Sunday, September 24, 2006

Nuclear?

So, I went to this debate and I was wondering what some of you thought about it. 

The Economist Debate: 'We must embrace nuclear power to solve global warming'

Amongst Britain's political class there is an emerging consensus: climate change is the challenge of our time. But each party proposes different solutions, and none is more divisive than nuclear power. In the battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear power certainly trumps coal and gas every time. And unlike fossil fuels, uranium can be purchased from friendly and reliable countries like Canada and Australia. But at what human, environmental and economic cost would such carbon-cutting and "energy security" come? Nuclear fission was itself once considered to be a grave threat to humanity. While some prominent Greens now support nuclear power as the pragmatic answer to global warming, others argue that the associated toxic waste may prove an enduring environmental nightmare. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the prospective nuclear renaissance lies in the economics of the technology. While the nuclear industry argues that new designs will make plants safer, cheaper and faster to build, sceptics are keeping a watchful eye on the various hidden and explicit government subsidies.

 

http://www.lecturelist.org/content/view_lecture/3410

 

I tend to prefer nuclear power.  I think it is the most viable alternative we currently have.  What do you guys think?

1 comment:

  1. China has a functioning design for a disaster proof (my words as I can't translate it better) nuclear facility for a couple of years. Basically the technology guarantees never having a Cyhernoble (sp?). They are in production already at several locations. I was invited to a government symposium for prominent Asian business people where a range of topics was lectured on. One that I stayed for was given by a brilliant Chinese scientist (I know he is briliant because he was announced as such :)) who has a theory on how to reuse nuclear waste in private industry. My Chinese is not even 1/10 good enough to understand and it was obvious the guy was trying to make it practical for the business-heads to understand with colorful slides and 3D spatial models. But people were leaving in droves so I think it was over most people's heads. I was lucky enough to have befriended a Singaporean scientist-turned-CEO who tried to explain it to me. Unfortunately I also didn't understand the explanation but was too embarassed to demonstrate my ignorace as, well, she was a hot, smart and single. What I got was that she thought it was viable and would consume nuclear waste by almost 20%.

    Anyway, if the choice is between nuclear power and fossil fuels, my vote will always goto nuclear power. These advances in China are just a signpost that there is much room for advancement which can be done when a country (yes, not just a government but the entire country including its people) are not controlled by big oil's money. I think the energy debate needs to be taken out of the global warming debate ASAP. Because no one can prove global warming one way or the other to a scientific fact, so big oil and its supporting umbrella wants the debate framed this way. It leaves the discourse stuck in limbo and allows them to pay legit scientists to make the issue even muddier. The issue should be clearly defined by the simple fact that the fossil fuel economy is very bad for everyone except for big business and the interests that feed off them.

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