Government Report Gives New Wind to Green Energy
May 15 - Independent on Sunday, The
Wind power is better than nuclear power stations for tackling global warming, the Government's official environmental advisers will tell Tony Blair this week.
The Sustainable Development Commission's report " financed by the pro-
nuclear Department of Trade and Industry " aims to start the fight-back
against the increasing drive to build at least 10 new nuclear power stations in
Britain. It sets out to correct 'systematic misrepresentation' about wind power
by influential nuclear advocates.
Late last week, the Government's advisers on nuclear waste, the Committee on
Radioactive Waste Management, warned that no decision should be taken to build
new nuclear stations until it had determined how to dispose of its highly
dangerous detritus. Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, takes a similar
position.
But yesterday the new Secretaryof State for Trade and Industry, Alan Johnson,
who replaced the nuclear sceptic Patricia Hewitt, committed himself to reviewing
the Government's sceptical stance on new reactors this year. This follows a
leaked memo addressed to him from the department's director- general of energy
policy, criticising Mrs Beckett and pressing him to decide on the expansion of
nuclear power.
The commission's 176-page report concludes that 'wind power, along with other
renewables, offers the only truly sustainable domestically sourced option for
electric generation over the long term'.
Jonathon Porritt, the chairman of the commission, which includes
representatives of business and local government, but not environmental groups,
adds that it is 'trying to provide an antidote to what we see as systematic
misrepresentation of the arguments for and against wind power'.
The report, to be published on Thursday, concludes that wind energy is quiet,
economic and cheaper than nuclear power and " surprisingly " popular
with people living near the turbines.
It finds that modern wind turbines, 350 yards away, produce about 35
decibels, the same level of noise as experienced in a 'quiet bedroom'. And it
calculates that it produces power at about the current price of electricity, far
less than nuclear power.
It also dismisses a claim by nuclear advocates that wind power is so
unreliable that it will require expensive back-up from new conventional or
nuclear power stations.