Whatever you might think about nuclear power, it is clearly deeply worrying that a science minister appears to think that it is renewable energy:
In a debate on energy security in the House of Lords, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the Science and Innovation Minister, was asked whether he would reclassify nuclear as renewable energy. He said: “Lady O’Cathain offered me the opportunity of . . . agreeing that nuclear is a renewable source of energy — it clearly is so.â€
Um… clearly.
For the record, what we call nuclear power is the generation of energy via the fission of uranium-235. However plentiful the ultimate supply of uranium, a hotly debated topic, it is clearly not infinite – and arguably less so than oil.
One thing that the pro-nuclear lobby has yet to explain is why we would want to replace an oil-based economy that sees a number of unstable, oil-rich nations with a disproportionate amount of global influence, with a uranium-based economy that would see a number of unstable, uranium-rich nations with a disproportionate amount of global influence. The old line about history repeating itself – first as tragedy, then as farce – would appear to apply.
And that’s leaving entirely aside the environmental issues.