New nuke of the North

Somebody - Gore Vidal, perhaps - once said "everything changes except the avant garde." Something similar could be said of much of the debate about nuclear power. This was illustrated in an exchange this morning on the Today programme between Mark Lynas, now an advocate of nuclear power, and Caroline Lucas of the Green party.

Mark Lynas, repeating the arguments put forward by the nuclear industry for years, neglected in my view the central importance of devolved generation and efficiency (among other things). Caroline Lucas could have made more play of the potential for rapid development to be a game changer in favour of renewables such as new solar and 'smarter' energy use (where innovation and production cycles are likely to be more rapid than in nuclear power.)

I am still pretty much where I was on this issue when I edited Heat and Light for the New Statesman (see intro and contents) and blogged for the Institute of Physics. Plus ça change, as they probably don't say at the EDF film club.