A “Lib Dem” minister just told Sky News he was approving new nuclear power stations to promote green jobs. If anybody ever votes for these lying bastards again I shall be disconsolate.
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The nuclear industry is nothing more than an establishment cult, no good can come of it & it’s promoted by crooked politician plutonium addict front men who are past caring
And Labour will abstain on a bill designed to ensure that “workfare” forced labour in Poundland stores do not get paid retroactively for their work.
Meanwhile those on the “left” obsess over Galloway’s bluntly accurate language and lament that Julian Assange is not being tortured like Brad Manning.
If Labour, the Liberals and the left were actually led and directed by salaried and uniformed agents of the ruling class would they behave any differently?
In the recent cold spells the UK was struggling to maintain electricity supplies because of increased demand. The current plan is to phase out natural gas for heating by 2050. The idea before fracking came along was for us all to run our heating with electric heat pumps and the cheapest price of buying in a basic air to water heat pump is currently 1000 pounds.
This statement means simply that this was the plan all along as developed by Chris Huhne. Germany has reacted swiftly to the catastrophic nuclear melt near meltdown in Japan and reversed its nuclear power station programme. The UK hasn’t even got its act together to start insulating all homes. I know, the only heat in my house this winter has been from a small air conditioning unit I put in because my boiler has gone wrong.
Looks like we are all going to be installing log stoves very soon.
Given the global catastrophe looming due to climate change Nuclear power shouldn’t be so casually dismissed.
Chris, what do you mean, “if”?
Craig, go back to your constituency and prepare for disconsolation.
Japan’s politics are trading one disaster for another. Nukes or methane hydrate? Imagine a BP type blowout with those effervescent bubbles rising to the surface.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/telliottmbamsc/blog/2013/03/fukushima-energy-nimrods-want-trigger-ocean-release-its-methane-hy
“If Labour, the Liberals and the left were actually led and directed by salaried and uniformed agents of the ruling class would they behave any differently?”
I dont understand this statement at all. It seems purposefully blinkered to what is actually going on, as if the writer really prefers to babble some all-encompassing comfort-zone conspiracy. Let’s start with Labour – the Miliband group are essentially the fagend of Blairism, tempered by the realisation that the Great Charlatan cocked up spectacularly on several issues, not least of which was allowing himself (and Brown was just as to blame later) to be hoodwinked by advisors drawn from commerce and the City. That whole rancid crowd, the likes of McKinsey, PWC, and KPMG etc, were the ones behind much of the pro-business agenda relentlessy pushed by New Labour. And now that the Tories are in, guess who’s smugly whispering in Gideon’s ear and steering us all in the Coalition Handcart To Hell. But even now, Labour cannot shrug off that whole 3rd-wayist snakeoil, somehow convinced that any policy moves in a genuinely social democrat direction, along with real passion and anger, would attract the furies of the corporate-owned/cheerleading press. They are hamstrung by their doctrinal weakness, and by fear of the media.
You can “approve” nuclear power stations all you bloody like – nobody’s going to pay to actually build the damn things without price guarantees for at least the next 20 years, and they’re probably not getting those. There’s a reason why the only people who build nuclear power stations are state-controlled utilities… The economics of new build nuclear power stations are not attractive in a competitive market.
As for the ‘Liberals’, or Liberal Democrats (although going by the party’s dwindling cheerleaders they clearly see themselves as the Liberal Party redux in all but name), they are currently going through the same hollowing-out that afflicted Labour towards the end of Blair’s regime. The Clegg leadership has shown such a negligent, offhand attitude to the party’s previous expressions of principle (and a masked contempt towards conference motions) that a certain mixture of resolve and despair holds sway within the party in the country. Clegg is our Blair – he has nailed his old-school Liberal colours to the mast with such unwavering purpose that everyone now knows that nothing can be done or changed until he is gone. For him to start opposing things like the benefit changes, the economic policies or the NHS demolition would be to admit total defeat since he has so willingly and definitively committed himself to staying in the Coalition come what may.
Truly, the matter of Clegg is a modern day political tragedy. If he and the negotiating team had decided to go for a limited coalition for limited aims over a limited period, say 2 years maximum, how different things would have turned out. But, coulda, woulda, shoulda. All that remains now is how much of a fight is still left in him when it comes to the tussle for the party leadership in the wake of the next GElection.
We are all bombing around using up resources; think how much wood to burn would ne required next time you slap the kettle on for just one more cuppa.
Sadly options for energy are limited and our need for energy is rising.
The next time economic growth is mentioned we know equal energy will be required.
Please remind me what is the problem with “new clear” energy.
Oh the waste. Us Brits are the world leaders in waste disposal.
The age old tradition ” dig a hole and bury it.”
Spend now spent later!
Do not worry folk the government is there to protect us and our interests. Democracy is working.
Out on this limb, as it were. If I had to choose between the unknowns of reckless exploration (fracking in the US creating a lot of issues, and it’s just natural gas) which seeks the cheapest means of extraction for MH, and nukes, I would have to choose nukes, within that limited context.
Although nuclear is a high-tech means of controlling a low-tech mechanism (boiling water with fission), it is much better understood than undersea geology. Stress fractures extant, which cannot be seen or anticipated makes it a rather hairy gambit. Mistakes and deadlines make a deadly combo.
As much as I dislike nukes for the complex network and pitfalls associated, I prefer it as a lesser weevil.
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/why-japans-methane-hydrate-exploitation-is-game-over-for-climate
, “For 150,000 years, a period known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, that carbon [from methane hydrates released from the seafloor] blanketed the Earth and pushed global temperatures to radical highs. While extinction events caused by the PETM weren’t on the scale of the dinosaur extinctions from nine million years prior, it did result in an explosion of diversification that permanently altered the makeup of the planet’s species.”
Apart from burning gas from methane hydrates releasing gigatons of carbon, another issue with methane, the seafloor, and climate change to keep on the radar is that methane hydrates can melt all on their own. Though the methane seeps that have made headlines over the past couple of summers—which were up to 1000 times background levels in spots—don’t yet appear to be occurring due to human-induced climate change, it remains a distinct possibility that this could happen. Not to mention, permafrost melting reaching a tipping point and releasing stored carbon.”
A discussion about some problems with nuclear power generation.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/ockham27s-razor-15-january-2012/3732664
It’s a pity we are burning this amazing, unique type of fuel, born in the stars, to drive an aimless, consumerist society.
Problems at Fukushima cooling pools today, but the MSM reassuring us that its nothing to worry about. Aye righty oh then! Thanks to Craig for coming to sleety Edinburgh on Saturday and making my weekend with his appearance and talk at Islamophobia.
Error 808 Wrong Link
This is the one I wanted to post first, the above audio is a follow-up counter argument.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/nuclear-energy-a-panacea-for-climate-change/3049300
With respect to the ‘what will we replace nuclear with/ where will we get the energy from’ arguement. Firstly: We should be thinking about an economic system where expansion isn’t a basic pre-requisite for prosperity since, unless I’m mistaken, the planet is finite and so cannot accommodate eternal expansion.
Secondly: It’s a little known fact that hemp has a higher calorific content than coal (that is, it releases more energy per weight than coal when burned) and the CO2 released when it is burned does not represent a net increase in atmospheric CO2 levels since the CO2 released represents (less than) the total CO2 sequestered during growing. Not to mention the myriad other uses of hemp.
Thorium is the future… or may be. A safer nuclear cycle that could be the bridge between carbon fuels and fusion which might solve the world’s evergy needs essentially forever. Unfortunately the UK gave up on developing such things and its left to India and China.
I don’t understand the ‘green’ objection to nuclear technology – particulary developments like fusion – when the other ‘green’ solutions like solar and wind, are a nonsense. Just a subsidy from the people who can’t afford winter heating to rich landowners (wind) or affluent homeowners (solar).
So who do we vote for? There is no decent option. They’re all rubbish. Might go green but even then they’re not strong enough. My vote will be lost. And one vote every four years is all the say we seem to have.
And just for good measure, Mr Ed Davey is a LD Friend of Israel so he is doubly damned!
Huhne is in this link too but cannot spot him in the photo. Featherstone, Beith and Julia Neuberger are familiar names.
Lib Dems Meet Cross Party Delegation from Israel
In December 2009, Liberal Democrat Parliamentarians met five visiting Members of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset). The visiting politicians each represented a different political party in Israel.
Liberal Democrat Parliamentarians: LDFI President, Sir Alan Beith MP together with MPs Ed Davey, Chris Huhne, Lynne Featherstone and Willie Rennie and Lib Dem Peers Lord Wallace, Lord Dholakia and Baroness Neuberger.
Israeli Members of Knesset (Parliament): Yitzhak Vaknin MK – Shas, Tzipi Hotovely MK – Likud, Anastassia Michaeli MK – Yisrael Beiteinu, Majalli Whbee MK and Nachman Shai MK – Kadima.
http://ldfi.org.uk/events/previous-events/
~~~
The link to Hinkley Point which I left on the previous thread and the info about radioactive discharges into the Severn Estuary is here.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/03/of-this-i-am-proud/comment-page-2/#comment-399955
There was a tsunami in the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary in 1607 which, if it was repeated, we would have another Fukushima type disaster.
http://profsimonhaslett.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/earthquakes-tsunami-and-nuclear-power.html
All this snow, slush, heavy rain is a good time to dump water-borne nuclear contaminated waste into our rivers, streams, ground and seas. By design or accidental overflows and run-offs, a mere taster of the inevitable result when marginal sea level rises seas engulf these coastal disasters-in-waiting entirely.
The consequences of nuclear war itself it turns out were unnecessary to extinguish human life, most of North America is so heavily contaminated from their own weapons testing, power-generation, mining and processing of dangerous enough uranium into even more lethal products, that we can soon enough consider the US to be ‘spent’ as either as a miltary superpower thankfully, also as a significant economic actor, or regretably, mostly for the Native Americans particularly even a place that could healthily remain inhabitable. Nuclear power and weapons states the ultimate practioners of the own goal, self-exterminating their entire populations without in the end without a shot fired in anger at them.
Much of the cancer deaths from tobacco too result not from the tobacco itself but from the heavy contamination of the crops themselves and perpetually of the ground they are grown in, the anti-tobacco craze and passive smoking hysteria the subterfuge by which excess radiation deaths are being superficially explained. The same goes for US food production and (un)potable water which are as contaminated and heavy killers in their own right, with every spoonful or drop. Not even the extensive contamination within what was the former Soviet Union comes close to the doses the whole of North America has received by their own had and will continue to accumulate and suffer from till eventual mass die off occurs. In terms of mere population the US, when weighted for its disproportianal consumption of planetary resources, consumes more than over-populous India or China, the US accounting despite its lesser population for the same resource usage of as many as 10 billion human beings, an impact which will decline in like proportion as they expire in ever greater numbers. Future extra mouths to feed may not be in the customary location on our faces. The US reaction to its fate might be to fire all its guns at once in spite at having their ghastly empire self-destruct whilst their sick dreams of world domination are unfulfilled and justly mocked.
The same goes for us in the disintegrating UK, the elites have calculated that as we are all as good as dead, including themselves inescapably, they might as well feather their nests with well-stuffed brown envelopes and accelerate the process. With their orgy of capitalist gluttony at an end, the trickle-down deception and free-market globalist nightmare unsustainable by its own destructiveness, inconsistencies, contradictions and demonstrable instability, its immutable trajectory -crash and burn, self-evident, humanity’s continued existence itself no longer something which can be menaced to compel other’s fealty, as it’s already a foregone conclusion and lost, they reckon on having nothing more to lose.
If never prepared to build nuclear power stations on the Thames, in central London where the power demands are largest, then they aren’t safe to have anywhere else either; existing plants should be more rapidly shutdown and decontamination started as new infinitely renewable sources of power, new means of power storage infrastructure, from hydro to wave and wind are raced on before further atomic disaster assails us. The French nuclear industry, predominant on the channel coast, should be as rapidly shutdown too, if necessary by force and compulsion for the sake of this islands inhabitants as the planet.
It is the duty of the people of these islands to oppose any new nuclear power projects, to prevent by sheer number of their bodies as much as the first shovelful of earth disturbed for such death machines to be assembled and fired up again amidst our fragile green land.
s/be…which, if it was repeated, would mean that we would have another Fukushima type disaster.
This is Ed Davey today on video.
New nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point C is approved
Ed Davey said the new nuclear power station was a milestone on the road to decarbonisation
The first of a planned new generation of nuclear power plants in the UK has been given approval.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey told MPs in the Commons that he was granting planning consent for French energy giant EDF to construct Hinkley Point C in Somerset.
The proposed £14bn power plant would be capable of powering five million homes.
Mr Davey said the project was “of crucial national importance” but environmental groups reacted angrily.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21839684#
There are over 700 comments.
I’d rather nuclear and being warm in winter than not. ‘Renewable’ energy sources are not viable for the near term.
Unfortunately recent developments in nuclear power which leave less, and less dangerous waste probably won’t become commercially available until after decisions on what to build are made.
Of course, in an ideal world we’d have a decentralised energy system with small self contained, low risk, low waste, reactors if they’re economically viable, but that world isn’t here now.
As for safety – new designs will be learning from past failures, be they Chernobyl (no UK reactor is susceptable to that sequence of failures), Three Mile Island, Windscale or Fukushima (we’re unlikely to have an earthquake and tsunami of that scale in the UK anyway).
Anti-nuclear power hysteria seems to be bound up with nuclear weapons (which we should be doing away with, and are an incredible evil) and early stations being used to make weapons grade materials (now the military have their own reactors for that I believe).
Five of the UK’s existing coal fired power stations must close before 2015. Others already have. This is not because they’re necessarily worn out but because of an EU directive. Worldwide though another 1,000 are either planned or already under construction mainly in China and India where coal is often of poor quality.
http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/energy-industry/coal-power.html
Nuclear power may have its problems and its critics (unless it’s in Iran) but if the lights start going out in a few years time you may change your mind about it.
Presently what is preventing us from building and creating the Utopian society that we all dream of.
For some they would spend their time in Boutiques and shopping malls.
For others they would spend their time walking the paths of our beautiful countryside, peevaying the everchanging landscapes and its impressing beauty.
We can have both we can fight multiple wars and reach the moon why can’t we enhance our living space and environment.
I suggest it is simply hard work in the right areas.
Our planet and all our subservient species should be put on a pedestal and we should admire their beauty and uniqueness.
We should bow down to the whoever who jinxed us and pit humanity back where it belongs; and that is just “out there.”
Science will and science won’t
I am perpetually surprised by the wilful ignorance and scaremongering about nuclear power that goes on in most liberal and anti-establishment fora.
Nuclear power is, in itself, fairly safe and very convenient. Unfortunately everything in this life is spoiled by those lying, cheating, exploiting bastards – human beings. However it’s important to understand that ANY means of supplying tens of millions of 21st century people with the amounts of energy the have come to expect is going to be potentially very dangerous. Gigawatts of power are scary and hazardous, regardless of how they are generated.
If you have an open mind, check this out: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/14/nuclear_reactor_salt/
I strongly recommend watching the video too, although you can safely skip over the elderly professor doing his measured introduction. It’s the two young postgards who crackle with creative energy and technical optimism. I’d almost forgotten what that feels like!
MARY, taking her Main Obsessions for their daily outing :
“And just for good measure, Mr Ed Davey is a LD Friend of Israel so he is doubly damned!”
and
“Lib Dems Meet Cross Party Delegation from Israel”
Naturrally on a blog which is supposed to be about the LinDems and nuclear power.
Troll?
**********
La vita è bella, life is good! (help Mary un-obsess)
Tristan.
Technical and engineering breakdown and failure are intrinsic in all such highly risky ventures, there is no such thing as a safe design, they are all inherently dangerous. Even the ‘safe’ contaminate the environment and kill wholesale, starting from the mining of raw materials and ending with the waste, which we ultimately end up eating. Human-error can never be accounted for or anticopated, will always throw up the unpredictable, “could never happen” chain of events with alarming regularity and in truth after-the-fact, the catastrophic extinction event, were so obvious and entirely predictable. The more that excruciating term fail-safe is bandied about, the more automation, computerisation, instrumentation, the less comprehension and control, ‘controllers’ have and even imperfect understanding of the processes involved is taken out of self-adjudged expert hands – for no experts exist who for 24-hour 7 days a week, and so on till eternity – can second guess the forces unleashed. Humanity’s dabbling and blind irrational wishful-thinking, will – though it seems it may already – have destro the viability of the entire planet for future human life. You’d think to avoid that you might consider putting on a vest or cardy, than saunter round your ill-designed house half-naked as it suits you, with your fingers in your ears, not listening, and shrug at the certain risk of extinguishing all of life, for your selfish and brief ‘comfort’.
Nuclear fission, controlled or in uncontrolled explosions, will rather obviously kill and will forever keep killing, until till we’re all dead, it is an inevitabilty, doubtfully now preventable. Your whinge is a sad marker of your immaturity or indictment of your education, that no-one has taken the trouble to put aside your toys, sit you down and explain this simple matter to you that you never forget it.
Habba must be having a bad day. The spelling is up the creek here and on the previous thread.
Q When is the Vita e bella thing going to be taken off? Repetition is very boring.
http://live.webcasts.unique-media.tv/tbl019
Tonight British Live webcast starting 18:30 to 20:00 Tuesday 19th Noam Chomsky in conversation with Jonathan Freedland subject ‘Propaganda’.
People who don’t believe wind power is useful, just dont understand it and perhaps never will. Also the people who put renewable in quotes — Also power generation technology will always be mysterious to those inclined to scare quote renewables.
I would keep nuclear power limited as a research and emergency option.
Import solar power from sunnier climes, fund and lead its developement now.
Reduce production of disposable stuff. Decrease the glamour and necessity of car use, improve transport and housing.
We have plenty of technology and resources for safe fulfilling life and value creation without resorting to dangerous and polluting industries, we are just misdirected.
Davey is a stooge. He approves of the extra cruelty being proposed by Gideon.
Budget 2013: Osborne to unveil extra £2.5bn in cuts
George Osborne is coming under pressure to increase spending on infrastructure
The government is to announce further spending cuts in Wednesday’s Budget, with the savings going to large-scale infrastructure projects designed to boost economic growth.
[..]
Energy Secretary Ed Davey, whose department will have to find extra savings, denied ministers had been taken by surprise by the chancellor’s announcement, saying they had been given “more notice” of it than expected.
“What was really noticeable around the cabinet table was people supporting the overall approach not only of the chancellor but the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander,” he told the BBC.
“We have to get to grips with this (the deficit). In countries where they don’t they’re paying a very heavy price.”
[..]
Is he bidding to be the new LD leader and are his loyalties to this country or to Israel, or both, one asks?
And what about the high tech hub that Gould has set up in Tel Aviv? For whose benefit? What’s is all about?
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/102264/how-pariah-state%E2%80%99-conquered-hi-tech-world
btw
EDF who are bidding to build Hinkley Point are building solar farms in Israel.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000690890&fid=1725
1,000 more days, or sooner one hopes, for this coalition and then they’re out on their ears The massive damaging changes to the NHS will have become obvious by 2015 too.