the PM said he didn't think energy needs, or security of supply, would be "curable" by renewables alone. He denied claims that he had pre-empted the review and insisted that he was responding to the evidence before him. "If the review had come out with evidence that this was a bad idea, then of course my mind would have been differently made up,"
I can't help but think that means that the carbon footprints of mining, transporting and milling the fuel and then of building and decommissioning the power plants have been omitted from the report, unless the whole thing has been a set up by the pro-nuke lobby or trumped by some other consideration. There is just no real argument for it.
As Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat's environment spokesman, said:
"Nuclear is a tried, tested and failed technology. Not a single nuclear plant has been built anywhere in the world by private investors without lashings of government subsidy since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Other countries like Germany and Sweden have opted for a non-nuclear future and are making good progress with energy saving and renewables. The prime minister's prejudgement of the energy review merely underlines his infatuation with big solutions rather than pragmatic ones."
Though it's not yet available online, the Ecologist has an excellent series of articles on the true environmental costs of nuclear power. Don't let anyone tell you it's carbon free or neutral; the total lifetime carbon cost is pretty high. Worse, potentially than gas-fired power stations.
Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | I've changed my mind on nuclear power, admits Blair
Filed in: nuke, power, generation, electricity
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