I think we have to be honest about nuclear's limitations.
1) nuclear plants are uninsurable*
2) accidents happen
3) decomissioning & waste disposal costs are huge (£90 billion
on existing UK plants according to Gordon Brown).
4) plants in the UK inevitably serve a military dual use (we see this
in DU munitions, Trident etc)
5) nuclear's main output (electricity) will not fuel the cars, planes,
trucks, trains and household boilers we have today.
6) nuclear output represented a modest 9% of the domestic energy the
UK produced in 2003 (this 9% nuclear was used to provide for 22% of electricity
demand according to EU statistics).
7) Renewable energy and efficiency savings could doubtless substitute
the heat and light energy currently supplied by nuclear power. The problem
with renewables is not intermitent waves, wind, sun, rivers etc. The problem
is renewables do not as yet allow a country to project and maintain power
Ends | 8 Aug 2005 | The Leg
* 'Uninsurable' in the sense that nuclear reactor meltdown can result
in irreparable damage to very large numbers of people. Consider the impact
of Chernobyl - a nuclear incident believed to have affected 7 million