Vox Polis

The government are due to announce this afternoon that new nuclear power plants will be required to meet the UK’s energy needs into the future without increasing our reliance on foreign supplies of fossil fuels.  There’s considerable opposition to this from environmental groups, the Liberal Democrats and some Labour MPs but the cabinet are (publically at least) behind nuclear and there’s enough time before the next election for them to set us on the road.  There will also be funds for renewable schemes but it seems unlikely that the government will aim for more than 20% of energy supply from renewables.

My key problem with this is the way the decision appears to have been taken.  At no point during the review process has it seemed likely that the result would favour anything over than more nuclear generation.  Indeed, Tony Blair was publicly backing nuclear power as far back as May.  The decision to place increased reliance on nuclear power will have ramifications for generations to come both in terms of waste disposal and the inevitable setbacks to progress on generation from renewable sources.  In light of these long term consequences I’m, frankly, horrified at the shadowy way the review has been conducted without extensive public debate and at our prime minister’s attitude that he didn’t even need a review to make his mind up.  In a political climate of short-termism and knee jerk policy making how can we trust the government with the nation’s long term security?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Environment, Politics, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.