Responding to today’s announcement by the Government that a new generation of nuclear power stations has been given the go-ahead, Darren Johnson, a Green Party Member of the London Assembly, commented:”This was an unfair consultation, which has come to the wrong conclusion by assuming that nuclear power is the solution to the problem of climate change. A report from the Sustainable Development Commission shows that even a doubling of the UK’s current nuclear capacity would only be able to contribute to an 8% cut in Greenhouse Gas emissions from 1990 levels.”
“The cheapest and most effective way of cutting emissions in London would be to decentralise energy production and put solar panels and wind turbines on every house and office. We already have the technology to make it happen but are simply lacking the political will and investment. The Government should give small businesses and householders the money to install renewables instead of paying for expensive nuclear power stations.”
Building new nuclear power stations could cost over a billion pounds more than investing in local renewable energy and reduce climate change emissions by far less, according to a recent report3. It is likely that the cost of building a giant nuclear waste storage facility will fall upon taxpayers, and Londoners may also face higher electricity bills as a way of meeting the clean-up costs when the nuclear reactors reach the end of their lifespan. Darren highlighted the risks of transporting nuclear waste through London whilst Chair of the Nuclear Waste Trains Investigative Committee, set up by the London Assembly in 2000.
For more on the benefits of decentralised energy see the Greenpeace report ‘Decentralising UK Energy’ (April 2006):http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/migrated/MultimediaFiles/Live/