This nuclear deal is good for Britain and the battle against climate change

[FBaggins]

Although the UK-French nuclear power deal signed by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy today does not add up to much in terms of its details – a few hundred millions here and there, not much in the multi-billion-pound world of civil nuclear generation – it does send an important political signal: Britain and France will not follow Germany down the path of eschewing nuclear power. Instead, the governments and industries of both countries will work closely together to up the pace of nuclear new-build in the UK.

This matters, because within the next 10 years all but one of our current fleet of nuclear reactors will be decommissioned – meaning the UK will lose nearly a fifth of its electricity-generation capacity, all of it zero-carbon. Even if we build windmills flat-out and stick solar panels on as many buildings as we can afford, this lost nuclear capacity must be urgently replaced – or Britain's carbon emissions will inevitably rise as we burn more coal and gas to bridge the gap.

It is instructive that the German Green party is now weakening climate targets at a state level – precisely because the nuclear phase-out leaves the country more reliant on domestic dirty brown coal and imported Russian gas. Despite insisting that climate change remains their pre-eminent concern, greens around Europe insist on putting their anti-nuclear ideology ahead of any concern for the stability of our planet's climate. Both Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are effectively lobbying for more gas plants in their anti-nuclear campaigning, making a mockery of their years spent raising awareness of global warming.

Although a small number of "environmentalist" protesters (eight at the last count) have already moved onto the proposed site for the UK's two first new nuclear stations at Hinkley Point in Somerset, today's Anglo-French deal makes it far less likely that they will have their way and stop or delay new nuclear construction. Hinkley is in line for Britain's first two EPRs – a new "generation-III"-type power station able to pump out a hefty 1.6 gigawatts of zero-carbon power at full capacity. The EPR also includes protection against airline impacts for its reactor dome and an impressive array of safety features, which would make a Fukushima-style meltdown vanishingly unlikely and any radiation properly containable even if the worst ever did happen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/nuclear-deal-britain-climate-change

[intaglio]

1. No it isn't n/t

[kristopher]

2. +1

The conservatives think it is, so that should tell you something.