something serious for a change
Nov. 30th, 2005 02:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baratronI'm a woolly left-wing liberal, who is carfree by choice and recycles everything. But news that Greenpeace have been protesting against proposed new nuclear power plants just seems wrong to me. What, exactly, are they proposing as the alternative? Lovely though it would be for us all to reduce our use of petrol and electricity and for people to start walking and cycling everywhere, I can't see it happening.
In an ideal world, wind turbines would be shiny and wonderful and provide vast amounts of power. But in practice, they are noisy, and a large number of them are needed to produce a small amount of electricity. Many of the most suitable sites for them in the UK are areas of outstanding natural beauty, such as hill and mountain tops, and/or interfere with wildlife, such as offshore locations. Also, they are subject to the weather. Yes, it is often windy, but not always.
I don't know what the answer is. Ideally we'd use a large range of different non-polluting renewable sources. But replacing the entire country's fossil fuel stations with wind turbines isn't going to work. Nuclear power could be a short to medium-term solution to ease the transition between fossil fuels and renewable power.
What do you think?
[Poll #623017]
I'm not very impressed with Greenpeace for saying that nuclear power stations are a terrorist target. I can't really explain why this bothers me, except that I think that Fear of terrorism is the way the terrorists win. Let's take people's current Fear of Terrorism and combine it with their existing Fear of Radiation and use those emotions to win the argument, rather than science, logic and rational debate. *sigh*
In an ideal world, wind turbines would be shiny and wonderful and provide vast amounts of power. But in practice, they are noisy, and a large number of them are needed to produce a small amount of electricity. Many of the most suitable sites for them in the UK are areas of outstanding natural beauty, such as hill and mountain tops, and/or interfere with wildlife, such as offshore locations. Also, they are subject to the weather. Yes, it is often windy, but not always.
I don't know what the answer is. Ideally we'd use a large range of different non-polluting renewable sources. But replacing the entire country's fossil fuel stations with wind turbines isn't going to work. Nuclear power could be a short to medium-term solution to ease the transition between fossil fuels and renewable power.
What do you think?
[Poll #623017]
I'm not very impressed with Greenpeace for saying that nuclear power stations are a terrorist target. I can't really explain why this bothers me, except that I think that Fear of terrorism is the way the terrorists win. Let's take people's current Fear of Terrorism and combine it with their existing Fear of Radiation and use those emotions to win the argument, rather than science, logic and rational debate. *sigh*
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 04:59 am (UTC)Well, yes and no.
I sort of have reservations about that. Yes, if everyone involves was reasonably intelligent and responsible, then you could do pretty well with waste disposal. You'd have a waste disposal facility on the plant site, which would only store the stuff that couldn't be reprocessed into something safe.
But, that doesn't happen. Basically, you have a plant, and when you've got waste, you put it wholly into a truck, which then ships it overland to some "temporary" storage site, which is probably inadequate for the task. Then you'd shift it, again by truck, to some permanent storage site, which was built by the lowest bidder, who probably cut a corner or two, and who may or may not have gotten a rigorous safety inspection.
So, from an environmental standpoint, the chance of a problem is equal to the chance of a reactor meltdown + the chance of a truck crash (times 2) + the chance of an inadequately built truck + the chance of a failure at the temporary storage site + the chance of a failure at the permanent storage site. That makes me a bit uncomfortable.
If we had a very reliable cure for cancer and/or a very reliable mechanism for shooting things out of orbit, I'd be much happier with the technology. Or, again, if I trusted the people involved to be intelligent and responsible. But without any of those, I'm a bit wary.