Leah Gunn Barrett
Nuclear costs 2.6 times more per unit than gas and 3.7 times more than wind.[1] Government subsidies and guarantees are needed because the nuclear industry is an open-ended liability. A nuclear plant has never been fully decommissioned and many believe it would cost more than the original construction.
Second, nuclear power has facilitated, not stopped, the proliferation of nuclear weapons. India produced its first plutonium in a Canadian supplied reactor, exploding its first nuclear bomb in 1974. Nations like Iran are following suit.[2]
Third, accidents have dogged the industry from the beginning. In 1957 the Windscale reactor that produced plutonium and tritium for UK atomic and hydrogen bombs caught fire. The site, now known as Sellafield, is leaking radioactive waste from a huge silo, alarming Ireland, Norway and the US, and should alarm Scotland the most.[3]
Fourth, there’s no safe solution for nuclear waste. The UK has used Scotland as its dumping ground. The Solway Firth and Irish Sea are polluted with 60 years of Windscale discharges. The UK plans to bury waste from 27 nuclear submarines at Rosyth in nearby dumps at a cost of £3b,[4] and is blasting the Irish seabed and Solway Firth in a damaging search for a place to store waste.[5]
Fifth, former heads of nuclear regulation in the US, Germany and France issued a 2022 joint statement that nuclear wasn’t the answer to climate change due to its high cost, accident risks and waste.[6]
It doesn’t matter what Oliver Stone, Bono and Greta Thunberg think. What should matter is that the sovereign Scottish People remain implacably opposed to nuclear power and weapons.
[1] Serhii Plokhy, Atoms and Ashes: from Bikini Atoll to Fukushima, 2022
[2] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/donohue1/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/sellafield-nuclear-site-leak-could-pose-risk-to-public?utm_term=656fffd42ad33f901c690f0204cb16d1&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email
[4] https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/23853192.rosyth-babcock-plans-new-metal-waste-disposal-building/#
[5] https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/legal-challenge-stop-seismic-blasting-irish-sea/
[6] https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/27/22904943/nuclear-power-climate-change-solution-gregory-jaczko
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
ITS DANGERIOUS,DIRTY, UNECONOMICAL
BUT TORIES LOVE BIG SPENDS IT ALLOWS THEM TO HIDE
BACKHANDERS
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Exactly the same as new new Labour!!!
The terrible “twins” in Westmonster love their backhanders….lazy politics, lazy
freeloaders, lazy elitists.
TIME TO MAKE THE BREAK!!!
Vote for Scotland, Vote Independence, Vote for our Children!!!
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Every now and then we get idiots in government who are quite prepared to risk the lives of millions of people to install nuclear power because they see it as an opportunity to siphon off huge amounts of public money into their own pockets we have been here before
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The Tories are spending £13Billion a year for 10 years on nuclear decommissioning. £130Billion. Increased after that decade. Spending Billions over budget on Hickley Point.
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Nuclear fission was hailed by it’s supporters as the Holy Grail of energy supply with potentially unlimited cheap supply.
The reality was far from that idealistic aspiration and it’s main purpose was to supply fissile material for nuclear weapons.
That is why there is a reprocessing cartel which controls who can deal with the waste.
Due to the long half life of much of this material,it has to be stored in geologically stable repositories which limits suitable locations.
Much of Scotland falls into that category.
Nuclear fusion is what many are now hedging their bets on and in principle it offers what the original supporters had hoped for and, most importantly,eliminates the waste issue.
However it is still some way off becoming a commercial reality and the costs undetermined.
So,until that time,we must resist the attempts by political operators to accept anything to do with nuclear fission.
If we were in the same position as England with it’s limited renewable energy potential then we might be forced into accepting this as an option but we are not.
As usual,Westminster trying to foist solutions on Scotland which are inappropriate and economically illiterate.
Let’s hope we can retain our veto on planning permission to stop this madness.
Recent rulings by the courts do not fill me with confidence however.
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