Anglesey without Wylfa B?

In my humble opinion nuclear power does have a role to play as part of a mix of electricity supply. However, it seems that nuclear power does not make commercial sense, something I have  posted about before.

Direct subsidy from the UK Government for nuclear power would be against EU laws, which means you have to find a back-door way of providing nuclear subsidy - which is by getting the consumer to pay more, estimates vary as to how much.

But then again what are the alternatives? - especially if we are to meet our legal requirement for reducing carbon emissions.

Putting the above to one side, another argument for Wylfa B has been the number of jobs it would retain and create, especially in one of the poorer regions of the UK. It has been seen by many local politicians as a 'golden cow' that would somehow deliver great prosperity to the island. And doubtless in many respects it would, but with the world heading for recession and a period of stagnation (worse case scenario a depression), what realistic hopes are there of investors coming forward to fund a project knowing that other similar schemes have not been completed on time and are well over budget.

In other words do we have a 'Plan B' should Wylfa B not go ahead? - after all Wylfa B forms a fundamental part of the Energy Island concept.

The protest group PAWB does have such a plan, and they have published a  Manifesto for Môn.

They claim the Manifesto outlines how 2,500-3,000 jobs could be created on the island if a realistic strategy was adopted.

And it has strong support from Sir Roger Jones, the former chairman of the Welsh Development Authority whom said to PAWB “Congratulations on the Manifesto document. I strongly support your vision. Thank you for putting so much thought in to what we can do.”

I haven't read the PAWB manifesto and will do so soon. Their website says the manifesto acknowledges the other important industries based on the island, notably tourism and agriculture, and recognises the importance of safeguarding a clean and unpolluted environment for their further development and promotion -  which I think most of us would agree with.

The importance of 'pawb'

The residents of the island are not in favour of Wylfa B, is I think the message that PAWB, the anti nuclear campaign group were saying when they published the results of a survey of 500 they had commissioned. No surprise there then some would say, but I’m sure the survey carried out by Bangor University was all very scientific and correct.

One of PAWB’s concerns is nuclear waste, and how would future generations dispose of it safely. The thing though for me, at this moment in time, when you think of future generations; I suspect they would say nuclear waste is the least of their worries.

We are consuming and wasting far too much, whilst rushing blindly torwards the future ignoring most warnings about the problems we are causing. Call it what you may, but lets be clear we are not talking about saving the planet; her destiny is already mapped out in the stars. What we should be talking about is saving our civilisation, whether as pointed out by some you can call it ‘civil’ is a moot point. You need only study nature to realise what happens to a species that out grows its own food supply.

And of nuclear waste and what to do with it, 'store it safe for a very long time' is maybe the only answer we have at the moment, but we are rather good at storing things safely for a long time. True there are bad examples from the early days of nuclear development of how not to store nuclear waste, some of which is still a cause of concern at Sellafield. Maybe one day we will develop a means of making the waste safe quicker, than having to wait a very long time as it degrades to a safe level.

It's really down to a judgment call as to whether you think nuclear power today will burden or ease the plight of future generations. I think it is a finely balanced argument, but I believe that nuclear power is one of the best options available to us, which although will burden future generation, it will also in other ways lessen the destruction we leave behind.

Otherwise, we need to drastically reduce our reliance on electricity. In example, goodbye to gadgets like i-phones and i-pads, flat screen TV’s etc, not just because of the electricity they consume, but mainly due to the electricity used to produce them, to keep the networks running, and lets not forget the rare metals used in their production. We would need to embrace a mass transport system and say goodbye to individual electric cars, which are not as green as they are made out to be. But lets be honest, can you really say you could sell that message today?

Nuclear power is a proven technology, but still it’s important that the likes of PAWB keep on asking difficult questions and demand reasonable answers, for it’s an industry that needs proper scrutiny for our well being as well as those of future generations.

In welsh pawb means everyone.