Commenting on energy minister Ed Miliband's announcements on more nuclear power stations today, Ben Ayliffe, head of Greenpeace's nuclear campaign, said:

"Miliband can name as many sites as he likes for new nuclear power stations, but the fact remains that the figures simply don't add up.

"Even the Thatcher government realised this. It was exactly 20 years ago to the day that they pulled nuclear plants from the energy privatisation scheme when they realised that nuclear power was not an attractive investment for private companies. And it still isn't.

"Our lawyers will be examining this announcement very closely. You can't justify building more nuclear power stations when there is no solution to radioactive waste and when international regulators are saying there are huge uncertainties surrounding the basic safety of new reactor designs."

Commenting on the announcement of a new coal policy and Ed Miliband's acceptance of the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee that the power sector has to be zero carbon by 2030, Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said:

"Ed Miliband's recognition that we have to decarbonise the power sector is a step in the right direction, but his delivery plan doesn't go far enough. He's left it up to the Environment Agency to ensure Britain isn't lumbered with emissions from a new generation of highly-polluting coal plants long into the future, but he hasn't given the Agency the necessary powers. The Environment Agency should have been given the authority now to force new coal plants to close if their operators can't eliminate all the emissions by the early 2020s, and to guarantee that the whole power sector goes zero carbon by 2030."

He continued:

"What we really need to see is a legally enforceable emissions performance standard for power stations, like the kind already applied to cars. That would mean severely limiting the amount of CO2 they could emit for every unit of electricity they generate."

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On 9 November 1989, then Secretary of State for Energy, John Wakeham, speaking about the financing of new nuclear power stations, said "unprecedented guarantees were being sought. I am not willing to underwrite the private sector in this way." (1)

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm198889/cmhansrd/1989-11-09/Debate-1.html

Responding to Gordon Brown's speech today laying out the government's roadmap to the 2010 nuclear non-proliferation conference Greenpeace UK disarmament campaigner Louise Edge said:

"We welcome the fact that the Labour government is finally making some positive noises towards eliminating nuclear weapons - which remain one of the most serious threats facing mankind.

"However there is a fatal flaw at the heart of Gordon Brown's nuclear proposal. The fact is 90 per cent of nuclear technology and materials are dual use, so can be used to create both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. You simply can't spread nuclear power without spreading nuclear weapons technology.

"And an international nuclear fuel bank would mean a massive increase in the transportation of nuclear materials by air, land and sea - leaving them open to attacks by terrorists and to radioactive materials being stolen and made into dirty bombs.

"Gordon Brown's nuclear obsession will damage not only the UK's renewable energy policy but international security. Safe, clean renewable technology exists today and could be rolled out globally to help power a more peaceful world."

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In a report released tomorrow (Monday) the CBI is expected to call for the contribution from wind power to be reduced in favour of nuclear energy as means of decarbonising the electricity sector.

Commenting on the CBI report, Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said:

"The CBI claims to represent the interests of British industry, but by calling for wind power's contribution to our renewable energy targets to be reduced it's actually doing its members a great disservice."

He continued:

"Nuclear power is less effective than wind power at tackling climate change, while investment in renewables would create much needed British jobs in one of the few growth sectors in the global economy. Here in the UK we have one of the best renewable energy resources anywhere in the world and a manufacturing sector champing at the bit to capture the lead in marine technologies like offshore wind and tidal power."

The government's business advisory group - set up to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy - concluded in a report last week that by meeting its renewable energy targets the UK would create 250,000 jobs and generate revenue of £70bn from wind and wave technology by 2050. The report also added that by 2020 the UK could become a world leader in offshore wind, capturing 45 per cent of the global offshore wind power industry.

Instead of working to realise this much needed boost to the UK economy, Greenpeace believes the CBI has prioritised representing members like EDF which are interested only in pushing a new generation of nuclear reactors in the UK, which will do little to deliver a secure, indigenous, globally replicable solution to the problems of climate change and energy security while creating jobs. The record of the nuclear industry in delivering cheap, reliable energy is poor (construction of a new Finnish reactor - touted as a example of how nuclear can deliver - is now three years behind schedule after three years of construction, and substantially over budget).

Sauven added:

"The existing bill for nuclear waste already stretches beyond £100bn, but that hasn't stopped EDF already calling for renewable energy to be constrained because it has the potential to render new nuclear stations even more uneconomic. The company can't even deliver its only new reactor construction, at Flammenville in northern France, on time or on budget. It's a shame that the Confederation of British Industry is lobbying furiously for a French state-owned energy giant instead of UK-based renewables companies."

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