wow... way to misrepresent what he was saying there.
Right,
in day to day use, a coal power station will emit more radiation than a nuclear station producing the same energy.
but at the end of that, you're left with a pile of ash that decays.
at the end of a fuel rods life you're left with a very large source of much more radiation.
you just twisted a factual article to suit your own means. the fact is that nuclear energy. over the whole life of the fuel will release more radiation.
here are the facts.
mining
coal, very low radiation risk
nuclear, high radiation risk, marked as occupational hazard in this article
(hundreds if not millions times more radiation)
generating power
coal, adds radiation in amounts that add less than half a percent of the background radiation levels in the ash in the ash
nuclear, adds radiation
disposing of waste
coal, adds no radiation (well it does, but I already counted that in the generating section)
nuclear, has massive amounts of radiation in the waste (so much that it needs to be encased in lead an buried!).
coal.
basically, at the point of generation coal adds some radiation, and nuclear adds a little less, but the nuclear waste is many times more radioactive.
lets face it whilst that article is accurate it lies, it doesn't look at a whole lifetime picture... it takes a single small part of a puzzle and twists the facts to suit it's self.
again, a small part of the puzzle, c02 emissions are negligible compared to methane, but I don't see people earnestly campaigning that we should stop farming cows. or kill all the ants in the world...
and that's the trouble with some scientists, it seems to be especially prominent amongst climate scientists.
here's a small fact, now ignore the big picture, latch onto the simple fact and make a whole theory from it.
the fact is that there is no reliable data to adequately say that rising C02 has made temperatures rise.
we found all of this out when wikileaks published the UOE emails (dubbed "climate gate"). we know that the hockey stick model is a lie, we know that in the middle ages C02 levels were lower and global temperatures higher. we know that the "experts" fiddled the figures to fit their models, it's in black and white on the wiki leaks site.
(and I know that it's not actually as bad as sceptics were trying to make out at the time, but it is still pretty damming) -except for the hockey stick graph, we know that's just entirely fabricated.
Even so, I'll concede that not knowing what is happening doesn't mean that we should plough on regardless.
perhaps we should kerb out emissions, if only because it may turn out that there is an effect that we are having.
berry120 said:
we don't have enough wind for wind power, it's not strong enough, not reliable enough, and forming large grids of metal poles offshore really messes with long range radar systems...
what we do have in this country, in abundance is coast lines.
we don't need wind energy, we need tidal. (or wave).
tidal is constant, and it forms a coastal barrier. (any idea how much is spent stopping the erosion of coastlines, mostly by pouring concrete [which is a massive source of C02!]).
if it weren't for scientists in the 70's fudging figures to try to prove that wave energy wasn't effective. (oil co employed scientists!) we'd have wave power by now. (read about the sea ducks).
nuclear is an answer, but it's a short term answer, masses of energy is used to make a plant, (more pollution)...
if you really want to reduce C02 in this country or any others, you need proper schemes.
not these stupid ideas with arbitrary numbers (1990 levels) by arbitrary dates (in twenty years!). sure those things make good sound bites, but they just push you into short term thinking.
what we need is better built/better insulated houses.
more economical cars, we need things like the volvo road train, we need to make mass transit more efficient, (for example loading trailers onto freight trains to travel the length of the country so that lorries are only used for local interconnects rather than the current method of sending lorries all over the place.
we need ideas like they have in Spain at the moment reducing speed limits to conserve fuel and bring down C02.
we need solutions that look at bigger pictures, like wave power that can also protect eroding coast lines.
we need to stop wasting energy. -from an IT angle, why are there massive data centres and office buildings that have masses of air conditioning wasting heat to the atmosphere, why aren't they heating local homes (especially true of data centres in the London docklands).
why are our office spaces heated to 21degrees all year, in Japan they've widened the limit to >18 degrees <26 degrees and saved loads of energy/co2.
we need better (and cheaper) public transport to encourage people out of cars.
we need to be more cycle friendly (in places where it's practical to cycle).
I've got solar lights in my garden, for a tiny 3cm x3cm solar panel, i can get light from them for the evening, why don't street lights have solar panels and batteries as a primary energy source with the grid as a simple backup.
better directed street lights (focusing all energy downwards), will increase their energy efficiency, allow then to not use as much energy and reduce light pollution.
turning off street lights outside of towns, (where cars are driving that already have lights) would save loads of energy.
all of those ideas above are minimum costs. (some of those are zero effort and just save costs and energy)
we need to look at how to better use what we've already got before looking at the bigger projects like more power stations.
speaking of power stations,
what's the price ticket on a power station anyway?
we need to look at micro generation, lets face it, we don't get a lot of sun in this country, but there are probably 40 million homes. putting a 1.5watt solar panel on each house (currently retailing in Maplins for £9.99) would generate 60MW. (about 0.7% of didcot b power output). but at a one time cost of £400mil (less than £10 per person in the UK). (though only one tenth of a percent of the nations need!)
(to put that cost into perspective digital switchover has been taking £15 of the license fee for may years so has cost significantly more!)
if one tenth of a percent of the nations need isn't enough then again maplins offer a 60W kit for £200.
on 40 million homes that's 2,400 MW (for a cost of £8billion)
current demand can be seen here
National Grid: Real Time Demand Data - Last 60 Minutes
at 13:05 (now) demand is 44674MW.
so for 8 billion pounds we can (at midday) provide 5% of the UK energy needs... (£125 per every man woman and child in our 65million populous). -again less than the cost of a TV license!
you ask how to save Co2, do all of the above first, then talk about building nuclear power, which is more dangerous and more radioactive than the current coal stations.
