'New nuclear' energy: the great green rip-off
The government has told us that we need more nuclear power stations to combat climate change. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Nuclear power is incredibly expensive and incredibly dangerous. The New Economics Foundation estimates that to pay for building new reactors and processing their waste, nuclear power providers could increase our electricity bills by almost three times the industry estimate. So that's a hike from £45 a quarter to around £100.
Opting for ten new nuclear power plants is a quick fix solution that will leave us with a terrible legacy of cancer-causing radioactive waste that nobody knows what to do with.
If nuclear power is allowed to get a grip on the energy sector now it could kill off any hope of a viable, affordable market in truly renewable forms of energy.
Reports by Greenpeace, the New Economics Foundation, the Sustainable Development Commission, the Centre for Alternative Technology and many other respected organisations have outlined strategies for future energy provision that does not include nuclear power.
WE HAVE TO STOP THIS NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.
We want a future, not a disaster.
Nancy Birch
shared this idea
384 comments
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Jude
commented
Why does anyone think this is a safe, cheap, green!! fuel?
The taxpayer’s bill to clean up Britain’s old nuclear plants has jumped by a quarter to top £100 billion for the first time, The Times has learnt. The official, unpublished estimate rocketed this year because the complex work to make safe highly toxic waste storage ponds and silos at Sellafield will cost much more and take longer than thought. This will result in clean-up work at other sites around the UK being delayed, pushing out costs and increasing the liability for taxpayers. According to recent figures from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Britain’s decommissioning liabilities will total £103.9 billion over the next 120 years. The NDA has made this estimate on an undiscounted basis,! which is how much the work would cost if it was done tomorrow.
Times 4th Dec 2011
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/utilities/article3247657.ece
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Colin Megson
commented
There is no greener, safer or more affordable way of supplying the energy needs (including liquid fuels for transport and nitrate fertilisers) of every individual on the planet (at developed world standards) for hundreds of thousands of years, than Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs). So efficient are LFTRs and so ubiquitous is thorium that you could 'mine' the ground under your feet and extract more energy per cubic metre than that obtainable from coal, oil, gas or uranium.
There is no greener, safer or cheaper way of meeting our future energy needs than a fleet of modular Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs), say 100 MWe size. They are so safe you could bury the reactor vessel and primary circuit of a LFTR under the centre-spot in Wembley Stadium and be hard pushed to design an accident to expel radiotoxic substances into the environment, to the endangerment of a capacity crowd. Only gravity acts on the liquid reactor fuel-salts and, should a vessel or pipework breach occur, the liquid is taken downwards to a safely configured drain tank. It would take a direct hit by an asteroid or a bunker-buster to eject stuff upwards and out.
This technology that will create manufacturing jobs, growth and prosperity we have not seen in 3 generations. There are at least half a dozen UK manufacturing companies with the capacity and expertise to be part of the technological supply chain. The technology is basic, well-understood engineering, associated with process plant and equipment.
Vote for the 38Degrees Campaign: "UK manufacture of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors"
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Jude
commented
I wish our Bishops would speak out against nuclear!
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Carl Holmes
commented
please watch this video about subsidies given to fossil fuel companies who dont need subsidizing and how if we stopped these subsidies we could save billions for our needs like education, care and instead of the goverment giving them the privelage of not having to pay tax we should be making them pay like every one else. only fair
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G49q6uPcwY8&feature=player_detailpage
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nubatron
commented
The truth about nuclear energy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4We need to fund LFTR's asap and get rid of our troublesome LWB's
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Roisin
commented
Please vote for this e-petition on the No 10 Website too, 100,000 signatures needed for a Parliamentary debate http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1035
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Roisin
commented
DEADLINE::: MAKE YOUR VIEWS KNOWN by 17th November:
The Office for Nuclear Regulation has published a draft vision and strategy. This document provides an opportunity to comment by 17th November on ONR Board's vision and broad medium to long term strategy for the organisation. The strategy will inform the ONR Corporate Plan, which will be revised shortly, and the Operating Plan for 2012/13 that will be produced to provide more detail about what ONR aims to deliver during the next financial year. The strategy is expressed in simple and succinct terms as we want to provide all of our stakeholders with an accessible picture of ONR’s vision in the light of the challenges and opportunities of the nuclear sector going forward
ONR 1st Nov 2011
http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/news/2011/nov-consultation.htm
I wrote: I have looked at your various website postings and find a fatal flaw in your avowed intention that you would 'Make the best, substantiated, independent, balanced judgements and decisions' simply because 'ONR recovers approximately 98% of its running costs from the nuclear industry'. I fail to see how this independence of mind can be achieved when the financial responsibility for ONR comes from the Nuclear industry itself.
I see that there is to be a change in the 'legal identity of ONR from a civil service agency to an independent statutory corporation'. I see this as paving the way for privatisation and perhaps providing the longevity to career starting in the Civil Service moving into a corporate structure.
Although I would prefer ONR to be an independant structure, if it is still funded by the Nuclear Industry it really has no independence.
As far a reassurances over 'safety' are concerned each of us knows that Nuclear irradiated waste is neither 'safe' nor 'secure' - especially over time when current 'Cement hole' facilities are the preferred method of storing irradiated waste and radioactivity cannot be 'captured' as it will, like heat, seep from any 'container '. The UK Threat Reduction Programme is funding design and construction of a secure storage facility to house used radioactive sources - which is to be overground and monitored storage...unlike the Geological storage (Cement holes) now being considered in the UK.
The recent news from Fukushima should only enhance Nuclear Scientists calls for a complete shut-down of present nuclear capacity and ensure no further 'new' Nuclear plants are considered for construction. This move would ensure the safety and security of people in the UK.
LOLOL -
Colin Megson
commented
You can vote for the greenest, safest and most affordable way to provide everyone on the planet with all of their energy (at developed world standards), including electricity, carbon-neutral liquid fuels and carbon-neutral ammonia as feedstock for fertilisers to maintain agricultural production. Vote for "UK manufacture of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors"; please note that there is enough readily available thorium to fuel all of our energy needs for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years.
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Jude
commented
New report from No Need for Nuclear will show that the evidence given to Ministers, MPs and Parliament, on which they based their decisions in support of new nuclear power stations was false and an incorrect summary of the actual evidence and research carried out within Government.
NoNeed4Nuclear 25th Oct 2011
http://www.noneedfornuclear.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66&Itemid=73
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Jude
commented
Concerns are being raised in Japan about the raised radiation levels – above legal limits - discovered on the surface of some of the canisters of vitirified High Level Waste (HLW) shipped recently from Sellafield. In August this year, some 40 tonnes of HLW, contained in 76 canisters were shipped from Barrow docks onboard the Pacific Grebe, the newest ship in the nuclear fleet operated by Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd (PNTL). Routed via the Panama Canal, the Pacific Grebe completed its maiden commercial voyage at the Mutsu-Ogawara port in Japan’s Aomori prefecture on the 15th September.
As reported in Japan’s Mainichi newspaper this week, the Kyushu Electric utility that owns the HLW has confirmed that, from a batch of 28 canisters being safety tested during transfer to the storage facility at Rokkasho-Mura, 3 had been found to have surface levels of beta and gamma radiation that breached acceptance levels of 4 Bequerels (Bq) per square centimetre – in one case almost 50 times over the limit.
Kyushu Electric, whose representatives were present at Sellafield when the HLW was loaded into the transport flasks, also confirmed that surface radiation levels were within the limits before leaving the UK. Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd (JNFL) which operates the Rokkasho storage facility is carrying out an investigation into the breaches of acceptance levels.
CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood said today.
‘This will be of significant concern to Japanese workers who have to handle this highly toxic and dangerous material. The unknown source of this surface contamination makes a mockery of the industry’s claims that HLW shipments pose no risk, and will fuel international opposition to this unnecessary trade in nuclear waste’.
Under the contracts covering Sellafield’s reprocessing of Japanese spent fuel, around 1000 canisters of HLW are destined to be returned to Japan over the next ten years. The latest shipment of 76 HLW canisters was only the second to have been made from Sellafield to Japan. The first, undertaken in January 2010, was itself mired in controversy when, on arrival in Japan, it was discovered that the HLW within the transport flask did not fully tally with the official paperwork – a number of canisters being ‘out of position’ within the holding channels of the transport flask. An impending shipment of HLW to Holland had to be delayed while an investigation was carried out and approval obtained from the UK’s Department for Transport.
In common with all nuclear countries, Japan has no final disposal site for HLW, the waste simply being held in an interim storage facility at Rokkasho-Mura. Located on the northern coast of Japan, Rokkasho hosts a reprocessing plant so beset with technical problems that its opening has already been delayed by some 15 years. Originally scheduled to operate in 1997, the latest target date for commercial operations to begin is now put at 2012
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Jude
commented
They keep telling that nuclear energy is cheap. did anyone see the "Bang Goes the Theory" program on Monday? At Dounreay former nuclear reprocessing plant, a continuous, 24 hour a day search goes on, on the beaches for tens of thousands radioactive particles released in a previous accident. How much is that operation costing I wonder?
It's thought that the beaches will never be cleared of radioactivity.
"Nuclear power is neither safe, clean, cheap nor low-carbon and it continues to cause problems and cost the taxpayer a hidden and open-ended fortune. Let's learn from our past mistakes and consign it to a lead-lined dustbin." friends of the earth... -
Jude
commented
What an ambassador for the world. She puts all governments to shame
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Marianne Birkby commented
Wainwright's LOng Walk
A Pictorial View of the Lakes Nuclear Sacrifice Zone
No thanks!
http://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/wainwrights-long-walk/ -
Wainwright's Long Walk -
A Pictorial View of the Lakes Nuclear Sacrifice Zone -
No thanks!
http://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/wainwrights-long-walk/ -
Carl Holmes
commented
i wonder wheather 38 degrees will run a campaign on this subject ,obviously their are other important campaigns in the running that have to be fought first though
wait and see
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Tony King
commented
The German people have led the way! Seimens (a MASSIVE German company) have now completely disowned Nuclear Power at great cost due to PUBLIC OPINION! We need to act NOW!
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Carl Holmes
commented
we need to follow germany and say no to new nuclear
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zotric
commented
On economic grounds alone it makes no sense for the reasons given. One Fukushima scale event could ruin our whole UK economy. Japan, with a larger economy and population, will struggle to recover from Fukushima. I'm sure they will succeed but we should learn before it happens to us. No tsunamis here? Not the case. Accidents will happen and the nuclear industry is not going to be an exception. We should invest in Thorium cycle reactors as are India and the China. Plus, obvously, renewables.
I also think that uranium-based nuclear power is a lazy option that does not stimulate innovation. We have Thorium, fusion and doubtless other options to explore. Let's be more creative and build a safer and more interesting future.
Spot on about the Fukushima blackout (another poster). -
Jude
commented
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Cherith Adams
commented
Nuclear power makes no sense morally or economically. It's only happening because of vested interests
