Y Goeden Eirin, Newtown Road, Machynlleth SY20 8EYThe Prime Minister10 Downing Street London SW1A 2AABy fax and email15 March 2012Dear Mr CameronWe write because we believe you have been misled by four prominent environmentalists who contacted you recently about nuclear power. This quartet - Jonathon Porri, Charles Secre, Tom Burke and Tony Juniper - were all in the past directors of Friends of the Earth, an organisaon which also put its ocial seal of approval on the leer sent by them to you on 12 March 2012. We believe their advice to be wrong both in fact and interpretaon, and feel that if you act on it without further consideraon of the alternaves, you risk threatening both the energy security of the UK and our climate-change targets.As writers and thinkers who are interested in and concerned with environmental issues, our job is to assess the technological and policy opons on climate change as objecvely as possible. Independently of each other, we have all reached the conclusion in recent years that the gravity of the climate crisis necessitates a re-examinaon of deeply-held objecons sll shared by many in the green movement towards nuclear power, including, unl recently some of our own number. Needless to say, none of us has any nancial or professional relaonship with the nuclear industry whatsoever.We nd the 12 March leer objeconable on several counts. Firstly, we are disturbed by the  jingoisc tone the authors adopt towards our closest neighbour and EU partner, France. The leer insinuates, and the accompanying press release states in its very rst sentence, that having French companies involved in delivering a substanal poron of the UK's energy supply is somehow a threat to our naonal security. We are sure you will agree that countries working together irrespecve of naonalism must be the best way of tackling both climate change and energy security. Secondly, and most importantly, we believe that abandoning nuclear new-build in the UK - as the authors propose we should do - would be a serious environmental mistake. The leer holds up Germany and Japan as models to be emulated, but the truth is that both countries are increasing their use of fossil fuels to cover their nuclear shorall, and carbon emissions are rising accordingly and will connue to do so. From an environmental as well as a public health perspecve, the most urgent priority is to phase out coal - an issue the authors of the leer neglect even to menon, let alone address. The risk of policy failure here is substanal – abandoning nuclear risks pung your government in breach of the Climate Change Act and thereby vulnerable to legal challenge.

 

Nuclear remains the only viable large-scale source of low-carbon baseload power available to energy consumers in the UK today. Whilst we enthusiascally support research into new technologies, the deployment of renewables, demand-management and eciency, these combined cannot, without the help of atomic energy, power a modern energy-hungry economy at the same me as reducing carbon emissions. For nuclear and renewables, as the Climate Change Commiee has rightly pointed out in numerous reports, this is not an either-or choice; we need increasing deployments of both in the UK’s energy mix in the future (see appendix 1).Thirdly, the 12 March leer focuses signicantly on economics, in short, arguing that nuclear is too expensive. We would point out that even if this were true, the writers themselves would have helpedmake it so by devong decades to campaigning against the technology during their tenures at Friends of the Earth. In addion, if anyone has yet invented an inexpensive low-carbon energy source, we have yet to hear about it - Friends of the Earth today campaigns vociferously in favour of the retenon of the solar feed-in-tari, which delivers perhaps the most expensive, unreliable and socially regressive electricity ever deployed anywhere. Once again, we would refer you to the ClimateChange Commiee, which found that nuclear was potenally the cheapest of all low-carbon opons available by 2030 (appendix 2). None of this is to suggest that we are uncrical supporters of EDF, Areva or the EPR reactors proposed for some UK new-build sites, or that nuclear power – like any energy source – does not embody risks. It is true that EPRs under construcon in Finland and France have gone seriously over budget (although this is not the case for the same reactor designs being constructed in China), and it may well be that the Wesnghouse AP1000 is a more promising opon for Brish ulies. Some of us have already wrien about the PRISM reactor oered by GE-Hitachi, a fourth-generaon fast reactor design which can generate zero-carbon power by consuming our plutonium and spent fuel stockpiles, thereby tackling both the nuclear waste and climate problems simultaneously; it is currently under consideraon by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority as a promising alternave to Areva’s MOX fuel for plutonium management. Tom Burke has already declared himself opposed tothis new technology, we suspect before properly considering it. Moreover, it is abundantly obvious that the authors of the 12 March leer to you are not against nuclear power because they think it is too expensive, but that they think it is too expensive because they are already against nuclear power. This reexive ideological opposion, instuonalised by the NGOs which they have led and worked within over many decades, is clearly not a good basis for a truly sound and independent polical analysis. All four addionally act as ambassadors for the renewables lobby, which we consider an interest group like any other. The job of a government is not to pander to any interest group, but to formulate policy on the basis of sound analysis based on empirical evidence rather than asseron.Finally, we appreciate that you are now under considerable pressure from two dierent but equally vocal lobbies. One, consisng of those who deny that climate change is happening, urges you to abandon all support for low-carbon energy and instead to refocus on fossil fuels like coal and shale gas. The other, encompassing much of the orthodox green movement, insists that you should phase out nuclear and replace it with renewables and gas. Having examined the evidence and wrien

 

extensively about it, we feel that both lobbies are wrong, and both stand to do equal harm to our eorts to tackle climate change and keep the country energy secure in future decades if they are allowed to have a signicant inuence on government policy. We note that both sides appear to be opposed but are actually united in supporng a permanent UK dependence on imported gas, which is of course a fossil fuel.We urge you to stand rm in support of this country's internaonal and domesc commitments on climate change, and to connue working towards a regulatory enabling environment which will encourage all low-carbon energy opons, in order to achieve this end.Yours faithfullyGeorge Monbiot, Stephen Tindale, Fred Pearce, Michael Hanlon, Mark Lynascc:Edward Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate ChangeGeorge Osborne, Chancellor of the ExchequerMedia