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The UK government has given the go ahead for the construction of new nuclear power stations ...
What People Say About Nuclear Power
"For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program." - Former US Vice President Al Gore.
"Licensing a nuclear power plant is in my view, licensing random premeditated murder." "Every responsible organization studying radiation injury now holds that cancer, leukemia, and genetic damage must be considered to be essentially proportional to dose, down to the very lowest radiation doses." "In one year of operation , a 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant generates fission products (like Strontium-90 and Cesium 137) in a quantity equal to what is produced by the explosion of 23 megatons of nuclear fission bombs--or more than one thousand bombs of the Hiroshima-size." - Dr. John Gofman, the pre-eminent Manhattan Project nuclear scientist and medical physician, who died in 2007.
"Nuclear power is neither the answer to modern energy problems nor a panacea for climate change challenges. It requires huge amounts of initial capital, while decommissioning plants is very expensive and costs continue to be incurred long after a power station are closed." - Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president (quoted in 'Gorbachev puts anti-nuclear case to Blair', The Guardian, Thursday June 8, 2006).
"At least 500,000 people - perhaps more - have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl [nuclear power station] in Ukraine" - Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine. (from The Guardian, March 25, 2006)
Ex-environment minister Michael Meacher told Tony Blair it was "patently untrue" that nuclear power was needed for the UK to meet emissions targets. Mr Meacher said "steady expansion" of renewable energy could allow the UK to meet its greenhouse gases targets. Nuclear power was more expensive than coal and oil, produced dangerous waste and was a terrorist target, he said.
"In 1966 I was appointed Minister of Technology with responsibility for the development of that programme. I was told, believed and argued publicly that civil nuclear power was cheap, safe and peaceful and it was only later that I learned that this was all untrue ..." "Nor are Britain's civil nuclear power stations peaceful as for many years, and still possibly today, the plutonium they produce was sent to fuel the American nuclear weapons programme." "At no stage, as a minister, could I rely on being told the truth either by the Industry itself, or by my own civil servants who may or may not have known it themselves.” - Tony Benn, who as a minister in the 1960's was in charge of nuclear power.
Nuclear Power more ...
What the Government's consultation doesn't tell you.
The White Paper that recommends nuclear power but says for what we spend on ice cream we could do without it!
Ignored: Plans that show how to generate the UK and Europe's electricity safely.
Ignored: Studies that show nuclear power to be dangerous and uneconomic.
Labour's links with the nuclear industry.
Solar Power more ...
Solar Energy Potential and Growth: Read why solar electricity generation is now the fastest-growing electricity source, doubling its output every two years, and attracting government and venture capital money on an unprecedented scale.
Google Goes Solar Google is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy technologies with the aim of making green energy sources of electricity cheaper than that produced from coal. Initially it will focus on solar thermal power, wind power and enhanced geothermal systems. Google it!
Wind Power more ...
Denmark aims to generate 50% of its electricity from wind by 2025. It's already almost at 25%.
Germany had about 21GW of installed wind power capacity in 2006 (generated by about 18,000 turbines); it has been adding 2GW every year since 2000. This compares to about 11GW of nuclear capacity in the UK (2008). Note that the capacity of a wind turbine is the maximum it can produce in the strongest winds it is designed to operate in - as wind speeds fluctuate, turbines typically generate about 30% of this maximum per year. Nuclear stations have a higher capacity factor because they are not capturing a fluctuating natural resource - they do however suffer breakdowns and require maintenance: typical capacity factors for nuclear are 70% to 80%. Thus actual electricity generated by Germany's wind turbines has not yet overtaken that generated by UK nuclear plants ... but it will do so in about 3 years time.
Resources for Schools
Wind with Miller: Climb a wind turbine with Miller! This animated website, Wind with Miller, is suitable for children of all ages. It is the fast and fun way to get an intuitive grasp of advanced wind power knowledge. Produced by the Danish Wind Industry Association in 2001, it also contains a number of educational practical activities and a teacher's guide.
Wind Power Booklets for Key Stages 1-4: A resource for teachers for Key stages 1-4, on the BWEA website.
Wavegen - Information for Schools: Shows how to construct a wave generator model that can be demonstrated in a bucket of water.
Energy Slides: Some slides prepared for a primary school class covering sources of energy, and showing conversion from heat energy to mechanical energy to electricity.
Open Engineering more ...
Many people will have heard of 'Open Source' software. Source Code is specification the programmer wrote from which the software package was generated; it is not normally supplied with commercial software because vendors would be giving away their design secrets. Having the source code as well as the software package allows other programmers to modify the software if they want to. Open Source software is made available free on the condition that if you improve it you publish your improvements.
Could 'DIY' technical designs and information in fields such as engineering and agriculture be made freely available and evaluated by users, in a similar way to open source software?
Transport
Humanity's Worst Predator
Cars kill over 3 million people a year, consume almost 13 hours of our time every week and cost us a small fortune - for the UK it's about £130 billion a year. Read more about our most dangerous predator and what we could do with the money if we spent it on something else.
Cycle Freeway
A serious investment in tracks for our most environmentally friendly and efficient private vehicle, halves the travel time for typical city suburb to city centre journeys.
openg1fm June 2008 openengineeringwave