renewable energy....

[mumspower]

...am sure I am not the only Mum who is really, really worried that we are leaving a damaged world for my/our children. The BP disaster and the desperate position in Japan so highlights this.

Might there be the power in Mumsnet to get the UK to move to renewable energy now?

Personally I am not a politician, or an activist, just a worried Mum who would like to see change now.

Faith in the power of MN is touching. :) I think renewable energy is already well on the cards. But we'll have to do a lot more than cover the Lake District in wind-turbines if we're to replace the power churned out by our old power stations. Nuclear is actually a low emission option... just don't build one on a faultline. You can do your bit by turning your home into a mini power generator with solar panels etc., and reducing your energy needs. Oil's slightly different and a more difficult energy-source to replace. But with the price likely to double in the next few years, the incentive must be to move a bit quicker.

but chernobyl and three mile island were not due to fault lines. anything that is made can also break. I wish we didnt have nuclear power stations either.

CND, Green party etc all have lots of info and are campaigning, this link is very informative:

www.cnduk.org/index.php/campaigns/nuclear-power/nuclear-power.html

agree with you Lego, but you don't seriously have faith in the greens do you?

They have convinced a lot of people about their "carbon footprint" and they keep telling us that it is the biggest catastrophe facing the planet and Gordon told us "we have 50 days left to save the planet" and they tell us that we need slop bins in our kitchens to "save the planet". But haven't you noticed that slowly, slowly many of them are starting to back nuclear power because it thankfully "reduces the carbon footprint". Have you read the green grandaddy James Lovelock of 'Gaia' fame and his support for nuclear?

www.ecolo.org/lovelock/

'Go nuclear and save the planet'. How long before all the people who believe in the "carbon footprint" also believe that?

And what about the green idol, George Monbiot

"Support of nuclear power will no doubt provoke hostile responses, but we have a duty to be as realistic as possible about how we might best prevent runaway climate change".

He raises the spectre of that old bogeyman, "climate change". He doesn't even need to use the term "climate catastrophe" as so may people have already internalised that concept.

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/feb/20/george-monbiot-nuclear-climate

Monbiot's nuclear retreat

Monbiot has many followers among Guardian types. How long before they choose nuclear for fear of the "carbon footprint"?

How long before they start to chant "war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength"?

Over time, renewable energy will become more and more important. But at the moment, the technology simply doesn't generate enough power to meet our needs. We could cover Scotland in wind turbines and it still wouldn't power the UK.

Nuclear power at the moment is the most realistic way to meet our energy needs whilst oil/gas & coal are running out.

The latest generation of power plants are much safer but of course not indestructible.

I must admit, I do wonder if any designer in Japan thought about the fact building nuclear plants on the Eastern side of the country, near a faultline might cause a problem?

Bottom line is that we can't live without nuclear power in the next 10-20 years and the sooner we bloody build some the better. Otherwise we may find within 5-6 years we are in deep shit as the older power plants are end of life and we've nothing to replace them with.

I still think we need to get rid. There is Always another way, if you want it, there always is.

Nuclear power is the best form of generating electricity if you're intimidated by the scaremongering the BBC have embarked on against nuclear power, then you don't deserve to breath our oxygen. If you don't agree, go and put your *** in a sandwich toaster.

the missing word there is "views"

would love to know from those of you who love nuclear power and swear by it's saftey; do any of you live within a ten mile radius of one? just wondered...

I don't like the prospect of having more nuclear power stations generating a greater proportion of our energy. I think there are issues around safety but a bigger problem is that we still don't really know how to safely dispose of nuclear waste. All that considered though we do need to get off fossil fuels and so I think we may have to tolerate them although I would like to see every renewable way of producing energy to be explored thoroughly.

We need nuclear power, renewables will not fully provide us with our energy needs. We cannot be
compared to Japan or Chernoble.

As for living within 10 miles of a nuclear power station, why build them in inhabited areas.

One thought we are far from running out of coal, it is estimated we have enough for 200 years in the UK, we just need the technology to use it without the pollution.

We can save the renewable energy and manage it for the future power resource and it can help the people living around the world. We provide professional management services for every phase of a power project and for nearly every conventional and alternative energy technology.

power plant operational issue

LegoStuckinMyhoover

would love to know from those of you who love nuclear power and swear by it's saftey; do any of you live within a ten mile radius of one? just wondered...

Do I live near one now? No. Would it stop me buying a house near one? Definitely not.

Nothing wrong with nuclear power, although the communists and KGB pets at CND would have you believe otherwise.

Renewable energy's great, if you don't want very much power and like to pay an awful lot for it. The EU's Renewables Directive is going to plunge the whole continent in to poverty-stricken darkness over the next decade.

Luckily, we've got nuclear and we've got shale gas coming online and plenty of coal to fall back on. We just need to get the Ecomentalists' hands away from the levers of energy policy and back in to lentil-weaving where they belong.

I was sent a link to an excellent website which has lots of facts and figures on the UK's energy supply, including up-to-the-minute graphs of the amount of power being generated by renewables. Link for those interested, the summary 'By Fuel Type' is about 2/3 the way down.

The theory of man made climate change is a crock of shit. Discuss.

[Retreats inside bombproof bunker]

All energy is renewable.

Wrong.

First law of thermodynamics: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.

Second law of thermodynamics: Within any closed system, energy has a tendency to revert to a state of maximum entropy.

In other words, although energy can neither be created nor destroyed, usable energy, within any closed system, diminishes.

Not that humanity is in any danger of running out of usable energy in the universe any time soon, but deferring to the first law of thermodynamics in this context is misguided.

"windscale" so good they named it twice. Sellafield aka Windscale is responsible for making the Irish sea the most radioactive in the world so no need to think that the disaster in Japan or Russia were the only major nuclear disasters, Windscale was every bit as bad as Chernobyl with radioactive waste being pumped into the Irish sea every day. Nuclear is not safe since we are incapable of dealing with any nuclear accidents big or small as history has clearly shown.

some intresting reading

www.corecumbria.co.uk/tour/irishsea.htm
www1.american.edu/ted/SELLA.HTM