nuclear-news

Our Nuclear Menace – Just as Darwin Would Have Predicted  Andrew McKillop MAY 6, 2014 BY 21WIRE    From Nuclear Orthodoxy to the Enlightenment  We cannot be surprised that the Nuclear Lobby, after wheeling on the great ‘Climate Threat’ to help sell its dangerous high-cost products, is now resorting to a junk version of Darwinism to sell the same products. Tainted strongly by Lysenkoism – not Darwinism, the new Darwinist Theory of Nuclear Power is that a bit of radiation does you good because your tail feathers will be high in antioxydants after 28 years – or you will die. Yes, you do have a choice!

The Economist reveals its true pro-nuclear colours with recent articles under gloating titles like “Anti-nuclear Protest in Japan is Fizzling Out”. It gives outright support to Shinzo Abe’s attempts to restart Japan’s nuclear reactor fleet with titles like “Nuclear Power in Japan: Start ‘em Up”.

But objective reporting on nuclear power sometimes nudges its way, even into The Economist’s tainted fare, with rare articles where it tells us the world’s NPP fleet is still using “nasty old technology”.

Exactly that.

In reality, the “Nuclear Renaissance”, as the Nuclear Lobby calls it, is doing very badly. For starters, the economics of nuclear power are terrible. Further increases in the cost of nuclear power are certain, simply due to attempts by the industry to replace “nasty old technology” with Darwin-style, “evolved and perfected technology”.

The advanced European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) is a good example, in technological terms – and a somber example in economic terms……..

The claim by the Nuclear Lobby that atomic energy is somehow “climate friendly” has been confronted by the total dependence on fossil fuels for uranium mining, transport, fuel fabrication, nuclear waste transport and disposal, as well as the building and servicing of NPPs. This all adds up as CO2 emissions – if you are to go by the climatist measure of what is green, and what is not. Overall, NPPs are better than coal-fired plants and about equal or slightly greater than gas-fired power plants, for emissions. They are in no way a Silver Bullet for cutting Al Gore’s deadly CO2 emissions, and it is a straight lie to even peddle this claim.

The nuclear enlightenment has also challenged the Nuclear Lobby’s assumption that the world energy system and its need for electricity is always growing. Here’s a fact: in some EU28 countries, electricity demand has been stagnant since the 1990s – long before the 2008 crisis. Since then, demand has decreased in most major EU28 countries – including Germany and UK. Long term power demand growth in the US is now forecast by the EIA at no more than 1% a year, if that.

Only the emerging and developing countries show “belle epoque” power demand growth trends – and even here the rates have seriously declined since 2010. To be sure, China and India are still the “last best hope” for the Nuclear Lobby, but the costs of nuclear power are eating into and pushing down nuclear program goals in both countries.