last updated 10th August 05
By 4ecotips

Renewable sources of energy preferred

News that the British public are hostile to nuclear power is hailed by the UK Green party as adding further weight to the widespread demand for an end to the use of nuclear energy.

A poll has found that 59 % of those questioned believe it would be irresponsible to build more nuclear power stations while problems remain in the disposing of nuclear waste, and 79% back renewabls as a replacement for imported energy.

Dr Chris Busby, Green Party science and technology spokesperson, comments: “Britain has been generating radioactive waste for over 50 years, yet no progress has been made on how to dispose of it. Current strategies for dealing with waste are unreliable, unsafe and ruinously expensive.

“The nuclear power industry has failed us. Instead of providing cheap, clean energy it has cost the taxpayer millions in subsidies as well as causing concern over safety, pollution and the threat of a terrorist attack.”

According to Busby, the risk to human health alone should force the government to reconsider its apparently unswerving support of the nuclear power industry. He says it did not take an accident on the scale of Chernobyl for radioactive material to wreck lives; the dangers of exposure to the low level radiation found in the vicinity of nuclear power plants are well documented - the area surrounding Sellafield, the nuclear reprocessing plant situated in Cumbria, has a rate of childhood leukaemia ten times that of the national average.

He goes on: “In the light of such incontrovertible evidence against the use of nuclear power, it is astonishing that the Government should still insist on spending such vast sums of money supporting this industry, and at the same time fail so dismally to invest in any real research into renewable alternatives. In 2000, almost 60% of the government energy R&D funds went on nuclear power, with renewable energy sources receiving a paltry 23%.”

Greens are calling on the Government to rule out the nuclear option once and for all, and to phase-out nuclear power stations as quickly as possible. Our energy needs could easily be met by a combination of renewable energy, such as wind, wave and solar power, and energy conservation measures.