Ignore renewable electricity, it's got to be nuclear, Debate 14 April, Royal Geographical Society

It's got to be nuclear

14 Apr 2011

Speakers: Tom Burke, Craig Bennett, Tony Curzon Price, Malcolm Grimston, Mark Lynas

After the disaster at the Fukushima reactor in Japan, nuclear power is as controversial as ever. Intelligence Squared staged this 'emergency debate' at the Royal Geographical Society on April 14.

Craig Bennett from Friends of the Earth and environmental advisor Tom Burke spoke for the motion, arguing that nuclear power is not reliable enough, and that throughout its history it has over-promised and under-delivered. Bennett urged the crowd to support alternatives to nuclear power, and said that we need to explore the 'extraordinary untapped potential' of renewables.

Mark Lynas, the author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, fought back, saying that we need to 'get real' about renewables, and that nuclear power is the best way to 'successfully tackle global warming'. Malcolm Grimston, an advisor to the British Nuclear Industry Forum, supported this line of reasoning: according to him, renewables cannot deliver 'the level of energy security that we have become used to'.

Speakers for the motion

Malcolm Grimston

Honorary Fellow at Imperial College London Centre for Environmental Policy
Mark Lynas

Environmental activist and climate change specialist; author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet

Chair

Tony Curzon Price

Editor of openDemocracy

Speakers against the motion

Craig Bennett

Director of Policy and Campaigns, Friends of the Earth
Tom Burke

Founding Director of E3G and a Visiting Professor at Imperial and University Colleges, London