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“Nuclear can save the world”…campaigner A leading environmental campaigner has challenged the nuclear industry “to save the world” following a blistering attack on the anti-nuclear lobby at the NIA’s flagship Energy Choices conference. Highly-rated author Mark Lynas, a climate-change specialist who advises the Government of the Maldives, took the guest speaker slot at Energy Choices to deliver a stinging reproach to anti-nuke supporters, UK politicians – and the nuclear industry itself - ahead of the Copenhagen summit. Lynas said future historians would look back at this generation as having made two major mistakes in tackling climate change. “The first was to waste 20 years arguing over fractional emissions cuts when the real challenge was to go to zero,” he said. “The second was for the greens – who were the earliest to recognise climate change and start demanding that humanity do something about it – to reject nuclear as a significant mitigation option. The fact that the environmental movement is solidly anti-nuclear has in my view been disastrous for our efforts to tackle climate change.” He went on: “There are some concrete examples of this around the world, where nuclear power plants were built in the 1970s, and then mothballed after pressure from greens, or even converted directly to coal.” “In other words, environmentalists forced one of the cleanest sources of power to be replaced by one of the dirtiest. I am not sure how much carbon has accumulated in the atmosphere as a result of anti-nuclear campaigning by the greens, but I suspect cumulatively it is probably in the hundreds of millions of tonnes.” “If that isn’t a major historical mistake, I don’t know what is.” Lynas mentioned the Zwentendorf nuclear plant in Austria that was never turned on after an anti-nuke referendum in 1978. He criticised Greenpeace’s triumphalism at the result and the fact that the plant was turned to solar use. “…the original nuclear power plant would have produced 700MW, enough for a small city. The solar plant will produce 20 kilowatts…enough for about 12 hairdryers. If we could fuel a nation from wishful thinking, global warming would have been solved already…” Lynas said that the public was growing suspicious of climate change, both in the UK and the US, because politicians were urging them to live like “eco-warriors.” He said industry and politicians had the wrong message for the general public. “We have to talk about supply, not just reducing demand. That means producing large quantities of zero-carbon electricity.” Lynas claimed most greens were “rabidly” anti nuclear because of concerns over safety. And although these issues should be given high priority they were health and safety considerations – and not sound environmental policy. He said background radiation from UK nuclear power stations was equivalent to 1% of natural background levels and that “the public death toll from 50 years of civil nuclear power in the West is still zero. I bet you can’t say this about any other industry, particularly not coal, which kills tens of thousands each year – and also, incidentally, releases more radioactivity.” He said of anti-nuclear campaigners : “They are prisoners of their histories…” Lynas also had a side swipe at the UK political view of nuclear power. “The Lib-Dems have an irrational position on nuclear and climate change, which has been spoon-fed to them by Greenpeace. The Tories are all over the place. Labour are better, but only after making a spectacular U-turn, and are still a bit half-hearted.” “I say this to you (the nuclear industry)…Please remember that your job is to save the world.” Comments (0)
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