Wind and solar are doing very well around the world as costs fall , and look like doing even better, with, for example, a recent study suggesting that, even in the relatively highly populated UK, there are environmentally appropriate sites available for a very significant expansion of on shore wind and solar. The study by Exeter University for Friends of the Earth says that 130 TWh could come from PV solar and 96 TWh from onshore wind, compared with 17 TWh at present- a 13 times increase. And it would only need 3% of UK land area. Of course that’s in addition to large inputs from offshore wind, and also wave and tidal projects. So the overall potential is very large and siting constraints need not be a major issue. And as green energy technology economics continues to improve , the UK, along with most other countries, looks likely to continue to move in rapidly in that direction. However, with technology advance and success there can also be problems, especially in a highly com
Until recently, the UK government has always said that civil and military nuclear technologies were separate things, for example in response to claims that expansion of civil nuclear power capacity could lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons making capacity. But, as researchers at the University of Sussex have relentlessly catalogued , there seems to have been a change of view underway, culminating formally in March in a new policy document from No. 10 Downing Street. Entitled ‘Building the Nuclear Workforce of Tomorrow’ it claims that ‘domestic [civil] nuclear capability is vital to our national defence and energy security, underpinning our nuclear deterrent and securing cheaper, more reliable energy for UK consumers’. So they are intertwined and mutually beneficial- we need both! UK Prime Minister Sunak says that ‘in a more dangerous and contested world, the UK’s continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent is more vital than ever’ and that civil nuclear power is the ‘perfect antidote to