jez9999 wrote:
I'd happily live next to a nuclear power plant compared to a wind turbine.
Their opposition to nuclear is so utterly ludicrous I'm not going to bother looking at their energy policies, because they operate on a false premise. I will tackle their stupid nuclear claims (which I'm sure I've read before, which is why I pretty much ruled out voting for them):
The Green Party prefer renewables in general it seems. You really prefer nuclear that much? Why? How is it so superior to renewables?
1) Nuclear power will not help meet our short-term carbon reduction targets to prevent the risk of runaway climate change.
• In the UK, nuclear power provides less than 4% of our energy.
This is ludicrous problem-stating. We don't have much nuclear now? Well, build some more then! Also, where do they get the 4% figure from? Wikipedia says it was 19% in 2012, so this just seems like an outright lie.
They're just saying that nuclear power isn't going to solve our problems; ie it's something of a red herring. I don't know why you trust the wiki figure over the Green figure. How do you know it's an outright lie? Anyway, I agree this point is largely irrelevant - they're probably just stating that it's not like we are tied into nuclear in a massive way through strong reliable tradition.
We don't run our cars on nuclear power, and we don't heat our homes with nuclear power. And housing (27%) and transport (21%) comprise 48% of the UK's total carbon emissions.
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I can tell they're just trying to find reasons to oppose nuclear power instead of actually analyzing the situation. We don't run our cars on or heat our homes with wind turbines either, do we? It's called electricity, Greens. Look it up. Oh, you did, that's why you propose using wind turbines to create electricity for... cars and heating. Seriously, this "justification" is so facile I feel like punching whoever wrote it.
Again, they're just saying that nuclear power isn't going to solve our problems; ie it's something of a red herring. Perhaps it shouldn't be stated in that section of policy but then again it seems appropriate to point out the fact to people who are interested in nuclear power.
Globally, even if nuclear power capacity was quadrupled by 2050, the share of nuclear in world energy consumption would be below 10%. Doing that would require one new reactor to be built every 10 days from now until 2050. This would cost over US$10 trillion.
And they don't mention the equivalent cost for wind and solar because it would be higher. Disingenuous anti-nuclear nonsense.
How do you know the cost of renewables would be higher? You're also forgetting tidal and wave renewables. There's a lot of innovation in renewables technologies IIRC.
Meh, there's some risk of massive disaster. Certainly not no risk.Nuclear power carries inherent risks, and is particularly vulnerable to the potentially deadly combination of human error, design failure, and natural disaster.
Utter crap. Modern plants with passive cooling are virtually impossible to cause death or even harm. But if your thinking is stuck in the 70s...
• Commenting on the risks of nuclear power, Caroline Lucas said:
"Since Chernobyl, nearly 800 significant problems and accidents have been officially reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"If a catastrophe does happen, then the impacts when we're dealing with nuclear power are potentially uniquely catastrophic.
"Significant problems and accidents" do not equal "ohmygod everyone is going to die panic panic panic", you fucking fucking fucking morons. With all due respect. And Chernobyl was known to be a bad design of nuclear plant, even when it was being designed - 50 YEARS AGO.
How does a catastrophic accident not equal very bad exactly? I agree the likelihood of an accident is small however.
"The nuclear industry is engaged in a massive fight-back, trying to present itself as a safe clean energy of the future. Fukushima reminds us that nothing could be further from the truth."
Fukushima was older than Chernobyl and had been running for 50 YEARS, you fucking fucking morons. We are not talking about building a 50 YEAR OLD PLANT with 50 YEAR OLD designs.
That doesn't mean new designs are 100% safe.
I don't think it's a ludicrous premise.3) Investing in nuclear power will deter investments in renewable energy.
Probably true, but that's only an issue if you've already accepted the ludicrous premise that nuclear is somehow worse than so-called renewable energy.
The nature of their opposition is so fundamentally flawed that I find it hard to believe their justifications for opposing it are actually genuine; I think they have an anti-nuclear doctrine, and the page you linked to is their attempt to justify that doctrine with totally broken logic and outright falsehoods. Yeah, thanks for reminding me why I rule out voting Green. How could one vote for a party that is so dishonest about something so important?
What have they been dishonest about again?
There's also the problem of dealing with nuclear waste, which whilst not insurmountable is at least dirty, smelly, ugly and dangerous. A bit like storing your poo at the bottom of the garden. I'm surprised that's not on the site - maybe it is somewhere else.
Do you think policing of uranium enrichment in Iran et al might be a problem? Wouldn't it just be better if everywhere went for renewables? Lead by example and all that - invest in R&D for the benefit of everybody?