In a striking development for the UK’s energy policy, the recently released Civil Nuclear, Roadmap to 2050 marks a remarkable shift in the government’s stance on the relationship between civil nuclear energy and national defence.
This reversal is testament to the arguments that critical nuclear commentators have made for many years, including Andy Stirling, Professor of Science and Technology Policy, and Dr Phil Johnstone, Senior Research Fellow, both of the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex.
Commenting on the just-released Roadmap, Professor Stirling said, “The UK Government has effectively now abandoned its previous efforts to deny the importance of military drivers of UK civil nuclear policy – but without any reflection on what this says about previous efforts to suppress discussion of this issue.”
Dr Johnstone underscored the importance of this shift in policy, “This vindicates the comparative credibility of critical perspectives that have for so long been maligned.
“That this is such a clear and distinctive point that critical nuclear commentators have made for so long, but which the Government and pro-nuclear lobbyists have so strongly resisted, seems to make this announcement even more potentially important.”
Professor Stirling and Dr Johnstone have both long argued that the UK’s civil nuclear energy policy is intricately linked to its nuclear weapons programme. This connection is now clearly acknowledged in the government’s latest strategic document.
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