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Showing posts from July, 2020

Nuclear Power and Carbon Neutrality

Spring and early summer brought unusually generous amounts of sunshine to the UK, with correspondingly high outputs from solar installations. However, calm weather in May resulted in a collapse of wind power on several days. These conditions prompted comment on the relationship between the generation of renewable power in the UK and imports of electricity from Europe (Watson, 2020). His article points out that some of the imported energy comes indirectly from coal-fired power stations, and much from nuclear power stations in France. This post considers some issues concerning the place of nuclear power in a decarbonising society. In a chapter on the future of nuclear power, Dieter Helm wrote that its advocates claim that it provides zero carbon energy, is secure and competitive, and is the only way to “provide large-scale, low-carbon electricity generation” (2012, p.120). In view of the damage inflicted on the industry by low fossil-fuel prices in the 1980s and 1990s, the accident