You might think that the most damage we can suffer from earthquakes in the United Kingdom is a few cracks in the plaster and a teacup shaken from the table. Such are the normal responses to a slight movement on the Craven Fault at Giggleswick or in the Blackpool suburbs because of fracking gas companies.

We couldn’t be more wrong, as we may well be seriously damaged by the recent movement of the earth’s crust near Japan that caused the tidal waves and destruction of property, nuclear power stations and life. The tremors from this natural tragedy are still reverberating.

The first indication was the rapidly-falling share price of industries that manufacture the engineering products for nuclear power stations, followed by an international review of this method of producing electricity in many countries.

Germany was the first to respond, pushed partly by the influence of Green politicians, and the decision was made to close all their nuclear power stations by 2022. Currently they produce about one-fifth of their electricity from 17 nuclear sites, and half of these, now closed for maintenance, will not start up again.

Switzerland has followed the same path and will close all its nuclear plants by 2034, and now will have to find other ways of producing half its power. Understandably, Italy, with a tendency to earthquakes and volcanoes, recently rejected nuclear power in a referendum. It’s likely that Japan could go the same way, as restarting the industry now that all 50 nuclear plants have been stopped could prove difficult.

The knock-on effect has been widespread, and recently a couple of international companies that were to build two new nuclear units in the UK have pulled out, citing the world-wide funding difficulties as countries adjust to the way that people interepret what happened in Japan.

Perhaps it wouldn’t matter so much if they were all replaced with the new renewable energy technologies, but that’s not what’s happening. Some renewable techniques are still not developed enough to produce up to a third of the global electricity demand and, as yet, they can’t be relied on to produce a consistent amount of power.

The only alternative will be to carry on using more fossil fuels, and extra coal and gas is already being burned to supply the power base load that is needed day in, day out, year in, and year out.

The countries with the most nuclear power stations – the USA, France, Russia, China and the UK – must continue to use them or we can forget about slowing the increase in global temperatures.