"no decision should be taken to build new nuclear stations until it had determined how to dispose of its highly dangerous detritus. Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, takes a similar position."
And the carbon dioxide released by Britain is not, therefore, "highly dangerous detritus?" Not in the minds of the illiterate journalists, links to whom have been cluttering this site, one after another, in separate thread after thread this morning. From what I can tell from reading these "nuclear exceptionalism" the quality of journalism in the the UK is as bad as in the US. The articles, typical of the type of thinking that dooms our planet, mention nuclear problems and ignore problems with every other form of energy. In fact the form of waste that is going to hit Britain the hardest, and pretty damn quickly apparently, is the form of waste that is shutting down the gulf stream, on which Britain's climatic and economic stability wholly depends. Nevertheless, the eyes of all Britain's - judging from these illiterate links - are focused on a leaky pipe in a nuclear facility that needs to be fixed.
No wonder the British government found it so easy to "sex up" their justification for committing murder for Halliburton. Apparently journalists there, like journalists here, feel that if you repeat a lie enough you can make it must be true.
However, in spite of apparent stupidity on a scale that can only find in the other country to rape Iraq to keep access to that liquid fossil fuel, they have one thing right:
Wind power is generally superior to nuclear power in terms of impact and cost, and should be built whenever possible and practical. If recycled steel is used in construction, the greenhouse gas impact can be very small. I certainly don't debate this. I've been on record supporting wind power wherever proposed. The fact that wind power is viable is demonstrated by the capacity as measured in gigawatts. This capacity worldwide is 20-30 gigawatts, an impressive quantity, better than 5% of nuclear capacity, nuclear representing the world standard for clean, safe scalable energy. I have read that over 1 million American homes can be said to be powered by wind.
However wind power only works when the wind is blowing, a fact that seems lost on many of its proponents, some of whom engage in magical thinking, if they think at all. In the 2003 climate crisis in Germany, when people were literally dying from the heat, the country's entire wind capacity failed and produced zero energy. The nuclear plants in France, which provided some of the lost capacity were also in trouble, since they had to discharge heat at higher temperatures than are normally permitted.
These types of crises are going to become more and more and more common, because stupid people do not recognize that carbon dioxide is a dangerous waste, more dangerous than the heavy metals from coal and solar power, more dangerous than nuclear fission products, more dangerous than any other single threat to humanity.
This crisis will even stop worsening however as long as illiterate immoral twits pretend that fossil fuels are not dangerous, as long as people who could better spend their time getting a reasonable level of education spend their days cruising the Internet looking to justify their irrational fear of all things radioactive.
By the way, do you think the eyes of Britain will stare quite so hard at this as they stare at the harmless leaky "radioactive" (gasp) pipe, were such an accident to happen in Britain:
"Wind Turbine Accidents
WTC started operating a 500-kilowatt-capacity prototype turbine in Southern California’s Antelope Valley in early 2002, on Los Angeles Department of Water and Power property, according to Windpower Monthly.
In early June, Miles said, the rotor shaft to which the two blades are connected broke off the turbine tower and fell to the ground. The blades stayed on the shaft, and the tower and nacelle remained standing. "It would be analogous to a wheel coming off of your car," said Miles. This mishap near one of two branches of the Los Angeles Aqueduct caused no injuries or other damage, he added--except to his company.
DOE has "basically put things on hold" pending an investigation into why the accident happened, Miles said.
This follows another accident about a year earlier, with the same machine. Miles said an electronic device in the pitch system failed and led to a persistent "runaway condition" in which a blade "drove itself back upwind and into the tower, and took a chunk off of the tip of the blade."
He said it’s possible--but still unknown--that this earlier incident contributed to the rotor shaft break.
"Other than that, I guess the joke goes: ‘How was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?’" he said, adding, "The machine had performed pretty well, I’d say. We had no reason to believe there was anything really wrong with our concept..."
...Nevertheless, the $15 million contract awarded by DOE to The Wind Turbine Co. in 1997 (see Con.WEB, July 25, 1997) may be nearing an end. "The outcome of the failure analysis ... will help us decide what direction to move in," Simms said. "We don’t have money to continue beyond a few months ... unless The Wind Turbine Co. is able to find somebody who is willing to cost share to meet their <30-percent> cost-share obligations." Otherwise, "We’ll be closing out the contract, probably within a few months." This would have happened regardless of the accidents, he noted.
Miles said the project has rung up about $14 million in total expenses, including $12 million from DOE. The state of California pitched in nearly $1 million in 1998..."
http://www.newsdata.com/enernet/conweb/conweb91.html
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