Tag Archives: nuclear energy

Gordon Birtwistle MP

Gordon Birtwistle MP writes… A revived nuclear industry could unlock the UK’s engineering potential for generations to come

By Gordon Birtwistle MP | Fri 10th October 2014 - 3:56 pm

In March 2013, the Government published its Nuclear Industrial Strategy with the ambition to make the UK once again world leading in nuclear new build and decommissioning expertise. It is forecast that globally £930 billion is set to be invested in new reactors and a further £250 billion to pay for decommissioning.

But to take advantage of these growing opportunities, the UK needs to recruit and train far more people into engineering than currently. Figures from EngineeringUK show that the sector needs to recruit 2.2 million candidates over the next five to ten years in the UK. Despite the many opportunities in an engineering career, only half of 11-to-14-year olds say they would consider it a viable option. This figure dropped to barely a third among girls and, unfortunately, less than a quarter of parents said they thought engineering was a suitable profession for their daughters.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 25 Comments
William Hobhouse

Opinion: Generating electricity – why we should push for renewables, not fracking

By William Hobhouse | Mon 18th August 2014 - 8:15 am

Green wind farmThis article is about how we generate electricity in the UK, and makes the case for electricity generation to be 100% carbon-neutral, and to be frack-free.

Climate change remains one of the greatest risks of our age. We know that the climate is changing: we can either accept the risks and take what comes, or we can mitigate the risk by using technology to end our dependency on fossil fuels. Liberal Democrats campaign for the latter.

In 2013, figures for the UK and the whole EU for electricity generation are as follows:

energy sources

On these figures, we have some catching up to do. Many would think that given the particular advantages of wind and tides our islands have, we would be doing more than catching up – we would be leading.

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Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert writes: Decarbonising Britain – making the sums add up

By Julian Huppert | Thu 12th September 2013 - 9:07 am

sustainable energyThere’s an excellent book by Prof David MacKay called ‘Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air’. This is a must read for anyone interested in energy policy.   To help with that, it’s available entirely for free, at http://www.withouthotair.com – although you can buy a copy if, like me, you think you’ll want to keep it to hand.

Essentially, David MacKay highlights that whatever we do, we have to ensure that the amount of energy used does not exceed the amount of energy available.

How do we strike this balance? The first thing we can do is reduce our energy usage – that’s why I and so many others care about energy efficiency. Not using a kWh of energy is far more environmentally friendly than generating by any means!

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 8 Comments
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