Yes, even after the March 11th series of disasters in Japan. I'm not saying it's not without its risks, but I also believe the paranoia about it is doing more harm than good, and that the alternatives(like burning coal) are actually a lot worse(and certainly more dangerous).
Imagine my surprise when Germany decided that, by 2022, they will have shut down every single nuclear power source in their country. Now, for the ones that are old, that are barely being kept functional, then fine. Good. Nobody wants another Chernobyl. The problem is that a depressing number of people can't tell the difference between Chernobyl, a half-assedly built and maintained reactor even by Soviet Union standards, with a Three-Mile Island. These are the people who are afraid they'll go sterile if they're in the same room as a microwave preparing a hot-pocket.
Yes, what happened in Japan was awful. But that's what you get when the people you hire to build it do so on one of the most unstable fault lines in that region, in an area prone to Earthquakes. Some very bad decision-making years ago caused a lot of death and suffering in Japan this year. They might as well have built the damn things on an active volcano. So far, the two biggest nuclear disasters were caused by human incompetence and mother nature. I mean, hey, radiation is an asshole if left unchecked, but it seems silly to protest this kind of thing because The Simpsons says it's bad. That's the same as making an informed opinion, right?
Shaun Burnie, nuclear adviser for environmental campaign group Greenpeace International, told the BBC World Service that Germany had already invested heavily in renewable energy.
"The various studies from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that renewables could deliver, basically, global electricity by 2050," he said.
2050? But these things are being shut down in 2022. What the fuck are these guys going to do for the remaining 28 years? And hey, who needs something like this in a world with out-of-control population numbers and a ridiculous demand for energy? I'm sure they've still got plenty of other alternative energy sources that are just as safe and cost-effective, like...
Uh...
I hear they've got a booming porn industry. Maybe they can run the electrical grid with that?
END OF LINE
~A.H.
No comments:
Post a Comment