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wind farms vs nuclear power
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PMM
PMM
3155 posts

Re: wind farms vs nuclear power
Feb 23, 2009, 23:30
This all started with a blog post from Merrick that attacked the positions of Mark Lynas and George Monbiot.

http://bristlingbadger.blogspot.com/2009/01/nuke-mark-lynas.html

Both Lynas and Monbiot found the time to respond on Merrick's comment page, and Monbiot went so far as to write the guardian article you linked to defend and elaborate on his position. Last time I looked this article had led to a stream of debate totalling around 150 posts.

Merrick, too, has gone on to post further on this issue.

http://bristlingbadger.blogspot.com/2009/02/caviar-enemas-vs-inter-generational.html

Interesting to see blogging used in such a powerful way. I'm glad that the Guardian article links to Merrick's post. I hope he gets a lot of people reading what he has to say.

Also it's heartening to see as high profile a figure as George Monbiot taking the time to respond to such a blog post, and also to contribute to the discussion his own article spawned.

I'm not sure that I know enough about the issues to state a firm opinion. Reading the posts of some well informed people coming to diametrically opposed conclusions has left me none the wiser.

I really don't know who to believe.

Monbiot has demonstrably changed his position on this issue, and this presumably means he's had to make other compromises.

I've read "Heat" and I'm currently reading his earlier book, "Captive State". the second book concerns how big business has used its clout to influence political and social decision making at every level.

If Monbiot accepts that a programme of new nuclear is needed, he knows enough about how private finance works to understand that Big Business are going to be interested, not in saving us from a near future energy crisis, but as an investment opportunity that will bring in billions of pounds. He's also aware that they have no interest in the long term commitment that dealing with nuclear waste entails.

Your thread title makes the issue sound as if we have to make some kind of choice between spending money on wind farms OR spending money on nuclear. That's a position that Merrick has taken but Monbiot is clearly stating that both should be used together.

There have been some interesting voices speaking out in favour of nuclear power recently. Not just Lynas and Monbiot, but also James Lovelock.

eg) http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/james-lovelock-nuclear-power-is-the-only-green-solution-564446.html

Yet Merrick makes some compelling points too.

We are postponing our crisis for those that come after us to deal with. Lynas (and Lovelock) assert that the climactic hazards associated with nuclear power are tricial compared with what we are doing with fossil fuel, that even the worst nuclear accident in history has led to a recolonisation by nature in just a few years. Yet there are still areas of Wales that are not allowed to sell their sheep because of the fallout. I'm not sure about the mutation rates amongst the animals and plants that have colonised the exclusion zone. I'd imagine they would be higher than in an uncontaminated environment.
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