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The BBC has recently published two articles showing opposite ends of the political spectrum on nuclear power.

Nuclear future ‘a serious option’ proclaims the first headline. The article goes on to explain that as Hunterston B nuclear power station in Ayrshire is set to close in 2011 and Torness, in East Lothian, will [only] last until 2023, we are likely to need another nuclear power station in Scotland to prevent power cuts in the future. Full Story

Published only minutes later, the second article states that Nuclear power ‘is off the agenda’ . Apparently, labour coalition parties would attempt to block any new nuclear power.

Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael said he could not foresee any circumstances in which his colleagues at Holyrood would support such a move.
The Greens and Scottish National Party also oppose a new nuclear option.

While the Scottish Executive has set an admirable target that 40% of our power should come from renewable sources by 2020, the majority of our energy will still have to come from some other source. At present, nuclear might be the only option. Yes it has its problems, but so do all fuel sources. It may be the best of a bad bunch.

Unless we somehow reduce our very large demand for ridiculously cheap electricity, we are going to need to find a way of generating a lot of power, and time is running out. The lights might just go out if we leave them on all the time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday 23rd March 2005 in Engineering and tagged energy, Engineering, nuclear, Politics, Science, technology, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.