Nuclear power? Yes please, says Blair

23 April 2005

Downing Street is drawing up secret plans to create a new generation of nuclear power stations as the centrepiece of the Government's drive to combat climate change. Tony Blair wants to avoid discussing the issue until after the election and the No 10 review of Britain's energy needs is not mentioned in the manifesto. But a team in the Strategy Unit, led by Lord Birt, the former BBC director general and one of the Prime Minister's closest advisers, is studying whether nuclear power should play a central role in combating global warming.

The unit will produce a report on climate change and how to protect energy supplies from threats - such as oil shortages and a terrorist attack on Middle East pipelines. "They are carefully framing the questions to get the answer they want. The answer to both questions could be nuclear power," one senior insider said yesterday.

The nuclear industry has already held private discussions with Downing Street about a new generation of power stations. Mr Blair is understood to be sympathetic to the arguments advanced by Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser, who sees nuclear power as the best way to tackle global warming.

They discussed the issue at a meeting late last year, but Mr Blair said any public debate would have to wait until after the election.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=632254


Interesting timing on the part of the Independent to come out with this story?

Or so I've heard.

I (from Finland) used to oppose fission energy, but because of two main factors I've changed my opinion. First is Peak Oil, soft landing to post-carbon society is not possible without (and Finland is buying energy produced by ex-Soviet installations); second is Climate Change and the fear that Gulf-Stream starts to defunction.

The waste problem is a real and big one, but lesser problem than the other problems. Finland is now building fifth reactor and discussing sixth, and they say Finnish rock is one of the best places to store the waste. So in name of international solidarity, If Finnish ground is so good, IMO we should accept nuclear waste from other parts of the globle.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

even with wind and solar an island of 50+ million people only has limited land to generate electricity.

Soft landing (as in whole society not collapsing post PO) requires all available measures: conservation, renewables, fission, and more social equality. It takes all we got, it's the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced. Better not be stupid about it, we've been plenty stupid so far.

Nuclear plants are thermally inefficient. They do not run on superheated steam. All that waste heat gets rejected.

Climate change refers to release of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that trap heat that would otherwise escape back into space. Nuclear reactors do not release CO2. The waste heat released by a nuclear reactor is a drop in the ocean compared to the heat trapped in our atmosphere by CO2 from a coal-burning plant, and is a non-issue.

Current reactors in the United States are about 32-33% efficient. That isn't much less than coal which is about 35-36%.

New reactors are more thermodynamically efficient and safer.

It starting to look like we are going to have to take a long, hard and dispassionate look at nuclear again. Get real smart about it, too.

God, that waste situation is terrible. Just horrifying.

Wikipedia Entry

Very clean, very efficent, just about meltdown proof IIRC.

They can also be very small, a unit about the size of a 'fridge could power three-ten houses, decentralized power grid.