EU must reject nuclear power in energy targets
07 March 2007
An agreement to boost renewable energy across the EU could allow taxpayers'cash to subsidise the nuclear industry in France and the UK, Euro-MPCaroline Lucas has warned.
Speaking ahead of this week's meeting of EU leaders to discuss climate andenergy policy, Dr Lucas warned that the Council must exclude nuclear powerfrom a renewables target likely to be adopted.
"If nuclear power is considered a renewable energy source this agreementwill be effectively worthless," she said.
"France, which already produced 80 per cent of its electricity in nuclearpower stations, won't have to lift a finger to cut its energy emissions, andhere in the UK we could see state subsidies designed to boost green energyproduction being spent on building new nuclear power stations."
The nuclear industry - via the French government - is attempting to amend EUtargets to producing 40-45 per cent of the EU's electricity from 'lowcarbon' sources rather than to produce 20 per cent from strictly renewablegeneration in the same period.
This would only be possible if new nuclear power stations are constructed aspart of the EU's efforts to meet these targets - despite the fact thatnuclear power is dirty, dangerous, deeply unpopular and responsible forhigher CO2 emissions than genuine renewable energy sources.
Dr Lucas said this was a 'low carbon red herring' which threatened toundermine any efforts to develop the EU's renewable generation capacitysufficiently to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.
She added: "Agreeing a binding target for renewable energy in the EU is thebare minimum of what needs to be done. EU leaders must not allow this week'ssummit to be blackmailed by the nuclear industry, through its outgoing proxyChirac.
"The attempt by the nuclear industry to put separate 'low-carbon' targets onthe agenda is a red herring. Nuclear is not a European-wide technology andis rejected by the majority of Europeans, so how can we set EU targets?"
"The Greens have consistently called for a binding minimum EU target of 25%target to be complemented by sector-specific targets for renewables (e.g.for heating and cooling, and electricity) in order to ensure the overalltarget will be effective.
"Without clear and binding targets both for energy and for transport, wehave no climate strategy. Against this background it is crucial that theEU's energy policy is not tailored to the needs of European energyoligarchs, at the expense of the climate."
ENDS
Note to Editors:
The French proposal for a 40-45% "low carbon" target by 2020 does not fly atall. Assuming, that the 20% renewables target is reached, the rest of this40-45% would have to come from nuclear energy. It is widely accepted thatcarbon capture and sequestration for coal will not be commercially availablebefore 2020. Except maybe for one reactor in Finland, no new nuclearreactors would be built before 2012 (based on the highly optimisticassumption of a minimum 6-7 years from planning to operation). In order toget 20% to 25% of the whole energy in the EU-27 from nuclear power, thiswould roughly mean building 30-40 GW new nuclear capacity in addition to thenuclear plants to be closed by 2020. This would mean between 20 to 40additional new nuclear power plants to be built in 8 years. This wouldrequire the building of at least one new nuclear reactor every three to sixmonths between 2012 and 2020. This is simply impossible.
