Nuke 'Em?

Yeah, normally I just write mundane posts about nonsense, but I fear that over the coming weeks this blog may become a little bit political!
So, in the news recently they’ve been talking about the prospect of renewing our aging nuclear power plants. Yes, they are still working at present. However, we need to begin at least getting organised to build new ones now, if that’s what we are going to do.
Well, this has all come about due to posturing on the part of Mr Blair. Despite having commissioned a report into what the future holds for UK power, and what the options are, he then gazumps the report and decides that the future is radioactive. Okay, maybe that’s a little extreme, but he has jumped the gun. Speculation has it that he is doing this because he’s tired of the rest of his party being in the news more than he is.
But, back to the actual issue: should we be building more nuclear power stations, or should we be finding the alternatives. Believe me there are a lot of alternatives! I can see that nuclear power has its advantages, lower carbon emissions I think is one of them. It does also have the disadvantage of producing great piles of waste which are radioactive for a very long time and have to be buried. Coal seems to have been largely discounted from the equation these days as it has high carbon emissions, and also emits other gases, depending on where the coal is from. Coal is also quite expensive to produce. I saw a TV show a while ago about a coal-fired power station which captured the carbon it released and then used that to provide some more power somehow (I’m not clear on the detail) which seems quite good. That way you’re getting extra power from what is effectively a waste product. There are other options than just coal, gas and nuclear power though; there is the much under-utilised wind power. It is windy quite often in this country, and we could harness this much better. Of course then some argue that the turbines are an eyesore, and that they are destroying the countryside. Perhaps they would be more suitable on a smaller scale… Then there’s solar power, which I have to admit may be pushing it a bit in Aberdeen, but in the southern counties where sunshine is a bit more common, we could easily have solar powered things. Water power could be used on almost all of the country’s rivers (though possibly not the Trent and the Severn…)
Is it possible to get all of our power from renewable/green sources? Not at present. Should that stop us from trying? No.
It’s not just up to the politicians though, it’s up to all of us too. We have energy saving bulbs throughout our house, the dishwasher is rating B and the washing machine is rating A (the dryer is D, but we only use that rarely) I have to admit to being a fan of having a bath, which does use more water than a shower. I turn off the tap while I'm cleaning my teeth. I walk almost everywhere (though I don’t drive…) we have a compost bin in the garden to reduce the amount of rubbish we send to the tip, and we also recycle paper. Bottles go to the bottle bank whenever someone with a car visits us, and we give our carrier bags back to the delivery man. We prefer to get loose vegetables (using less packaging) and re-use jars. We still have more to do, but every little thing helps.
Did You Know…?
A dishwasher uses less water to wash the pots than washing them in the sink does, provided that the dishwasher is full.