Nuclear Power: A Convert

Suddenly, it seems that everyone’s talking about the end of oil – and not necessarily for the right reasons. Take the recent Peak Oil UK conference in Edinburgh. Lurking at the back was a delegation from the BNP, including the party’s odious leader, Nick Griffin. Why were they there? Simple, Griffin told my informant. Once oil peaks, the global economy will lurch into a terrible recession – just as it did in the 1930s. Chaos and strife will ensue. “We would expect to come to power by the end of the decade.”

I wasn’t at that meeting but I did attend the Energy . . . Beyond Oil conference in Oxford earlier this month. The meeting focused on what could replace fossil fuels, and I arrived convinced – as I wrote in these pages a few weeks ago – that opting for nuclear power would be a disastrous mistake. Before long my comfortable green certainties were in tatters.
New Statesman