The Great Debate UK

Justification of new nuclear power in the UK

- Paul Dorfman is with the Nuclear Consultation Group and a senior research fellow at the University of Warwick. The opinions expressed are his own.

“Justification” of new-build nuclear power is a high-level assessment of whether the benefits of building new nuclear plants outweigh the detriments. Once the justification decision has been taken it will be difficult if not impossible to re-open this major issue.

And there are real problems – for example, information on how radiation-waste and radiation-spent fuel from any new nuclear build could possibly be managed, or the health impact of radiation-discharges will not be fully assessed until after the “Justification” decision is taken. “Justification” of new-build nuclear power will be decided even before the new reactor design is assessed.

Also there are significant data gaps in the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) Application on which “Justification” is built. There is simply not enough information presented by the NIA in their application to make a rational decision about whether new nuclear build is warranted or not. For such a significant process, the Justification timeline is short, and decisions will take place in closed session – far from public scrutiny.

Breaking the deadlock on nuclear disarmament

– John Duncan is the United Kingdom Ambassador for Multilateral Arms Control and Disarmament. He comments regularly via Twitter and on his own Blog. The opinions expressed are his own. -

Nuclear disarmament has been rather knocked out of the foreign affairs headlines over recent weeks by more immediate concerns over potential pandemics, the Indian election and the endgame of the long running conflict in Sri Lanka. But last week while the world’s media were looking elsewhere the international arms control and disarmament community took a remarkable step to break what has been called the “Decade of Deadlock”.

from The Great Debate:

Iran sanctions and wishful thinking

-- Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --

So what's so difficult in getting Iran to drop its nuclear program? All it needs is a great American leader who uses sanctions to break the Iranian economy so badly that popular discontent sweeps away the leadership. It is replaced without a shot being fired.