Nuclear Reaction
For the past few weeks I’ve been helping Greenpeace put together a new blog, recording and commenting on the various incompetencies, radioactive leaks, cover-ups, accidents, spin, radioactive leaks, empty promises, contamination, massive cost overruns, radioactive leaks, substandard reactor construction, and radioactive leaks that dribble and gush from the nuclear energy industry.
The blog is now officially live and can be found here at Nuclear Reaction. The nice people at Greenpeace have let me take some of the Chicken Yoghurt snark over there with me.
With nuclear, not a day goes by without a jaw-dropping news item. The industry news is chock full of ‘NO WAY!’ moments. Much of it is darkly, surreally comedic. If you were to write a sitcom that involved some of the nuclear incidents I’ve blogged in the last few weeks, the show would bomb as too far-fetched.
The nuclear power plant that is actively contributing to global warming. The Japanese nuclear recycling plant which will release a collective dose of radiation in the next 40 years equivalent to half of that released during the Chernobyl disaster. The Canadian nuclear plant where they lost a piece of the reactor radioactive enough to give you a year’s worth of radiation exposure in a few minutes.
The American nuclear waste storage facility with the $32 billion cost overrun. The French rivers that had ‘only’ 18,000 litres of uranium solution poured into them this month. The 100 workers at the same plant who were ’slightly’ contaminated this month. The other French nuclear leak this month, from a pipe that had been faulty for ’several years’.
The Philippine nuclear reactor which took eight years and $2.3 billion to build, took 32 years to pay off and never produced a single watt of electricity. The nuclear insider who says it’s ‘difficult to have an intelligent conversation about costs’. The state of the art French reactor with substandard welding in its steel lining and cracks in its concrete foundations.
The Japanese plant built in an earthquake zone and then closed when there was an earthquake. The miraculous Indian nuclear deal that made the bedridden walk and set the imprisoned free. The taxpayers who’ll bail out the nuclear industry in the event of an accident.
And that’s just for starters. All this and more are at Nuclear Reaction. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll wish we were making it up.
Posted on July 28th, 2008 at 7:44pm under Activism, Elsewhere, Nuclear: power and weapons
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• 20 Comments |
EDF have been buying up land near our existing plant on the understanding they will get to build a new one and as NuLabour at their Warwick shindig have just approved the new gen plants I think your splendid new blog will have a safe future in terms of abundance of subject matter (however in the not glowing in the dark stakes…the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades).
RickB’s latest blog post… Illusion of Democracy
I wondered myself if the blog was sustainable but having had a closer look I reckon it’s probably got at least 10,000 years in it.
So instead of nuclear, what?
Daniel Hoffmann-Gill’s latest blog post… The Daniel Hoffmann-Gill Method
How about this.
Just so you know I wasn’t being flippant, it’s just that it’s alright to complain but to complain and offer solutions is the onyl way to be taken seriously.
I read the document last night and the website’s brief section on other energy options and I must confess, I am not convinced that the alternative energy sources they talk of are capable of generating the levels of energy required by an expanding global market.
Of course, humanity has a responsibility to reduce it’s heavy demands upon the energy market but that is easier said than done when most of the world is still making progress at entry level energy generation.
Still, very interesting.
Daniel Hoffmann-Gill’s latest blog post… The Daniel Hoffmann-Gill Method
I am not convinced that the alternative energy sources they talk of are capable of generating the levels of energy required by an expanding global market.
Just on that point, I think there are very encouraging signs coming out of sustainable energy development. I was genuinely excited, for example, at the news of China’s wind turbine production plans. Some of those electricity output figures out-compete state of the art nuclear reactors.
There’s a lot happening. Solar farms planned in the Sahara that will supply Europe. Scotland have just announced they’re going to build Europe’s largest windfarm…
the show would bomb
Ho ho
ejh’s latest blog post… But not today the struggle
Labour aren’t listening. The nuclear lobby have won their battle without the need for annoying obstacles like public scrutiny or an open debate.
The bad news for liberals is that it’s only the Conservaties who can save this country from a nuclear future – and the signs are not particularly encouraging.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
Labour aren’t listening. The nuclear lobby have won their battle without the need for annoying obstacles like public scrutiny or an open debate.
That’s why I’m amused at people who feel let down by Gordon Brown and how he hasn’t saved New Labour from itself. On a huge raft of policies, nuclear included, he’s nothing more than Continuity Blair. A lot of us said this is how it would be.
Surprised to read LFaT in opposition here.
I accept that I think there’s often an ‘enemy’s enemy is my friend’ tendency on the right – put bluntly: “If the hippies at Greenpeace oppose it then it must have something going for it!”. Not that this is necessarily wrong, but it is sometimes knee-jerk.
However, Nuclear power does have something going for it – It works. Over 75% of France’s electricity is produced by nuclear power stations, that’s a demonstrable fact. The renewable replacements suggested by greens and lefties are too often pie-in-the-sky.
Why would I trust a report written by Greenpeace any more than you would trust a report by, say, the Heritage Foundation?
QuestionThat’s latest blog post… Video Of The Week (30)
Why would I trust a report written by Greenpeace any more than you would trust a report by, say, the Heritage Foundation?
Fair enough. In that case, why would I trust a blog post written by Devil’s Kitchen any more than you would trust a report by, say, the Beano?
His argument against windfarms starts with ‘these bastard things are built with massive government subsidies‘ which would suggest he’s not looked very far into how nuclear power stations are funded.
However, Nuclear power does have something going for it – It works. Over 75% of France’s electricity is produced by nuclear power stations, that’s a demonstrable fact.
It’s a demonstrable fact, but it’s not in itself conclusive evidence to support the statement which precedes it.
ejh’s latest blog post… But not today the struggle
Huh?
Hahaha.
I think we all do that sometimes – say things which are true but not particularly meaningful if they support our argument.
However, it hardly rebuts his main point (regarding the practicality of replacing fossil fuels/nuclear with wind), which is the reason I linked to the post.
[...] Nuclear Reaction. I contribute monthly to Greenpeace anyway, so happy to give it a plug. But his introductory post states this: With nuclear, not a day goes by without a jaw-dropping news item. The industry [...]
Is radioactivity released from nuclear pants? Sure.
The interesting question though is not whether it is, but how much and compared to what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant
“Coal also contains low levels of uranium, thorium, and other naturally-occurring radioactive isotopes whose release into the environment leads to radioactive contamination. While these substances are present as very small trace impurities, enough coal is burned that significant amounts of these substances are released. A 1,000 MW coal-burning power plant could release as much as 5.2 tons/year of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons/year of thorium. The radioactive emission from this coal power plant is 100 times greater than a comparable nuclear power plant with the same electrical output; including processing output, the coal power plant’s radiation output is over 3 times greater.”
If nuclear power is going to kill us all because of radioactivity then we’d all already be dead from two centuries of coal burning.
Tim Worstall’s latest blog post… How Convenient.
Moreover, there’s enough radioactivity in Tim’s last post to kill a straw man.
ejh’s latest blog post… But not today the struggle
Nuclear power was almost impossible to defend from a liberal prospective during the 1980s and 1990s. The nuclear police force still has the authority to break into your home with a jokey warrant; the managers of UK nuclear power stations and recycling facilities regularly lied about problems.
I can accept nuclear power as a concept, so long as the providers subscribe to liberal values.
Well, that’s had an impressively speedy effect.
Curse you, McKeating. I want MORE radiation, damn it. I’ll also be heading to Hove with the lynch-mob when we’re all living in the cold and dark once you evil greenies have your way. So there.
*shakes fist*
Nosemonkey’s latest blog post… EU news and views, 31st July
Just out of interest, is the black-hole maker the particle accellerator thingy gonna be replicated and used to create energy in the future?