Dr Dixon said "there are two levels of argument that would rule out nuclear. There is a moral argument and there is a pragmatic argument. The moral argument is a very simple one: it is the most unsustainable form of energy that we have. For a few short years of energy we have doomed ten thousand generations to look after the waste that we have produced. It is the most despicable thing that we have done to future generations and it would be even worse if we were to add to that burden by contemplating more reactors. That is the moral argument. On the pragmatic side, I think it is really the fact that we cannot invest in both £10 billion to £20 billion worth of nuclear reactors and all the right stuff on energy efficiency and renewables, it is a choice between the two. Many in the industry, including the renewables industry for some reason, try to tell you that it is not a choice between the two but to me it is absolutely a choice between the two. Even if you were to believe that it was right to add to the £56 billion of decommissioning costs; even if you were not worried about proliferation, which of course we are; even if you were not worried about the terrorist threat that is presented by nuclear installations, which we should be; even if you thought that the new designs were safer, which in many cases they are not and anyway it is the operators who manage to do things wrong and not the designs; even if you were not worried about the routine discharges of radioactivity every moment that a reactor is running, which you should be; even if you thought there was really a solution to the waste problem, which there is not; even if you thought that nuclear created jobs, which it does not in any particularly great number compared to investment in the alternatives; and even if you believed that it would make a significant difference in the long-term CO2 emissions, which I do not believe it would, then I am afraid we would still say that the bottom line is that you cannot have both, that nuclear would be a distraction from doing the things we really need to get on with, which
is investing in the renewables, the ones that are available that we deploy in large numbers today and the ones that are just around the corner that need more investment to get them going, and the concentration we should be putting into energy efficiency and demand management.

Keeping the Lights On: Nuclear, Renewables and Climate Change
extract form uncorrected transcript of Oral Evidence to Environmental Audit Committee given by WWF-UK 19 October 2005