I'm an environmentalist, but also (hopefully) a pragmatist. I don't think that we will be able to get all of our energy from renewables, so everything does have to be on the table.
My problem with nuclear is two-fold. Firstly, the enormous cost of clean-up. I'll take your word for it that, dealt with properly, the waste is fairly benign. However, last year, a report by the National Audit Office came out suggesting that it will cost £73 billion to decommission the UK's old nuclear sites. I think this is staggering - and surely suggests that nuclear is too expensive. (That's just the clean up, not the building of the plants, running, etc, etc).
Then there's the sticky politics surrounding the plants themselves. The government may want to start building new reactors around the UK, but the length of time it'll take them to get through the planning stages (years and years of local residents' objections, etc) let alone build times means the UK will hit the looming energy gap with barely any new nuclear plants, no real investment in renewables, and no North Sea gas to burn in our gas-fired plants!
I'm an environmentalist, but also (hopefully) a pragmatist. I don't think that we will be able to get all of our energy from renewables, so everything does have to be on the table.
My problem with nuclear is two-fold. Firstly, the enormous cost of clean-up. I'll take your word for it that, dealt with properly, the waste is fairly benign. However, last year, a report by the National Audit Office came out suggesting that it will cost £73 billion to decommission the UK's old nuclear sites. I think this is staggering - and surely suggests that nuclear is too expensive. (That's just the clean up, not the building of the plants, running, etc, etc).
Source is here if you're interested - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7215688.stm
Then there's the sticky politics surrounding the plants themselves. The government may want to start building new reactors around the UK, but the length of time it'll take them to get through the planning stages (years and years of local residents' objections, etc) let alone build times means the UK will hit the looming energy gap with barely any new nuclear plants, no real investment in renewables, and no North Sea gas to burn in our gas-fired plants!