The British government manipulated its public consultation proceedings on plans for new nuclear power plants to ensure “particular and limited answers,” according to a new report from the Nuclear Consultation Working Group.
Government officials say new nuclear facilities are needed to replace others going offline over the next two decades and are an important part of its effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and combat global warming.
However, the Nuclear Consultation Working Group faults the government for seeking public input on the nuclear plans without addressing key issues such as nuclear fuel supplies, security concerns, nuclear waste handling and the potential for construction delays and cost overruns. The group also says British officials didn’t take into full consideration concerns such as how rising sea levels might affect some proposed nuclear sites.
“We are profoundly concerned that these framing assumptions were designed to provide particular and limited answers — and those answers risk locking in U.K. energy futures to an inflexible and vulnerable pathway that will prove unsustainable,” the report states.
Last February, Greenpeace U.K. took British officials to court over the government’s 2006 Energy Review process. A judge ruled in Greenpeace’s favor, finding the government’s procedures to be “misleading,” “seriously flawed” and “manifestly inadequate and unfair.” The government’s second attempt at an energy review, however, has proved just as problematic, according to Greenpeace U.K.
“(O)nce again it’s been shaped and guided by a predetermined outcome: the UK will have new nuclear power stations,” Greenpeace U.K. stated.
The Nuclear Consultation Working Group includes experts and academics who specialize in nuclear issues, environmental sciences and energy policy.
(Photo of British nuclear power plant taken by Eurico Zimbres, posted on Wikimedia Commons)
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Shirley Siluk Gregory
Shirley Siluk Gregory, a transplanted Chicagoan now living in Northwest Florida, represents the progressive half of Green Options' Red, Green and Blue segment. She holds a bachelor's degree in Geological Sciences from Northwestern University but graduated in 1984, just when the market for geologists was flatter than the Florida landscape. Just as well, though: she had little interest in spending her life either in a laboratory or, heaven forbid, an oil field. So, of course, she went into journalism. After extremely low-paying but fun and educational stints at several suburban Chicago weeklies and dailies, Shirley and her then-boyfriend/now-husband Scott found themselves displaced by a media buyout and spending the next several years working as freelancers. Among their credits: The Chicago Tribune, a publication for the manufactured-housing industry, and Web Hosting Magazine, a now-defunct publication that came and went with the dotcom era. Shirley's always been concerned about nature and conservation (and an avid pack-rat, as her family can attest to), but became even more rabidly interested in the environment primarily due to two factors: the growing signs that global warming was real and threatening, and the birth of her son, Noah, in 2003. Suddenly, the prospect of a world that might not be quite as habitable in 40 or 50 years took on a whole new, and personal, meaning. Living where she lives now also helped light the fire of Shirley's environmental awareness: her hometown was severely damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and beaten up again by Hurricane Dennis in 2005. That, and the fact that she and her family were vacationing in New Orleans until the day before Katrina -- and spent 12 hours driving home for a trip that normally takes 3 -- has made Shirley deeply appreciate how fragile our lifestyles are, and how dependent they are on sound management of natural resources and sustainable living practices. That's why she's become a passionate reader and writer about all things green and sustainable.
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