Nuclear power is the obvious solution to our energy needs for the coming years. Clean, cheap and understood. The disgraceful anti-nuclear campaings that are almost completley a result of ignorance have harmed our ability to stop depending on oil and otehr fossil fuels. Only a nutcase can beleive wind or sea power is going to be good enough. The future is nuclear.

Nuclear is not the way forward as is seen by the Heysham Nuclear plants. They have been both shut down in the last year because of safety fears (one of which is not started back up yet). This has cost the company millions and this will be reflected in customers bills.

Nuclear power is unsafe, it creates waste which damages the environment and threatens our health.

Wind power is the way forward. If you had been paying attention to the news, you would have heard the news regarding the proposed new off shore wind farms. These will produce enough to power 1 in 6 households in the UK. If people would stop being so moronic with their comments that 'wind turbines are unsightly' (have they looked at the nuke stations around the uk? or the oil ones?) then we would not have any problems with powering the UK.

Until something can be done to stop the safety issues with Nuclear power, it has to be halted as our power source. Renewable energy sources are the way forward.

Would this be the same wind power that the Dutch abandoned in 2001 (surely the most wind turbine friendly nation in Europe) because they only generated power 6% of the time ???

Would this be the same wind power that requires turbines that produce more pollution during their manufacturer than they save in a thirty year life !!

Would this be the same wind power that the German Green Party admitted in 1998 was "largely political"

Well said, at last someone writing the truth re windpower. It's a complete non-starter as a way of generating energy. Britain would need hundreds of thousand of the things to even begin to register on the National Grid.

The previous poster was spot on. Atomic power was the best chance we had for independence from oil and it was lost to appease an ignorant minority who never understood it.

I agree with the comments that wind power is not a viable alternative in terms of scale of energy production in comparison to fossil fuels.

However it's still preferable to the current mess we're creating.

I think a distinction needs to be made between 'dirty' nuclear power in the form of fission (splitting atoms, which creates dangerous Gamma radiation by-products) and it's 'cleaner' counterpart, nuclear fusion (combining atoms, which generates Ultraviolet radiation, which can be fairly easily shielded against).

It should also be noted that CERN whom were doing research into nuclear fusion reactors even got as far as actually building one and getting it to run - only to have their EC research budget cut.
H'mmm...maybe someone in the EC with vested interests saw this as a potential threat to their own business.

Other alternative energy research programmes have had similar fates down the years (or, at best token funding)...I'm sure many poeple are aware that Shell is 'seen to be' funding research into solar power projects - although again, the budget given to this 'research' in comparison to the budget they allot to finding oil reserves is miniscule.

My point is that the answers are staring us in the face, if only we invest in them, rather just paying lipservice to them. There is absolutely NO EXSCUSE for our continued dependancy on fossil fuels. We are SURROUNDED by renewable energy sources every day of our lives:

1) Solar Power
2) Geothermal Power
3) Wave Power
4) ...as well as Wind Power
5) Nuclear Fusion (our nearest star, The Sun is, after all, fusion reactor)

In fact, out of that list of energy sources, I deliberately put them in order of efficiency of extraction of energy (hence the reason wind power and nuclear fusion are near the bottom of the list, due to the amount of mechanical energy you need to expend to get a half decent return from them).

If you want things to change, you're going to have to take that leap of faith YOURSELF and invest in it YOURSELF, because the North Pole ice will have melted long before we see the powers-that-be do anything about it - so far as they're concerned, as long as they keep on raking in the taxes they don't give a damn about our futures.

So, before you dismiss current efforts (how ever small they may seem) to break the hegemony of the oil barrens (deliberate miss-spelling), think on - what can YOU do about it? How can YOU economise on your energy consumption? How can YOU convince others to?

A good start would be working on getting public transport to be an issue at the top of everyone's itinerary, instead of the privatised, overpriced, inefficient mess we have now, which forces people off the buses and trains and into their cars.

Also, why do you think air travel is so cheap? Because it's heavily subsidised by our government - so, you're actually paying for that ticket THREE TIMES; The face value, the tax subsidy, and the ecological damage it's doing.

Consume fewer new things, recycle more and reuse more - you consume less, you'll be forcing industries to produce less, therefore producing less industrial waste.
If you recycle more, you'd make recycling a growth industry, creating more jobs in this sector, rather than the more harmful (and I daresay less ethical) areas of other industries.

Heck, even becoming a vegetarian consumes less resources (there are any number of books on this subject to prove my point - do some reading)!

Of course, the biggest contribution ANY of us can make is to stop voting for warmongers and the industry of death and destruction they represent and go out into our communities and do more affirmative actions there - don't wait five years to put a cross on a stupid piece of paper - go out and do it for yourself!!

My point is this: stop complaining and get on with changing the world for yourselves, because we can't rely on those at the top of the food chain to do it for us - they won't.

Without wishing to suggest that wind power could be the answer to all our dreams, a few facts may help to correct the impression that it has nothing to offer:

1. Germany has 12001 MW worth of wind turbines installed.
2. Ireland is currently building the ARklow Bank Wind Park on an offshore sand bank near Dublin. It will eventually generate 520 MW of power - a tenth of Ireland's energy needs.
3. The UK has 40% of Europe's wind resources and has 552 MW of power generated by wind at present. (So there is opportunity for huge expansion).

At present wind power is still more expensive than fossil fuel generated power. This is partly because worldwide the fossil fuel industry receives some $250 billion in subsidies (even in Germany, a strong endorser of green energy, subsides to the coal industry are around $3 billion.) In addition, if the `external costs' of fossil fuels are taken into consideration (global warming, public health, occupational health, material damage....) then wind becomes very competitive indeed (even before subsides are considered).

Finally it's worth noting that wind power generates more jobs per MW of power produced than fossil fuel power - so switching to wind power need not have a detrimental effect on employment.

MAIN SOURCE: Understanding Global Issues Vol. 117, Editor: Richard Buckley
 http://www.global-issues.co.uk/