Hello
Well October is almost over, and an interesting (or lucky) month it's been in the world of Nuclear power. Australian Prime Minister John Howard seems even more intent then our own Mr Blair at ramming Nuclear Power down the throat of the voters. Not content with just that, but Australia has recently signed a £100 million a year deal to sell Uranium to China.
It was a particularly bad month (well I'm hoping this isn't normal at least!) for the mighty US of A on the Nuclear Power front. In just October alone, it had to shut down 3 reactors scattered round the country in Phoneix, Dallas and Surry (Virginia).
St Peterburgs reputation as a tourist destination could have been somewhat tarnished if one plant in Russia hadn't been shut down also.
Thankfully, whatever those foreginers can do, we can do right here in the UK too. We managed two fairly serious incidents in the UK. Perhaps the most worrying line from the report being "The company said at the time that it was unlikely to carry out inspections and repairs at all the units simultaneously because of a lack of manpower."!!!!! Perfetic. Strangely I heard nothing through the UK media I watch/read about this.
And my point? Just that Nuclear power plants will malfunction, and that we're totally reliant on the safety systems to work(or in the case of Forsmark-Sweden shut down on my last post about Nuclear power, a rather quick thinking engineer who overrided a safety system!) or massive consequences will happen. A bit different to if a coal plant burns down or a wind turbine breaks.
Cheers
Andy
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4 comments:
I agree with what you say, but Joe Public wants electricity when it's convenient for him at a cheap price. He doesn't want a windfarm near him (cos he's worried that it might devalue his house)but he wants a healthy economy, clean environment, lots of foreign holidays a year and a nice big tax cut would go down well too.
That's why I think the whole environmental argument is a non-starter. Let's face it, in the real world the voting-public aren't prepared to make any serious sacrifices ("yes I strongly agree that car-use should be restricted, but I need my car to take little Johnny to school...").
I don't think we'll build any more nuclear power stations 'cos it'll be to unpopular to Joe Public. We'll just muddle on as we are now and hope everything will be OK.
No so Anton, the numclus question, I thought, had been decided and that we were going to introduce 2-3 new plants over the next 5 years. The strategic importance of having this power source is critical as we have an energy problem that we obviously increase, I'm sorry but that is true Shiz. So to plan for that the increase of our dependance on foriegn coal, gas is too high. This gives Britain an alternative basket to put its eggs in. I have to say that if you had to make decision as the primeminister does I think you would realise the difficultly in pleasing everyone. It can not be done. The nucleus decision is a political/strategic decision and one which would be made by all parties apart from the Greens. Remember there are no simple answer only good ideas which are well intentioned in hinsight but which can not account for an uncertain future that history has provided time and time again.
I agree with your "uncertain future that history has provided time and time again" statement totally and it is indeed one of my points against Nuclear. As I pointed out, the spot price of Uranium has risen 600% recently as lots of western and Newly Industrialised Countries are going Nuclear, increasing demand on what is a very specialist and rare resource. Where does this leave us when we have to rely on countries like Russia, Namibia and Kazakhstan to supply Uranium. We have enough coal, and supplimented with a very significant amount of green energy we could be self sufficient and greener.
I think most people agree that it was a political decision to close the coal mines (in order for Thatcher to take revenge on the trade unions). In the early 1980s British pits were the most profitable in the world (i.e. required the least-state subsidy). But to try and re-open them now would be hugely expensive and there's now been a generation of non-miners (i.e. we've probably lost a lot of the skills and would have to re-learn them). I think the coal industry is dead.
Regarding nuclear, I think they'd be so much opposition (you'd be surprised at just how much there is to wind farms) that it may never come to fruition. Democracy is action?? So the obvious answer is to do nothing - we're probably at least 20 years away from disaster and it'll be another govt. that'll have to deal with the problem.
That's why I think we are served by possibly the worst media in the western world. It is often so hostile and critical of anything the govt proposes. And the voting public often have an unreasonable expectation of what politicians can do that I just don't see anything really changing.
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