The Staggers

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How many will follow Germany’s anti-nuclear lead?

Angela Merkel’s decision to abandon nuclear power could encourage the Lib Dems to speak out.

By George Eaton Published 31 May 2011 13:40

Germany's extraordinary decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022, described by one newspaper as the energy equivalent of "the fall of the Berlin Wall", is a blow to all of those committed to reversing climate change. As the government's former chief scientist David King tells the Times (£), "It would be a big surprise if Germany can achieve the same targets as Britain for decarbonising its energy supply without nuclear."

Germany isn't large enough to have a significant impact on the world's climate; rather, the risk is of a domino effect in which other countries follow Merkel's lead. The SNP's energy minister, Fergus Ewing, said the move was the same "route that Scotland wishes to go down". A week ago, Switzerland announced that it would phase out nuclear power by 2036.

As the graphic below shows, nuclear power is now an established part of the energy mix in most developed countries. It would be impossible to abandon nuclear power without a catastrophic increase in carbon emissions, as Mark Lynas warned in the New Statesman earlier this year.

In Britain, the backlash against atomic energy has been fairly mild, though it's notable that 55 MPs (including Zac Goldsmith, Ming Campbell, Charles Kennedy, Tim Farron and Jo Swinson) have now signed an early-day motion calling on the government to "suspend plans" for a new nuclear programme. In addition, a recent YouGov poll found that more of the public oppose nuclear power (48 per cent) than support it (40 per cent).

The coalition has pledged to build eight new nuclear power stations by 2025 with the proviso that there is no public subsidy. However, as the energy and climate change select committee noted earlier this month, the government is planning to provide investors with long-term contracts and guaranteed prices – a subsidy in all but name.

Chris Huhne remains sceptical of nuclear power, but nonetheless reaffirmed the government's commitment to it following the post-Fukushima safety review. All the same, we can expect many in his party to urge Britain to follow Germany's example in the weeks ahead.

The 55 anti-nuclear MPs

Beith, Alan: Liberal Democrats
Benton, Joe: Labour Party
Brake, Tom: Liberal Democrats
Brooke, Annette: Liberal Democrats
Burt, Lorely: Liberal Democrats
Campbell, Menzies: Liberal Democrats
Caton, Martin: Labour Party
Chapman, Jenny: Labour Party
Corbyn, Jeremy: Labour Party
Crockart, Mike: Liberal Democrats
Dakin, Nic: Labour Party
Durkan, Mark: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Edwards, Jonathan: Plaid Cymru
Engel, Natascha: Labour Party
Esterson, Bill: Labour Party
Farron, Tim: Liberal Democrats
Flynn, Paul: Labour Party
George, Andrew: Liberal Democrats
Gilbert, Stephen: Liberal Democrats
Goldsmith, Zac: Conservative Party
Hancock, Mike: Liberal Democrats
Havard, Dai: Labour Party
Hopkins, Kelvin: Labour Party
Horwood, Martin: Liberal Democrats
James, Sian C: Labour Party
Kaufman, Gerald: Labour Party
Kennedy, Charles: Liberal Democrats
Leech, John: Liberal Democrats
Lloyd, Stephen: Liberal Democrats
Lucas, Caroline Green Party
McDonnell, Alasdair: Social Democratic and Labour Party
McDonnell, John: Labour Party
Meacher, Michael: Labour Party
Meale, Alan: Labour Party
Mearns, Ian: Labour Party
Munt, Tessa: Liberal Democrats
Qureshi, Yasmin: Labour Party
Ritchie, Margaret: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Robertson, Angus: Scottish National Party
Rogerson, Dan: Liberal Democrats
Sanders, Adrian: Liberal Democrats
Shannon, Jim: Democratic Unionist Party
Singh, Marsha: Labour Party
Swinson, Jo: Liberal Democrats
Vaz, Valerie: Labour Party
Weatherley, Mike: Conservative Party
Weir, Mike: Scottish National Party
Whiteford, Eilidh: Scottish National Party
Whitehead, Alan: Labour Party
Williams, Hywel: Plaid Cymru
Williams, Mark: Liberal Democrats
Willott, Jenny: Liberal Democrats
Wishart, Pet: Scottish National
Wood, Mike: Labour Party
Wright, Simon: Liberal Democrats

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Tags: Nuclear Power

More from George Eaton

11 comments

Thu, 2011-06-02 19:40 — GerryWolff

It is, of course, nonsense to say "It would be impossible to abandon nuclear power without a catastrophic increase in carbon emissions" or "It would be a big surprise if Germany can achieve the same targets as Britain for decarbonising its energy supply without nuclear."

In general, renewables can be built much faster than nuclear power plants. Last year, Germany installed 8.8 GW of photovoltaic solar panels, producing about the same amount of electricity as a 1 GW nuclear plant. But it would take much longer – about seven years – to build that nuclear plant.

Several reports show that there are more than enough renewable sources of power to meet our needs for energy (not just electricity), now and for the foreseeable future (see http://www.energyfair.org.uk/pren and http://www.mng.org.uk/gh/scenarios.htm ).

And nuclear power is, by far, the most expensive way of generating electricity. A report by Versicherungsforen Leipzig GmbH, a company that specialises in actuarial calculations, shows that if the nuclear industry were to insure fully against the costs of a nuclear disaster, the price of nuclear electricity would rise to € 2.36 per kWh, far beyond the cost of any other source of electricity (see http://www.energyfair.org.uk/reports#liabilities ).

Connie Hedegaard, the EU commissioner for climate change, has stated publicly that offshore wind power is cheaper than nuclear power (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/17/wind-cheaper-nuclear-e... ).

Tue, 2011-05-31 14:31 — Indu Pendent (not verified)

Before 2008, the last government borrowed and spent £350Bn. But what did our kids get for is?

This enomous amount (which is not magic money and does have to be repaid) is several times more than would have been needed to pay for the infrastructure to make the UK self sufficient in green energy.

We could by now have a world class industry supplying green energy products like wind turnbines. Indstead the last government presided over the steepest decline in UK industry since the 1970's

Is Red the new green?

Tue, 2011-05-31 15:04 — chris8hr (not verified)

@Indu - self sufficiency in the global energy market is tantamount to having no hand in the game. At the moment the rest of the world play the game by Eurocentric rules and US/EU diktat/influence. This looks like it is changing before our eyes, thus losing interest in the most dangerous part of the game - resource control - is a short sighted goal. As for the environment, lets talk about China and the US before we talk about the UK.

Tue, 2011-05-31 16:46 — Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley (not verified)

The thing that concerns me and what I understand about nuclear power is that it produces the most toxic waste of all, in any event ie in an emergency as we can see in Japan or even with the best long term management technologies the world can produce ie burying it. Are we like ostriches or what? Nuclear waste is still toxic even though it has been produced in the interests of clean technologies invented to combat the risks associated with global warming - as such it's become so complex it can't really be bought and sold cheaply anymore because hey! so many people can get a job out of it- N.B including this equally toxic breed of overpaid and over pensioned executive types.

What a terrible dreadful risk we're dumping on future generations, some might say. Are we really so clever our children will be able to make it all safe, later?

Tue, 2011-05-31 18:19 — Lftrsuk

Mrs. Hyde-Hartley,

Why don't you research Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs)which can produce energy and burn-up all of the existing nuclear waste. LFTRs only produce one-thirtieth of the amount of waste of our other reactors and the worst of it decays to background radiation levels in 300 years - easily, cheaply and safely stored.

What a terrible dreadful risk is global warming - maybe our childrens' concerns will be more targeted at getting enough food, than worrying about the UK's nuclear waste stored in dry-casks, covering an area the size of half-a-dozen football pitches.

Tue, 2011-05-31 18:21 — stevem1

I have every faith in the germans and salute them for this brave decision. They will fill the gap with renewables despite what the nuclear lobby says. The 55 MP's are also to be congratulated for their stance. I just wish there were many more of them.

Sun, 2011-11-06 06:52 — Calvin1

Nuclear waste is still toxic even though it has been produced in the interests of clean technologies invented to combat the risks associated with global warming - as such it's become so complex it can't really be bought and sold cheaply anymore because hey! so many people can get a job out of it- N.B including this equally toxic breed of overpaid and over pensioned executive types. http://www.developyourcareer.net/

Tue, 2011-05-31 20:24 — Indu Pendent (not verified)

@stevem

Would you know if the 55 MPs (mainly Labour) are the same ones that supported the last government borrowing £350Bn before 2008. Did they support how it was spent? If so what has changed their mind now?

Tue, 2011-05-31 20:41 — matthew fox (not verified)

It looks like the Pro-nuclear lobby have never heard of Al Qaeda.

Wed, 2011-06-01 00:04 — Golding (not verified)

‘ .. PROBLEMS OF NUCLEAR POWER ‘

• Timeframe (they can’t be built on large scale within the time necessary)

• Economics (unknown real cost even with subsidies and are more expensive than alternatives)

• Uranium supply (limited economically recoverable reserves leading to fast breeders and large scale plutonium reprocessing)

• Proliferation and security (existing threats are real, nuclear expansion will led to thousands of tons of plutonium in global circulation/transport no
adequate security and safeguards exist)’

Shaun Burnie 2010

Wed, 2011-06-01 00:50 — dhome

Switzerland also pulled the pin on nuclear 3 days ago. No new units will be built and they will start decommissioning all the existing units from 2019. Looks like the whole country will follow Basel and Geneva and only use renewables with hydro and wind forming the base.

Btw: Those who know the Basel area will know that the entire (massive) Swiss chemical industry involving, amongst others, Bayer, Novartis, Syngenta, Ciba (BASF), Clariant, Hoffmann-La Roche is based there.
The Basel canton’s constitution has stipulated that from January 2009; these companies can only use certified green power. So another silly story bites the dust – that industry cannot rely on renewables for base load supply.