The Government has announced plans for a new generation of Nuclear reactors. How bizarre when everyone knows the most efficient and safest way to reduce green house gases and fuel poverty is via insulation, energy efficiency and renewable energy generation.

Insulation – not all homes have loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, draft proofing….

Energy efficiency – we don’t yet have local combined heat and power, we haven’t banned old style light bulbs…

Renewable energy generation – virtually no one has solar water heating….

The government is currently drastically increasing its provisions for decommissioning past nuclear power plants to above £75bn or £1,200 for every person in the UK. The problems will be around for the next 250,000 years and we’ll have to look after highly radioactive material into the future longer than humanity has existed on earth. That’s quite a crystal ball to be sure this will be safe effectively for ever.

What is particularly sad is nuclear power generation will take 15-25 years to make happen. Whereas if we chose within 5 years all homes and businesses could be properly insulated saving more energy that all the current nuclear power station will ever produce. Within 10 years we could have combined heat and power pretty universally in place if a government made a political decision for this to happen. We could ban old style light bulbs within a year. If government chose it could create the conditions for solar hot water to become the norm within 5 years.

So where is the leadership to really transform our nations green credentials – certainly not with New Labour.

The Liberal Democrats want a Green Britain – we are the only party to produce costed plans to make Britain carbon neutral by 2050 without resorting to Nuclear Power. We want Britain to become a world leader in renewable energy and we will continue to fight Mr Brown’s daft and expensive nuclear plans every step of the way.