Thursday, August 28, 2008

Greenpeace on nuclear power

Nuclear Reaction - a Greenpeace blog
Welcome to Nuclear Reaction, Greenpeace’s latest blog, where we’ll be recording for history the meltdown of that most over-rated, over-subsidised and over-confident of industries, the nuclear industry.

The nuclear industry is always running late, is extremely high maintenance, constantly stealing from your wallet, and very likely to be ruining your life for years to come. If it was your boyfriend or girlfriend you’d have changed your name and fled to another country years ago.
End the nuclear age | Greenpeace International
Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.
We need an energy system that can fight climate change, based on renewable energy and energy efficiency. Nuclear power already delivers less energy globally than renewable energy, and the share will continue to decrease in the coming years.

3 comments:

Red Craig said...

Greenpeace? If you want people to take your blog seriously, post real information from real sources.

Anonymous said...

Less energy that renewables? On what basis?? Nuclear power produces around 400 GW of power on a continuous basis? Hydro, Geothermal, wind and solar? The last one doesn't work past 3PM, the second to the last doesn't work consistently year round and when it does work it is unpredictable, Geothermal requires special circumstances, and hydro kills whole ecosystems. Nuclear was one of the greenest alternatives when it first came out and if you were to look at its history, it has become more and more efficient, consistently producing less and less waste over time. This trend is continuing with the introduction soon of annular fuel designs that burn far more efficiently and eventually the introduction of Thorium based fuels that will actually burn down reactor waste Plutonium as a fuel source while creating very little new long term waste, no proliferative products, and possess an increased operating safety margin. If you look at the trend, we are continually squeezing more and more energy out of fission and producing less and less waste. This is a trend that is actually accelerating. There are designs that produce virtually no waste at all that have run as prototypes. Greenpeace's answer? Progress? No, wind mills and solar panels. Hope they enjoy things at 5PM when the wind isn't blowing. Greenpeace will be opposed to nuclear if the waste coming directly out of the reactor were safe enough to sprinkle on your kid's ice cream.

Red Craig said...

Anonymous, it's possible you and I have been conned. The host of this blog posts a lot of material from many different sources and I think sometimes he doesn't agree with them. Maybe he doesn't agree with any of them--I can't tell.

However that may be, you've made some powerful arguments. Consider getting yourself a handle. That makes it easier for people to keep track of who says what.

A poster named Shannon Love put up an interesting article called Fantasy Energy, in which she makes this observation: "It’s as if we took a notion that all cell phones should be made of turnips and then blocked all manufacture of non-turnip cell phones while showering money on people trying to figure out how to give a turnip a ringtone."

Thanks to our esteemed host for allowing us to post here.