Archived press release

Nuclear not the answer

7 November 2006

The International Energy Agency is right to warn of the economic and environmental threats of a continued use of dirty fossil fuels, Friends of the Earth said today, but the organisation said there was no case for nuclear power to be part of the future energy mix.

The environmental organisation said that nuclear power was a dangerous distraction from the safe solutions to the global crises of climate change (2).

Friends of the Earth Energy Campaigner Neil Crumpton said:

"The world urgently needs to move to cleaner, safer energy sources if we are to tackle the challenge of climate change. But nuclear power cannot make a major contribution to curbing carbon dioxide emissions. Globally nuclear power currently supplies around three per cent of global energy - at a high economic and environmental cost. Renewable energy sources can supply considerably more than even the Agency's highest future global energy forecasts. There are vast solar energy resources in the world's hot deserts, for example, which can be converted to electricity by simple and safe mirror-based technologies. Globally, these could generate power on a scale of between ten and hundred times greater than any realistic nuclear expansion.

"The world's governments have a collective choice and opportunity to now invest in the vast resources of renewable energy. Developed countries have a responsibility to take a lead in investing in clean safe renewable energy sources and assist developing nations move forward to a low carbon future."

Notes

1) www.iea.org/Textbase/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=187

2) Globally, according to the IEA's own figures, renewable sources provide 13.3 per cent of all energy used - double the contribution of nuclear power. Renewable sources meets 45 per cent of all Norway's energy needs, about 20 per cent of Austria and Finland's needs and about 15 per cent of those of Portugal and Switzerland. Most of the energy used from renewable sources comes from the burning of wood, straw, dung and other forms of biomass - much in developing countries.

See: International Energy Agency 2005 "Renewables in global energy supply: an IEA fact sheet"

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust