A Done Deal (7-Sep-07)
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Full article: A Done Deal (7-Sep-07)
Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have decided not to engage with the nuclear power consultation, despite the issue being of great importance to their organisations. It is believed by the environmental groups named that inserting new nuclear power stations without looking at what the evidence says is best is the wrong decision.
The environmental groups believe that nuclear power is not the only way to go; there is an unjustifiable negative view of renewable and other approaches that could help us to go low carbon at the same time as meeting our future energy needs. In addition the consultation does not highlight the huge proven potential for combined heat and power systems and more decentralised energy networks to contribute to meeting our carbon reductions targets.
Finally the fact that the government have been reluctant to highlight that if the proposed new stations were built they would only contribute about 4% of our energy demand, is a further reason for the environmental groups to not engage with the consultation.
Text of Article
At Friends of the Earth we engage all the time with different public consultations on issues ranging from agriculture and waste management and from wildlife protection to world trade policy. Public input to official decision-making is, we believe, one of the prerequisites for a sustainable society, and we put a lot of effort into researching policies and ideas that we feed into these processes.
Today, however, we, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have decided that we are not going to engage with an official consultation on an issue that is of great importance to our organisations. The nuclear power consultation that is now getting underway is, we have concluded, a stitch up. For months ministers, and indeed two prime ministers, have given the unambiguous signal that the deal is done, and that we will have new nuclear power stations, no matter what the evidence says is best.
This is, we believe, the wrong choice, and we feel that if there was a fair and open discussion, in which all of the issues and arguments were properly aired, that a different conclusion would be reached.
The government has, for example, been highly reluctant to highlight in the new consultation the fact that the proposed new stations, if they were built, would only contribute about 4% of our energy demand. This is a very small figure when one considers how much play is being made about alleged need for nuclear to improve Britain's energy security.
There is also an unjustifiably negative view of renewable and other approaches that could help us to go low carbon at the same time as meeting our future energy needs. Indeed, the government even contradicts itself in this respect, citing comparisons between renewable and nuclear power costs that contradict what was published in support of policies included in the 2003 energy white paper (pdf). This said we did not need to build new nuclear stations and that we should instead focus on renewables and energy efficiency.
The huge proven potential for combined heat and power systems and more decentralised energy networks to contribute to meeting our carbon reduction targets are not highlighted in the consultation. It is suggested that many of these technologies remain unproven, and yet no such claim is made about the new nuclear reactors that would allegedly meet our needs, none of which have even been built, let alone run for years to prove their reliability and real cost.
There is also no proper consideration of international proliferation issues. The UK government, for example, seems oblivious of the signal we would send in pressing ahead with new nuclear build here, while telling Iran and others that they cannot do the same. This could disastrously undermine future climate change negotiations where some countries would claim the moral right to go nuclear while seeking to deny others the possibility of doing so.
The consultation has been put together in a way that raises huge questions, such as the full costs of new build (including the risk to taxpayers of subsidies) and the many unresolved problems that the radioactive waste from new build will create.
The present consultation was forced on the government by a high court ruling in February. This action, brought by Greenpeace, led to a ruling that a previous consultation was "seriously flawed and "manifestly inadequate and unfair. The government was bound by its own rules to do it again. The high court said a proper consultation must be clear, fair and provide enough information to allow people to make an intelligent response and the government is obliged to take full account of people's responses before deciding policy. It seems that little has been learned, however.
We and other organisations have reached the conclusion that this consultation is a public relations stitch-up designed to deliver a pre-ordained policy on new nuclear power. Gordon Brown has to take part of the responsibility for the lack of faith in this consultation as he said in July that the government has already made up its mind on new nuclear.
- Source: Guardian Unlimited
