Local authorities called on the UK Government to follow Scotland’s lead and drop its plans to facilitate the development of new nuclear reactors.
It comes after Ed Miliband published the Government’s Low Carbon Transition Plan setting out how the government is to meet its binding carbon budget – an 18 per cent cut in emissions on 2008 levels by 2020 (34 per cent on 1990 levels).
Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) welcomed much of what is in the plan, including help for households in making energy savings. It also welcomed the Renewable Energy Strategy and the target of producing 30 per cent of the UK’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and 15 per cent of the UK’s heat requirements.
However, NFLA also urged that the Scottish Government’s lead should be followed and that the UK should drop its plans to facilitate the development of new nuclear reactors. This, they said, is diverting attention and resources away from the real solutions to climate change – energy efficiency and renewable energy.
A coalition of environmental groups in Scotland have published a study setting out how Scotland can meets its climate change commitments without resorting to the construction of new nuclear reactors. The NFLA believes the same solution is also possible for England and Wales.
By combining increased development of renewable energy with an energy efficiency programme, the report shows how the UK might exceed annual electricity demand, even when a significant proportion of heating and transport demand is electrified.
The group also suggests that this would be good news for jobs because renewables and energy efficiency programmes are better at creating jobs than nuclear power. Central to such a strategy, they say, is the need to bring all existing housing up to a high standard of insulation, with a big role for small-scale decentralised energy production. It is suggested that councils should play a leading role in delivering this solution.
The NFLA Chair, Councillor George Regan said: “Local Authorities have a crucial role to play in the local energy revolution and are keen to get on with implementing it. Yet in 2003 we were promised a step change in energy efficiency by the UK Government – and we are still waiting. We cannot afford to wait another six years while the Government ‘facilitates new nuclear reactors’ and tries to work out how to unlock greater action by local authorities. New nuclear reactors are an expensive folly, create new and concerning health and safety risks and increase the radioactive waste burden on the UK.”
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