12. Short Debate: Atomic dreams: Nuclear power and blind faith in an ageing technology

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:44 pm on 7 December 2022.

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Photo of Sam Rowlands Sam Rowlands Conservative 6:44, 7 December 2022

Can I thank Mabon ap Gwynfor for giving me a minute of his time here today? I appreciate that I may be on a different page to Mabon, who made the points that have been raised here, but I'm genuinely interested in listening and understanding some of the perspectives of others' points of view around nuclear energy. I did note that there was a fairly quick acknowledgment at the start of your contribution in relation to baseload, but I do think that that's a fundamental issue that we do need to get our heads around because there's a lot of good work around renewables, but the only one of the renewable technologies that can provide that baseload is tidal, and we're not seeing that progress at the rate that it should progress at the moment. There's good stuff around windfarms and some good stuff around solar technology as well, but those, as we know, are not reliable in terms of ensuring we have a consistent flow of electricity and energy into our grid. And we've seen this in Germany, haven't we, where they're often lauded for moving away from nuclear and towards renewables. Renewables are only still contributing 49 per cent of their energy in Germany and, actually, a third of their energy is still produced by coal-fired powered power stations, and that's not a position we want to be in in terms of ensuring that baseload is there. So, I would argue that nuclear is proven and deliverable and delivers a baseload that we can rely on here in Wales.

A second point—. I appreciate it's only a minute; it's a very short time, isn't it? But there is an urgency as well to move towards a carbon-neutral creation of electricity and an urgency to move away from reliance on states like Russia in terms of supplying gas. And again I would argue that nuclear enables us to do that in a way that is faster than some other technologies, to be affordable, carbon free and reliable in the future. So, I appreciate the one minute and I appreciate your time. Thank you.