Planning permission is the advantage for nuclear
Posted by DavidM in Nuclear | 9 August 2006
I had an interesting debate with a friend the other day. Following the government’s energy review we were debating why nuclear power is so acceptable to the government. His argument was that it’s down to the NIMBY’s.
No-one wants an eyesore built near their home and as a nation we're great at campaigning for developments to be built in some-one else’s backyard rather than our own.
"New nuclear power stations would make a significant contribution to meeting our energy policy goals" says the review. Replacing the current nuclear capacity would lower carbon emissions by the equivalent of 22 gas-fired power stations.
To generate the same electricity via wind farms would take many hundreds of sites across the country. And while most people may prefer clean electricity to nuclear, many won’t accept it being generated within sight of where they live.
So although nuclear will provoke a stronger reaction, the government only has to force through a small number of sites rather than fight a massive number of separate local planning objections up and down the UK.
My solution was that the government should tell people they were going to have a nuclear power plant nearby. Then as their screaming reaches fever pitch put forward a ‘compromise’ that the nuclear plant could go elsewhere if they accepted a wind farm instead.
I bet they’d welcome it with open arms.
