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Posted by Chris Lightfoot, 00:49, Wed 5 July 2006: #

As I understand it the technical issue comes down to whether sufficiently-dispersed wind farms can, along with hydro and pumped storage hydro, supply reliable enough power to remove the need for lots of nuclear or CCGT natural gas plants to supply power on calm days. If they can, then you can get away without nuclear; if they can't, you end up with a choice between gas (supplies controlled by Vladimir Putin and/or mad-as-a-box-of-frogs régimes in the Middle East) and nuclear (with its attendent questions over decommissioning, waste storage, economics and safety).

Long term, going for natural gas means shipping the stuff about in tankers (inconvenient and expensive, but by no means the safety nightmare that certain people claim) and appeasing the governments of countries that happen to control the stuff; going for nuclear means, ultimately, the plutonium economy (eventually we'll need to switch to breeder reactors, unless you're the kind of optimist who thinks that fusion is going to dig us out of this hole). It's probably not worth worrying about the alleged proliferation risks of increased investment in nuclear power; as Iran and North Korea show, our foreign policy is driving proliferation much faster than increased amounts of fissile material in the fuel cycle would.

This is on the message Climate change and nuclear power.

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