Skip to main content

Nuclear Energy Finds New Support in U.K.

On three separate occasions in January, I called British newspapers to task for fronting public opinion polls about nuclear energy while failing to note that these polls were conducted prior to Russia's natural gas shutoff to Eastern Europe only a few weeks before.

Well, after waiting for a few months, a poll was published Monday that shows public opinion beginning to move the other way:
The U.K. public's support for nuclear power has increased as energy prices soar, with almost half of Britons saying they're not prepared to pay a premium for electricity from renewable sources, a study said.

About 36 percent of Britons want to see an increase in nuclear capacity, compared with 29 percent one year ago, according to a study by KPMG International and YouGov Plc. About 45 percent of the survey respondents said they want a reduction in nuclear power, less than the 58 percent last year.

(snip)

About 44 percent of the survey respondents said they weren't prepared to pay ``a single penny more for green energy,'' the report said.

U.K. power prices doubled last year after an increase in the cost of fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and natural gas.
For more from AFP, click here.

Despite this, some politicians are still anxious for the U.K. to become overdependent on Russian natural gas:
Britain, Europe's biggest natural-gas consumer, should meet its electricity needs by relying on gas-fired plants and renewable energy sources in the next decade rather than nuclear power, a group of lawmakers said in a report released Sunday.

Nuclear power plants would take too long to build, would need subsidies and may cut carbon emissions less than expected, the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee said.

The answer to meeting the country's energy needs lies in many more gas- powered electricity plants and increasing sources of renewable energy like wind and waves, said the 81-page report, titled "Keeping the Lights On."
As if one winter at the mercy of Russian foreign policy and natural gas price volatility wasn't enough.

Thankfully, there are some folks in Britain who are talking sense:
[Harlow MP Bill]Rammell criticised the committee's outright rejection of nuclear power as "not sensible" and said the need to cut carbon emissions had to be considered.

"I think we would be crazy to rule out nuclear power," he said. "We're going to be a net importer of gas and electricity before long. With that and the need to tackle climate change, I think we're right to look at it as an option."
And in Scotland, organized labor is lining up in favor of nuclear energy too. Here's hoping this is the start of a trend.

Technorati tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin