Bristol Green Party - Letters - Nuclear power does add to the greenhouse effect

Bristol Green Party

Nuclear power does add to the greenhouse effect - Jon Lucas, 30 November 2005

To: Western Daily Press

Dear Sir/Madam

Nuclear is the not the way ahead. Sir David King is wrong to state that it is a CO2- free source ("Nuclear is way ahead", November 21). While the reactors don't emit carbon dioxide, you need to look at the whole nuclear fuel cycle to assess its contribution to greenhouse gases, and in this it is responsible for large emissions.

These take place throughout the whole process, from the mining of the uranium and milling of the ore needed for producing the power to the final transport and depositing of the waste.

The Government recently admitted that it had not made any comparison of its contribution to greenhouse gases throughout the whole fuel cycle, and German experts have assessed that in comparison with renewable energy production, nuclear's whole production cycle is responsible for four or five times more greenhouse gases than renewables.

Even if it was carbon neutral, which it isn't, it would still not be the way ahead.

While we need to do all we can to tackle climate change, radioactive waste also poses a deadly long-term threat, and we have a moral duty to minimise the effects of both, not to choose between them.

Nuclear power creates enormous problems; waste we don't know what to do with, radioactive emissions, and the unavoidable risk of accident and terrorist attack.

Yours

Jon Lucas
Bristol Green Party