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Non-nuclear future: British Pugwash Group
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/28/non-nuclear-future
Letters
Non-nuclear future
The Guardian, Thursday 28 March 2013 17.00 EDT
I was dismayed by the statement by Professor John Beddington, the government's chief scientific adviser, that a nuclear energy-free future for the UK is not something the coalition is thinking seriously about (Report, 26 March). You quote him as adding: "We really can't see a future for the UK energy sector, if we are to meet our climate change obligations and have resilience in the power sector, without a significant component of nuclear." The Department of Energy and Climate Change has provided an extensive online energy modelling system and invited interested people and organisations to use it. The British Pugwash Group spent a year doing just that and recently published the results as a set of 2050 energy Pathways. It included one I helped with, which showed clearly that it was possible to meet the UK's energy needs at reasonable cost with no nuclear power, while reducing emissions below current 2050 targets. Evidently we were wasting our time.
Professor David Elliott
Open University
Letters
Non-nuclear future
The Guardian, Thursday 28 March 2013 17.00 EDT
I was dismayed by the statement by Professor John Beddington, the government's chief scientific adviser, that a nuclear energy-free future for the UK is not something the coalition is thinking seriously about (Report, 26 March). You quote him as adding: "We really can't see a future for the UK energy sector, if we are to meet our climate change obligations and have resilience in the power sector, without a significant component of nuclear." The Department of Energy and Climate Change has provided an extensive online energy modelling system and invited interested people and organisations to use it. The British Pugwash Group spent a year doing just that and recently published the results as a set of 2050 energy Pathways. It included one I helped with, which showed clearly that it was possible to meet the UK's energy needs at reasonable cost with no nuclear power, while reducing emissions below current 2050 targets. Evidently we were wasting our time.
Professor David Elliott
Open University
http://www.britishpugwash.org/recent_pubs.htm
February 2013
Pathways to 2050:Three possible UK energy strategies
During the next 40 years, the UK will have to rebuild its energy supply infrastructure almost completely, at a cost of about £3 trillion. Our present pattern of energy supply and demand is totally inappropriate in a world threatened by climate change. We need to reshape it completely before it is too late.
Public opinion is deeply divided on the choice of technologies to be used to bring about the required restructuring, and also about the scale of achievable energy savings which might influence this choice. The only unambiguous guidance from government has been an international commitment that the UK will reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 80% by the year 2050.
British Pugwash has published an expert report designed to address these issues. Pathways to 2050:Three possible UK energy strategies discusses three possible UK energy strategies which have been constructed using the ‘Pathways to 2050 Calculator' which has been made publicly available by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
Each strategy (‘High Nuclear', ‘High Renewables' and ‘Intermediate' ) achieves the 80% reduction, and uses energy technologies which either exist or can reasonably be expected to be brought to sufficient commercial maturity in time.
Read or download the report http://www.britishpugwash.org/documents/British%2520Pugwash%2520Pathways%2520to%25202050%2520INNERSREVsmall.pdf
February 2013
Pathways to 2050:Three possible UK energy strategies
During the next 40 years, the UK will have to rebuild its energy supply infrastructure almost completely, at a cost of about £3 trillion. Our present pattern of energy supply and demand is totally inappropriate in a world threatened by climate change. We need to reshape it completely before it is too late.
Public opinion is deeply divided on the choice of technologies to be used to bring about the required restructuring, and also about the scale of achievable energy savings which might influence this choice. The only unambiguous guidance from government has been an international commitment that the UK will reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 80% by the year 2050.
British Pugwash has published an expert report designed to address these issues. Pathways to 2050:Three possible UK energy strategies discusses three possible UK energy strategies which have been constructed using the ‘Pathways to 2050 Calculator' which has been made publicly available by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
Each strategy (‘High Nuclear', ‘High Renewables' and ‘Intermediate' ) achieves the 80% reduction, and uses energy technologies which either exist or can reasonably be expected to be brought to sufficient commercial maturity in time.
Read or download the report http://www.britishpugwash.org/documents/British%2520Pugwash%2520Pathways%2520to%25202050%2520INNERSREVsmall.pdf
