An Energy Review for the wrong answer

For the last couple of years the UK government has been trying to convince the country that we need new nuclear power stations to cut emissions and stop climate change. Their latest public consultation has been spun like a fine angora wool. Greenpeace, along with Friends of the Earth, WWF and other members of the Green Alliance pulled out of the consultation, and now it's come to light that professional observers of the consultation are similarly displeased with the government's increasingly desperate attempts to spin us into accepting new nuclear power plants. Find out what the government's latest energy review is all about here.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• greenpeace
• nuclear
• power
• energy
• review
• climate
• change
• global
• warming
• renewables
• CHP

[MokomaSusi]

Misleading. It's possible to capture heat from nuclear power station if wanted to.

[GreenpeaceUK]

Effectively using the heat which is currently wasted during the generating process requires decentralisation (ie more smaller plants closer to the communities which they serve). The 10 nuclear plants being proposed will all be large (1.6GW) and based on existing sites far from population centres (for obvious reasons) and so will not be able to (and are not being designed to) recycle meaningful amounts of heat to local communities - an unbelievably wasteful strategy.

[GreenpeaceUK]

Please go the Greenpeace UK site and look at the "/climate/solutions" page. There you'll see that we are not advocating renewables as a sole solution, but in conjunction with decentralised energy and energy conservation. Our current methods of electricity generation are unbelievably wasteful - 60% of the heat generated to power turbines goes straight up

the cooling towers, 3-4% more is wasted in transition.

[GreenpeaceUK]

If we were energy efficient we could produce the same amount of

electricity using one third of the raw materials we currently do.

But CHP (Combined heat and power) stations need to be local.

Nuclear needs a giant centalised system and new plants take

decades to come on line - it's old style centralised "command

economy" thinking at a time when wee need to be flexible,

innovative, and above all - fast.

[nolstradamus]

Nuclear power sounds intelligent. Sounds like greenpeace has really run out of things to complain about. Have fun fueling a steel mill with your solar/wind power. What a joke.

[atomicrod59]

Nuclear does not fundamentally require giant plants or long construction periods. In August 1960, the US Congress authorized funds to begin the design of the PM-3A a small reactor designed for electricity and heat production in Antarctica. In March, 1962, the plant was up and running in one of the most remote stations on earth. That's about a 18 Month project start to finish.

[snedie69er]

@GreenpeaceUK

Almost 70% of the heat generated by nuclear plants is harnessed by the generators, as the unit's are completely sealed and cooling only occurs if the temperature goes beyond a critical threshold. Unless this happens, the steam generated is pushed back into the reactor without been cooled back to liquid water.

[snedie69er]

@GreenpeaceUK

So, basically because you guys have blocked the development of the Nuclear Industry and forced the requirement of Fossil Fuel power stations we are now in a situation where the major nations of this planet now face a power pandemic of growing proportions.

Tell me what is worse: Dumping nuclear waste into the deepest cravas in the ocean (In hermatically sealed units) OR Building multiple fossil fuel plants and emitting a few hundred thousand tons of carbons?

Thanks

[everybodylikesjames]

we need new nuclear power stations to meet with our energy demands. The facts in this video are very wrong. you need to look at the coal power station they are going to build at kingsnorth its a waste of money and will produce a very small amount of power with very high CO2. The problem with nuclear waste is that we haven't only just got ours but the rest of the EUs this is want happens when british companies get taken over by outsiders.

[UKRentor1605]

Thats because while a normal 1-2GigaWatt plant takes about 4 years to build start to finish, there is a 2 year liscensing battle they have to fight, and then they are usually halted hundreds of times during construction and final certification by anti-nuke activists. There was probably a 1-2 year planning procedure prior to the antarctic plant.

[Saitame]

strong claims... "nuclear power can't fight climate change"

[chiara54]

Only the Clean-Energy, are The True Future, Not the Nukes, your emissions on the Air, and More "incicidents colpevolize the Men's , or are Pure Fatality" , The Nuclear Power are Obsolete, Because your Instability are Severe Damage from Chernobyl and Last Implants "New Generations" The Results are Ugually: The Instability, We Wants The Nukes? The Lobbies..Not the Pleople, and the better conseguences...Cancer...and CO.Use Your MIND!

[JonThm]

Global Warming is fiction from nuclear power, so you are stooges!

[JonThm]

Global Warming in nuclear power PR. So Greenpeace are nuclear stooges!