An “independent” all-party commission set up by a lobby group funded by NATO, the FCO and Qatar, consisting of eight of the most right wing establishment figures in the universe, supports keeping Trident. The joint chairmen were “Lord” Browne of the Labour Party, “Sir” Malcolm Rifkind of the Tory Party and “Sir” Menzies Campbell of the Lib Dems. Over three years of deliberation, the Commission did not have, or consider, one single original thought not approved by the Westminster Establishment, and demonstrated that there is no difference at all between the three neo-conservative parties.
Why “Establishment figures endorse status quo” is news beats me. The only news is that the estrangement of ordinary people from the moribund political establishment means nobody cares what these old troughers and sycophants think. In Scotland the referendum has given an impetus to a popular will to take back the power kidnaped by an unrepresentative political class. These old fogeys may need to have the power (with American permission) to kill billions of their human beings, in order to feel potent and important. But if they want to keep these appalling devices, they are going to have to look for somewhere new to keep them. The Pool of London?
John Leon, I missed your 2 Jul, 11:31 am comment; good to see that word is getting about.
John Leon, if you find the AMSTER paper, you’ll see the drawback. They can operate the MSR to burn actinide waste including plutonium, but the actinides can only be a small percentage of the fuel, the rest being thorium, I think. Assuming we build enough such MSRs to supply all our electricity, it will still take several hundred years to dispose of the waste we already have.
‘“I think it is an oversimplification to say the increase in diagnosis is from the overuse of technology and only relates to small tumors that are insignificant,” said Dr. Steven Sherman, medical director of the endocrine center at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “There is a component that relates to increased technology, but until we can do a better job at predicting the outcomes for individuals who develop cancer we still need to treat each case.”
Physicians are fairly clueless about what else could account for this mysterious rise in incidence. Exposure to radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986 and radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s have long been linked to thyroid cancer, but they would not account for all the new cases.
Regardless of the reported increase in small tumors, the standard of care for thyroid cancer remains the same as it was two decades ago. Patients must undergo a thryoidectomy, a surgical procedure that removes all or half of the thyroid gland. Afterward, many patients also require a radioactive iodine treatment, which kills any remaining cancer cells.’
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-thyroid-cancer-ess.html
Strange irony that radioactivity is needed to destroy what may have been harmed by radioactivity.
Mick. I got you wrong and I apologize unreservedly.
It’s just that there has been a bit of history on this board.
Mary,
Thank you for your words. Look forward to exchanging views in the future.
Mick
@ Clark. Thanks for the links. I read a lot about Nuclear energy but as I grow older a lot slips from my mind. I cannot possibly predict the future but perhaps several evoloutions of M.S.R.’s will provide a technology to eliminate the problems now burdening us in relation to Nuclear waste. One thing I won’t accept though is that Fusion is not viable and I believe it is closer that a lot of people believe.
John Leon, fusion should prove viable eventually. But some sort of fission would seem to be required to dispose of long-lived actinide wastes from spent fuel. It looks like it’s something that’s going to have to be done anyway, because so many parties object to every proposed site for long-term “disposal”. No one has been burying the stuff, and now there’s so much stored that if the proposed repositories were built they could be filled immediately.
Tony M, I know you don’t like reactors, but what do you suggest? Bury the stuff?