Nuclear Sell Off

Do you know, I think that Gordon Brown must have had a knock on the door from one of these sales people that come round trying to get us to change our energy suppliers. Except in this case for signing up to change from British Energy to EDF they offered the incentive of a free Nuclear Power station, but only if he paid by direct debit.

While I had hoped that here in Britain we would not follow the Nuclear route to fooling ourselves that we were reducing our Carbon Dioxide emissions, the sale of BE to EDF makes it more likely that there will be new Nuclear power stations built. The problem I have with Nuclear is simply that we still have not found a way of disposing with the waste from the first Nuclear power stations. Had we found a way of doing that safely then I could be persuaded that this could be an option. But as research has shown, the carbon footprint of disposing of the nuclear waste, per power station, could be triple or quadruple the CO2 of even a coal Power station, then it looks like a really bad idea.

Also while I am an internationalist, as EDF is eighty percent owned by the French Government, I see this as a problem. While I have no doubt that Britain and France have good relations at the moment, who knows what may transpire in the future. An ultra right wing nationalist government? Or an energy shortage over in France so that our electricity is exported to France? Or that nuclear waste from their plants is dumped on us?

While this may sound alarmist, the reality is that over the years no matter what is agreed now will change in time. The problem is that this will leave us with a toxic legacy in years to come. In Germany they have moved away from Nuclear power and are much further ahead with renewable's than most. Also in Germany the is the first commercial Carbon Capture power station. While we do need a mixture of power generation, I am very concerned that the British Government has followed the Nuclear route in this way.