Are you in favour of nuclear power?
Updated on 10 January 2008
We'd like to hear your views on nuclear power. Do you feel the country needs it, or should we avoid using it? Do you live near an existing station or would you move near one?
Please send your thoughts to news@channel4.com and we'll publish them below.
'Nuclear energy seems to me the only answer at this present time.'- Frank Moore
Your emails
"I feel that the UK should strive to achieve an independent source of power other than gas or oil.
We should look to a future away from reliance on Arab oil and Russian gas. Nuclear energy seems to me the only answer at this present time.
The political influence wielded by the Arabs and Russians would be considerably lessened, allowing us to progress in a truly democratic fashion, without pressure from them."
Frank Moore
'How many people know about the leukaemia clusters?'- Peter Lux
"What is the point of asking for peoples views when they do not know the facts about nuclear power?
It is never mentioned on the news about the 90 per cent of nuclear waste which is left at the mine and milling sites which have to be secure for 10,000 years.
How many people know about the leukaemia clusters - note that your recent report is "exclusive" and if they do, have they read the dubious "blood mixing" theory used to explain it?
How many people know that even the Nuclear Industry says that nuclear can only supply base load and we still need other generation which can be easily switched on and off.
What about Uranium supplies - are we running out? The Ranger mine reported a 10 per cent increase in Greenhouse gasses in one year due to the mining of poorer ores.
Is British Energies Olympic Dam analysis meaningful in anyway since it is mainly a copper mine and Uranium is only mined as a by-product?
I am not "anti-nuclear" - I will support it if they can show that
a) It is safe and
b) It is an effective way to combat climate change.
I have not seen anything that convinces me of the two conditions above."
Peter Lux, Suffolk
'The future must lie in renewable sources, or any such energy without long-term negative effects on the environment.'- Steven Ardagh
"Although nuclear energy is the most practicable of the options, it is a further step in the wrong direction.
The future must lie in renewable sources, or any such energy without long-term negative effects on the environment.
Politicians need to make ground-breaking decisions to be remembered and re-elected, and this is one area they've promised such decisions. Why not heed their own rhetoric?"
Steven Ardagh
'I am in favour of nuclear power as an interim solution because I believe that it is too late for renewable resources to replace current technologies '- Nick Papillon
"Yes, I am in favour of nuclear power as an interim solution because I believe that it is too late for renewable resources to replace current technologies in time to prevent irreversible climate change.
However I do not believe that anyone really knows what the future holds.
I note the latest German findings about child leukaemia but I also remember the horror stories about living near high tension power lines (which turned out to be complete fiction).
Who sponsored the German research and just how 'independent' was it? Would a report saying that there was no evidence of a risk from living near a nuclear site ever have been publicised?"
Nick Papillon.
'In all decency we cannot pursue nuclear power ourselves and deny it to others'- Pat Sanchez
"I oppose nuclear power because of its dangers.
Danger from wholesale radiation contamination leading to a huge death and illness toll resulting from accident (no-one can ever guarantee another won't happen). The same could come from a terrorist attack or sabotage on a plant.
Nuclear energy supporters slide over what to do with nuclear waste. The latest fantasy is an underwater repository off Cumbria. But have they not heard of the effects on our coastline of global warming?
We mustn't forget too the filthy environmental contamination produced by the mining and milling of uranium, nor the terrible health costs paid by uranium miners and workers.
Lastly, we should all oppose nuclear power world wide because of the possibility of proliferation of nuclear weapons. In all decency we cannot pursue nuclear power ourselves and deny it to others. Yet we are spreading world wide the means to make nuclear bombs.
No, nuclear power should be abandoned immediately."
Yours truly,
Pat Sanchez
