| Topic: | DoW: Should we go nuclear? | |
| Posted by: | Jeff Gear | |
| Date/Time: | 09/01/05 19:26:00 |
| I watched a TV prog last night, and it changed my views. "The End Of The World As We Know It" on C4 combined issues I've never really considered in the same breath before. I've never felt comfortable with nuclear power mainly because we don't know what to do with the toxic waste which remains deadly to life for millenia. Large scale use of nuclear power probably has implications for increased background radiation levels, and hence cancers. Nuclear power requires the storage and transportation of radioactive materials, which could perhaps be captured and misused. There will always be the possibility of horrendous accidents. And yet, Marcel Theroux (the author and presenter) now maintains that we must switch to nuclear power across the world. He likens it to taking a medicine. Despite the nasty taste and bad side effects it's the only thing that can save us... The arguments go something like this: Global warming is happening. We are at the very least contributing to it through burning fossil fuels and thus increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and creating a "greenhouse" effect The results include increasingly violent weather and flooding from rising sea levels as the ice caps melt. Crucially for the UK this melt water has the capacity to "switch off" the Gulf Stream. Were this to happen the local UK climate would become much COLDER to an extent that would render our present way of life, infrastructure, organisation and indeed population unsupportable. Worse yet, this could happen within a very short time-scale, not over centuries, but possibly even within a decade from now. The Green approach has been sustainability - we should use only renewable energy sources (wind & wave etc.) and we must cut back our energy use and change our wasteful Western lifestyles. Snags: It's only an incremental change, not big enough. It'll take too long. Can you really see it happening anyway? Are you willing to change? What about the rest of the world, the underdeveloped world. How do we tell them they can never have the standard of living we've enjoyed. Who's going to stop India and China from stepping up to our levels of energy use? Nuclear power offers as much energy as we care to build the capacity for, with no carbon deficit, no greenhouse gas, no contribution to global warming. But there's more: Oil products are central to our lives. Look at the use of plastics and pharmaceuticals, chemicals and consumables in our everyday world. Very difficult to conceive of life without them. They're made from oil. Which is a finite resource and running low. And we're burning most of it! Switching to nuclear power will make oil available much further into the future. Conflict... As oil supplies diminish there will be more wars fought over them. Oil is both the energy and the raw material for modern life. Western countries will fight to retain supplies, the rest will fight to get more access to them. Switching to nuclear power would reduce the potential for conflict. Switching to nuclear power could be done. We know how to build nuclear power stations. They could be built in every country, as required. They could be built quickly. The UK could be running on nuclear power within a decade... So, should we go nuclear? Do you think the arguments have merit, or is it just a case of that strange style of thinking that comes around at New Year time? I felt convinced last night, and still do 24 hours later. Any offers? |