We will need the electricity soon enough. However we need to consider some points:

Timescales : Can we build the nukes in time to prevent power cuts? Or is that not important?
Also, will the energy being used to build the reactors bring forward the date where we hit shortfalls? If so, the reactor building program will need to have priority over industy & the populace.

Waste : We already have a dreadful nuclear waste problem in the UK - see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/11/nbio111.xml
so why do we expect anything better in the future?

Decommisioning : All reactors need to be decommisioned at some point. You can find the costs for the current reactors here http://www.nda.gov.uk/Our_Business--Strategy--Financials_Per_Site_Estimated(1509).aspx?pg=1509
 ... total sum £35 billion. So what will the next set cost to decommission ... and more importantly where will the energy in say 30 years to do this come from?

Staff : Most nuclear engineers have now retired or died. How many of the rest are tied up in decommissioning? Where are the new ones to come from?  How good will they be in view of our now crap education system?

Staff makeup : We now have a multicultural society. Are we going to ban Moslems from working in our nuclear plants, just in case they have radical tendencies?

Uranium supplies : We need to check long term availability of Uranium to fuel all the new nukes ... I leave that to others  better informed than me.

Costs : Can we afford the new nukes? (Please include life cycle costs in your calculations!)

Design cockups : The history of nuclear reactor design in the UK is awful. So many design types, of varying success. Can we afford the same sort of mess this time around? (see next point)

Honeypot effect : The huge amount of money needed to build the new nukes will attract all sorts of grasping corporations, organisations & individuals scurrying around for money & status. How can we ensure that this pack won't loot our economy and/or screw up the reactor design and construction?

Europe : Will the EU get their sticky fingers into our new toys? Will we be obliged to export some of our power to keep them happy?

Imported technology? : If we import the reactors as flat-packs from say France, what control/expertise/money will we lose/gain?

Although I am a physicist and a technophile, I don't feel that building new nukes is going to be a wise move. There are simply too many ways that the design, construction, staffing, operation, fuelling, waste management & decommissioning can be totally messed up. If that happens then we REALLY will be in trouble.

I appreciate your efforts to defend the rationality in planning for our energy future; However I strongly doubt that currently you have even a slightest chance for winning this battle.

The rejection of nuclear power by the majority of people in the UK (and in other countries for that matter) is not a result of logical analysis of all the pros/cons/alternatives etc. Rather it is determined by the ruling preconcptions and irrational fears amplified by the servile media. The reality is that modern life has made us a conservative and spoiled society, totally detached from the hardships that accompanied the lives of our parents and grandparents. We don't know what is cold or hungry and we can only be reminded by personal experience - not by rational argumentation. Otherwise it sounds like something abstract for most of the people, including many writing in this blog.

I already accept this situation as what it is, and started to adapt to it and just plan for what will inevitably come as a result from our collective stupidity. My prediction for UK:

1. Chronic NG and electricity shortages begin in 2-3 years. There is a rush to import electricity and NG (via LNG and pipelines), but not enough export capacity is available.
   
2. Coal power plants return "with a vengeance" the next decade or so, temporary patching the situation to some extent. The costs to the environment are harsh but the public opinion is already on the other extreme.
   
3. The scheduled decomissioning of NPP is delayed because we realise we don't have much choice; new ones are commenced in a hurry, both greatly increasing the risks and reducing the public control of the process.

We need Nukes for the following reasons:

1)    To cover the energy base load requirements currently supplied by Coal and Gas fired power stations.
2)    Security of supply
3)    Other sources, Microgen, Tidal, Solar, Wind will all help.
4)    Blair mentioned Conservation in the same speech:  That is very new. This is more serious than they are letting on.

High value , high skilled jobs for Brits is a very useful by-blow. Better than paying through the nose for out-sourced gas which may not even be available in two decades.

But 1) and 2) remain the main reasons.

`'Energy gap fact / fiction. `'  No, I don't think the coming gap is a myth. It is a looming reality.

What are the costs? -lots But we can do this now , before we start bleeding money out of the exchequer to pay for outsourced gas and oil.

Who Shall pay? - we will. Ring fence Oil revenues, get The Oil Majors on side, there are many options

What of Time scales? - Just in time (I hope). From decision to switch on could take as little as a decade. But, no doubt it will take longer in the UK. 2020 is still feasible if the decision is made now.

rgds

Conservation will play a very big part, but conserving down to zero is not an option.

The problems of long term waste disposal is mainly political- deep underground storage is feasible and not too costly- the technology-loving Finns are building theirs right now. And after a few hundred years it's not going to be dangerous, given that its so deep and the 'hot' elements will have decayed away to almost nothing.

Bravo to Tony Blair's plan. Relying on the Russians and ME countries for security of supply in the future strikes me as a terrible gamble, and a combination of new nukes, renewables and conservation sounds like a sensible long term plan as well as good for CO2 emissions.

If it was not for the public opposition and if a large scale program is initiated now, in just 15 years UK can easily double its nuclear fleet. After all most of the current fleet was built for 20 years (1970-1990) using old technologies and without any urgency.

Back to the question, what do we do?

There are 60 million souls on these islands. We were last capable of growing our own food supply in the 19th Century when we had 30 millions.  We cannot go back to coal. Too dirty and depleting as well. Re-newables will help, but not cover the base load.

So what do we do? Cut back to 1930's levels of  energy per capita use. How about 1930's levels of unemployment, nutrition, demagoguery, medicine and class structure?

I agree that we will have to get by on less energy. I have always said this would be the case. This will include conservation, driving habits, cutting out all flagrant waste. Including cheap air fares, SUVs you name it.

True, Uranium is a depleting resource, true, Fast Breeders are more theoretical than real at present, (Lets not even discuss Fusion.).  Waste is easy. Bury it deep in tectonically stable areas. (Aberdeenshire would be perfect, and this is where I live.)

You said that we can either manage descent or let it unfold chaotically. That too is true. How about frequent rolling blackouts, hyper unemployment, a renaissance of Fascism ? all of these chaotic facets of energy depletion could easily start happening within the next two decades unless we can at least keep the lights on.

So, what do we do?  How do we decide who lives, who dies, who is fed, who is starved  
Who lives, your kids or mine?

When and How do we decide who gets to live in Hobbiton?

The liquid fuels crisis (Hirsch) will happen. But do you also want it to occur at the same time as a Voltage crisis as well?

Your town planners and enlightened economists wont have much planning to do when the lights are off, the computers are out of juice and the mob are prowling the streets looking for food and someone to blame.

This makes the worlds uranium last about 140 times longer than using only the U235 (which is 0.7% of natural uranium) in  thermal reactors. It also removes the need for isotope separation as natural uranium can be used with the small amount of U235 forming a small beneficial side reaction.

This is not the same as renewable .

We are talking about the looming gap and how to cope with it.

Getting back to Blair, he said:

Nukes (with a vengeance)
Renewables
Conservation

Now assuming he was being straight with us at the CBI dinner, then I would say the magnitude of the problem has finally dawned on him. Maybe he knows something that even we at TOD dont...

I fear that powering down in an organised way is less likely of all the scenarios to succeed. People will not easily give up what they have for a greater good, voluntarily and in good order. We lack a tangible 'clear and present danger'. Convincing people of GW has been tough, Convincing people of PO will be incredibly tough.
The required national response (similar to 1940?) may be too late, if at all. But whereas GW took 30 years, PO may start seriously smacking into us within 10 years.

During 'power down' we will still need to keep the lights on until we reach whatever state in 2106, be it Hobbiton, 1984, or whatever.

Keeping the 'lights on' - shorthand for the ever present , daily requirement for almost every manifestation of a civilised country will be tough enough, even with nukes.

[DoctorBob]Fewer children means in the longer term, fewer young workers to support an increasingly elderly population via taxes, etc.  Even more pension plans being liquidated, increase in retirement age (if indeed there is one!).*

To be strictly accurate, it means an increase in the average age for the medium term, while the population is decreasing, then a stable birthrate would give a constant population profile.
So grannies can't swan off on a yacht in old age this century - tough! There is a younger generation who will have crushing mortgages for 30+ years. The only real requirement in retirement is means-tested welfare provision linked to a real inflation index. Everything else is greed, paranoia and marketing. In the future we might think it bizarre that each person in a family thinks they should have a seperate 3 bed house instead of sharing resources..
People have been conned into retirement scares by the financial services and egged on by governments who are leery of the cost of funding a top heavy 'post-industrial' population pyramid.

Here are the official figures:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pop2001/england.asp

It's the bump of people at 35-40 [in 2001] that has gov.uk all chewed up. So a bit of tax funding/cost cutting for 20 years - its not as if there isn't plenty excess about. Near term welfare of old people is not as big a problem as running out of everything.

Think what lifestyle is possible with far less people and the same resources. This is the only solution. People wouldnt need to reduce any per capita consumption - so there is no Powerdown to sell them.

Of course, we would have to throw the economics textbooks away

''Power & Internet News Report (PINR)
Brazil's Science and Technology Minister Sergio Rezende told the press on May 6 that Brasilia has launched a uranium enrichment center for fueling its power plants. Brazil's first nuclear enrichment facility, located in Resende (about 140 kilometers (87 miles) outside Rio de Janeiro), will "save Brazil millions of dollars it now spends to enrich fuel at Urenco, the European enrichment consortium," the minister said. Brazil's move has great industrial, geopolitical, and financial significance.

...Brasilia is wagering on a combination between alternative fuels like ethanol and nuclear power. Such a mix is similar to recent French plans to launch a new generation of nuclear plants while boosting renewable energies and bio-fuels.
(18 May 2006)''

Clever chaps, those Frenchies. Maybe they would like to do another 1066 when we are all dead or dying from cold, hunger and a terminal inability to get on with it.

Further more I'm not interested in the concept of powerdown.

Having said that I can see where you're coming from i.e. Nuclear Power would provide a 'base load' to 'keep the lights on' (and could also power much enhanced electrified rail which will surely be needed to move freight v current trucking).  Providing enough liquid transportation fuel and gas to heat homes to current standards will be quite another matter - I just don't see how current profligate consumption in these areas can be maintained regardless of new nuclear builds.

I think that very soon we are going to get a `massive public education programme'. Maybe this next winter or the next after that we will get gas shortages and consequent blackouts, layoffs and massive price hikes per therm of gas, fuel poverty, increases in winter deaths. At some point in the next 5-10 years, it will happen and gas dependency will be our Achilles heel. We may get lucky and get a temporary reprieve with a massive gas storage programme, but we would still be dependent on others. Decommissioning the current nuke fleet and the older generation of coal fired stations will occur in the next decade. So if it isn't Nukes, Alts and conservation (and fast) then we are going to be in deep doo-doo and this could possibly happen in the life of the next parliament.

Now unless Blair was just after an `eye catching initiative', then it seems to me that the penny has dropped. Why go out on a limb about nukes?  Assuming that he only has about another 12 months in the job, then why make this statement about nukes? After all, when TSHTF he will be out of it, and it will be somebody else's problem.  So why is he doing this now?  Why is he taking this on when his government is taking such a panning on all fronts?  Either it is an `eye catching initiative'/spin or he is prepared to do this so that his successor is not burdened with it, or perhaps the penny has finally dropped about peak oil and peak gas.

But something did occur to me which could jeopardise a nuke program.

1. They need a lot of water.
   
2. We build them on the coast
   
3. Mostly low lying coastal areas at current mean sea level.
   
4. The Ice melts anyway (GW continues due to a lack of a globally agreed, low-carb energy diet)
   
5. We get a significant Marine Transgression as the Ice melts
   
6. Doh!

Dr Strangelove anyone? - Better close the mine-shaft gap.