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Originally Posted by greenacy
I don't appreciate the insinuation. I have no problem with differing opinions in fact I thrive on them. It is the fact that he was so adamant about nuclear power being bad and now has totally flipped that I take issue.
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Here's a clue from the article:
"I could see that my fellow directors, none of whom had any science education, were starting to deal with issues around chemicals and biology and genetics, which they had no formal training in, and they were taking the organization into what I call "pop environmentalism," which uses sensationalism, misinformation, fear tactics, etc., to deal with people on an emotional level rather than an intellectual level."
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I myself don't think nuclear power is bad...dangerous yes...but not bad. I wouldn't want a reactor anywhere near my family. If you choose to call it evil then it is a necessary one unless we can find a alchemical way to turn feces into oil or coal. However, Moore is suggesting that we remove ALL funding for solar energy subsidies calling it ridiculous. He didn't outright denounce wind power but he was pretty harsh on that, too.
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I'm sure you appreciate that nuclear power is no more dangerous than other power sources. Indeed, I'd rather live near a nuclear power station than a coal power station.
If you doubt this, I have a friend who'd seen the radioactive measurements around Sellerfield (hardly the best site in the world), and they are just background readings.
Modern plants pose less danger than living in Cornwall for the average Joe.
His issue with wind and solar are that they can only nibble at the edges of our overall energy demand owing to their intermittency. Any more and you have grid instability. But they are also expensive, and there is a limit to how much they will come down by through research and market penetration, despite a lot of optimisitic projections to the contruary. One of the reasons for that is the previous point. Neither can provide a big enough share of the energy demand to bring down the cost of the kit. It will to some extent, but a limited amount.
Not only that, but the improvements have only improved their basic performance, not their ability to provide a more stable supply for continuous use.
Use a mix of that and other renewables are not the answer either, as we either do not have enough of resource to hand, or they are also intermittent. The only continuous supply that can provide baseload capacity on the scale reequired is nuclear. No other source or combination of sources can do that without throughing out huge quantities of emissions into the atmosphere.
The only alternative for the UK is to import from France. And that would involve us using more nuclear energy.