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Last Updated: Feb 18th, 2008 - 14:39:01 |
LONDON (Reuters) - Environmentalists are preparing for a battle with the nuclear industry to persuade the public that green, not atomic, power is the path to the future.
At stake is not just the future mix of electric power sources from nuclear to fossil and wind, but the whole structure of the country's centralised power generation system.
And as the government prepares to launch an intensive public consultation on Monday over the future of the power industry in the face of global warming and surging fossil fuel prices, both sides know it will be an epic fight watched by the whole world.
"We are going to war with the nuclear industry -- but with a positive not a negative campaign," Tony Juniper, head of Friends of the Earth, told Reuters.
"We are not going to repeat the negative messages of the 1970s and 80s. The campaign for us is to show that the alternatives such as renewables and greater energy efficiency can work and nuclear is not necessary," he added.
But for its part the nuclear industry, boosted by fears about global warming from burning fossil fuels and worries about energy prices and security, feels it is in the resurgent.
"We are confident that we can stand on our own two feet if energy policy is formed in a framework of low carbon emissions, security of supplies and stability of prices," Nuclear Industry Association spokeswoman Ruth Stanway told Reuters.
CHERNOBYL LEGACY
The industry boasts it has zero carbon emissions and, as fuel can be stored for decades, is not at the mercy of international supply chains such as for oil and gas.
And with Prime Minister Tony Blair believed to privately favour new build as the country's ageing stock of nuclear plants come to the end of their already extended lives, the industry got an extra lift on Tuesday from a new opinion poll.
Research by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research showed that, seen in terms of the fight to stop catastrophic global warming, 54 percent of Britons would accept nuclear power as part of the energy mix.
But with the national energy review taking place over the 20th anniversary of the disastrous April 1986 explosion at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear plant, the industry knows it still has some serious arguments to win.
"The whole issue of waste, security and safety is very emotive, and while we know we can win the arguments we still have to tackle them," Stanway said.
But the environmental lobby insists that improved energy efficiency -- in both usage and generation -- and more investment in renewables like wind and waves can remove the need for any nuclear power let alone new plants.
Figures from Greenpeace show that for every 100 units of energy trapped in fossil fuel, 61.5 are lost through inefficient generation and heat wastage, 3.5 are lost in transmission and 13 are wasted through inefficient end usage.
"What we do not need is billions of pounds being poured into new nuclear plants that mean continuing with an outdated centralised electricity generation and distribution system," Greenpeace director Stephen Tindale said.
"The National Grid is wearing out and now is the chance to replace it with a decentralised system making the best use of local resources and things like combined heat and power plants."
Environmentalists also say the nuclear industry has never given a full account of its costs and that steep startup costs mean that new build will have to be subsidised by taxpayers.
But the industry counters that it is economic and can raise the necessary money from the investment community without needing to resort to government handouts.
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