Saturday, March 31, 2012

Article about future of nuclear power in the UK


Rob Edwards writes:


What is the future of nuclear power in the UK?


So is nuclear power doomed?

Unlikely. The industry is politically very powerful and has successfully raised itself from the dead several times in the past. It has prevailed upon successive UK governments to take a series of "facilitative actions" to remove barriers to nuclear development. Last November, the pro-nuclear Department of Energy and Climate Change helped set up a high-powered programme management board with nuclear companies to try to prevent the nuclear project going off the rails. Britain's nuclear industry had "lost its international edge", the board said, yet it was now embarked on the UK's "most challenging infrastructure programme".
Later on, it says:

  Not everyone agrees with the British government's insistence that nuclear has to be the way forward. The Scottish government, for example, believes it can avoid replacing its two nuclear stations by rapidly developing renewable energy instead. This week, Scottish ministers said they had already beaten their target to provide more than 30% of Scotland's electricity from renewable sources.
Well good for them.  We'll see if they can keep up with the inevitable growing demand.

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