In the Largs & Millport News, serving the area around Hunterston B nuclear power station, just shut down and with the site predicted to be safe by within 100 000 years, we read:
NORTH Ayrshire MP Irene Campbell has urged the UK Government to press the Scottish Government to rethink its ‘no new nuclear’ stance, arguing that Hunterston could host new nuclear jobs and investment for the region. Speaking in the House of Commons, Ms Campbell said strict opposition to new nuclear power from the SNP-led Scottish Government meant communities such as hers were missing out on potential economic benefits.
She told Douglas Alexander, the Secretary of State for Scotland, that new nuclear development “in areas such as my constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran could bring much-needed skilled jobs and investment to the area, but yet again Scotland is losing out”.
Campbell worked for NHS Ayrshire and Arran prior to becoming an MP so it’s deeply puzzling that she and her team have apparently missed the latest issue of the Lancet, the top medical science journal in the world, impact factor >100 (!), completely demolishing the case for nuclear energy.
In the Lancet, 17 July 2026:
By focusing narrowly on reactor operations, portraying reactor hazards as “extremely small”, and ignoring nuclear energy’s other dangers, Talha Burki’s World Report1 supports the mendacious narrative that nuclear power is a “safe, clean, and affordable” solution to both rising electricity demand and climate change.2
Uranium, the fuel of nuclear power, is radioactive and carcinogenic.3 It endangers health across the entire nuclear fuel cycle. Uranium miners suffer increased risk of lung cancer. Nuclear fuel production workers are exposed to uranium hexafluoride and radon.4 Reactor operators and nearby communities are exposed to radioisotopes; in the USA, 115 000 cancer deaths since 2000 are attributed to residence near nuclear plants.5 All reactors produce waste that will remain radioactive for millennia.6 Reactor decommissioning liberates this waste, exposing workers and communities.
Nuclear power is unique among energy sources in its potential for catastrophe—meltdown, fuel diversion, and weaponisation. A life-cycle analysis of 388 nuclear plants finds that all reactors, large and small, are susceptible to nuclear incidents.7
Nuclear power is not climate neutral. Nuclear power releases 66 g of greenhouse gases per kWh of electricity, which is far less than any fossil fuel, but more than any renewable. Most greenhouse-gas releases occur during uranium mining and milling.8
Nuclear power is neither cheap nor affordable. The levelised cost of nuclear energy has increased by 47% since 2009.2 Current economic analyses do not count health-related costs and underestimate construction costs. Construction of the most recent US reactor cost over US$35 billion,9,10 more than twice its original budget.
By contrast, the cost of renewables has plummeted. Since 2010, solar power costs have decreased by 90%, wind by 70%,11 and batteries by 99%.12
Nuclear power is economically viable only when it receives massive subsidies, tax breaks, and liability exemptions. Nuclear power is a dangerous distraction. It is time to move beyond it and invest in renewables.
Full text and sources at: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)01304-8/fulltext?rss=yes
If the Lancet doesn’t do it for Campbell, she might like to read how these German researchers have revealed that nuclear power stations like Hunterston B in her constituency, have already put unknown thousands of children at great risk of cancer.
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The 'Unstoppable' Talking-up Scotland 
Voted out in a couple of years?
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Labour beyond stupid
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