Reacting to the release of the government's Energy White Paper and a new nuclear consultation, Greenpeace director John Sauven said:
"The government has tinkered with its failing energy efficiency and renewables policy while indulging its nuclear obsession. If ministers go down the nuclear route they will strangle the new, clean energy technologies of the investment and political support they need. Reaching for nuclear power to fight climate change is like an obese person taking up smoking to lose weight. It's a dangerous and expensive distraction in the fight against global warming."
He continued:
"The government had a good plan in 2003 which they failed to deliver on. Now they want to waste even more time and energy on nuclear power, a wasteful energy system of the past. A new fleet of nuclear plants would reduce emissions by just four per cent. Instead the Government should put the UK on a low carbon energy path to deliver the huge emissions cuts we need if we're to stop temperatures rising to dangerous levels. That means creating a framework that ensures energy efficiency, renewables and decentralised energy schemes like Combined Heat and Power plants get the investment needed."
On 15th February 2007 the High Court found in favour of a Greenpeace application for judicial review. Greenpeace had argued that the public consultation leading up to this White Paper was ‘fixed' by ministers. Mr. Justice Sullivan ruled that the Government's pro-nuclear decision was "unlawful". In his judgment he described the consultation as "seriously flawed", "misleading" and "manifestly inadequate and unfair" The Government has now announced that a replacement consultation will take place.
John Sauven said:
"It appears the government has not learned from the verbal lashing it got in the High Court. Already Tony Blair has said the policy will not change, whatever the new consultation comes up with, while Alistair Darling seems to have committed the country to new nuclear power stations before the consultation has even begun. Our lawyers will look very carefully at developments over the coming months. We are confident that if the Government carries out a genuine open-minded consultation on nuclear power it will realise that nuclear cannot deliver either energy security or the carbon reductions required by 2020. If it fails to carry out a fair consultation, Greenpeace will not hesitate to take up the issue in the courts once again."
- Nuclear power provides 19 % of the UK's electricity, but only 3.6% of our energy (electricity, heating and hot water, transport etc.). Spending tens of billions of pounds and creating a waste legacy that will last for hundreds of thousands of years is a high price to pay for reducing our carbon emissions by 4% sometime after 2024. A nuclear power station has never been built on time and on budget in a western nation. Witness Finland, the EU's only current building project. Areva, the company building the new station, has admitted the plant is already €700 million over budget and has now fallen almost two years behind schedule, despite construction having only started in September 2005.
- The UK Trade and Industry Committee stated in its 2006 report that the most recent reactor, a PWR at Sizewell B, experienced increases in capital costs from £1.6bn to £3.7bn, (€2,485m to €5,436m).
- Currently Britain's centralised power stations, including nuclear, waste two-thirds of the energy put into them in the form of waste heat that escapes up cooling towers or as cooling water. Industrial sites alone in the UK easily provide the potential for enough CHP capacity to deliver the same electricity output as an entire fleet of new nuclear reactors while also meeting those sites' heat needs at the same time. And if we need to build new gas or coal-fired power stations they should all have heat capture. That's where you get real efficiency and energy security at the same time.
- In 2003 the then Secretary of State at the DTI, Patricia Hewitt, told Parliament: "It would have been foolish to announce .... that we would embark on a new generation of nuclear power stations because that would have guaranteed that we would not make the necessary investment and effort in both energy efficiency and in renewables. That is why we are not going to build a new generation of nuclear power stations now."
- The Government has committed to a binding EU target requiring it to produce 20% of its energy (that's electricity, heat and transport) from renewable sources by 2020. That's going to equate to around 35% of our electricity, meaning the renewables sector needs the absolute confidence of the Government. Renewables include on and offshore wind, tidal and wave power, solar, biomass and hydro.
- Politicians appear to have pre-empted the new consultation. After losing in the High Court Tony Blair said, "This won't affect the policy at all." On Sunday's Politics Show on BBC1 Alistair Darling said, "I believe that nuclear ought to be part of the mix."
For more information, contact the Greenpeace press office on 0207 865 8255.
