The nuclear option

The announcement that Hartlepool is one of the possible sites for a future nuclear power station is bound to generate a fair bit of heat locally before it comes anywhere near to generating electricity. It's not unexpected of course - any site which already has a nuclear station must have been in the running because the issues of geography and so on have already been resolved to the satisfaction of the authorities.
I'm not one of those who absolutely oppose nuclear power, but I do oppose using any process which produces a byproduct that doesn't have an end use. Nuclear waste is enormously difficult to deal with, we haven't yet resolved the issues of how to store it successfully for the necessary thousands of years before it decays to harmless and the technical problems of decommissioning nuclear stations arent' yet fully solved. Given all that, I don't see how we can possibly contemplate building more stations, generating more waste and leaving our grandchildren a toxic legacy to solve. Then on top of that we have the considerable carbon diocide emissions of the construction process - all that concrete, all the fuel coming from overseas because we don't have native supplies.
Add to that the fact that we need to get smarter about tracking radioactive material around the globe and keeping it out of the hands of potential evil-doers and I ask myself what we could achieve on greener technologies with the same amount of investment.
No - I still need convincing that the nuclear option is the right one.
Though given this story maybe miracles do happen.

Pizza & Politics

That was the title of an evening of food and debate yesterday. Eaglescliffe Lib Dems enjoyed a sometimes heated debate on the subject "Nuclear Power - the answer to global warming or hell on earth?" I don't know whether anyone changed his or her mind as a result but there was much passion on both sides and people certainly listened and learned from each other. Inevitably the discussion ranged over the alternatives for energy production and usage and the impact each of them has on the environment as well as the dangers inherent in every form of energy production.
It was good to share ideas like that instead of always concentrating on the immediate problems, important though they might be, like potholes and streetlights.
(The pizza wasn't bad either!)