SHOULD THE Government base the UK’s future energy policy on the plot of the 1970s Hollywood potboiler, Beneath the Planet of the Apes? That appears to be the implication of the influential new report on nuclear power by the Sustainable Development Commission, an independent government watchdog.

The report argues that all civilisations decline and even disappear, often leaving behind “a hiatus in knowledge” of what went before. So apparently we should not build a new generation of nuclear power stations, for fear of “leaving a radioactive legacy for many future generations, when knowledge of where and how that waste is stored could die away over time”.

This is essentially the post-apocalyptic plotline of the aforementioned sequel to Planet of the Apes: civilisation declines and falls, the apes take over and wage war on a colony of humans who live underground, worshipping a leftover nuclear bomb that they do not understand (that “hiatus in knowledge”), but which has the power to destroy the planet. It is bad enough that Oscar-winning films now have to be political, far worse to model a serious political debate on bad movies.

As the Government seeks to find a way to secure energy supplies for the future while reducing carbon emissions, nuclear power is back on the agenda. This has put the wind up the windfarm/renewable energy lobby and prompted the Sustainable Development Commission to launch another scare campaign. Despite its claim to be “balanced”, and admission that nuclear power can generate large amounts of electricity with low CO2 emissions, the report radiates worst-case “what if?” arguments, throwing in every predictable point about unpredictable risks from accidents to terrorist attacks. Wouldn’t it be more honest if it just said that it hates most technology, doesn’t trust humanity and fears that the end of the world is nigh?

Most revealing is the commission’s concern that “a new nuclear programme would give out the wrong signal to consumers”. What the commission means is that booming new nuclear power stations might stop us believing that we need to cut our use of electricity and consume less of everything. For these people, “sustainability” means re-educating us to make do and mend and live more frugally, using global warming as a bogeyman to make the children behave. If the wheel was invented today, some of them would argue that we shouldn’t use it because it might make kids obese.

Perhaps there is a good argument against building nuclear power stations. But try as they might, they have not come up with one. This should fill the authorities with confidence to explore the possible applications for nuclear science, from energy and transport to medicine, while finding new ways to cope with the waste.

New Labour has instead made a fuel rod for its own back by its spineless refusal to put the case for nuclear power. In an act of pre-emptive grovelling, it set up bodies such as the SDC under Jonathan Porritt, the green guru. Sir Jonathan might now claim that the SDC would have recommended nuclear if it were the best option. Yet last year he was already declaring in his “balanced” way that to proceed with any nuclear programme would be “foolish” and “a very serious own goal”. The only own goal that the Government scored was giving him the authority to advise it in the first place.

Let open nuclear war commence, with the safety gloves off. If the Government seriously believes in the need for nuclear power as part of future energy supply, it should not knuckle under to the arguments of the Planet of the Apes lobby. It should nuke ’em.

Mick.Hume@spiked-online.com

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