World needs another 30 nuclear power stations

Charles Clover, Telegraph 11 Dec 07;

The world needs to build 30 nuclear power stations and the equivalent of two Three Gorges dams every year to prevent dangerous climate change, the International Energy Agency has said.

It also needs to build 13,000 wind turbines and 40 coal and gas power stations fitted with carbon capture and storage technology each year between 2013 and 2030, the head of the Agency told the climate change conference in Bali.

Speaking on the 10th anniversary of the Kyoto climate change agreement, Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the Agency, said he didn't feel it was time to celebrate.

He said Kyoto's 5 per cent reduction target on 1990 levels by 2010 was getting "less and less relevant, unfortunately" because energy related carbon dioxide emissions are expected to rise 60 per cent by 2030.

Mr Tanaka said that this might seem like "scientific fiction" but an £11 trillion investment in alternative electricity generation technology was needed to meet the target of more than halving atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide by 2050.

Currently the world is lucky to build one nuclear power station a year.
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This is the amount the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is needed if global temperature rise is to be kept at an average of 2ºC or less.

Mr Tanaka said: "More than ever we need to act NOW. Much stronger action is needed everywhere to curb, stabilise and reduce man-made emissions in the foreseeable future.

"Do not think of energy as the problem, think of energy efficiency and technology as the solution," he added.

A Greenpeace spokesman said: "This reliance on nuclear power is not going to work. The Japanese nuclear programme has been an expensive catastrophe."