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green light for new nuclear build in the UK

Each of the reactors at Oldbury for example generate 815MW of thermal output, of which only some 218MW emerges as electricity indicating a thermal efficiency of 27%. This is an important point to be aware of when making primary energy comparisons.

The Commission has decided today to give a favourable opinion to the initiative of Natsionalna Elektricheska Kompania (NEK) of Bulgaria to build a new nuclear power plant at the site of Belene

Right now, we have no idea what to do with this stuff. It's hard to imagine next century, let alone 15 million years from now. Do we really want to leave this stuff lying around? It will almost certainly escape from anywhere we put it.

Luckily, scientists are working on ways to avoid these long term problems. British scientists have 'transumted' iodine-129 into iodine-128 with a high-powered laser. Now, dropping one neutron might not seem like a big deal, but the half life of iodine-129 is 15 million years while the half life of iodine 128 is 25 minutes.

The Guardian reports this morning on a private report to Gordon Brown that suggests that Britain should oppose binding target for renewable energies in Europe (20% of all energy by 2020, as agreed earlier this year at this spring's EU Summit). The Guardian flags the juicy political bits ("work with Poland and other governments sceptical about climate change to "help persuade" German chancellor Angela Merkel and others to set lower renewable targets", "a potentially significant cost in terms of reduced climate change leadership"), but also provides some of the apparent underlying reasons provided, which are worth commenting upon: it undermines the carbon-trading scheme which "allows wealthy governments to pay others to reduce emissions"; it costs too much money (£4 billion a year to get to 9% by 2020); it does not help push for new nuclear plants as it "reduces the incentives to invest in other carbon technologies like nuclear power"; Let's say it plainly: each of these arguments is stupid, short-sighted and, quite simply, false. Let me take you through them in turn (under the fold).

The Oxford Research Group paper, funded by the Joseph Rowntree charitable trust, says that the worldwide nuclear "renaissance" planned by the industry to provide cheap, clean power is a myth.

Germany is looking to integrate wind, solar, and biofuel natural gas to supply 100% of its power generation needs by 2050 (40% by 2020). Germany plans to phase out both Nuclear and Coal-fired power generation.

Any answers to these questions would be purely speculative, but if the industry had continued expanding at its previous rate, then instead of the current 104 reactors, we might easily have 200, contributing 40% of our total electricity supplies. Coal-fired power plants would supply only 32% of our power needs, instead of 50%, and we'd emit roughly 650 million tons less CO2 per year.

The 12 most critical policies that need to be enacted as urgently as possible for achieving a zero-CO2 economy without nuclear power are as follows.