Categories: just-life
Date: 12 July 2006 16:37:37
A sad thing happened last night. Mr Tony Blair said something on tv and I agreed with him. And on what topic was the primeminister talking on?? Why, the energy report, and the way it's saying that nuclear power is going to have to be part of the answer.
And that's the important bit. it's; "part of the answer not all of the answer," and "it's not nuclear or renewable, it's nuclear and renewable and energy efficency." Meanwhile there's some foolish, uneducated woman from Greenpeace who has no idea what she's talking about, simply reitterating the rhetoric that Greenpeace give out against nuclear in the absolutly stupid belief that somehow we'll manage without.
Because it'll be without if we don't start getting new nuclear power stations on the drawing board. It'll be without electricity.
Yes, renewable is important, it's currently providing 4% of our power and this is to rise to 20% by 2020. But it'll never provide more, because it's not very good. Solar power is horribly inefficient and wave power does not work. Even the best wind farms have only managed to produce 65% of the power output that they should have. They can't work if the wind is too light or too strong.
The only form of renewable energy that really does work on a big scale are hydro-electric dams. So shall we start looking for valleys to flood???
Yes, we should be looking to improving renewable energy sources, but lets not kid ourselves here. They will not be ready to deal with the energy shortfall that we will have when the current crop of nuclear power stations are decommisioned in 15-20 years time. We need something for then. Modern nuclear power stations produce ten times more power with a quarter of the fuel of the old style power stations. They are going to have to be part of the future.
Unless we plug into the power in lemons........ bizarre labs