Dear Friend

We all rely on having enough light to live by, and in the same way, we all rely on having enough energy to live by. For the last few hundred years, that hasn’t been a problem; we have been able to convert oil, coal, and gas into energy without worrying about the consequences. But that has changed. As a planet and as a country, we face two big energy problems.

The first big problem is that fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas are finite. They will run out. But even before they do, they will get scarcer. That will make them more expensive than many populations can afford, and so uneconomical to extract. We need to stop relying on them, and start thinking about what to use instead.

The second big problem is that burning them gives off carbon, which heats the planet. Each year, more and more of us in northern Europe understand that this might not always mean that from year to year in the short term we will see the weather outside our windows change. It means that from decade to decade, people in other parts of the world will. Two years ago, the Bush administration admitted that the north pole was melting so fast that polar bears were now an endangered species. My grandchildren will grow up in a world two degrees hotter than I did. They will watch more floods on the news, barely remember ice on the north pole, and be able to visit deserts in California, Latin America, and Africa in places which are fertile today. All this is a best case scenario.

So the two problems both point in the same direction. The fact that fossil fuels will run out means we need to stop relying on them. And the fact that the earth will reach a climate tipping point if we carry on as we are means that we need to stop relying on them urgently.

So today, the majority of the energy that we use still comes from fossil fuels. We also get about a quarter from nuclear power, and about 13% from renewable sources like the sun, the wind, and hydroelectricity. Over the next few decades, less of our energy will come from fossil fuels as old power stations shut: Cockenzie coal-fired power station will close in 2015, Longannet in 2020, and Peterhead gas-fired station in 2025.

But even assuming we do manage to generate half of our energy from renewable sources by 2020, we need to start thinking practically about how we are going to generate the other half.

There is only one energy source which makes significant quantities of baseload electricity, makes it without giving off lots of carbon, and already works: nuclear.

Yes, there are questions that the nuclear industry still needs to answer. For example, where to put the waste (even though we’d have to address that even without new plants, and there would only be a little extra waste than we’d have anyway because modern nuclear reactors produce so much less waste per kilowatt hour over their lifespan than older ones). But the big picture is this: no other proven energy source will make up our energy shortfall after 2020.

I know that there are well-intentioned people who oppose new nuclear power stations in Pakistan.

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Best Wishes

Muhammad Shahzad