Call to expand nuclear power use attacked by greens

Call to expand nuclear power use attacked by greens

Apr 19 - Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

CALLS for the government to make greater use of nuclear power instead of windfarms were denounced by environmental groups yesterday.

The Sunday Herald, The Herald's sister paper, reported that the David Hume Institute, the Edinburgh-based economic think tank, intends to publish a report urging ministers to reconsider nuclear power and abandon renewable resources such as wind power.

Professor David Simpson, founding director of the Fraser of Allander Institute and former professor of economics at Strathclyde University, commissioned the report, which was leaked to the newspaper. He is due to deliver the report at the Royal Society of Edinburgh this week.

He claimed that the cost of generating electricity from wind power was twice as high as from nuclear power and gas. Extra costs generated by renewable energy were adding about 2% to domestic electricity bills, he added.

However, Friends of the Earth Scotland said calls for new nuclear power plants in Scotland were "environmental and economic madness".

Dr Dan Barlow, Friends of the Earth Scotland's head of research, said: "Claims that nuclear power would be better than renewables, such as wind, simply don't add up.

"For an organisation which puts so much faith in the ability of the market to deliver, this report conveniently forgets that when it comes to nuclear power the market has already spoken. Despite decades of support and billions of pounds in public subsidy nuclear power remains an uneconomic, unsafe and unwanted energy technology.

"A return to nuclear power would be environmental and economic madness."