Originally published in GreenSWord Oct'05 

New Nuclear Generation – back on the Agenda?    

This is an issue that is not going to go away  – Blair seems set on fast-tracking a new generation of nuclear power stations to replace the ageing ones which are closing in the next few years (about 16% of our electricity supply) and then to take over from the gas turbine stations as the gas supply peaks around 2020 (a further 30% of UK electricity)

As Richard Lawson wrote to The Independent back in June:

Sir: The chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association wants the G8 to stop "denying the part that new nuclear generation can play in helping to mitigate the effects of climate change".  
If it does, it is a bit part.
New nuclear generation could supply our civilisation with approximately three years' worth of electricity, at a CO2 cost roughly equivalent to that of gas.  After those three short years, the planet's uranium reserves would be sorely depleted, as also would be the public finances.
Not to mention our slender chance of preventing the spread of nuclear weapon to yet more unstable and/or deluded world leaders.
Richard Lawson www.greenhealth.org.uk Green Party, Congresbury, North Somerset

The reference for that astounding figure that nuclear could only supply the world’s electricity needs for three years before the uranium runs out comes from a report by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith titled ‘Nuclear Power: The Energy Balance’ first published in 2002. The nuclear industry criticized the report, and van Leeuwen & Smith published a detailed rebuttal of the criticisms in 2003. The report has been further updated in August 2005 and can be found at www.oprit.rug.nl/deenen/  

Nuclear fuel is a finite (non-renewable) resource just like fossil fuels, and its extraction and preparation for use depends on fossil fuels and generates significant CO2.

The report shows that if all the world's current electricity consumption was supplied from nuclear, then the available rich Uranium ores would be used up within three years, and thereafter it would require more energy to extract usable uranium (U235) than would be generated by burning it (as the authors put it effectively turning Nuclear plants into incredibly inefficient fossil fuel burning plants with radioactive by-products!).

So even if only 20% of the world's current energy needs was supplied by nuclear, their fuel would run out before the end of their design life.
And this is without considering the waste problem (notwithstanding Bob Hawke, ex Austrialian PM’s recent kind offer to use Australia as the world’s nuclear dump)

Nuclear is quite simply not a viable long term power source on a planetary scale - end of debate. Its problems, however, are irredeemably long-term, and eventual costs and consequences unknown. 

Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the end of the debate as the Government seems hell bent on ignoring the potential of large scale micro-generation and taking the nuclear road.

There could be some tough decisions and campaigns ahead for the Green movement.