P-04-514 A Welsh clean coal and/or renewable energy power station instead of the proposed Wylfa B nuclear plant at Anglesey

Petition wording:

We call on the National Assembly for Wales to urge the Welsh Government to work with the new owners of Wylfa B, Hitachi, to encourage the use of clean Welsh coal or our other plentiful supplies of viable technologies/resources instead of a dangerous nuclear power plant.

In a report on clean coal technology from the 2010 XXI World Energy Congress in Montreal Canada, Hitachi state that they are developing a full portfolio of new clean coal technologies aimed at further efficiency improvement, 90% CO2 reduction, and near-zero emissions of other pollutants. As world leaders in clean coal technology, why don’t Hitachi work alongside the Welsh Government to implement this technology at Wylfa B instead of an archaic and poisonous nuclear plant station like the failed Fukushima plants they helped to build?

Additional information:

Nuclear plants are a dangerous and uneconomical method of producing electricity, with a short unviable operational time span which costs tax payers tens of billions in development, subsidies and decommissioning costs. As well as being vulnerable to attack and natural disasters as seen in Fukushima, nuclear power has known health risks. A major German government report showed increased rates of childhood cancers and leukaemia around nuclear sites. With no known method of disposing of the nuclear waste, it will also contaminate the planet for thousands of years.

Welsh clean coal, gas, hydrogen, solar, wave, tidal, hydro, Maglev wind, geo thermal, refuse incineration, anaerobic digestion, biomass or a combination of all of these could be implemented at Anglesey and elsewhere instead of nuclear power. Ynys Mon’s PAWB manifesto states that, whilst the current Wylfa only has up to 600 workers, up to 3650 new jobs could be found by developing local renewable energy projects alone.

Petition raised by: Sovereign Wales

Date petition first considered by Committee: 26 November 2013

Number of signatures: 104