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Boris Johnson’s fixation on nuclear power is not justified by the facts, as Britain’s electricity demand continues to fall.

Letter Andrew Warren, Chairman, British Energy Efficiency Federation: In
declaring that Boris Johnson’s fixation on nuclear is a threat to British
energy supply, Simon Nixon (Mar 31) draws attention to the fallacious
belief by the Department for Business (if not at the National Grid) that
demand for electricity is expected to expand enormously, apparently even
double, over future years.

Strangely enough, precisely the same
justification was used in 2006, when the Labour government first committed
itself (as Nixon observes) to a “family” of further nuclear power
stations.

Based on the official forecasts issued in 2006, we should by now
be consuming at least 15 per cent more electricity than we were then. But
we are not. In fact UK electricity consumption has gone down by more than
15 per cent since 2006.

In other words, all that “expectation of demand
growth” used then to justify new nukes was grossly exaggerated, by well
over 30 per cent. In the interim, no new nuclear power stations have been
added to the system. It hasn’t collapsed, and is far less carbon
intensive. Surely, we should not be fooled again by the same spurious
rhetoric about endless consumption growth? In that immortal phrase of the
1970s: “Save it. You know it makes sense.” 

Times 1st April 2022https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/times-letters-lessons-of-the-shropshire-maternity-scandal-7vs5xwfw3

April 2, 2022 - Posted by | ENERGY, UK

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