Nuclear power's a good thing. It will only make your bills go up a little bit. ?

I wasn't trying to be objectionable M0nica, I apologise if it came across that way.

We have to find a way of replacing the energy that is currently generated by fossil fuels. We can either put the research into renewables which are clean and quick to develop, or we can put it into nuclear which will take decades to build and come online, and which gives us an unmanageable problem for future generations.

Its renewables for me.

I am not anti-renewables. I take exception to you saying this as I have been a consistent supporter of renewables on GN. have been banging on about tidal lagoons for a decade or more and supported the Severn Barrier. But I am a realist and I am aware that there are still real problems, at present, with too heavier a dependence renewables.

Currently they cannot supply power 24/7/365 reliably and be switched on and off with demand and so far plans for power storage has been problematic. especially seasonal rather than diurnal storage.. The weeks in winter of clear skies, very cold temperatures and no wind

The National Grid has also, in recent years, had to prepare contingency plans to deal with partial or complete blackout on the grid caused by a sudden surge of power through the system from wind turbines off shore, or sudden drops in power. There are a network of diesel generators all over the country ready to fire up to get the Grid up and running again, should this happen.

These are all real problems and will not go away just because we want them to.

I have a site called Gridwatch gridwatch.co.uk/in my favourites. It shows our power consumption and the sources it comes from on a 10 minute basis and I can see how variable renewable power is, dependent entirely on the weather. I often recommend this site. It brings a cold blast of reality into discussion on renewable power, when you realise how variable it is. But of course cold blasts of reality is not what people want.

Thanks for answering WWM2

Oh he knows it is a real problem, but his logic is that unless we stop using carbon, there will be no world worth worrying about. To be honest in his gloomy estimation, it is too late in any case. He spends his working life trying to mitigate against the harm being done. But he has never been known for his optimism?.

At the moment there is little alternative, but we must hope that the scientists come up with an alternative source of energy that does no harm.

What does your environmental son think of the waste problem?

I'm willing to be convinced its all going to be OK but I'm not hearing anything that convinces me.

My preference is renewables in all its forms, but I have also been convinced by my environmental son that nuclear power has to be in the mix in preference to any carbon fuel.

Serious question M0nica. Why are you so anti renewables?

I am anti-nuclear because of the dangers of waste and accidents, which in my mind far outweigh any short term benefits of low carbon power. The investment that will be put into nuclear power stations could make us self sufficient on renewables relatively quickly.

M0nica

Granny23 A new version of eat or heat? Either cover our fields with solar panels or grow crops?

Well, for a start, building regulations could require that all new builds have solar panels, both for water heating and photvoltaic.

And retrofit older properties...

That would include industrial buildings as well as houses...

Motorway verges, roundabouts, hillsides unsuitable for cultivation... ?

Of course, sheep can, and do, graze under arrays of PV panels...

That would save a bit of land..

Granny23 A new version of eat or heat? Either cover our fields with solar panels or grow crops?

More investment in Nuclear power = more nuclear waste to be disposed of and more chance of a nuclear 'Accident' More investment in wind, wave, hydro and solar power = no dangerous waste. Scotland is an ideal location for all of the above, except perhaps Solar Power, but the South of England WOULD, with decent investment, be able to use Solar to produce much of their Electricity.

I was a physics student 40 years ago. At the time, "work" was going into dealing with nuclear waste. 40 years on, no progress. A colleague was at Dounreay when the waste down the hole exploded quite dramatically in the seventies, blew the top off the buried storage unit. They are still finding the radioactive particles on the beaches today.

Nuclear waste is radioactive for hundreds of years. Sometimes for 10s of thousands of years.

I definitely wouldn't be staking my pension on it.

Your last paragraph? That included me . We certainly knew about climate change then.

Who said anything about 'hoping something would come up'. Work is already going on into ways of dealing with nuclear waste

Most of our renewable energy industries are with us because people worked on them even when coal and gas were cheap and there were no worries about global warming and reasearchers developed the technology because we couldn't know what the future might hold.

M0nica

We may not know how to deal with nuclear waste now, but methods of dealing with it safely may well be developed in the future.

How long have we had nuclear power produced electricity?

The first commercial reactor was opened in 1956. So, in nearly 70 years no solution to the problem of nuclear waste has been found...

I'm not sure I'm happy about trusting to a mythical method which might be developed at some unspecified time in the future.

They may well be. But for now, sticking the waste down a hole and hoping something comes up isn't a responsible attitude.

And as Scotty might say, "ye canna change the laws of physics"

We may not know how to deal with nuclear waste now, but methods of dealing with it safely may well be developed in the future.

Grandmabatty

Hasn't Gove approved opening a coal mine? This (mis) government seem to only hearken back instead of planning for the future. Wind power, solar power, hydro power and other forms of renewable energy should be funded more I think.

they have brought legislation in to phase out coal too! what on earth!

I’ve always been against nuclear energy for all the reasons mentioned, but now, since the war in Ukraine, I’m not sure any longer. I just don’t know.

Baggs

Nuclear energy is the best current option for reliable low carbon energy so if it's low carbon energy that's needed then it makes sense to go for it. The renewables that are available currently are not reliable enough to depend on entirely, nor do they produce enough for our needs.

For those who are anti-nuclear, fracking is probably the next realistic best option but a lot of people are scared of that too.

Nuclear energy produces by-products that we do not know how to handle, and will not be able to forget about even if we bury them down a deep hole. Which is basically the plan right now.

Fracking is just another way of extracting fossil fuels.

Scotland was able to produce something like 97% of its energy needs last year from renewables, consistently.

Now we learn that nuclear isn't even going to help with costs, its actually going to be more expensive.

I can't say I'm convinced.

I can never understand why we don't have a massive push on saving energy rather than making it.

One example would be switching off all street lights between 2am and 5am. I've lived somewhere where this happened - crime didn't rise, nature benefited and costs and energy were saved. Just think how much less money and energy would be used if this happened nationwide.

Nuclear energy is the best current option for reliable low carbon energy so if it's low carbon energy that's needed then it makes sense to go for it. The renewables that are available currently are not reliable enough to depend on entirely, nor do they produce enough for our needs.

For those who are anti-nuclear, fracking is probably the next realistic best option but a lot of people are scared of that too.

volver

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61431305.amp

Kwarteng says that financing the introduction of nuclear power stations will probably make bills more expensive. They take decades to build and come online and their waste is dangerous for thousands of years.

They are the cornerstone of the governments response to the need to move to low carbon.

Daft ideas are coming thick and fast today, aren't they?

Yes, every morning when I turn on Radio4 when I wake up, I wonder what fantasy the government will be spouting. Are these the same nuclear power stations that Johnson said he was going to build one a year of?

I am anti nuclear also, mainly because of the longevity of the radioactive waste and its disposal.

I'm very anti-nuclear, like you both, I think.

But I thought there would be more comments about how this is actually going to make fuel bills go up.

Hasn't Gove approved opening a coal mine? This (mis) government seem to only hearken back instead of planning for the future. Wind power, solar power, hydro power and other forms of renewable energy should be funded more I think.

I have been saying about the dangerous waste from Nuclear power stations for years , my children don’t agree but my Grandchildren are agreeing with me