Nuclear plans awry. Again!
The dishonest way in which Tony Blair tried to force new nuclear power stations on the public hit the buffers last year when the Courts ruled that it was "seriously flawed" and "misleading".You will remember that his strategy was not to do anything until there were no options BUT nuclear, and then present it as a fait accompli. Tony being Tony, he lost interest in his plans half way through and ended up driving to get someone else to drive through his plans, but without enough thought and planning going into it.
Thankfully.
Now the latest review of the review has - according to the BBC - concluded that "Poor consultation practice wastes people's time and can seriously undermine people's trust in government", and that the whole process should start again, and this time address the real issues - which they detail.
It looks like the Government are now on a hiding to nothing with this, but because alternatives have been strangled at birth to try to make nuclear the only option, we face a serious energy problem in this country in the coming years. This will leave us reliant on other countries to meet our energy needs, and entirely at the mercy of the markets, whilst wave, wind and hydro are virtually ignored by Ministers and every new application meets with barrages of opposition.
Can anyone tell me what we are going to do for power if every alternative is unacceptable?
7 comments:
Maybe the lights will go out? Perhaps we soon won't be able to pay for it anyway, however it is generated.
'The times they are a changing' and the Daily Torygraph seems to think what we now face will be a walk in the park compared to 1929.
Might encourage a few more youngsters to sign up for three or four years at Sabhal Mor though.
Looks like things might not be fun as credit cards melt in our wallets.
All this infrastructure still has to be maintained by dirty old oil dependent vehicles, regardless of whether it's nuclear, fossil or renewable power. We may be stuffed on that front as global oil production appears to have peaked in summer 2006 with no real let up in demand. All this talk of political unrest driving the price of oil is nonsense. There has always been political unrest. It's basic supply and demand.
We're focused on the wrong issue here. we need to have a Manhattan Project style focus on alternatives to diesel/petrol which provide high energy payback for energy invested rather than focusing on financial payback. Oil is currently around 20:1 energy return (used to be about 100:1). First generation biofuels are at best 8:1 and typically 1.5:1 for corn based ethanol.
Here in the Western Isles, we're at the end of the supply chain and we need to develop local capacity to feed ourselves which we've all but lost in a couple of generations.
hope we get a nuck plant here - give us a lot more jobs than turbines
yes, but those 'jobs' will actually be large tumours on the side of their heads!
Nuclear will happen; there are no 'other options'.
The likes of Greenpeace cover their ears and scream when gas, coal or nuclear plants are proposed, and yet they offer absolutely NO alternative. 'Wind' is utterly useless for baseload, 'tidal' is in its infancy and in any case cannot supply the amount of power the UK needs, and 'solar' is simply not feasible.
That being so--given that the so-called 'renewables' are so inefficient as to be practically useless--what do the greenies suggest? That we all regress to the eighteenth century?
Nuclear plants WILL be built; I believe private citizens should be taking a cold, hard look at organizations which try to halt such projects. The sort of irresponsible twaddle the greenies are attempting to force on us needs to be countered by every possible legal, permitted means.
i think that was God disagreeing with you last night... 9th Jan
Remember the movie China Syndrome!
Although the local builders are first class, I'm a bit worried about the future cracks in the concrete!
They're OK with 'v' lining timber sheeting but.....
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