Velkess Energy Storage

[Andy Champ]

The economic cost of Fukushima was due to the enormous evacuation - which may well have been largely unnecessary.

The economic cost of fossil plants _ought_ to include global warming...

Andy

[Andy Champ]

Which one is the car, and which the train? IMHO Nuclear equates to the train.

Andy

[Andy Champ]

"Some scientists suspect that low doses may have a mild hormetic effect that can improve health."

Andy

[newshound]

And this is why we have safety cases, not to mention rather a good safety record in this country.

[newshound]

Extract from first Wikipedia article

"The myth of absolute safety

In Japan, many government agencies and nuclear companies have promoted a public myth of "absolute safety" that nuclear power proponents had nurtured over decades.[65] The tsunami that began the Fukushima nuclear disaster could and should have been anticipated"

Standard rhetorical technique; set up a Straw Man and knock it down. Never mind that the Straw Man never existed.

No-one who has thought clearly about nuclear power, or any industrial activity, or indeed *any* activity would ever make any claim about "absolute safety". They would express things in terms of *relative* safety. Like, it is OK to cross the road to buy your morning newspaper because you are more likely to be struck by lightning than to be run over by a car.

And tsunamis *were* anticipated in the planning for the Fukushima plants, at least twice in fact. Someone decided what was the largest tsunami which could *reasonably* be expected, and provided a 6.5 metre protective wall. As it turned out, they got it wrong this time, but they

*did* make a judgement. And more recently they realised there was a vulnerability in the emergency supplies, and they had added new systems further up the hill for some of the plant. (I don't recall the exact detail).

The point is, irrespective of the Fukushima consequences, the tsunami killed ~ 20,000 people. That *could* have been avoided by moving everyone a mile inland. But people don't do this; the risk from tsunamis has been understood by the Japanese for millenia, but the *benefits* from coastal settlments arising from fishing and trading far outweigh the costs of such relatively infrequent events.

Much of the other Wikipedia article is slanted and expressed in alarmist terms.

[dennis]

Using carbon offsets.. where you use the co2 that some starving bloke in Africa would have used if they were as industrialised as America?

[The Natural Philosopher]

They will simply make it a 'Regulation' and then it will be law without a vote.

You watch and see.

[The Natural Philosopher]

only if you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that power station emissions have anything to do with whatever global warming we used to have (but which has now more or less stopped)

[The Natural Philosopher]

none of the measures used to 'address carbon emissions' make any sense unless you first realise that theactual purpose is not to reduce emissions, but to make money for a few people who have bent the government's ear, dropped coins in their pockets, and constructed a plausible narrative that can be used to make their otherwise uncompetitive product 'de jure'.

Climate change isn't about saving the planet., its about another excuse to generate commercial monopolies and destroy competing industries. There is more than substantial evidence to show that this was the intention from the outset. It was dreamed up to make a market for gas, against coal, by Al Gore and Enron. By using the environmental movement as allies, instead of enemies.

They got a bit worried by 'renewable energy' until they did, as I have done, the calculations, and realised that renewable energy didn't actually work, and all that it would do wouldbe to drive up the price of energy, making even more profit out of gas, which would be the only viable co-firing fossil that would work reliably with renewables.

The biggest threat was nuclear power, but God Loves Gas, and gave them Fukushima, which they absolutely played with everything they had.

Examined from this perspective everything makes sense. It is the simplest explanation as to why things are the way they are, and if you have - as I have - ever sat around the table with the sort of people who head up large companies - especially US ones - this is exactly how they think.

Nothing is to be believed in, everything is purely a tool to be used to further profits, up to and including a bunch of filthy hippies who are anti-commerce. Or third rate 'sceintsist' who feel they have been 'passed over' by the scientific establishment.

[harry]

Oh and you'd have stayed behind to prove your point?

[harry]

So you believe one bit and not the other. How is this?

[newshound]

Don't follow your point. The second article has been challenged for NPOV. It's not just me.

[Paul Herber]

You've become a conspiracy theorrist as well now, how long will it be before you start adding the occasional word in upper case. Welcome to Dribble land.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The alarmisttrolls splattered wiki with false information about AGW/renewable energy years ago, they are also the same people who are driving the anti-nuclear agenda. Its all part of a commercial marketing ploy.

I have for example seen two completely contradictory graphs of 'earth's temperature over the last 10,000 years' that bear no discernible relation to one another. One article was written as far as I can tell by a geologist and earth scientist. The other is a cut and paste from the IPCC material.

Remember that when all this bunk started, the word on the eco street was that it was so important and dangerous that exagearated claims and false material were justified by all right minded people. Duly wound up. the trolls moved in to the media, the internet and indeed wiki.

The trolls however, were not total in their assault. Pockets of truth still exist. But they only wanted to establish enough 'authoritative sources' to be able to point atthem and say 'he agrees with me' But since the trolls write the articles, that is not surprising.

The target was not to get everyone to believe in it, just enough people to get the politicians to sign off on the subsidies and legislation that would outlaw coal and nuclear and make gas and windmills all you were allowed to use, or could actually make a profit from.

they have been pretty successful in that, so far. But the wheels are coming off the bandwagon.

[The Natural Philosopher]

no, in this case unlike most, a marketing operation is in fact the simplest explanation that fits the facts.

Is al Qaeda a 'conspiracy theory' ?

Some shadowy CIA trained bearded figure living in a cave and directing worldwide terrorism? really!

And yet, that turns out to be more or less the case.

It took me a long long time to track down links between organisations and how the funding runs on AGW. Its a good slick marketing campaign and a neat bandwagon for people to jump on. Its no longer directed by the gas industry - like Islamic fundamentalism, it has a life of its own - but they gave it the first big push.

So its less a conspiracy these days than a marketing meme that has taken hold, and its success is more defined by the fact that political decisions are taken by a narrow elite who are common across all parties and whose eyes are fixed on power and profit. That's the fertile ground into which the AGW bandwagon rolled, and on it they duly jumped.

BUT the signs are that they are beginning to realise its not the vote winner it used to be. So they are duly making plans to abandon ship. They only thing they fear is electoral defeat, and that is a distinct possibility.

It doesnt really matter if you believe me or not, because in the end the facts speak for themselves. Its a busted flush, contradicted by the evidence in the case of AGW and anti-nuclear hysteria and by the costs and efficacy in the case of 'renewable energy'

I merely offered the view that it was in fact a simpler explanation if it were seen to be the result of a carefully orchestrated marketing campaign by narrow commercial interests, than a genuine scientific problem and a genuine technological solution.

After all, it is the warmistas themselves who are the conspiracy theorists: 'big oil funds AGW scepticism' Purrlease.

>

[Jethro_uk]

Inevitable really. Unlike radiation, which is invisible, even the thickest prole starts to smell a rat when what's happening outside[1] bears no relation to the doom and gloom predicted. As luck would have it, with politicians stock being so low, along with the general economic situation, people are much more cynical about attempts to tax them in the name of the polar bears.

[1] *I* know weather != climate

[The Natural Philosopher]

more to the point the earth is about 5 degrees warmer than it would otherwise be if it wasn't stuffed with radioactive elements in the core.

I bet the article on oxygen says that its 'generally corrosive and damaging to all metals and metal structures'. Not.

[The Natural Philosopher]

indeed: where nuclear *power* is concerned I doubt you could say its cost a thousand lives over its entire history.,

AS far as weapons go, well somwhat less than the chinese damn burst in total.,

RENEWABLE ENERGY MORE DANGEROUS, HAS KILLED MORE, THAN NUCLEAR BOMBS.