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 11:02 am (UTC)Unfortunately the British approach is none of these things:
The government has already said they will not use a new modern design
Thorp and sellafield have a history of poorly managing situations - read the news and the safety reports.
They were trying to push Lord 'blue sky' Birt to head the investigation for fucks sake!
The public 'will not pay' for the reactors - yet the government has already decided on the type of reactor, and the private sector has indicated it will need public money.
In short, whilst nuclear is a credible, if unpalatable compromise, it is wholly unacceptable because of the lack of credibility and transparency of the government.