nuclear-news

Nuclear won’t fix our energy crisis

*New Nuclear**

 Letter: Syed is generally very precise in his use of language, but his
description of nuclear as “clean energy” is Orwellian. The waste
produced by nuclear power stations will have to be securely stored for
thousands of years; and by a recent estimate the UK’s decommissioning
costs could be £260 billion. I would not call that “clean”.

 Times 23rd June 2024

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/letters-to-editor/article/nuclear-wont-fix-our-energy-crisis-qkq6fwmc5

The Sunday Times, Sunday June 23 2024

Writing of the urgent need for a coherent energy strategy, Matthew Syed says renewables are part of the solution “if we can solve the problem of intermittency” (Comment, last week). Unless we can, they are no solution at all — and so far we haven’t. We have been looking for efficient energy storage at scale for many years now and not finding it, and the solution may be a long time coming.

More nuclear reactors are not an adequate answer. This is partly because of the expense and the time lag between conception and operation — but also because they cannot simply be turned on and off, so we would be likely still to need fossil fuels to cover large spikes in energy usage.

No one has grasped the nettle of net
zero, which implies a massive upgrade both in generation and in the grid to
support it. It isn’t just productivity that is at stake; it’s keeping
the lights on. I don’t think any policymaker has a grip on this at all.
Because, if they had, they’d be panicking.

June 24, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized