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The real reason politicians back nuclear power instead of renewables

 Simon Barrow: The cost of the Trident programme alone over the next three
decades alone is going to be well north of an eye-watering £250 billion.
Imagine what could be done for human good with that scale of investment?

But as the well-attended Scottish CND “Work, Wellbeing and Security”
meeting at the recent STUC conference emphasised, the real challenge goes
far deeper than that. It concerns the multiple connections between
downscaling and eventually scrapping Trident and the huge industrial
revolution required both to utilise the expansion of AI for positive
purposes and to transition rapidly away from harmful fossil-fuel and
nuclear dependence.

As Craig Dalzell of Common Weal pointed out at the STUC
meeting, without a civil nuclear power programme there can be no nuclear
weapons. So, when politicians, including those in Scotland, are talking
about expanding nuclear power – despite the fact that renewables are
cheaper, greener, safer, more effective and create far more jobs – what
they are actually trying to do is shore up support for a military
infrastructure that generates huge profits for their friends in big
corporations.

But politicians know they cannot say that directly, in the
same way that carbon industry companies cannot admit that their preference
for nuclear power over renewable energy is all about massive subsidies and
profits, rather than what makes sense economically and delivers a
sustainable, liveable future.

These are issues which trade unionists must
speak out about more loudly. As EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley
pointed out at the STUC meeting, part of that involves promoting school and
public education on alternatives to a dangerous war economy. But raising
awareness has to be accompanied by practical work on the industrial
revolution required and the change of political will needed to achieve
that. At the Glasgow rally last Saturday, tireless RMT Scotland regional
organiser Gordon Martin, who also spoke at the STUC meeting, acknowledged
frankly that trade unions are still divided on a number of these key
issues.

 The National 16th May 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25168853.real-reason-politicians-back-nuclear-power-instead-renewables/

May 19, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics