| NUCLEAR POWER IS SAFE | |
| Date : 12.01.08 | |
Do not listen to the nuclear scare stories. Groups like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Green Party have demonised nuclear power for many years and have learned how to influence our elected politicians. However, societies with scientific expertise in engineering, energy and nuclear physics have publicly endorsed the new nuclear power station proposals. Nuclear waste can be safely stored in underground depositories. The activists say that, although safe, this waste will still be radioactive for thousands of years. Well, nature's highly radioactive dangerous granite outcrops have been in this world since the beginning of time, and will last until the end of time. Activists fret about Windscale, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Windscale and Three Mile Island were operator errors and classed as incidents. Chernobyl was a symptom of the failing Communist USSR. The resulting reactor fire blew the top off the reactor. Even then, a 2005 report for the UN World Health Organisation concluded that fewer than 50 people died from radiation as a result of this disaster. In contrast, the 1984 accident at the Bhopal Chemical Factory in India has killed between 2,000 and 20,000 people. The fact is we live in a natural, radioactive world. In the UK last year, 1,800 people died of skin cancer from the sun. Each year between 2,000 and 3,000 people die from radon gas radiation from natural granite outcrops in the UK. Even a simple coffee bean is radioactive. Yet the anti-nuclear activists ask us to fret over UK nuclear power, which has not had a single death from radiation in its 50-year-plus operation. Jack Harris Eaton Crescent, Uplands, Swansea. |
These are two letters in responce from Evening Post readers:
There can be only one nuclear 'Debate'. Either we have electricity on the scale that we and the rest of the developed and industrialised world now enjoys, or we do not. Nuclear power is the only route to low-emisson generation and will remain so at least until the end of this century. Wind, wave, tidal and so on are merely expensive scientific toys.
Alun John Richards, 28 Bayswater Road Swansea
When it comes to electrical generation, I'd rather listen to people like Jac Harris who is one of the UK's top consultant electrical engineers (having specialised in power generation of all kinds for decades) than listen to a load of "Greenwash" from amateur self styled "Green" politicians. One thing is sure, if we had not wasted the past decade debating costly irrelevant wind power we could have developed tidal or nuclear or clean coal options. Now we are stuck with nuclear because of the "Green" Party's stupid obsessions over wind power delaying the real options of mass power production. If you don't like nuclear, then blame the "Greens", not the Jac Harrris's of this world!
Ioan Richard, Councillor, Swansea Valley
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2 comments:
I regret that I still think it is too soon to celebrate victory in the case of the UK for several reasons. First, at best this is only so far means that the British will replace and maintain their current capacity and little else. This is not a surprise as the British are a nuclear weapons state and the two technologies are joined at the hip over there.
I am not happy with the noises I hear from the Scottish legislature, nor do I think the Green Party will roll over and play dead on the Continent on the nuclear question. The Brits have avoided making the same mistake the Germans did, but there is a long way to go before anyone can claim that they are going for a nuclear economy there.
A skirmish has been won, not a battle, and certainly not the war.
The linked article might help you understand the route the British Labor government took to reach their conclusions:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3176458.ece
I expect that American politicians will take a similar route to similar conclusions.
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