will do a better job than his predecessor. Right now, the government's spin doctors might be wise to take note of that old saying - "when in a hole stop digging" ...