Labour Hiding Nuclear Sympathy? Tell Electorate Before They Vote

Environmentalists are warning that the Labour government may be sympathetic to proposals from British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) to build new nuclear power stations in the UK. This could mean a Wylfa B on the north Anglesey site.

Friends of the Earth have been trying, without success so far, to get the government which is the sole shareholder of BNFL to release the company's corporate plan to public scrutiny.

The green pressure group say that renewable energy technologies are the way forward for the world in reducing fossil fuel emissions that are causing global warming. Nuclear power is dangerous, toxic and expensive in stark contrast to renewables which are much cleaner, safer and far more appropriate especially for the developing world.

British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) and British Energy have been lobbying the government for "a nuclear renaissance", and there may have been a shift in Labour's stance. The party's election manifesto dropped its 1997 pledge to block the building of new plants. Then, it stated, there was "no economic case for building any new nuclear power stations". The new manifesto makes no such reference and says: "Coal and nuclear energy currently play important roles in ensuring diversity in our sources of electricity
generation."

FOE Cymru say that there is huge resource of renewable energy to be harnessed in and around Wales and the UK. For example, three potentially major renewable energy sources are currently being considered off the north Wales coast alone: a large tidal lagoon on Rhyl Flats, an underwater marine current turbine array off Wylfa headland, together with offshore windfarms. On average, the marine current array and the tidal lagoon could possibly generate more than Wylfa and Trawsfynydd nuclear stations have done (1). In deeper water there is a vast offshore wind resource, three times the
current UK electricity consumption.

Neil Crumpton, energy spokesperson for FOE Cymru said:

"We ask Labour to clarify their stance on nuclear power before people vote, because this is such a far reaching issue. Nuclear power produces toxic waste which has to be stored over many generations, it provide numerous opportunities for international terrorism and attack and it is expensive. In contrast renewable technologies such as solar panels, windfarms, tidal generators, marine current arrays and energy crops are a far preferable way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions to tackle climate change."

Notes

1) Wylfa station has averaged 660MW over lifetime to date and Trawsfynydd station averaged 300MW. The large tidal lagoon being considered could average roughly 260MW and the marine current array could average several hundred megawatts.