Fusion and Fission

Gordon Brown's government this week gave the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power plants in the UK. A relatively bold move, but one that all energy and economic analysts knew that they would have to do eventually.

At the same time Sir David King (a man who I greatly respect for - as the article states, first bringing Climate Change onto Tony Blair's agenda) has criticised green campaigners for potentially harming the Climate Change debate (or rather the action on Climate Change).

When I was at university studying Environmental Management, I came across a few greenies (and lived with a couple). They joined environmental NGOs and a couple of them were really into what they did, volunteering for local cleanup charities - and some of them went on to work for them. Which is fantastic. 

I was also always accused of being a tree-hugger by my friends (who didn't really know what I did) and was asked whether I was a member of a charity or was going to work for one. I always gave the same reply: "I think there are bigger and better ways of improving the environment than working for an NGO - working from within a company or government (something which has regularly sparked debate within NGOs)". 

Sir David King , in his article accuses Greenpeace of being Luddites (link included for any Americans) with respect to their stance on Climate Change. And I am inclined to agree with some of his thoughts. In my opinion, the threat of climate change is so huge now (species have already been made extinct, the great barrier reef is at 60% of it size 20 years ago, the destruction of the polar ice caps is accelerating the whole business - i could go on) that it vastly outweighs the smaller threat of a (don't get me wrong - completely horrific and undesirable Chernobyl). Any risk has got to be weighed on potential severity as well as the likelihood that it will happen (99% for climate change). 

What further complicates matters is the fact that the UK is on the potential verge of a very large energy crisis that absolutely no-one seems to be taking a blind pit of notice of. It seems that the economy has been so hunky dory for so long now that people have forgotten past energy crises. Consider: 

• We have used almost all of our natural gas which we found in the North Sea (and which triggered the period of economic prosperity that we are now in) and within the next 10 years we will be 90% reliant on natural gas imported from Russia;
  
• All of our coal fired power plants are old and knackered;
• the lead time on the construction of a nuclear power plant is something like nearly 20 years (I didn't check this so correct me if I am wrong).

When you consider the evidence - the main shocker is that Gordon didn't sign the papers earlier!

The absolute last, last thing we want to do is to return to coal as the Australians (incidentally the largest emitters of CO2 per capita in the world) will continue to do (Rudd staunchly rejecting nuclear options). A lot of people (for example the Yorkshire RDA) have been pushing what they term "clean coal". Essentially this would mean use of some form of Combined Cycle Gasification with untested carbon capture schemes. This really is no solution to me. The lead time for the carbon capture would be no better than turning to nuclear, and this does not address the fact that there are so many people on this planet (1.2 bn in 1900, 6bn in 2000) that we would just be accelerating the time it took to rid the planet of coal resources forever.

I cant see any other option than (short term) to continue to flog our old plants until we can build some nuclear ones, in the meantime trying to pursue efficiency and renewables to take the load off the grid wherever we can. 

My former boss and mentor always tells me that in a century or so we may be able to find the solution to safer fusion power but until then...

In the meantime I think the time has come for the likes of Greenpeace to pull their heads out of their arses...