Energy futureU.K. nuclear power plan draws fire
A group of academics issue a report arguing that the established nuclear-power industry would inevitably move on to the use of fast-breeder reactors to manufacture plutonium for use as fuel, increasing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation
The U.K. antinuclear movement has fired an opening shot in the U.K. energy-policy debate, ahead of expected Parliamentary announcements from the Brown government this week. The Nuclear Consultation Working Group, a small gathering of academics and activists, last week issued a report arguing that Britain should not build any nuclear power stations. In the document, reported on by the Guardian on Friday, members of the Nuclear Consultation Working Group argue that recent government consultation exercises were unfairly loaded in favor of allowing nuclear generation to continue. They contend that nuclear power is unnecessary, and that the United Kingdom could meet its future power needs entirely from renewable sources such as wind, solar and tidal energy. Frank Burnaby, one of the report’s authors, also said that an established nuclear-power industry would inevitably move on to the use of fast-breeder reactors to manufacture plutonium for use as fuel. Plutonium can be used to make nuclear weapons, unlike current civil fuels. “The shortage of uranium ores … will lead to the use of fast breeder reactors,” the report said, adding that “the use of fast breeder reactors will carry with it the real risk that nuclear weapons will spread to new countries and that terrorist groups will eventually acquire plutonium, fabricate primitive nuclear weapons and use them in terrorist attacks.” Burnaby was employed by the British nuclear-weapons program until 1957. Since then he has been a tireless campaigner against nuclear weapons and power generation. He suggests in the report that the UK could power itself by offshore wind energy alone.
Another of the report’s authors, Dave Elliott, professor of Technology Policy at the Open University, says that renewable power sources do not require “base load” backup from fossil or nuclear. It is often argued that base-load capacity is required to deal with power dips suffered by renewables during sunless, windless or slack-tide conditions. The Group said that a recent government-run poll indicating that a majority of the British public were in favor of allowing some nuclear building to go ahead was biased against renewables.
