If there is a silver lining in the Japanese catastrophe, and it will be a very well hidden silver lining at present, it is that it may finally nail this crazy obsession with Nuclear power.
It has been pushed as the alternative to dirty, polluting coal fired power stations and Governments everywhere seems to have swallowed the ideal and gone crazy building nuclear power stations. There are curently 442 nuclear power plant in operation around the globe.
The continuing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant has sparked a review of thinking about the safety of nuclear technology with Germany announcing it will close down seven older reactors, Italy and Poland suspending plans to sign on to nuclear energy and Russia ordering a review of the future of Russia's atomic energy sector.
The problem with nuclear energy is when it goes wrong, as in Chernobyl, it goes catastrophically wrong with devastating results for the environment but that isn't its worst aspect.
The waste from nuclear power stations, the low level less dangerous stuff, remains deadly to humans for thousands of years. The high level waste is hazardous for a million years!
The preferred solution everywhere is to dump it in a big hole in the ground. A very, very deep hole and forget about it.
The IAEA said that the Fukushima incident is rated a level four out of seven on its scale of seriousness. Chernobyl was a seven rating. France's nuclear safety authority, however, said the situation is at level six.
The events in Japan must now open our eyes to a clean, safe energy source that doesn't require burning coal or include radioactive fuel rods. It's a wake up call that we must discard the misplaced faith in nuclear energy that has been misrepresented and sold to us as safe when, in reality, it threatens the very future of our planet and all of us on it.
6 comments:
Testing, testing, 123.... (I tried commenting on the Libya post but, after displaying for a few moments, it disappeared... Tried again, same thing happened... Not sure why)...
Anyway, yes. Nuclear power. It's a bit of a worry alright. Trouble is, current world nuclear capacity is 377000MW... That's a helluva lot of wind-farms. I like the idea of continuing to search for safe and renewable energy forms, but we obviously can't just suddenly cut out the nuclear option.
lucy,
ok my eyes are wide open - we must stop using fossil fuels and nucular fuel immediately!
Sorry for you because it gets a lot colder in the UK than in Texas...
Come on lucy. You have to pick an energy source. You eliminated coal, oil, and nuclear. That leaves you with solar which isn't economically feasible and making the solar panels is a nasty environmental mess. There isn't enough thermo energy for Iceland much less the world. Making enough dams for hydro power would destroy huge parts of the earth's eco system. Texas has a lot of wind power and all the tree huggers (which is funny cause the windy part of west texas is desert and does have trees) are raising hell about the environmental impact - dead birds, noise pollution, visual pollution, power lines running every which way and killing the precious scrub brush and cactus.
What do you suggest?
Eyes wide open, waiting for the UK to turn off all their powerplants first!
q
I like the idea of continuing to search for safer, renewable energy forms. However the world's nuclear power capacity is currently 377000MW (or at least it was, before the ballsup in Japan) so you obviously can't just turn all of that off, even if you wanted to. My own feeling is that safer nuclear power will play a huge part in the planet's power-producing future. Granted we still have a long way to go in terms of safety though.
It is infinitely nonsensical to make decisions about something based on what happens to that thing after it is hit by a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami.
In very simple terms q, to generate electricty all we need is to somehow make some parts move and generate a charge. I remember doing an experiment with a spinning magnet making a charge and lighting up a bulb at school. How far down the line of making safer, renewable power would we be if instead of investing billions on nuclear energy, we had researched wave, wind, solar or even the magnetic form? We have an abundance of free waves, wind and sun that is not goign to stop anytime soon but we seem to want to invent new and more dangerous ways of making some parts move ver quickly!!
Cheezy, i'm hoping that after what is happening in Japan it will open a few eyes and hurry along a move away from nuclear power. I'm pleased that many countries are now have doubts about the safety, shame it took such an horrific event for them to take notice.
It was nonsensical to build nuclear plants on a well known fault but they still did it Nog. Did nobody stop to consider what would happen if a massive earthquake hit in a place reknown for massive earthquake
It was nonsensical to build nuclear plants on a well known fault but they still did it Nog. Did nobody stop to consider what would happen if a massive earthquake hit in a place reknown for massive earthquake
I think we're both right on this one.
This would mean:
-We should try to build nuclear power plants in remote places where there aren't a lot of destructive acts of god.
-We should not stop building nuclear power plants entirely.
-Nog
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