Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 11 February 2025

Debate

Contribution

My Lords, I support Amendment 10 as well, because the future of nuclear is very important if we are going to lead to a much cleaner environment in which to live. It is an important source of power generation that does not emit filth, like so many of the others do. I shall pick up on the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, about Drax. I have a slight problem with Drax because, although it makes out that it is using renewable fuel, it seems to be cutting down quite a lot of trees in North America to feed it, and the stuff that comes out of the chimney is highly polluting. The fact that it is not as polluting as coal does not mean it is not polluting at all. We have to look very closely indeed at the use of some renewables—I am not including solar and wind here. I mentioned in Committee that we are growing oil-seed rape to turn into vegetable oil that then gets refined and put into aircraft, but all the way through that process we are emitting CO₂ and that is what we are supposed to be combating. Drax is emitting CO₂ as well.

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