Nuclear power: neither as secure, nor carbon-free, as industry hacks would have you believe.
by brianfit
Twelve activists, from eight countries, have managed to get inside the security perimiter of a nuclear power plant at Belleville Sur Loire in France and scale the cooling tower. Notable in this video (in French) is the complete lack of any security personnel whatsoever. (More here from Greenpeace France)
To be honest, I think I'd prefer to see our banner-hanging sprees foiled by security than know that a potential source of dirty bomb material can be gotten into with equipment little more advanced than a ladder.
And if you're of the school that says "ok, it's a risky technology, vulnerable to break-ins by unsavory types who might take an interest in dirty bomb or fissionable material, but at least it doesn't cause climate change," you may want to read this article in Business Week:
Is [nuclear power] really as clean as supporters contend? A report, released on Mar. 26 by a British nongovernmental organization called the Oxford Research Group, disputes the popular perception that nuclear is a clean energy source. It argues that while nuclear plants may not generate carbon dioxide while they operate, the other steps necessary to produce nuclear power, including the mining of uranium and the storing of waste, result in substantial amounts of carbon dioxide pollution. "As this report shows, hopes for the climate-protecting potential of nuclear energy are entirely misplaced," says Jürgen Trittin, a former minister of the environment in Germany and a contributor to the report. "Nuclear power cannot be promoted on environmental grounds." [...] "The assumption has long been that the [greenhouse] effect is zero, but the evidence shows otherwise." The report comes as British Prime Minister Tony Blair is pushing to build a new generation of nuclear plants in the name of curbing global warming.Environmental groups like Greenpeace, the Rocky Mountain Institute and Germany's Öko-Institut have argued in recent years that nuclear power comes with hidden carbon emissions. But the Oxford Research Group study is the most quantitative and up-to-date advancement of this assertion...
So lets see. It's not safe. It's not a solution to climate change. Even the Nevada Nuclear Test Site is a non-starter for storing the waste. What exactly is left to argue for Nuclear Power?
Ah, of course! It's "too cheap to meter." Oh wait, that one fizzled years ago, didn't it...
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