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Who wants nuclear power? (Part 2)

A YouGov poll for EDF Energy in May found that 64% of over 4000 people asked across the UK now say nuclear is needed as part of a balanced energy mix for the UK, compared to 65% last year, 62% in 2008 and 59% in 2007. The regional picture varies: 69% of people in the East of England felt nuclear was needed as part of a balanced mix. In the South West 65% agreed. But it fell to 61% in Scotland.

Interestingly, among Lib Dem supporters, 58% nationally agreed that ‘nuclear energy has disadvantages, but the country needs it to be part of the energy balance,’ with 47% backing (32% opposing) new nuclear. 63% of Tory and 50% of Labour voters also backed new nuclear.

However, you have to careful with statistics: net support (% for, less % against) nationally was only16% for nuclear, though it was an increase on the 14% recorded in 2009. It is also instructive to look at support for other options: net support for renewables was 61%, although that had decreased slightly from the 64% in 2009 The levels of support also depend on what question you ask: a YouGov poll of over 2000 people for Greenpeace, in late April/early May found that only 34% felt that the government should increase the amount of public money it spends on nuclear power, while the figure rose to 58% for wind power.

This seems to reflect the national view – nuclear may have to be accepted, but renewables are more popular. For example, in the YouGov poll for EDF, in Scotland , which is aiming to get 50% of its electricity from renewables by 2020, only 47% of Scots supported replacing existing nuclear plants when they closed, while, 80% backed offshore wind farms and 69% were in favour of onshore turbines. 74% of Scots said their impression of wind farms was favourable, compared to 43% for nuclear.

Cost was a key issue for many people in the YouGov poll for Greenpeace – 41% felt that nuclear power was expensive, and had never been built on time and will end up requiring taxpayers’ money, while 23% disagreed, and there were 36% who didn’t know. An even more crucial issue for many people is the absence so far of an agreed solution on waste 65% felt that an agreed solution on waste was necessary before new power stations were built. Only 23% didn’t mind and 12% didn’t know.

This continued concern is perhaps surprising given that the industry keeps saying that the proposed new reactors will produce less waste. However the reliability of this message has been challenged. The spent fuel from the proposed new reactors is not going to be reprocessed. That means it will contain all the plutonium and other isotopes created in the fission process. So in effect there will be more high-level waste than at present – when the plutonium extracted. And the aim is to keep the spent fuel stored at reactor sites for up to 150 years. Moreover the plan seems to be to try to improve the economics of the reactors, by using more highly enriched fuel and to go for high fuel burn-up, with longer residence times in the reactor. The resultant spent fuel will therefore be around 50% more radioactive. Not something you’d like on your doorstep, as local anti-nuclear groups have made clear. The earliest date for the creation of a final home for high-level waste, assuming a community can be found that is willing to take it (with suitable cash inducements), is 2040.

Abandoning reprocessing does mean that there will be less intermediate and low-level waste from the new reactors, but then we are not short of that, from the existing reactor fleet – and from the ongoing process of decommissioning. This is already creating problems. The low-level nuclear waste ‘repository’ at Drigg is almost full, with their being no room from, for example, for wastes from the old Chapel Cross Magnox complex in Scotland, which is being decommissioned. The plan is it seems to dump the resultant contaminated soil and rubble in Cumbria, with 12 lorries a day destined for the former open-cast coal mine at Keekle Head, near to the source of the river Keekle. However, it’s been claimed by local opponents that he radioactive wastes could leach into the land. Similar moves to try to dump low level wastes around the country (e.g. in land-fill sites) have been opposed by local groups.

For more information, visit Radiation Free Lakeland.

Opposition to nuclear in the UK has not reached anything like the levels seen in Germany, where more than 140,000 people took to the streets in April to commemorate the catastrophe of Chernobyl, and demand an immediate end to nuclear power. 120,000 people formed a 75-mile human chain that stretched from the nuclear power plant in Kruemmel through the city of Hamburg along the Elbe River to the nuclear plant in Brunsbuettel, on the North Sea coast. Meanwhile, in southern Germany, 17,000–20,000 people surrounded the reactor of Biblis and in Ahaus 7,000 protested at the interim radioactive waste storage facility. The scale of the protest were seen as indicating significant opposition to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposal to revoke a law that would shut down nuclear plants by 2020 – the numbers exceeded all expectations, on scale comparable to the mass anti-nuclear movements of the 1970s/1980s.

Back in the UK, local groups and national campaign organisations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace apart, the main signs of opposition have come form the Lib Dems, the Green Party and the SNP. And with an anti-nuclear Lib Dem as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the issue has moved up the political agenda.

Overall there is clearly still a sizeable minority in the UK and elsewhere who are concerned about the nuclear option. A Eurobarometer survey of 26,470 EU citizens across all EU states, carried out in September and October 2009. It focused on safety issues and found that while 59% of those surveyed felt that nuclear plants can be operated safely, most believed that the risks related to nuclear energy are underestimated, with a lack of security against terrorist attacks on power plants and the disposal and management of radioactive waste identified as the major dangers. So 82% agreed that it would be useful for nuclear waste management to be regulated at the European level. But while in a 2006 poll, 62% thought that nuclear could help combat climate change, only 46% now did. That’s a significant change, in that concerns about climate change are one of the main drivers of support for nuclear. Even so, overall 17% of those asked felt that nuclear’s share of electricity generation should be increased (up from 14% in a similar poll in 2006), while 39% (up from 34%) felt its share should be maintained. But 34% felt its share should be reduced (down from 39% in 2006).

Commenting on the survey, the European nuclear industry trade association Foratom, said: ‘Experience shows that the more citizens know about nuclear energy, the more they are in favour of it.’ That’s not immediately obvious. As in Germany and elsewhere, in the UK a lot of the opposition has been led by local groups near the planned plants at existing sites, like SHE at Hinkley, and BANNG at Bradwell. CANE at Sizewell, who are more than familiar with what nuclear power has to offer. It will be interesting to see if their disaffection spreads.

A wide range of local and national groups are campaigning on specific issue and against nuclear in general:

For pro-nuclear lobby views, visit:

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Posted by Dave Elliott on June 19, 2010 5:04 PM |

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