Nuclear Power

We read from time to time that unless more power stations of one sort or another are built in short order we shall suffer serious power cuts. If true where is the urgency to build these new power stations and which types are going to be built. Supposedly we are to have both coal and nuclear power but in the case of coal only if the pollution problem has been sorted out. The building of new nuclear power stations has been put on hold so that another safety evaluation can be undertaken following the tsunami damage to Fukushima plant in Japan. Why we should need to have this safety evaluation is pure politics of the worst kind. It is meant to assuage peoples' fears but how many of us, apart from the nuclear antis who will always be anti, are afraid that the new nuclear power stations will be worse than the existing ones? These have an unbelievably good safety record in this country and any concern about an Act of God like a tsunami affecting our power stations is stretching credulity beyond reason. What then should be done to ensure that we do not have power cuts? We know that solar power, wind farms and the like are not the answer and we know that CO2 emissions do not cause global warming (see Christopher Booker in today's Sunday Telegraph). We should thus go full speed ahead with our nuclear plants building programme and also with our coal fired power stations even if there is no technology around today to scrub its emissions.