nuclear is the answer?
July 29th 2008 01:53
Thats what they say isn't it? The answer to all our Climate Change and energy security problems is Nuclear, it is safe and has low carbon emissions.
Well think again, we only think Nuclear is safe because we don't get told when things go wrong, I for one did not know that there has been about 100 nuclear incidents in the world in the last two years, that people is in France alone, the most recent being only a few weeks ago. Here's hoping they told Brad and Anje, we don't want the little twins exposed to radiation in their first few days on earth.
I don't mind that these incidents happen, I'd feel a hell of a lot more comfortable if they were made a little more public so we can make a balanced judgement before we get spoon fed Nuclear as the solution to all our problems. These incidents are from existing technology, they also don't tell you that the new fantastic technology they are talking about doesn't even work yet, the projects are way over budget and not nearly ready yet due to unresolved technical difficulties. Yet they say this is the future. I say, maybe not.
Read this Guardian article below or CLICK HERE, hopefully we will hear a lot more about such incidents.
Here's another cartoon form the great series at the guardian, CLICK HERE this pic is by Valentin Druzkinin, Russia.
Well think again, we only think Nuclear is safe because we don't get told when things go wrong, I for one did not know that there has been about 100 nuclear incidents in the world in the last two years, that people is in France alone, the most recent being only a few weeks ago. Here's hoping they told Brad and Anje, we don't want the little twins exposed to radiation in their first few days on earth.
The French government has now ordered tests on the groundwater around all nuclear sites in France. The environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, said there were 86 level-one nuclear incidents in France last year and 114 in 2006.
I don't mind that these incidents happen, I'd feel a hell of a lot more comfortable if they were made a little more public so we can make a balanced judgement before we get spoon fed Nuclear as the solution to all our problems. These incidents are from existing technology, they also don't tell you that the new fantastic technology they are talking about doesn't even work yet, the projects are way over budget and not nearly ready yet due to unresolved technical difficulties. Yet they say this is the future. I say, maybe not.
Read this Guardian article below or CLICK HERE, hopefully we will hear a lot more about such incidents.
'It feels like a sci-fi film' - accidents tarnish nuclear dream
French nuclear companies are hoping to play a central role in the government's plan to build a new generation of reactors. At home, however, the industry has been buffeted by a series of mishaps. Angelique Chrisafis reports from Bollène
The Guardian, Saturday July 26 2008
Article history
A field of sunflowers in front of the Areva Tricastin nuclear plant in in Bollene, in the south of France. Photograph: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty images
Sylvie Eymard's Provence farmhouse kitchen should be the picture of French rural calm. But the stockpiles of bottled water, disinfectant rinse and disposable paper plates hint at something strange.
For the past two weeks, Eymard, 41, and her children, 13 and seven, have had a phobia of taps. To wash up, they go out to the yard and fill a bowl from a specially delivered plastic tank of purified water on a fork-lift tractor. They carry the water up to the bathroom to wash. Even the dog drinks bottled water, and it is left out for the birds.
"I feel as if everything's constantly dirty," Eymard said, her hands deep in soapy lather scrubbing plates.
The view from the house over the fields is dominated by the nearby cooling towers of the Tricastin site, a nuclear power plant run by EDF, the company which is poised to buy British Energy and take control of most UK nuclear stations.
Next to the plant is a nuclear treatment centre run by a subsidiary of Areva, the nuclear group which hopes to design many of the new British reactors. Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône. Eymard's house is 100 metres from one of these streams.
Like a handful of rural homes near the nuclear site, hers is plumbed into the local groundwater from wells. For 20 years she has drunk from the tap. But after the incident there was a ban on drinking the groundwater, using it to water fields - as all local farmers do - or swimming or fishing in local lakes and streams. Since then, Eymard feels like she is in an episode of The Simpsons, in a Springfield where people's trust has been abused by haphazard mistakes. "It feels like a science fiction film where experts constantly come to examine and film the people who've been exposed."
French nuclear companies are hoping to play a central role in the government's plan to build a new generation of reactors. At home, however, the industry has been buffeted by a series of mishaps. Angelique Chrisafis reports from Bollène
Article history
A field of sunflowers in front of the Areva Tricastin nuclear plant in in Bollene, in the south of France. Photograph: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty images
Sylvie Eymard's Provence farmhouse kitchen should be the picture of French rural calm. But the stockpiles of bottled water, disinfectant rinse and disposable paper plates hint at something strange.
For the past two weeks, Eymard, 41, and her children, 13 and seven, have had a phobia of taps. To wash up, they go out to the yard and fill a bowl from a specially delivered plastic tank of purified water on a fork-lift tractor. They carry the water up to the bathroom to wash. Even the dog drinks bottled water, and it is left out for the birds.
"I feel as if everything's constantly dirty," Eymard said, her hands deep in soapy lather scrubbing plates.
The view from the house over the fields is dominated by the nearby cooling towers of the Tricastin site, a nuclear power plant run by EDF, the company which is poised to buy British Energy and take control of most UK nuclear stations.
Next to the plant is a nuclear treatment centre run by a subsidiary of Areva, the nuclear group which hopes to design many of the new British reactors. Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône. Eymard's house is 100 metres from one of these streams.
Like a handful of rural homes near the nuclear site, hers is plumbed into the local groundwater from wells. For 20 years she has drunk from the tap. But after the incident there was a ban on drinking the groundwater, using it to water fields - as all local farmers do - or swimming or fishing in local lakes and streams. Since then, Eymard feels like she is in an episode of The Simpsons, in a Springfield where people's trust has been abused by haphazard mistakes. "It feels like a science fiction film where experts constantly come to examine and film the people who've been exposed."
Here's another cartoon form the great series at the guardian, CLICK HERE this pic is by Valentin Druzkinin, Russia.
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