Nukes again

I felt somewhat reassured when Greenpeace managed to force a rethink of the government's decision to push ahead with a new nuclear power programme. The reality is that there is enough renewable energy around to power the world many times over and at a fraction of the price of a nuclear programme that will only ever supply a fraction of the electricity that the world needs.

But to my surprise - this Sunday's Grauniad carried an article by James Lovelock (creator of the Gaia theory) in favour of nuclear power. His premise is that nuclear is the only way of generating sufficient power quickly enough to avert a total disaster. He may have a point - but strange because nuclear is in itself not a renewable energy source, and ramping up the nuclear programme will take some considerable time. Not least because the number of trained and experienced nuclear engineeers has been run down considerably in recent years.

Renewable energy protagonists take the view that a nuclear programme will reduce the resources put into the real long term solution.

However, here Lovelock and the renewable energy guys see eye to eye. Long term nuclear is not the answer - renewables are the only way, and for that we should be optimistic. Clean renewable energy to power the world hundreds of times over. Why didn't we think of it before?