Wed 17 May 2006
[BBC] UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is giving his strongest signal yet that he backs the building of a new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK.
The prime minister is telling the CBI annual dinner that the issue is “back on the agenda with a vengeance”.
He says Britain faces the prospect of being largely reliant on foreign gas imports for its future energy needs.
Critics claim Mr Blair had decided to opt for nuclear power even before the government energy review launched.
Earlier No 10 said Mr Blair would say he had seen a “first cut” of the government-commissioned energy review, due by the end of July. more
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Blair has been seeking a legacy to see him into his next job. 1000+ years of legacy is that enough? £70bn cleanup cost every ten years. Blair will go down in history.
May 18th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
I think Blair has done the right thing. You can stick your head in the sand but for the amount of energy that renewables will generate at the current state of technology nuclear is the only way to go. It will take 10 years to build if we start now and that is 10 years to create a secure disposal area for waste. Also the new generation of nuclear power stations are far more efficient and a lot safer. I also think your claim of £70 billion per 10 years cleanup costs is exagerrated. I wish you people would stop scare mongering. Nuclear power is safe and it is the only option if the lights are to stay on and to not be held to ransom by our gas suppliers.
May 18th, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Almighty, £70bn source.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4859980.stm
I wish “you people” terms would not be leveled, I did not join a bandwagon or group. Debate it. tony blair will not, or he will seek to scupper debate by signalling intentions before reports are out, or in the case of a nuclear report, ‘leaked’.
May 19th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Debate, that’s all we have. Endless inquiries and meetings to decide what needs to be done. somuch so that when it is decided it has already cost as much as the project was going to due to consultants fees etc.
The thing is no one is saying just nuclear, just that the nuclear option is very much one that will be taken. Prove to me that with current and projected levels of technology in renewables you can provide for the whole of the UK energy needs, even taking efficiency savings in to account and I might consider it, but at the moment nuclear is one important part of the energy puzzle.
May 19th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Oh nowhere in that article does it say every 10 years, just the cost itself.
May 19th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
DTI site said (and it was moved or removed) “Cleaning up the nuclear legacy is a long term process. It is a programme which will cost many billions of pounds over a period of many decades. Ensuring that the necessary skills and resources are in place and that the right jobs get done at the right time to get the best value for the taxpayer is a major undertaking.” … ” it (NDA)will be in a position to take decisions that balance short, medium and long term considerations. These will reflect the fact that the clean up programme has to be sustained over a period of 100 years or more. ”
so for every year of operation it takes 2 to clean up. no, nuclear has not got a solution to its own waste problem. them atom splitters promised ‘free’ power, just as well they were in science not economics. I live 5 minutes from the most radioactive sea in the world. My country has no nuclear facilities, billions of gallons of waste is pumped into the sea 60 miles from my country. No I don’t want it, not here not in the UK or Iran….
July 10th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Please can we separate our arguements.
Yes, the lessons from the past should be considered when contemplating new build but to imply that new build stations will take twice as long to clean up as they will operate is simple scare mongering.
To shut down Sellafield is one thing – that is the proposition of dealing with 50 years of ill-conceived waste management, which is there, requires clean up and will not just go away. But to set that against a programme of new build in which the generation of waste has been considered from the outset is quite simply naive.
I doubt you’ll find a single person working at or living near Sellafield that doesn’t want to see the nuclear legacy at Sellfield cleaned up and that aspect of Sellafield shutdown (although there are concerns regarding employment post shutdown). The problems, costs and timescales involved are indeed amazing but this with us now, to abandon it would be the worst thing that could be done. The wastes involved in many cases date from early research into nuclear power and generate plutonium for ‘the nuclear deterent’, at a time when waste and the hazards weren’t a consideration (did you consider the consequences of CO2 emissions 25 years ago?) There is a dedicated team of several thousand people working night and day to ensure that it is cleaned up in the best possible way. Have you been to the Sellafield visitors centre? I suggest you make a visit and look around particularly upstairs where there is a wealth of (surprisingly?) open information.
Todays New Build Power stations are an entirely different kettle of fish designed to minimise the generation of waste, maximise power output, many hazards have been designed out (Chernobyl would be an impossibility) and minimise production of long-lived radionuclides such as Pu. The waste generated from many new nuclear facilities is likely to be a small fraction of what we already have.
Lets be clear, there are issues with new build – uranium is not a renewable fuel, although immobilised a final repository has not been established and the costs of ensuring safety, security, minimising waste and covering decommissioning costs do not make this a ‘cheap’ option. However, I personally believe this is our only current realistic option to provide the baseload required for security of supply and still meet our environmental commitments (be sure climate change is occuring and the consequences could be devastating).