Power Trip
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Nuclear, Society — by Marc Roberts August 16, 2010
Click for full view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
The UK Gov’t backtracks on cast iron commitments to environmental performance standards to make space for more dirty coal.
I can’t help thinking it’s a sweetener to bring the big energy companies on board for the stalled nuclear programme. Investors won’t commit unless the taxpayer guarantees their profits and underwrites the decommissioning costs.
Public debt for private profit, without so much as a mention of consumer restraint – all sounds depressingly familiar.
Comments (0)War With The Ghosts
Nuclear, Society — by George Monbiot March 25, 2010
What are our nuclear weapons for, and who controls them?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Sharing our nuclear deterrence with France is out of the question. Last week the government slapped down a French offer to reduce the costs of our submarine patrols, by taking turns to prowl the same seas rather than duplicating the effort and occasionally crashing into each other. This proposal, it said, would cause “outrage”, on the grounds that it’s an unacceptable erosion of sovereignty(1). Using a system leased from the United States, on the other hand, presents no such difficulty. When the government says our sovereignty is threatened, it means that another nation might disrupt the orders it receives from Washington.
So we must maintain the pretence that this is ours alone, and sustain our extravagant doctrine of “continuous at-sea deterrence”. Deterrence against what? Nazis? Aliens? Killer jellyfish? Our Trident missiles, due to be replaced and deployed at a cost of several tens of billions(2), have no visible strategic purpose. They are the reification of a fantasy: a fantasy that the United Kingdom is still a defining world power and that our enemies present an existential threat. As usual, the government is preparing for the last war, building a fantastical Maginot Line against the enemies of a previous century, the ghost armies that haunt the official imagination.
Comments (0)Nuclear Fusion – a Long Shot?
Global Warming/Climate Change, Nuclear, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh May 4, 2009
|
|
If you could compare all the different applications of clean technology (solar, wind, etc.) to horses in a race, I guess you could say that Nuclear Fusion is the ‘long shot’. It’s the old nag that everyone expects to come in last, if it comes in at all. But, as long shots do, if it does come in the pay-off would be huge.
Often slated to be a fifty year project, the time-frame has recently been chiselled down to a ‘modest’ thirty years – maybe.
Comments (3)The Crash Course
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Financial Management, Nuclear, Population, Society, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh January 14, 2009
I’ve referenced Chris Martenson’s excellent ‘Crash Course’ a couple of times, but now I’ve discovered Chris has also uploaded it to YouTube, so can embed here for your convenience and viewing pleasure.
For those not familiar, this twenty chapter presentation is arguably the best effort I’ve seen to help people understand our current world predicament, with an emphasis on economics. It’s a must watch (in addition to ‘Money as Debt‘). Do share the link with your contacts.
Chapter 1 – Three Beliefs & Chapter 2 – The Three E’s
Comments (4)The Flawed Economics of Nuclear Power
Nuclear — by Earth Policy Institute November 1, 2008
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
 Click for full view Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
Over the last few years the nuclear industry has used concerns about climate change to argue for a nuclear revival. Although industry representatives may have convinced some political leaders that this is a good idea, there is little evidence of private capital investing in nuclear plants in competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple: nuclear power is uneconomical.
In an excellent recent analysis, “The Nuclear Illusion,” Amory B. Lovins and Imran Sheikh put the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant at 14¢ per kilowatt hour and that from a wind farm at 7¢ per kilowatt hour. This comparison includes the costs of fuel, capital, operations and maintenance, and transmission and distribution. It does not include the additional costs for nuclear of disposing of waste, insuring plants against an accident, and decommissioning the plants when they wear out. Given this huge gap, the so-called nuclear revival can succeed only by unloading these costs onto taxpayers. If all the costs of generating nuclear electricity are included in the price to consumers, nuclear power is dead in the water.
Comments (0)
