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jivecat
29th-November-2005, 01:44 PM
I hear, with total horror, that Tony Blair thinks that expanding the nuclear power industry is preferable to asking the electorate to use, er, um, less energy. The mere suggestion is, apparently, a complete vote loser. I find this really, really hard to get my head round.

Surely people would be willing to limit use of energy-depleting luxuries like tumble-driers, microwaves, electric toothbrushes, irons, hair-driers? Surely they could manage to walk or hop on a bus/cycle at least occasionally? Surely weekends in New York are not a basic necessity of civilised existence?
Surely people would be willing to ration these things to themselves in preference to allowing the proliferation of a dangerous and dirty nuclear industry? Wouldn't they??

I thought I'd ask the forum, as a politically mixed bunch of people, what they thought about this.

Would you be willing to reduce your personal energy consumption by, say, 20%, what would it take to make you do it, and how would you set about it?

P.S. Please don't shatter my faith in human nature for ever!

Andreas
29th-November-2005, 01:50 PM
I think he was exposed to Bush for too long.

YES to alternative energy and reduction of consumption. :yeah:

DavidY
29th-November-2005, 01:50 PM
Would you be willing to reduce your personal energy consumption by, say, 20%?By not going dancing, for example? :eek: :tears:

CJ
29th-November-2005, 01:53 PM
I think he was exposed to Bush for too long.


I would say he's NOT been exposed to Bush for too long!!!!!!!!!!!! If Cherie were to sort himout, maybe he'd be thinking straight!:D :blush:

Anyway...

I am sure there are perfectly good reasons why an ISLAND with enormous rural bits can't use wind or water as energy sources.:confused: :confused:

jivecat
29th-November-2005, 01:58 PM
By not going dancing, for example? :eek: :tears:

This is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.:tears: :really:
So could you, would you, etc.

jivecat
29th-November-2005, 02:03 PM
I think that a decent energy policy has to work on two fronts.

1. Developing renewable resources like solar energy, wind/wave power etc.

2. Needing less power by cutting consumption.

It's the second point I'd like to ask about as I certainly haven't got the expertise to evaluate how feasible the former is, though my instinct is that it's the right thing to do.
Cutting personal consumption is direct action available to everyone.

Lynn
29th-November-2005, 02:16 PM
Cutting personal consumption is direct action available to everyone.I do occasionally feel guilty about flying back and forward to England for dancing so often. But not guilty enough not to do it.

There are lots of really easy ways to cut down on domestic energy consumption though, its simply a matter of educating people. Like turning the TV off rather than leave it on standby...

Paul F
29th-November-2005, 02:21 PM
Cutting personal consumption is direct action available to everyone.

I have absolutely no knowledge on this matter apart from an article I read the other day on the bbc website.
What I do know is that asking the public to be responsible is a complete non-starter.
Differences of opinion on what constitues a neccessity will always mean that this approach just wont work. The only way this energy-usage reduction will work is if it is regulated further by the state in some way.

If I remember rightly, and its rare that I do, the biggest problem aside from money facing the nuclear industry is the issue of waste management ie. what to do with the spent, but still dangerous, nuclear rods. The option of dumping them in France was investigated but ruled out :) (only kidding Franck :blush: )


As a source of power I am not completely against nuclear. In some areas I am for it. Yes, it is dangerous but considering the options available I cant see any choice. The wind farms would have to span great swathes of our countryside to generate enough energy to be effective and they are already causing great controversy - even the ones in the north sea!!!! :what: the only other viable solution is Tidal generation but this is in its infancy apparently.

In my view the government isnt stupid. I dont care which party you vote for, it all comes down to a group of people who are taking advice from the finest minds in this country (and beyond). They are not going to blindly lead this country into a potential disaster by using nuclear power if there were obvious alternatives. Apparently there are ways of securing nuclear stations but they are hideously expensive. If cost reduction can be met and the waste issue sorted then I will be in favour of nuclear power.

Gus
29th-November-2005, 03:37 PM
If I remember rightly, and its rare that I do, the biggest problem aside from money facing the nuclear industry is the issue of waste management ie. what to do with the spent, but still dangerous, nuclear rods. The option of dumping them in France was investigated but ruled out :) (only kidding Franck :blush: )The biggest threat to London from nuclear power stations comes not form UK reactors but from the French PWR style reactors (BAD things) which are located on the NW French coast. Let me really scare you. PWR = same design as the one that melted down at 3 Miles Island in the US. They were built to lowest cost specs and are subject to French engineering skills and French Government ethics (if such a thing exists) ... Sorry Franck:tears: :whistle:

The UK eventualy stopped its PWR programm (and this was also the reason I left the Nuclear Power Industry on ethical grounds). The original AGR design is a proven effective and relatively safe design ... BUT, the problem of the reprocessing and disposal has never been dealt with well (Windscale/Sellafield is still a disgrace ). However, can we cut back our consumption enough? 'Clean energy' doesnt seem to have the legs and caol/oil will soon be a thing of fond memory. Pity our children :(

TiggsTours
29th-November-2005, 03:48 PM
By not going dancing, for example? :eek: :tears:
Or using your central heating?

In an ideal world, we'd all say "yes, Mr Blair, I promise I won't use as much energy", but this isn't an ideal world, and we rely on sustainable energy to carry on our normal, everyday lives, and things are getting low. An alternative HAS to be found, I don't agree (for one second) that it should be nuclear, and hopefully they will find something that we can use before it gets too late! Wind power, wave power, solar power, all far more attractive, but not quite as powerful.

I would like to think though that things aren't quite as serious as we are being led to believe, and that we have quite a few years left before things get serious, and hopefully in that time some alternative will be found, or we'll all move to Mars.

I guess if we all switched off the central heating, more pensioners would die of hypothermia, that might solve the population issue.

David Bailey
29th-November-2005, 04:28 PM
Surely people would be willing to limit use of energy-depleting luxuries like tumble-driers, microwaves, electric toothbrushes, irons, hair-driers?
Nope.


Surely they could manage to walk or hop on a bus/cycle at least occasionally?
Nope again.


Surely weekends in New York are not a basic necessity of civilised existence? Surely people would be willing to ration these things to themselves in preference to allowing the proliferation of a dangerous and dirty nuclear industry? Wouldn't they??
Guess what I'll answer here...

Asking people to voluntarily limit their energy consumption is like asking them to voluntarily take a pay cut, and is likely to work in the same way. The typical answer is something like "I'll use the Tube when John Two Jags Prescott does".

Forcing them to do so, however, by legislation, tax incentives, and other policy tools, is something that I think could work, if combined with a set of examples by public leaders.

A classic example of an environmental-ish measure that has pretty much worked, despite all predictions to the contrary, is the London congestion charge. It's far from perfect, it has side-effects, and it's not popular. But considering this is a new tax, it's been implemented and continued extremely well - and the national government has now admitted that road-pricing is indeed the way to go.

Deciding to go nuclear (which looks like it's the way the wind is blowing) has very little to do with how much energy we use. The advantages of nuclear power are (amazingly) environmental benefits, combined with security of supply. So that we won't have to outbid China in 20 years' time for the Ukranian gas supply, for example.

Astonishingly enough, I actually think Blair's doing the right thing by going nuclear - assuming that it's implemented well. Any energy-producing mechanism has faults, but nuclear can make a good case for being one of the least-worst alternatives, at least in the short-term, for large-scale energy production.

Paul F
29th-November-2005, 04:34 PM
Astonishingly enough, I actually think Blair's doing the right thing by going nuclear - assuming that it's implemented well. Any energy-producing mechanism has faults, but nuclear can make a good case for being one of the least-worst alternatives, at least in the short-term, for large-scale energy production.

As long as its implemented well which is a big concern, yep, I have to agree.

David Bailey
29th-November-2005, 05:08 PM
As long as its implemented well which is a big concern, yep, I have to agree.
Yeah - actually, my main concern is with the implementation, as I feel confident that this government will find some way to screw it up. The devil's in the details, and government isn't big on details.

There's a BBC article here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4216302.stm) about the pros and cons of nuclear, makes interesting reading. One main point from it is worth quoting I think:
The UK's nuclear power stations produce about 20% of the country's electricity, and by 2023 all are due to have closed. But by 2030 it is estimated world CO2 emissions will be 62% higher than today, as global demand for energy grows.

Don't get me wrong, I don't know if it's a good idea to replace our current nuclear capacity or not - but I also know we can't voluntarily reduce our energy consumption by 20%, and I'm sceptical about the effectiveness of alternative power sources in that time frame.

I'm also distrustful of people who have a knee-jerk "anti" reaction to the word "nuclear" - to make a massive generalisation, I think they tend to just mistrust it because they don't understand it.

Oh, and can I the first person to :rofl: if someone mentions fusion? It's been "50 years away" for more than 50 years now...

DavidY
29th-November-2005, 07:07 PM
Or using your central heating?But I don't have central heating to switch off.:tears: :eek:

DavidY
29th-November-2005, 07:12 PM
wind powerTrouble with wind power is that the wind sometimes doesn't blow when you want it to.

Also I don't think you can just "switch on" a power station - they have to be going all the time (except perhaps Hydro Electric which can start quickly, but there's not the capacity to generate significant amounts that way)

David Bailey
29th-November-2005, 08:28 PM
Driving home today, I heard on "PM" an interview with James Lovelock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock), where he robustly supported the case for nuclear energy.

And this is the inventor of the Gaia hypothesis talking. I'm not saying he's right, but there's now clearly an environmental case to be made for nuclear.

Blimey, 20 years ago, who'd have thought we'd be saying that?

jivecat
30th-November-2005, 09:30 AM
But I don't have central heating to switch off.:tears: :eek:

No wonder you have to go out dancing so much.:wink:

Rhythm King
30th-November-2005, 12:51 PM
Driving home today, I heard on "PM" an interview with James Lovelock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock), where he robustly supported the case for nuclear energy.

And this is the inventor of the Gaia hypothesis talking. I'm not saying he's right, but there's now clearly an environmental case to be made for nuclear.

Blimey, 20 years ago, who'd have thought we'd be saying that?
:yeah:

Also an interesting debate on BBC radio yesterday. New nuclear power stations reportedly use 12% of the fuel of the old style ones and could burn the fuel from old reactors too, clearing up the exisitng problem. They produce 0% CO2 emissions. At the end of the day they are just a way of boiling water for steam to turn turbines. Properly controlled they can be clean, safe and efficient (Chernobyl was caused by human error when scientists started experimenting with the reactor outside its working limits.) Wind farms are not the panacea people seem to think they are, and blight the landscape anyway - where's the environmental friendliness in that? Another sensible option would be to burn the waste we bury in landfill sites, currently polluting the landscape and water tables. Also don't forget that the base nuclear fuel (uranium) is a naturally occurring mineral in nature, this isn't something that some mad scientist has created (unlike plutonium though :rolleyes: ).
We do need to become more efficient and recycle more, to help preserve the environment, but people need to realise that global warming is a naturally occurring phenomenon - we are coming out of an ice age after all. We've just speeded it up by a minute percentage. Climate change occurs largely due to the eccentric orbit of the earth and a slight wobble which brings it closer to and farther from the Sun on a cyclical basis. Also a major volcanic eruption puts more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than we do. Damaging the ozone layer through inappropriate use of CFCs etc is more worrying to me.

David Bailey
2nd-January-2006, 06:56 PM
I know, it's bad form to quote myself, but:

The advantages of nuclear power are (amazingly) environmental benefits, combined with security of supply. So that we won't have to outbid China in 20 years' time for the Ukranian gas supply, for example..
Or, alternatively, so that we won't have to be concerned that an authoritarian Russian regime might threaten to raise gas prices by 400% and cut off supplies (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4574630.stm) if their demands aren't met.

Security of supply suddenly becomes a lot more important now. :eek:

thewacko
2nd-January-2006, 08:18 PM
Trouble with wind power is that the wind sometimes doesn't blow when you want it to.
:what: or even worse it does blow when you don't want it to:whistle:

thewacko
2nd-January-2006, 08:21 PM
No wonder you have to go out dancing so much.:wink:

:waycool: Now then if you could harness the energy that is released at any ceroc venue or even just the heat alone the power supplied would be incedible and given the number of ceroc/jive venues around the country and the fact they run nearly every evening . . .

Wow the energy saving there would be incredible:eek: