Anti Nuclear Campaigner goes to Copenhagen

Stop Hinkley campaigner Crispin Aubrey will be attending the Copenhagen climate conference and objecting to the use of nuclear power to try and solve climate change.

At midday on Monday he plans to help hand in a 50,000 strong petition against nuclear power put together by a coalition of European groups, 'Don't Nuke the Climate'(1).

Crispin, from Nether Stowey in West Somerset, was the Stop Hinkley Coordinator during the 1988-89 Hinkley C Public Inquiry and has recently returned to active campaigning for the group since plans were put forward for a twin reactor. As a wind energy journalist he campaigned in favour of the twelve turbine West Hinkley Wind Farm which has now been withdrawn by EdF who bought out the rights to the wind-farm when they bought 500 acres of land for their proposed EPR reactor.

The Sustainable Development Commission has said that replacing all existing nuclear generation will reduce UK carbon emissions by just four percent (2). Crispin says there are better, faster ways of solving the climate crisis:

"Nuclear power produces harmful greenhouse gases during construction, uranium mining, fuel production and decommissioning stages. We could have cleaner renewable energy, harnessing natural resources providing quicker cuts in carbon emissions if only governments would listen. Losing the wind-farm at Hinkley to a massive reactor with its dangerous nuclear waste to be stored locally for 160 years is a lost opportunity."

(1) Don't Nuke the Climate events at Copenhagen:

http://dont-nuke-the-climate.org/spip.php?article659&lang=en

(2) Reducing CO2 emissions - nuclear & the alternatives

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/Nuclear-paper2-reducingCO2emissions.pdf