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Nuclear power announcement: CND comment PDF Print E-mail

9 January 2008: For immediate release

In advance of Thursday’s expected go-ahead for a new round of nuclear power stations the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament today dismissed the Government’s indicated direction as failing to really address the need to avoid catastrophic climate change, dismissing nuclear power as “dirty, dangerous and expensive”.

Kate Hudson, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said, “Nuclear power is not the answer to climate change or concerns over energy security. The Government’s own advisers say that even with a doubling of nuclear capacity carbon emissions would only drop by 8% - that’s compared with the 60% target set by Government. [see note 2] As uranium fuel becomes scarcer more energy is put into extracting it, so by 2050 nuclear is expected to generate as much CO2 per kilowatt as a gas-fired power station. [see note 3]

She continued “Investing in nuclear will divert skills and resources away from areas that can have a much more significant impact on cutting carbon emissions, such as large-scale renewable projects and carbon capture and storage technologies. New nuclear build will hardly reduce our reliance on imported oil and gas – the vast majority of which are burnt directly as fuel, not used in power stations but will create a series of new risks, especially in terms of nuclear waste”.

“This decision is incredibly short sighted. In the 50 years Britain has been experimenting with nuclear power successive governments have yet to come up with a long-term strategy for coping with the waste that will remain hazardous for millennia. To build-up our stockpile of material that we have no safe way to store is madness, especially as any underground dump would take decades to prepare.”

“Embarking on the creation of a new generation of nuclear plants also sends the wrong message internationally, where building a nuclear reactor is a necessary step in the creation of a nuclear weapon. If we want any credibility in discouraging the proliferation of nuclear weapons, we cannot discourage others’ from building reactors whilst we construct many more of our own.”

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Notes to Editors:

  1. For further information and interviews please contact Ben Soffa, CND's Press & Communications Officer, on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
  2. Sustainable Development Commission: http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/060306.html, an 8% cut would be achieved by 2035, the 60% target is due to be met by 2050
  3. Oxford Research Group report: http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/pdf/secureenergy.pdf with Page 40 addressing the carbon impact of uranium extraction
  4. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe’s biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 35,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere. www.cnduk.org