'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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Cherith Adams
commented
Nuclear power makes no sense morally or economically. It's only happening because of vested interests
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michaelruxton
commented
So this is what a green revolution looks like , new nuclear and a dash for shale gas ,pathetic .
I take it that 'call me Dave' has parked the push bike up now he has his seat at the top table . -
Paul Martyn
commented
We need to move beyond Nuclear Energy and spend the money on sane energy sources
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Nozwell
commented
Simply not necessary. Stop the government putting the absolute last resort as the first choice.
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eartheart
commented
I agree with Gisela below.
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Gisela Renolds
commented
If the German government can axe nuclear power, so can we!
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Steven Bond
commented
Nuclear energy? No thanks!
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Liz Wood
commented
already commented, but didn't know how to vote
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Liz Wood
commented
I believe that we should not build any new nuclear power stations and should aim to shut down those already built as soon as possible. We do not have satisfactory ways of disposing of the waste. Nuclear power stations are very expensive to build and run - we are never given the true costs. There is always the danger of mechanical failure, human error, sabotage or unforeseeable natural disaster that could put the power station at risk. I have heard that plutonium regularly goes missing from nuclear power stations. Uranium is expensive to buy, and irs miners work in unacceptable conditions. We should have been investing in alternative means of energy generation for decades, and should start now seriously to invest and research all alternatives and all possible means of reducing energy consumption.
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Victoria Pearson
commented
The UK is rushing headlong into building more Nuclear power stations, despite having no safe or effective solutions for storage and management of the nuclear waste....Short-sighted madness!
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charmen@hummelz.com
commented
I totally Agree with you on the two major points in your petition.
1. Nuclear Power stations ARE NOT SAFE.
2. They are not economical
3. Why should the taxpayer pay out billions in grants to the like of EDF who are ripping Britain off already.
4. Goverment should concentrate on alternative power generation.
5. The MP Weatherly for Sussex has already requested that Powerstations should not be build for the reasons you mentioned
6. They could be targeted by insurgents easily. security is so poor at these powers tationsDid you know that there are Olympic size open pools at Sellofield where the water is radio active and evaporates into the air on a daily basis. The same properly applies to the other Stations too.
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Robert Reynolds
commented
There is a failure to appreciate the gravity of risk from nuclear accident / incident.
Government explanations of policy are unconvincing, needing urgent investigation.
The 'lights out' threat is carefully over-stated; accident risk is woefully down-played.
Pressured by failure to make timely non-nuclear investment, 'N-rescue' swallowed.
Local Council approvals likely to be 'bought' by 'sweeteners' not electorally refusable.
Public and press, under threat of ever more 'austerity', will take 'what's on offer'.
Serious options not put to the public, e.g. 'make and bake on windy days' flexibility.
More oil might be discovered, but supply and price might soon preclude tidal works.
Incentive for nuclear technology improvement will be lost with obsolete roll-out.
Rather than foist huge plants on impoverished localities, we should at least allow informed local choice as between 'micro-nuclear' and support for wind-farms etc.
While our banks were 'too big to fail', 'our' nuclear developers must be 'given pause'.
I have not seen the hinterlands of other proposed new-nuclear plants, but Somerset is far far too precious to be put again at nuclear risk.
Tidal works will bring risk, in construction and no doubt in use, but the worst of happenings would be discrete, a great flood, not a poisoning of land and people.
By a government with a particularly poor record in policy making, even with respect to social inclusion, the NHS, policing, and national defence, we are being drawn into support for an ailing technology not just in our own country but in countries even more at risk of human and natural and safety-spend failure, all to become dependent on French technology, all to be subject to soaring prices of uranium extraction and transport in an oil-poor world.
The word scandal comes to mind - but the matter seems too terrible for such a light word. -
Jude
commented
It's time to step up the campaign. There is a global balckout on the truth about Fukushima
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Ian Bailey
commented
From watching the documentary 'Into Eternity' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Eternity_%28film%29 (shown on Channel 4 as 'Nuclear Eternity') it is clear that the so-called experts have no idea how to manage waste that in dangerous for 100,000 years. I suspect the desire to build nuclear power stations is yet another example of profiteering by this government and some of its cronies in the private energy sector.
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Carole Young
commented
We want a future, I do, not a nuclear disaster! I say no to nuclear energy!
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Tom Williams
commented
to use nuclear power to generate electricity is seriously stupid, when the cost of building a nuclear station, waste management, security concerns and local health considerations are taken into account then both renewables and coal/gas generation comes out way ahead, add to the argument climate change and the only feesible solution is energy efficiency coupled with better design and renewable power generation.
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judy chan
commented
The nuclear catastrophe in Japan should tell us that, as always, nuclear power and the storage of its waste can never be made safe enough to resist the power of the natural world. One in three of us are already in line to suffer with cancer, don't allow it to become worse.
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Allan Jeffery
commented
All nuclear power stations and facilities become nuclear graveyards and radioactive waste dumps, which are a terrible legacy of toxic waste to leave our children and children for many generations to come.
Please do not allow the beautiful Somerset coastline to become the "Sellafield" of the south west of England, an industrial wasteland storing the deadly spent fuel on site for over a hundred years, and probably for ever as there is nowhere safe and secure any where in the world for it to go.
The constant cooling of this hot radioactive waste for hundreds of years makes us very vulnerable to terrorist attack as there is very little protection around the spent fuel cooling tanks.
The on going nuclear disaster still leaking radioactivity into the sea and air in Japan, 5 months after the accident shows that when things go wrong with nuclear man has no idea what to do!
The nuclear industry is a financial black hole which will continue to eat into the taxpayers costs. We cannot afford to decommission the reactors we already have closed and the costs of storing, guarding and protecting the human environment from the high level waste for thousands of years is completely unknown.
The only thing sustainable about the nuclear industry is the nuclear waste.
The nuclear reactors are the most dangerous and expensive way to boil water.
There is a renewable energy revolution taking place around the world. Renewable energy, in all its many forms, wind, solar, wave, tidal, hydro, geothermal and the appropriate forms of biomass are developing quickly and becoming cheaper, nuclear is becoming more expensive both economically and environmentally. We need the political will to stop wasting energy, use energy much more efficiently and take advantage of the never ending amounts of natural renewable energy, the only enrgy safe and secure future for mankind.
Allan Jeffery. -
Jude
commented
I read this morning that Dungeness was not on the list for new-build nuclear power stations, because it is an area of rare beauty!!
What does that make all the other beautiful places in Britain, blighted by these ghastly things, and what about Cumbria, where they plan to dump waste? Is Cumbria not considered of rare beauty either? -
charlie hinchcliff
commented
I think this is a massively worthwhile petition. I don't want to live in a country that is full of over priced bills and cancer!
