Extinction Rebellion Spokesperson Quits to Become Campaigner for Nuclear Energy

The higher the energy density, the less pollution for power generated. Who knew

A message from a former Extinction Rebellion activist: Fellow environmentalists, join me in embracing nuclear power

Zion Lights is director of Environmental Progress UK. She was formerly the editor of The Hourglass newspaper

As the lockdown measures we have become so familiar with over the past three months are slowly eased, discussions are turning to how to move forward with recovering from the economic hit of Covid-19 in a way that also addresses climate change.

I have a long history of campaigning on environmental issues, most recently as a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion UK and the founder of its climate reporting newspaper The Hourglass. 

Now, I have quit the organisation to take up a position as a campaigner for nuclear power.

When I went on the Andrew Neil Show last autumn, he asked me what solutions Extinction Rebellion had to offer to tackle climate change. Speaking for the organisation, I was careful not to say anything that was not backed by the movement’s declared policies, which are to leave it to Citizens’ Assembles to decide.

However, the question has bothered me ever since — because there exist scientifically assessed solutions for addressing climate change, and in the energy arena one of those solutions is nuclear power.

The UK must find ways to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, which are highly polluting and dangerous. We are currently on track to miss our own emissions targets. And with Britain’s economic future looking shaky post-Covid19 and post-Brexit, energy independence could bring some much-needed strength to our country, as well as to jobs.

Boris Johnson’s government has committed to bringing carbon emissions down to net zero by 2050, but lacks a clear plan to show how this will be achieved. We need a reliable low-carbon energy source that we can invest in now. 

And we have one. Hinkley Point C was approved in 2016, and part of this plan is to build Sizewell C in Suffolk, which will provide seven per cent of the UK’s electricity needs and save an estimated nine million tonnes of carbon emissions for every year of its operation.

For many years I was skeptical of nuclear power. Surrounded by anti-nuclear activists, I had allowed fear of radiation, nuclear waste and weapons of mass destruction to creep into my subconscious. When a friend sent me a scientific paper on the actual impacts, including the (very small number of) total deaths from radiation at Chernobyl and Fukushima, I realised I had been duped into anti-science sentiment all this time.

Reading up on safety, I found that the nuclear accidents that have occurred in my lifetime were due to unusual and extreme circumstances, or human errors. Chernobyl, for example, occurred due to the use of a flawed reactor design which caused a power surge and explosion at one of the reactors, and Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi disaster was triggered by the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

However, even when including these disastrous events, scientific research has found that nuclear power is still safer than fossil fuels, once air pollution, accidents (from energy extraction) and greenhouse gas emissions are taken into account.

What of renewable alternatives? Alongside my fellow activists, I had been singing the praises of renewable energy for years. But while renewables can and should be part of the mix in supplying energy to the UK, the technology simply doesn’t stretch to powering our country 24/7. 

The late physicist David MacKay’s book explains that renewables alone would require unfeasibly massive amounts of storage to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, and although battery or hydrogen storage may be just around the corner, we are in a climate emergency and need all the clean energy we can build right now: renewables, nuclear, and carbon capture and storage.

I also discovered that nuclear waste is minimal, well-stored and well-managed, and has never actually killed anyone.

Anti-nuclear campaigners also argue that Hinkley is too expensive, which is understandable as construction projects do often go over budget, but it’s still nowhere near the £80bn cost of HS2. Luckily, standardisation reduces costs and improves efficiency. In South Korea building the same design over and over was found to yield the lowest costs and fastest build times: we should be capitalising on the expertise our engineers are acquiring at Hinkley to more economically build plants at Sizewell and elsewhere.

To my surprise, when I shared the data with my anti-nuclear friends, they argued against the science. Alas, we parted ways. 

The mindset that you cannot be pro-environment and pro-nuclear at the same time needs challenging. The more research I read, the more I learned about how nuclear power is an essential tool in the battle to address climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 1.5 Warming report — the very same report that drew the world’s attention to the realities of climate change — has a section on energy in which nuclear power features as an essential factor. To deny that is no different than denying that anthropogenic climate change is real. The scientific method is the same, just as rigorous and thorough, with both.

I had followed Mark Lynas’s admirable U-turn on GMO technology and on nuclear power, and seen environmentalist George Monbiot speak out in favour. I felt emboldened by those who are willing to amend their opinions based on facts. 

In the autumn of 2019 Michael Shellenberger, the founder of Environmental Progress in America, asked to interview me for his new book. During this discussion we touched on the topic of nuclear energy and found that we had something in common: Michael had also changed his mind about it. Now, he has invited me to direct Environmental Progress UK: a campaign we will be running to help educate people about the science behind nuclear, and to ensure that the UK invests in nuclear power.

Extinction Rebellion has played an essential role in raising awareness of climate change, and I applaud the organisation for that. Now, it is time to focus on solutions. It’s crucial that environmental activists tell the truth about nuclear power, instead of giving into peer pressure and fear.

We solve the climate crisis by tackling the energy crisis, and protecting our health at the same time — just look at the numbers of illnesses and deaths caused by air pollution from fossil fuels. This is why I’m sticking my head above the parapet and making the case for nuclear power in the UK.

Fellow environmentalists, I need you to look over the facts, accept the science, and commit to helping me to radically decarbonise the UK. Covid-19 has led us to a crossroads and we now have a unique opportunity to build a green future that involves clean energy.

I invite my fellow environmentalists to speak out in favour of nuclear power. It is — according to the experts — an essential part of our desperately vital attempts to tackle global warming. Here in Britain, and around the world, we do need nuclear.

Source: City AM

14 Comments
  1. ke4ram says

    As soon as Climate Change is mentioned you can rest assured the rest is BS.

  2. voza0db says

    Hello Marko Marjanović

    I’ve Part 2 of a comment pending approval!

    (it seems disqus config for links/videos is set too low!)

  3. voza0db says

    Part 1

    LET US TALK REALITY!

    Now that AOC, ex-ER, are supporting Nuclear,

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c397e9098a21394c7ad2e5311b91cc3fb4392cd133ac25254607100915d7c6a.png

    Start date:October 1, 2019

    In order to reach the goals of a CARBON NEUTRAL (doesn’t mean carbon free!) CIVILIZATION by 2050 (keeping the current level – 2019 – of energy consumption), we are today (June 27, 2020) already behind with:

    405 carbon neutral nuclear power stations.

    OR,

    for those greeners that don’t like nuclear reactors to boil water to generate electricity – NOT AOC and ex-ER and fans – …

    81,000 square miles of brand new carbon neutral WIND FARMS

    In order to have a better visualization of what this area means do enjoy the sight!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ab8f8526e4e7b1a5d12f894a1ce046272a4752686f4667d26d34bb43a0a2a03.png

  4. voza0db says

    EVERY TIME I READ articles taking about this nonsense I do an update on the math! Here’s the most recent one!

    LET US TALK REALITY!

    Now that AOC, ex-ER, are supporting Nuclear,

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c397e9098a21394c7ad2e5311b91cc3fb4392cd133ac25254607100915d7c6a.png

    Start date:October 1, 2019

    In order to reach the goals of a CARBON NEUTRAL (doesn’t mean carbon free!) CIVILIZATION by 2050 (keeping the current level – 2019 – of energy consumption), we are today (June 27, 2020) already behind with:

    405 carbon neutral nuclear power stations.

    OR,

    for those greeners that don’t like nuclear reactors to boil water to generate electricity – NOT AOC and ex-ER and fans – …

    81,000 square miles of brand new carbon neutral WIND FARMS

    In order to have a better visualization of what this area means do enjoy the sight!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ab8f8526e4e7b1a5d12f894a1ce046272a4752686f4667d26d34bb43a0a2a03.png

    I still don’t know how one can build nuclear or wind with zero carbon emissions or without ECOSYSTEM DESTRUCTION, so one needs to increase the additional decommission of fossil fuel generation, the DEATH of other Living Creatures and so on.

    I’m also not aware that any of these constructions have been built, so…

    GOOD LUCK with that! Do not forget to watch “Planet of the Humans“, it’s a FUN movie…

    All of this if we want to reach 2050 consuming globally the same amount of energy (reference year 2018). Is this or a drastic cut in consumption meaning we can only consume the energy already being produced via renewables…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b2658387b5fd71985822e84da67d87e0b8b8e69fd8434b55333b35275da59bb.jpg

    In short… we can only consume 5 trillion kWh/year/globally!

    Again… what does 5 trillion kWh means for the USofT?

    In 2018 the USofT alone consumed 29.5 trillion kWh… If those 5 trillion are for the ENTIRE World… bye bye american lifestyle and dream!

  5. cechas vodobenikov says

    quite obvious—improved design has produced a resurgence in demand from Russian nuclear reactors—being constructed in Iran, china, India, Indonesia, Hungary, Russia, former Soviet republics etc….Sweden relies on nuclear power—electricty 1/3 the cost of Germany, that does not

  6. voza0db says

    Good luck with that!

  7. Natural_Texan says

    Maybe there is a future for clean Nuclear power? Clean, cheap Nuclear Power and Fusion Power has had a bright future since 1940.. that’s because it will never be achieved! The nuclear power industry (weapons industry) has lied to us, stolen from us and poisoned us from day 1. The head of the Department of Energy in the ’50s announced that clean Nuclear generated power would be so abundant it would become ‘too cheap to meter’!

    Here’s an old industry prop piece (Popular Mechanics I believe) claiming that Nuclear power plants will double as playgrounds and parks!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7c5f34a6847ad469829e0ce1de5c931c886da399ad85fb9baa259e759eed3b5.jpg

  8. itchyvet says

    L.O.L. Another dreamer ignoring the obvious. The FACTS tell us the alleged lifesaver Hinckly will never be completed. despite the author’s wet dreams. Nuclear power is simply a method of funneling taxpayer money into private pockets. Show me just ONE nuclear power generating plant that was built on PRIVATE MONEY without taxpayer subsidies. Just ONE. Secondly, whilst the author of this article fantisises on, they ignore totaly the environmental damage caused by this destructive industry. Right from the moment it’s dug up out of the ground, all the way thru manufacturing/processing/instalation and then disposal. All the way along the line, this material contaminates everything it touches. Show me again, just ONE uranium mine that has been rehabilitated after it was depleted and restored to it’s natural state. Thereby closing off exposure to the atmosphere.
    Dunno where the authors got their figures regarding deaths from nuclear accidents, but they are clearly very wrong indeed, I notice too, they ignore the people suffering from radiation sickness and cancers caused by this contamination. Also the storage facilities being safe is a joke. Again, they need to do some serious research.
    However, I do have a question to put to the authors of this article, that is, From whence do they propose to obtain the uranium material to power their wet dream ? Surely not within the British Isles ? If so, from where ?2

  9. Ronnie&MargaretInDementia says

    nuclear power was always the bridge fuel, always. Purely common sense reality. Question is have we left it too late.

    1. itchyvet says

      How could nuclear power be the “bridge fuel” when it takes in excess of TWENTY YEARS to build a functioning power generating plant ??????? What are you going to use for power in the meantime ??? L.O.L. The only reason nuclear power seems to be so popular, is because it syphons off public money into private pockets and supplies the military with material for their nuclear bombs.

  10. nick1111 says

    Psychos

  11. Grand Nagus Zek says

    they rediscovered how to use their brains – well done

    1. Canosin says

      complete morons

  12. voza0db says

    Part 2

    I still don’t know how one can build nuclear or wind with zero carbon emissions or without ECOSYSTEM DESTRUCTION, so one needs to increase the additional decommission of fossil fuel generation, the DEATH of other Living Creatures and so on.

    I’m also not aware that any of these constructions have been built, so…

    GOOD LUCK with that! Do not forget to watch “Planet of the Humans”, it’s a FUN movie…

    All of this if we want to reach 2050 consuming globally the same amount of energy (reference year 2018). Is this or a drastic cut in consumption meaning we can only consume the energy already being produced via renewable’s…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b2658387b5fd71985822e84da67d87e0b8b8e69fd8434b55333b35275da59bb.jpg

    In short… we can only consume 5 trillion kWh/year/globally!

    Again… what does 5 trillion kWh means for the USofT?

    In 2018 the USofT alone consumed 29.5 trillion kWh… If those 5 trillion are for the ENTIRE World… bye bye american lifestyle and dream!

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