Date published: 2006/05/28
The BBC says:
Nuclear power should supply around 30% of Britain's energy needs, tackling the impact of climate change, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser suggests.
Sir David King said as many as 20 new nuclear plants could be needed to increase the power generated by the current 12 sites from the current 12%.
Combined with more renewable energy, this would cut fossil fuel use, he told BBC One's Sunday AM.
...
Sir David said he did not believe a final decision on the UK's nuclear future would be made before the publication of the government's energy review, due in July, and the report of the Stern Commission on climate change.But he said any new nuclear power stations would not be funded through new taxes, insisting instead that the money markets would have to decide if they want to invest in them.
He added that new technologies - such as using bioethenol (virtually carbon free) and hybrid cars in the future as well as nuclear power - would allow consumers to continue the current extent of car and plane use.
"We can all live at the same comfort levels but looking at different energy sources and better energy efficiency," he said.
Asked what proportion of Britain's energy needs should be supplied by nuclear power, Sir David said: "My favoured figure is around 30%.
"We would then have baseline energy through the year from nuclear plus renewables and we can then diminish our dependence on fossil fuels."
Jonathan Porritt, the chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission which advises the government on environmentally-friendly growth, accepted policy-makers had to consider whether nuclear power should play a part in Britain's energy future.
But he said the potential reductions in CO2 emissions which could be gained from switching to atomic power came to only around 8% of Britain's output - far less than could be saved by simply using current energy supplies more efficiently.
"If the prime minister wants to make nuclear power the test of his leadership on climate change here in the UK, he is genuinely deluded," Mr Porritt told Sunday AM.
The role of government was to "fashion the markets" to make the choice for consumers easier, he said.
It need not be "the end of life as we know it", he said, but may mean people making short journeys on foot or bike and paying for the carbon cost as well as the travel costs for foreign holidays.
King's pronouncements will certainly not please most of the so-called environmentalists, who hate nuclear power (as they hate anything big and corporate). And if Porritt thinks that Blair is "genuinely deluded" for promoting nuclear power, then he himself is even more deluded if he thinks that what we mainly need is to be more energy efficient. That will come by itself because of higher energy costs, but most people have better things to do with their lives than spend every single waking moment worrying about exactly how much energy they are using. (Of course the non-workers like Porritt have nothing else to do with their time except to worry about such things.) And you have to wonder if Porritt will be keen for train commuters (and other allegedly politically correct consumers of energy) to pay the carbon cost of their journeys, or is he only going to persecute car drivers and airplane passengers.
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