Happy Mondays: nuclear meltdown

A tongue-in-cheek look at news that's caught our eye. This week, why Gordon's plans for more nuclear power are a costly mistake.

What is it?

The Government wants a new generation of nuclear power stations to help tackle rising oil prices and climate change.

Nuclear plants currently generate around a fifth of the country's electricity. But most existing plants are due to be shut down by 2023.

What's to like?

Not much. Unless you like ‘cheap' electricity that comes with a £73 billion clean-up bill (and that's just for the radioactive waste we already have).

Nuclear plants don't produce the massive carbon emissions of fossil-fuel power stations.

But the long-term risks posed by nuclear power mean renewables, like wind or tidal power, are a much safer way to develop clean energy.

What's not to like?

Like a nuclear technician, you'll need a clipboard because the list is long.

The key points are these:

Nuclear energy costs far more than its supporters claim.
New nuclear stations will take 10-20
years to build.
Dangerous nuclear waste will cost
billions to clean up.
Nuclear reprocessing plants are failing to cope with the waste we already have.

For more, download Voodoo Economics and the Doomed Nuclear Renaissance by environmental journalist Paul Brown, a free report published by Friends of the Earth.

Alternatively, see http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/
issues/fossil_fuels_index.html