Since this thread was posted by Messiahtosh, the nuclear debate has been thrown back into the public sphere by Tony Blair's assertion (during the annual dinner of the Confederation of British Industry) that the issue was "back on the agenda with a vengeance". Labour's new catch-phrase is "wishful thinking won't keep the lights burning" or something similarly demagogic. The Liberal Democrats are accusing Labour of surrendering to the nuclear lobby and the Conservatives are saying that nuclear power should be seen as strictly a last resort, but I guess their wishes won't count for very much in the near- to mid-term future. Regardless, there are some good points about the government's proposals, not the least of which is the requirement that the private sector pay for construction and decommission of any new power-plants (the UK government was badly burned with the current generation of nuclear power-plants when costs ballooned dramatically beyond estimates).
I feel the biggest risk in building more nuclear power-plants is thinking that nuclear energy is a silver bullet just because it can go a long way towards solving our emissions problem. Nuclear has so many drawbacks that we should really be researching alternatives. Also, an increase in energy prices would help us develop more energy-efficient homes and transportation, and encourage sensible lifestyle choices, so I wouldn't be particularly against paying more for electricity if green sources are necessarily more expensive. Here in the UK I'd guess fully 75% of our lighting is still sourced from ancient tungsten filament technology, so if everyone (including industry) simply bought light-bulbs instead of heat-bulbs we would reduce our consumption by about a bazillion watts overnight. But people don't care because electricity is so cheap. Damned annoying.
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