More nuclear power for Britain

[Eleusis]

link{http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6674415.stm"Britain will need nuclear power"}

There a nice little calculator to play to see how your adjustment will affect our future energy requirements.

So, do you think Sarkozy will be more corrupt than Chirac or less? The French don't seem to care as much about it than we do I think.

Oh I don't know. But, I'm hoping he likes Americans better than Chirac does -- of course it would be difficult not to.

He is very right wing and seems to want to give France a kick up the backside. I don't really know much about his views on the EU etc. Are France pretty much self-sufficient for electricity?

Mr Blair ranted on about how nuclear is soooo clean for the environment, and yes, once it's producing nuclear power, that's true but mining plutonium releases a huge amount of CO2 and completely outweighs the benefits - but they don't tell anyone that!

Somewhere around 75% of Frances electricity is nuclear. Way more than in the UK (can't remember the UK figure off the top of my head).

But, luciemule, we don't have much plutonium in the UK. So we won't be mining it.

I read something in Organic Life that said something about not inheriting the earth from our parents but borrowing it from our children - basically meaning it should be left in a better state in the future than it was in history.

Nuclear power certainly does not go hand in hand with this belief and I don't think our kids should have to worry about all the effects of us having more nuclear now.

the fact it's not US mining it doesn't matter does it? It's generating more CO2 in other countries. I just meant that it was a poor arguement of the gov's to say it's completely clean fuel when it isn't.

I'm sorry, did you just say that you get your information on nuclear technology from "Organic Life"?

No - it was the saying about 'leaving the world a better place for our children'...not the nuclear fuel bit - that was from my research into renewable energy as a student and watching Horizon.

Yes, I know that on a global scale it doesn't matter where it is mined. But, Brown will be looking at UK emissions. And every other country will be doing the same. That's the problem with initiatives which aren't global.

Oh, ok, sorry. You scared me on your source. But, I clearly misunderstood.

So, tell me more about the C02 released in plutonium mining. I must admit I don't really know what kind of numbers we are talking about.

Basically, I don't think 15 year old school should ever been allowed to watch the film Threads! It's put me off anything nuclear for life and don't want to end up living with a nuclear winter! It's all so scary - bring on the wind turbines and biofuel I say!

i heard nuclear power is a must if we are to take reducing carbon emissins seriously.

however it was on jeremy vine i am not a scientist, my interest is minimal hence no googling and therefore my knowledge is thin.

i think i have an automatic EEEEK complex regarding nuclear power - some tv programme i watched about windscale in the early 80's plus my mum was 20 in the 60's nd she had a complex about it - the aftermath of the war still prevelent peace love and hippies all contribute to my childhood ( thank god i wasn't called rainbow star)

an interesting dbate ilook forward to reading

Can't remember the figures but it would probably be on the BBC website as it was on Horizon not so many months ago. They showed you them mining for plutonium and that was when they discussed the CO2.
Wasn't being arsey - just don't think we should be having more nuclear. Saying that though, the French seem to get on very well with it - apart from a few accidents here and there....!

They problem with biofuels is that they still produce C02 -- anything you burn will produce C02. They are slightly more environmentally frindly because the product is grown (i.e. corn fields). But the C02 still damages the environment. Also, there is a risk that food which is much needed in starving nations wil go to producing energy rather than to feeding the poor.

Nuclear does not produce C02.

To me it seems a matter of priorities. We have a government that is willing spend shedloads of cash in various areas I disgaree with but won't invest in long term sustainable forms of producing energy. They've even pulled the grants for help with installing your own systems.

Personally, I think the way forward is through reducing demand, looking at carbon neutral forms of heating (eg wood pellet boilers) and improvong the efficiency of those systems and investing in optimising the renewable sources of electricity.

Locally there is a debate though about building a tidal barrier across morecambe bay which would be fantastic long term, but there would be envronmental cost in terms of habitat destruction - we also need to find ways of compromising these issues.

Btw, my view on nuclear power is that if you're going to have it at least live near it - if heysham blew up I'd be dead so no worries about a nuclear winter for me!

Is a wood pellet boiler carbon neutral? And we all start burning wood, it won't take long until we don't have any more trees.

I think it would only be part of the solution. I feel we should all have invidual fuel electricity sources that can be supplemented by the national grid. I'd like to see as any houses as possible with their own turbines (where appropriate of course, perhaps not in central london) and solar water heaters.

Wood pellets are carbon neutral because the carbon burned is re-absorbed back into the new trees and the cycle continues. AS far as I can tell, if we can reduce demand for paper and other wood products we can free up supplies for pellets. It's also very possible to manage forest sustainably. I'm not saying it's the whole answer, clealy, but it would go some way.

Besides there are a few issues here are there not? - environmental ones and economical ones.

I know exactly what you mean Eleusis about burning CO2 but it's all a bit like trying to run away from someone in your dream and not being able to get anywhere.

There's a really good short film narrated by Clive Anderson on the Greenpeace website which looks at scaling down power sources and allowing cities and towns to have smaller generators which burn wood and other renewable crops in a more sustainable way and which heats town buildings as well as homes. Has anyone seen it?

The case study is Guildford in Surrey and other cities who already do it in Scandanavia and after I'd watched the film I thought - wow that would be so easy to do yet governments take years even to evaluate such schemes.

Wood is indeed carbon neutral as is charcoal from coppiced chestnuts - very sustainable also. Bio-fuels are not that green either and especially when virgin rainforest is being chopped down to make way for palm plantations for bio-fuel (the EU is backing this btw).

I've always been anti nuclear but JAMES LOVELOCK who is the man who invented GAIA THEORY seems to think it is our only hope given the current situation. (His latest book is called the revenge of gaia.) Grimly, he thinks that the devastation caused by climate change will be so much worse than any nuclear accident that we have no choice. It's a completely bleak argument and one which has thrown many in the green movement into paroxysms of anger and doubt, but he's worth taking seriously. And it does seem as if the government's white paper ideas on planning are being put into place to facilitate building power stations quickly.

That's right, there just isn't time to fill the energy gap without nuclear

Lovelock admitted though his concern is for the planet to go on, perhaps without human beings.

The planet will go on anyway, we won't destroy the planet just our and many other species existence on it.

This seems to be the argument of those saying it's a natural phenomenom, not man made - still doesn;t change the outcome. Either sit on our arses and wait for it to happen, or make an effort and find out if lowering emmissions will help. It's a no brainer IMHO