NationStates Jolt Archive

Har this is a great story for so many reasons...

First its the in fighting between the greens and one of their greats...Lovelock.

Then you must look at the evidence for global warming...which is there. But the question is the cause. Now if hard core enviros say they want nuclear power stations to stave off possible catastrophy it makes you wonder at the validity of the arguement. The only thing that makes me step away from that thread of thought is the fact that Nuclear Power is an environemental anathema.

So what is going on? Am I too cynical in thinking this is a bleat on the tailcoat of that new enviro flick 'The Day After Tomorrow'? Or something more sinister in the sense that perhaps we are the cause or at least a major contributer (personally I think we hastened the process)....and most importantly the effects of these climatic changes on our planet.

What to do?!?!

Scientist's plea to use nuclear energy starts new climate change debate by green groups
By Charles Arthur Technology Editor

25 May 2004

A former Labour energy minister and the nuclear industry both welcomed the call by the scientist James Lovelock yesterday for a massive expansion of the nuclear industry to combat global warming.

They also forecast that Professor Lovelock's dramatic call, in yesterday's Independent, would force more environmentalists to consider whether nuclear power really posed a greater threat to humanity than climate change - and that they too would eventually agree with the celebrated scientist.

Professor Lovelock's radical suggestion provoked widespread debate yesterday, with both Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace rejecting his claims.

However Brian Wilson, who stood down as energy minister last year to become the Prime Minister's special representative on overseas trade, said Professor Lovelock had had the courage to address the question of global warming honestly. "I hope that many others will follow him in questioning the basis of their hostility to nuclear power in the age of global warming."

Mr Wilson said it was "a self-evident nonsense" for the UK to run down its nuclear capacity at the same time that there was an unprecedented emphasis on the need to reduce carbon emissions.

"Nuclear power is our only significant source of non-carbon electricity. It is the bird in the hand yet the Green lobby wants to shoot it."

At the Nuclear Industry Association, which lobbies in favour of nuclear power, Simon James said: "It's self-evident to us that nuclear power can deliver large amounts of energy without producing the carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming.

"We believe we are winning the argument. Increasingly people are looking at this and saying 'Hang on, if we're serious about global warming we need to do something serious about converting large amounts of energy to non-carbon-producing sources.

"Environmentalists are seeing this. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this article means more environmentalists come out backing Professor Lovelock," Mr James said.

As the creator of the Gaia hypothesis - which suggests that the Earth acts as a single organism - Professor Lovelock, 84, has a mythic place in the Green movement.

But in yesterday's Independent he argued that a massive expansion of nuclear power as the world's main energy source is necessary to prevent climate change overwhelming civilisation in the next 50 years.

Some environmentalists see that as a dramatic volte-face, because nuclear fission produces radioactive waste that remains dangerous for thousands of years and requires special storage and disposal. Environmental groups have thus lobbied - and frequently acted - against nuclear power wherever possible.

However, a growing number of scientific bodies, including most recently the Royal Academy of Engineering, have concluded that nuclear power does represent the best compromise between risk and power output, given the world's growing demand for energy.

In his article calling for a fresh look at nuclear power, Professor Lovelock considers - and rejects - other options for generating power and criticises the Green movement's rejection of it. He also accuses the group of forgetting the lesson of the Gaia concept.

"Every year that we continue burning carbon makes it worse for our descendants and for civilisation ... The Green lobbies, which should have given priority to global warming, seem more concerned about threats to people than with threats to Earth, not noticing that we are part of the Earth and wholly dependent upon its well-being."

Public attention to global warming and climate change has been heightened by Sir David King, the Government's chief scientist, who has repeatedly said that global warming poses a greater threat to the world than terrorism.

A new Hollywood blockbuster, The Day After Tomorrow, also uses dramatic effects of global warming as the essence of its plot - a move that environmentalists have said should raise the importance of the topic in people's consciousness.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=524663

actually nukler power is a clean source of energy... if you ignore that it takes 1,000,000 years for the waste to become harmless again. but i guess its the next best thing untill we perfect cold fusion. (or is it hot? im fuzzy on the matter)

I'll admit my opinions on nuclear power changed a bit when I actually researched it. I'm still not in total agreement with it, but it's not the tool of the devil...

*off topic, but it seems that my post count is decreasing gradually each day :?

I'm in the 'it feels a bit dodgy' camp. I'm not 100% against nuclear - the amount of power that can be produced is wondeful, and without any carbon emmissions. We urgently need an alternative to our current energy production. However nuclear waste is a big problem, and I don't like the idea of radioactive material still around when I'm looooong gone.

I work for a company who visulises landscape change. Currently, most of our projects involve renewable energy sources - windfarms, tidal power and hydroelectric facilities on waterways. I have yet to be convinced of a power source that can sustain us better than renwable sources.


*off topic, but it seems that my post count is decreasing gradually each day :?

It most certainly is off topic, and shouldn't have been posted. Spam.

However nuclear waste is a big problem, and I don't like the idea of radioactive material still around when I'm looooong gone.


Improve efficiency. Most nuclear waste is simply fuel that cannot be used with current technology. As efficiency of the plants improve, the waste created will be reduced.

However nuclear waste is a big problem, and I don't like the idea of radioactive material still around when I'm looooong gone.


Improve efficiency. Most nuclear waste is simply fuel that cannot be used with current technology. As efficiency of the plants improve, the waste created will be reduced.

Well interestingly enough there is thought being given to having reactors in residential/commercial buildings...

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991186

and people...

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992951

in the meantime ....

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992499

On the downside...

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992458

However nuclear waste is a big problem, and I don't like the idea of radioactive material still around when I'm looooong gone.


Improve efficiency. Most nuclear waste is simply fuel that cannot be used with current technology. As efficiency of the plants improve, the waste created will be reduced.
Nuclear waste isn't even as much of a problem as people make it out to be. The waste can be reprocessed and used as fuel, the UK does it, France does it, and Japan does it. There's one good thing I can say about France: They had the brains to properly exploit nuclear power. More than 70% of their electricity comes from nuclear power, in fact.

I work for a company who visulises landscape change. Currently, most of our projects involve renewable energy sources - windfarms, tidal power and hydroelectric facilities on waterways. I have yet to be convinced of a power source that can sustain us better than renwable sources.
How much hydroelectric expansion capacity exists? In North America and Western Europe, I'd wager that it's very, very small. We've already exploited hydro power as much as possible in the West. If we could expand it, that'd be great, but we probably can't. As for wind farms, well, if we want unreliable and incredibly expensive power, sure. 'Renewable' power isn't going to support a highly industrialized society, not by any means. As for tidal power, I'm not sure, though I'd be a tad less than shocked if the cost of implementing it were far, far greater than nuclear power. Nothing we have can beat the efficiency of nuclear power. Until such time as we develop efficient (thermonuclear) fusion reactors, fission is our only logical recourse. I've always found it ironic that these self-styled environmentalists oppose nuclear power. It's sheer idiocy, if they really cared about the environment, they would be promoting it as much as possible. I'm glad to see that some of them have some sense. Anyhow, if we actually want to use hydrogen as a civilization-wide energy medium, we don't have any option but to use nuclear power.

Improve efficiency. Most nuclear waste is simply fuel that cannot be used with current technology. As efficiency of the plants improve, the waste created will be reduced.

But we'll still have waste! And it's a huge, long-term problem.

Improve efficiency. Most nuclear waste is simply fuel that cannot be used with current technology. As efficiency of the plants improve, the waste created will be reduced.

But we'll still have waste! And it's a huge, long-term problem.
Umm, read the above. Reprocessing is the answer. Dumbass Carter killed reprocessing in the USA because, well, he was a jackass. France uses reprocessing quite effectively, go and tell them that their energy policies don't work at all.

Anyhow, would you rather dump billions of tons of pollutants into the air each year, or would you rather have a few tonnes of solid or liquid waste that can be stored? By the way, I hope you realize that a coal plant during its lifetime releases into the atmosphere as much radiation as a nuclear plant that MELTED DOWN.

Uhhh. Wth are you talking about?

Anyhow, would you rather dump billions of tons of pollutants into the air each year, or would you rather have a few tonnes of solid or liquid waste that can be stored?

I'd rather have neither. I'd rather have a constant, renewable and everlasting power supply. Wind, water and sun energy can be harnessed to produce vast amounts of electricity without the need to seriously damage our planet or create hazardous material.

'Renewable' power isn't going to support a highly industrialized society, not by any means.

It will if invested in and given serious commitment from governments. Renewable energy (RE for time saving) research has got only a fraction of the money that nucler/oil/gas/coal has received over the years. But this is changing. Wind turbines and hydroelectric schemes are now being heavily invested in to harness more and more energy, while governments, corporations and Joe Public are brightening up to the idea of RE. The Irish government plans to have Eire completely self-sufficient for power by, I think 2008. A massive proportion of this power will be generated by wind turbines.

Certain supermarket chains and large shops are starting to use single turbines to power their stores, while schools and universities around the country are looking into solar and wind turibne technology to power their buildings and equipment.

There are over 100 applications for windfarms in Scotland alone, and thousands are being set up all over the world.

If given enough time and money, RE is a viable and reliable source of our energy needs.

The problem with nuclear power -- apart from the long-term problem of what to do with the unreprocessable waste -- is that it is wildly uneconomic. Building, running, and decommisioning nuclear power stations is incredibly expensive. Plus you have public opposition ranging from cogent, reasoned arguments to outright superstition; overturning that won't be easy. Or cheap.

The big issue regarding power in the all-but-immediate future is quantity. We will not have enough. Scarcity of any basic resource -- and power is a basic resource to a technological and industrial civilisation -- is, generally, catastrophic. This is what you get when you expect market forces to run your society for you. But let's not point invisible fingers: what are we going to do?

First of all: renewables. There is extensive scope for progress here. Major funding is needed for research into tidal and wave power, for example. Corporations, and states, will have to put up the cash. Call it enlightenened self-interest. They're ultimately going to get it from us anyway.

Second: nuclear. Expensive, but probably necessary. Again, corporations and states will have to get their fingers out. Research into dumping nuclear waste in oceanic subduction zones might be an idea.

Third: waste. The developed word in particular is profligate to an extreme. Insulation, energy efficiency, turning stuff off for pity's sake. Tax incentives -- and penalties -- could be useful here.

In sort, we need a plan. We need to look ahead, think, and work out our strategies. Together. No more letting our politicians off with running away from international treaties, just because they'll piss off the waddling voter at the pump. Let's take a bit of bloody responsibility for once, and try to act like rational adults, instead of burying our heads in the tar sands and pretending that it'll all work itself out somehow without us having to inconvenience ourselves in the slightest.

No one wishes to pass comment on the dispute between environmentalists?

This is afterall one of the most, if not the most, radical policy departure of any politically motivated group.....

This is afterall one of the most, if not the most, radical policy departure of any politically motivated group.....

It's not a whole group - it's one professor. Held in high esteem by the greens mind. I believe him to be wrong.

No one wishes to pass comment on the dispute between environmentalists?

This is afterall one of the most, if not the most, radical policy departure of any politically motivated group.....

Lovelock's been saying this for a long time. And it's well worth remembering that if there's one thing the left is good at, it's arguing amongst themselves. I should know, I'm a leftie!

This is afterall one of the most, if not the most, radical policy departure of any politically motivated group.....

It's not a whole group - it's one professor. Held in high esteem by the greens mind. I believe him to be wrong.

No. Here you have a man who has a mythic status within the group.

Thats like Hitler turning to his Generals and admitting that the Final Solution was a bad idea.

This is afterall one of the most, if not the most, radical policy departure of any politically motivated group.....

It's not a whole group - it's one professor. Held in high esteem by the greens mind. I believe him to be wrong.

No. Here you have a man who has a mythic status within the group.

Thats like Hitler turning to his Generals and admitting that the Final Solution was a bad idea.

Seriously, Lovelock's been advocating nuclear power for about a decade. His Gaia Hypothesis is massively influential but he's no mythical figure for greens.

No one wishes to pass comment on the dispute between environmentalists?

This is afterall one of the most, if not the most, radical policy departure of any politically motivated group.....

Lovelock's been saying this for a long time. And it's well worth remembering that if there's one thing the left is good at, it's arguing amongst themselves. I should know, I'm a leftie!

Really? How long? This is so out of the ordinary....

Yes the left is great for dessent...I have had my own exposure to irrationality from the left....plus some good laughs:)

Who is next in line to take Lovelocks 'title'?

No one wishes to pass comment on the dispute between environmentalists?

This is afterall one of the most, if not the most, radical policy departure of any politically motivated group.....

Lovelock's been saying this for a long time. And it's well worth remembering that if there's one thing the left is good at, it's arguing amongst themselves. I should know, I'm a leftie!

Really? How long? This is so out of the ordinary....

How long? I read an article in The Guardian while I was at uni (four to seven years ago) that detailed his contrary stance. It didn't come across as a recent change of heart.

Yes the left is great for dessent...I have had my own exposure to irrationality from the left....plus some good laughs:)

Yeah, we're just a bunch of sectarians, deviationists, running dogs and splitters.

Who is next in line to take Lovelocks 'title'?

Um, not sure anyone has the mantle of spiritual leader. Depends on what branch of the greens you're referring to - Lovelock has a fairly limited appeal as the whole Gaia thing is quite, well, odd. I've never noticed one anyway. I'm ready to stand corrected, of course.

No one wishes to pass comment on the dispute between environmentalists?

This is afterall one of the most, if not the most, radical policy departure of any politically motivated group.....

Lovelock's been saying this for a long time. And it's well worth remembering that if there's one thing the left is good at, it's arguing amongst themselves. I should know, I'm a leftie!

Really? How long? This is so out of the ordinary....

How long? I read an article in The Guardian while I was at uni (four to seven years ago) that detailed his contrary stance. It didn't come across as a recent change of heart.

Yes the left is great for dessent...I have had my own exposure to irrationality from the left....plus some good laughs:)

Yeah, we're just a bunch of sectarians, deviationists, running dogs and splitters.

Who is next in line to take Lovelocks 'title'?

Um, not sure anyone has the mantle of spiritual leader. Depends on what branch of the greens you're referring to - Lovelock has a fairly limited appeal as the whole Gaia thing is quite, well, odd. I've never noticed one anyway. I'm ready to stand corrected, of course.

mmmm well 4 years....damn! This is a 100% complete surprise to me....need to do some reading I guess...thanks!

As for the leftists....mate...every try and run a meeting with a room full of Marxist/Lenninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, anarcho-syndicalists and pacifists....

I had always been lead to understand that the Gaia theory was important as it gave green activism a 'spiritual' context....

DP

Ha! I saw this article the other day and thought to myself, "My word, that's going to piss off an extraordinary number of people. This should be good. I'd better get some popcorn."

Say what you will about liberal, tree-hugger, granola, environmentalists, but no one knows how to play dirtier when it comes to infighting.

I'm 99% for nuclear. It's clean, cheap, small, and produces little harmful waste. The statistics are so ridiculous. For 1MW/(i forget how long), a nuclear plant produces 1g of waste, whereas a coal plant produces 1 ton. Renewable energy sources are OK, but wind power is useless in most of America, hydroelectric costs a lot, requires flowing water, and damages habitats, solar produces toxic waste and requires a massive amount of land to do any good.
That 1% is for my doubts on the honesty of the nuclear industry.
Oh well. As soon as we run out of fossil fuels in the next 50 years, I'm sure people will come to their senses.

I'm 99% for nuclear. It's clean, cheap, small, and produces little harmful waste. The statistics are so ridiculous. For 1MW/(i forget how long), a nuclear plant produces 1g of waste, whereas a coal plant produces 1 ton. Renewable energy sources are OK, but wind power is useless in most of America, hydroelectric costs a lot, requires flowing water, and damages habitats, solar produces toxic waste and requires a massive amount of land to do any good.
That 1% is for my doubts on the honesty of the nuclear industry.
Oh well. As soon as we run out of fossil fuels in the next 50 years, I'm sure people will come to their senses.

The problem is waste...

And safety.

You need to make sure that the reactor is safe. No mean feat. Espcially with Windows 98SE....!

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995036

Nuclear jet crash 'could kill millions'

19:00 26 May 04

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.


Fears that the UK's nuclear plants are vulnerable to a 9/11-style attack or accident are growing. Evidence is emerging that the no-fly zones around nuclear plants are regularly breached by both military and civilian aircraft. And a report for the UK parliament leaked to New Scientist says that such an attack might kill millions.

Since the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington DC, the area of the ban has been doubled to cover a radius of two nautical miles (3.7 kilometres). Planes also have to stay above a certain height, which varies for different sites.

But these restrictions have been flouted on numerous occasions. Over the past five years, the operators of 19 nuclear sites around Britain have lodged more than 100 complaints about aircraft flying too close. The sites include reactors and stores of radioactive waste or nuclear bombs.

Alleged breaches of no-fly zones around UK nuclear sites

Declassified reports from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) reveal that there were 56 alleged breaches of the no-fly zones by military aircraft between 2000 and 2003.

Four of the complaints came from the MoD's own nuclear weapons sites at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire, and at Faslane near Glasgow. Most of the other complaints were made by the government agencies and private companies that run the UK's civil nuclear programme.

The incidents include one on 24 April 2002, when a jet flew so close to the Torness reactors in East Lothian that it set off three intruder alarms on the perimeter fence. And on 10 June 2003 three military jets were seen rehearsing a flypast for the queen's birthday near the Sizewell reactors in Suffolk.


Hot air balloon

The MoD's internal investigations have confirmed only five breaches of the no-fly zones: three at Berleley in Gloucestershire, one at Torness and one at Dungeness in Kent. "We can only confirm that a breach has occurred when we have proof," an MoD spokesman says.

There have been 71 complaints of civilian aircraft breaching the no-fly zones since the beginning of 1999. According to the Civil Aviation Authority, there was only enough evidence to launch formal investigations in 12 cases, including three at Aldermaston, two at Burghfield and two at Sellafield in Cumbria.

Four investigations are ongoing, and there have been two successful prosecutions: one for a hot air balloon at Aldermaston in 2001 and the other for a powered hang-glider at Heysham nuclear station in Lancashire in 2003.

The breaches will do little to reassure the public that nuclear sites are adequately protected from a terrorist attack or an accidental aircraft crash. In 2002 the UK House of Commons Defence Committee requested a report on the risks of terrorist attacks on nuclear facilities, and the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology is due to publish its long-awaited reply in the next few weeks.

New Scientist has seen a copy of the report and can reveal that it says that a large plane crashing into a reactor could release as much radioactivity as the Chernobyl accident in 1986, while a crash into waste tanks at Sellafield in Cumbria could cause at worst, "several million fatalities".


Confidential information

The report acknowledges that the risks are difficult to assess because so much information - including operators' estimates of the health impacts of radiation releases - is kept secret.

But it concludes that it would be possible for terrorists to cause a radioactive release - and that the UK's current emergency arrangements may not be sufficient to cope.

"It is totally unacceptable that the information we need to judge the risks is kept confidential, and that we have to take so much on trust," says Llew Smith, a Welsh MP who has been investigating the risks of nuclear attacks by terrorists.

But the British Nuclear Group, which operates the Sellafield site, has dismissed the report's suggestion that flying a plane into the waste tanks might kill millions, saying the idea is implausible.

Smith says this attitude is dangerously misleading: "The consequences of deliberately crashing an aircraft into a nuclear plant would be horrific."