I know it's complicated and I really want to understand it but I just can't make sense of the government's latest proposal for new nuclear power plants. It simply doesn't add up...

1. Uranium production is forecast to peak in 2040, just ten years after the UKERC say that, in the absolute best case scenario, oil production will peak. In essence, we swap one finite resource for another - with at very best a ten year window.
2. If oil peaks earlier - UKERC suggest as early as 2016 is possible - then there simply isn't enough time to operationalise a new generation of nuclear power plants anyway.
   
3. Using new nuclear to reduce GHG emissions is nonsense. New nuclear capacity forecast by the government will just keep up with projected demand for electricity only if combined with existing or increased levels of fossil fuel generation.
   
4. Can you even begin to imagine how much Scope 3 (embodied) carbon there is in building a nuclear power station? No? Neither can the government... it's almost impossible to count Scope 3. Not exactly a good evidence base for commissioning nuclear power stations to reduce GHG emissions.
   
5. The government's plans for dealing with nuclear waste is a metaphor for their attitude to the issue: dig a hole and bury it.The scale and longitude of the implications of this go way beyond any reasonable degree of certainty. It's the most profound act of denial in modern state history.

I've said this before and I love the metaphor - opting for nuclear power is like trying to kick alcohol addiction by starting to use heroin instead.

None of this is to say anything about leaving our waste for future generations to deal with; the proven human health implications of nuclear power plants and waste storage; the risk of catastrophic nuclear accidents or; the potential of diverting the £4bn per power plant towards genuinely renewable, GHG reducing, energy projects.

What are the alternatives? Well, it's another one of those inconvenient truths: there is actually only one way we can ultimately deal with the energy crisis in a sustainable way. We have to use about 88% less energy¹. Not possible? It will have to be because that, ultimately, is the ecological truth of our situation.

1.  See McLaren, Duncan, Simon Bullock, Nusrat Yousuf (1998) Tomorrow's World, Britain's share in a sustainable future. London: Earthscan.

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