Not building nuclear reactors in the UK because it will keep us safer is hardly a valid reason given that France is packed with them - some closer to us than Sizewell (if not Dungeness). Maybe the French have underestimated the cost of decommissioning them, but I'm pretty sure that their electricity is much cheaper than ours as a result of their presence.

I think that there may be viable renewable energy sources - in the case of the UK, wave and tidal might do the trick, but unlike nuclear power, no-one has made these systems work on any significant scale yet.

Wind energy is a terrible red herring. Not only are wind generators phenomenally expensive for the power they produce, they are very unreliable because of the vagaries of the wind. We still have to have all the necessary generating capacity on standby to cope with the times the wind doesn't blow - with the ability to turn it on rapidly. I think they have been built at our expense to satisfy a very dubious green agenda at the whim of politicians that don't understand the physics.

Disposing of nuclear waste is a problem - but it is one we have to deal with from legacy power stations anyway. I'm all for building some more to tide us over until fusion, tidal etc come on line. Disposal of coal mining waste was a problem too - and Aberfan alone probably killed more people in one hit than nuclear energy ever has in the UK.

In response to Michael's point about protection from impact, I believe the reactors are designed to withstand a direct hit from a plane.