Agreed, Russian gas bad – but George Monbiot’s attack on Germany, Europe’s largest economy, seems deeply misplaced (It’s not too late to free ourselves from this idiotic addiction to Russian gas, 9 March). The German energy transition is all about replacing conventional power plants, fissile as well as fossil fuel, with renewables. Looking at both short- and mid-term energy scenarios, Germany decided that the costs and risks of keeping nuclear outweighed the limited benefits. Meanwhile, worldwide, renewables are exponentially ramping up, and nuclear declining.
Global renewable electricity capacity is forecast to increase by over 60% between 2020 and 2026, reaching more than 4,800GW. This is equivalent to the current global power capacity of fossil fuels and nuclear combined. And here’s the killer: Russia produces about 35% of the world’s enriched uranium for nuclear reactors, and the EU’s uranium imports from Russia equal those from Niger, at 2,545 tonnes. The Fukushima disaster made Monbiot pro-nuclear and now military attack on nuclear in Ukraine makes him even more so. Good luck with that.
Dr Paul Dorfman
Associate fellow, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex
