Freedom For Fission

Dying can change your life

2009-06-30T15:58:00.002+01:00

If anyone flew with bmi last month, you might have seen an article in their inflight magazine entitled, “Does Colour Affect Your Wellbeing?” It’s a promotion for this curious product called Auric Colours developed by a company called Sentient-Light (a foreboding name from the outset). It’s all about these – well – dyes I guess, made from the usual valued rocks, metals and minerals like gold and pearl and amethyst, etc. What these dyes do is stimulate your energy centres somehow.

Why would we want to stimulate our energy centres? Usual reasons associated with Newage (pronounced to rhyme with sewage): good health, wellbeing, blah, blah, blah. Personally, I prefer Feng Shui. At least they’re promising you money from their expensive musical chairs.
Anyway, the article is good for a laugh. Here are some of the highlights.

The influence of colour on our wellbeing has long been recognised –with evidence
dating back thousands of years to the ancient cultures of Egypt, China and
India.

Not untrue. Aesthetics is very important in affecting our state of mind, and colour is a major part of that. Why do you think Microsoft devote so much effort to eye candy to their operating systems? Make it pretty and the punters will come. I personally love the Olive Green style on XP. It makes me much happier to work than with the default blue scheme.

Modern science has now proven that everything has an energy or electromagnetic
field.

Okay now the bullshit starts flying. Firstly, energy and electromagnetic field are two entirely different things. Where you find an electromagnetic field, which is a force field, you will find an energy field, but energy fields will also be present due to other forces like gravity. They are wrong when implying that an energy field is synonymous with a force field.

Secondly, everything does not have an electromagnetic field in any meaningful sense of the word. Yes, the charged particles that make up matter at the subatomic level have magnetic fields, but on the macroscopic scale, a plank of wood, for example, will be electromagnetically dead.

This is what really sucks about newagers. They latch onto a scientific concept, abuse the terminology, such as misunderstanding the distinction between force field and energy field, and then claim that science backs up their snake oil.

Colour is central to this energy and affects us on all levels – and forms what
is known as our own personal aura.

Newage clap trap. Colour is our brains’ interpretation of wavelengths of visible light. The electromagnetic field generated by a desk lamp has no colour. The light produced by the desk lamp will have a certain spectrum to it, which we will see as colour, but to apply that colour to the magnetic field in the wire is nonsense.

A personal colour consultant can help you discover which colours will benefit
your overall health and vitality.

I’ll do that now for free. Green and yellow and blue will leave you alright. Brown will lead to dire consequences. What’s my reasoning? Green and yellow is the colour of Earth, which is at zero volts. Blue is the colour of neutral, also at zero volts. Blue on the other hand is the colour of live, which is at 230Vac. Touch that wire and you’re fried!

Auric Colours (developed by Sentient-Light) are a unique range of aromatic
pigments that can be used to tap into the power of colour by stimulating our
energy centres through the fundamental senses of sight and smell.

Colourful and nice smelling? Okay, that sounds quite neat. You don’t need to dress it up in pseudoscientific rubbish about energy centres. This shit about it a load of crap and you know it. It sounds like you’re going to paint an electrical substation. Just say you have some nice smelling dyes.

The articles carries on for a while with reference to the particular manifestations of their products, mostly cosmetics, but there’s also a picture of a pendant, which is a vile of their dye, but looks like those anti-theft devices you sometimes see in clothes stores. They quote much from a representative named Sonal. She says,

My intuitive sensitivity enables me to tune in and usually I have a flash.
I’ll think, ‘If this person used green, their communication would be more
natural and dynamic.’

Like a tee-totaller trying to understand alcoholism, I’m at a loss to explain how anyone could take this guff seriously. Communication skills are something which a lot of people do require and receive training to get them up to a better standard. This profession is a particularly soft “science”, and so your mileage may vary from quite useful to utter bullshit. However, if your couch suggests that being made up like an Orion slave girl is a useful exercise, presume the worst.

In the interest of fairness, this is their website. They even have a shot of the Voyager magazine article.

http://www.auric-colours.com/

It's actually happening!

2009-06-14T20:23:00.004+01:00

OK, so I haven't been paying attention lately, but while I wasn't looking, the energy companies have actually got serious about new nuclear build in the UK.

RWE and E.On this year have set up their joint venture. They've already secured land 6 weeks ago in Anglesey for Wylfa C and in Gloucestershire for Oldbury B. They want to get the plants operating by 2020. Shame it has to take so long, but then 6 GWe is a fair chunk of electricity and the EPR (currently the favourite, but the AP-1000 could be the winner), is a sizeable specimen of criticality.

In addition it looks like RWE has got options to purchase land in West Cumbria near to Sellafield at places called Kirksanton and Braystones.

Meanwhile, EdF, which took over British Energy last year (shame but inevitable lets be honest), has its eyes on Hinkley Point and has got the backing of electrical distributor, Centrica, to press ahead.

This isn't just talk now. Wheels are actually in motion. Proper plans are being laid down. The ambitions are pretty big. I'm sure these first taste of Generation III+ will prove reliable and safe. If it can prove economic to boot in a way that the current technology in Britain didn't, then it will be the first in a wave of nuclearification.

Nuclear is on, in case you forgot

2009-01-23T18:30:00.003Z

Man, this government is slow!

The cabinet officially gave the green light to new nuclear power station a year ago and yet only now we're hearing they're starting the process to select new sites.

The quartet named this time includes Sellafield, Wylfa, Oldbury and Bradwell. Only Bradwell was named before. The other three were Sizewell, Hinkley Point and Dungeness.

Wylfa is a probably a good move, although probably a little too late. There is a aluminium smelters nearby, which has depended on the current Magnox reactors there for their energy. The local community (for the most part) and the trade unions are strongly in support of replacing the facility so that the Anglesey Aluminium facility can continue to operate. Even the Plaid Cymru assembly member has voiced some support. The question remains whether the proposed Wylfa B can arrive in time, given how much the government is dragging their feet.

Sellafield seems out of place given that most of the energy consumption is in the South of Great Britain, but the infrastructure is in place (Calder Hall used to operate there) and it is obviously convenient from an operational point of view to have fuel cycle facilities right next door.

Oldbury is well placed in Gloucestershire as Bradwell is in Essex.

What happened to Dungeness, Sizewell and Hinkley Point is unclear. They could be brought up at a later time in the process although the on-again-off-again talk about prospective sites makes it look like this is just going round in circles. Sizewell will be active for a long time to come given the prescence of the newest reactor and Hinkley Point and Dungeness both have AGRs meaning they still have some life left to them (though Dungeness was probably dismissed because of its proximity to Heathrow - can't make it too easy for the Usual Suspects to fight a war on two fronts).

This is the first signs of progress we've heard for a while. I hope things really ramp up now. Recession aside, we need to get to work on infrastructure replacement as soon as possible.

England is fucked!

2008-09-11T23:51:00.003+01:00

Yes, we all know coal power is not exactly the stuff of sunny days. It is dirty way of generating electricity that spews ash and acid into atmosphere in copious quantities and leaves even larger quantities of mercury and arsenic laden solid waste to be dumped into substandard landfills.

Nuclear power on the other hand is just lovely. A small amount of actinide can keep a large power station going for years producing nothing but a small amount of contained waste, which, although extremely dangerous when handled irresponsibly, is easily handled.

None of the above makes willful damage of a coal power station on the basis of "I know better than society" acceptable. Yet that is just what a jury has said about Greenpeace's vandalism of Kingnorth power station in Kent.

Yet again, their criminal behaviour is excused because they claim "to have a point to make." It's easy, as many in the blogosphere have done, to knee-jerk against juries for this and claim that pulling proles off the streets to do the business of judgement is a misallocation of talent. But really the problem with the crap jury is not that it was a jury, but that it was crap.

The really serious issue here is that an ugly precedent has been set. From now on, Greenpeacers will be able to run amok in England with impunity causing whatever damage they want to whatever they want and yet get off scot free by simply claiming it was "to protect the environment". They'll attack more power stations, or all varieties. They'll attack cars. They'll attack roads. They'll attack planes. They'll attack ships. They'll attack oil installations. Nothing is safe now because this jury have told Greenpeace that they can do what their heart tells them. The tragedy for England is that Greenpeace's heart has long since been corrupted and now is irreversibly separated from its brain.

Also stemming from this is the exacerbation of the energy crisis. Britain needs new heavy duty power stations; nuclear would be best of course, but maybe a coal unit or two may also be needed. Companies like E.On are the ones that would be providing this. Yet, England seems to be doing everything in its power to make it clear they're not welcome. For a start, the British government is considering expropriating their profits with this windfall tax nonsense, which will send a message that there is nothing to be gained from investing in England. But now, we have the English legal system saying that even if they do decide to make a big investment, it could be attacked and destroyed with impunity by militant environmentalists.

The risk is now too high for very little gain. No need to ask the last person to leave England to turn out the lights. There won't be any lights left.

On the other hand, maybe this is an opportunity. Since it is now precedent in English law that it is okay to cause criminal damage provided it was to prevent more damage elsewhere, surely that means it's okay to torpedo Greenpeace marauder vessels. After all, we're only protecting people's livelihoods by attacking their tools of piracy. Now that's an idea!

Chernobyl revisited... or visited for the first time in fact

2008-07-13T00:20:00.007+01:00

I finally put my money where my mouth is and went to Ukraine to visit Chernobyl in person, along with a bunch of plane spotters (gorgeous Tupolev-104 at Kiev Aviation museum by the way).

I must admit to not being particularly well prepared... or rested. So I tried to grab a few photos with my phone. The others all had fancy SLRs and the like. I'll grab a few off them in time, particularly of Pripyat where I didn't get anything. But in the mean time, here is what I got. It covers the basics.

Dare thee enter the Zone?

(Suggest viewing it in Firefox. IE isn't paying attention to anything I say.)

Piper Alpha - 20 years on

2008-07-06T19:12:00.004+01:00

Watch the memorial.

(Picture from geograph.org.uk until I get down to Hazlehead Park to get my own.)

Australia has officially gone nuts

2008-06-02T22:41:00.002+01:00

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has this charming and entirely not morbid game.

Australia is quite renowned for its wonderful climate. I think the ABC people have spent too much time appreciating it (it's ozone depletion I tells ya!). What moron thought it was a tactful thing to do to create a game for children which tells them they should drop dead (or as the graphic implies, explode)?

Running through the Australian averages, that hedonistic lot, living to the ripe old age of 19 (that is the average life expectancy down under, isn't it? We rarely see anyone older in all that Aussie programming we get up here.) should actually be dying at around 9 years old because it's then when they've used up their share of resources. I'm not quite clear what the magical resource ration is or how they came to that number.

So this game, aimed at "educating" kids, probably around the age of 9 or 10, is telling them they have to end their lives for the good of the planet. Assholes!

If they wanted to put something about calculating carbon footprint, why couldn't they be polite and make it something like this? Phrasing it in terms of when you need to commit ritual suicide is just sick!

Now on to the their (ab)use of "science".

Questions 1 & 2 are about getting around. What is your common mode of transport and how guzzly is it? Simple questions. Simplistic even. Too simplistic. The BP calculator allows you to specify multiple modes of transport and how often you use them, giving a more accurate picture of your transportation habits. Hell, ABC don't even allow you to specify a usage. And don't give me bull about "it's for kids" because the next question about flying asks for distances. And besides, if you're collecting information to tell users when they should die, you had better damn well take the time to get right.

On question 7, it's the usual where's your electricity come from question. Click on the dog and he'll tell you about Australia's electricity. Did you know that residential electricity accounts for 84% of that country's greenhouse gas emissions? Well, maybe if Australia would goddamn use some of the goddamn uranium sitting in the goddamn ground, that goddamn number wouldn't be so goddamn high. Hint, hint. Oh yeah and the dog says that renewables has nearly zero greenhouse impact, which is more pork than the goddamn Aussie pig.

Question 8 is about garbage. More porkies being told here. First is that we need to reduce landfill to avoid methane emissions. Modern landfills harvest methane as an energy source. A renewable energy source since there's always more organic waste. And no bull about a landfill crisis. Anyone trying to say that a country the size of Europe with all of 20 people living there has a landfill crisis is clearly detached from reality. The other thing is that recycling means less energy consumption than making things a new. Sporadic truth. Some things are less energy intensive to landfill and replace with new materials. Some things are less energy intensive to recycle. It varies with the substances involved and the external factors too. This blanket "all recycling is good" is just dogma. Some is good, some is bad.

So ABC says the average Australian carbon footprint is around 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. BP says the average is 14. So which one, or possibly both is pulling the number out of their arse? Well all this rests on assumptions, which you can pick at your discretion. I'd go with BP. Yes, they're an oil company, but they employ engineers who know things, whereas ABC employs journalists who don't. Easy choice really.

Now I raise my right hand and recite this oath:
I, on my honour, do solemnly swear to never moan or rant about Green sanctimony in the United Kingdom again. And whenever I get the urge, such as whenever Caroline Lucas appears saying completely stupid things on Question Time as she did last week (like public transport in the country. What an idiot! Yeah it's really possible to devise a practical and environmentally beneficial bus service in Aberdeenshire), I will revisit that link and be reminded that it could be worse. I could be living in Australia.

(Okay I didn't really take the oath, because moaning and ranting is what blogs are for.)

Everything is wrong with this

2008-05-03T21:26:00.003+01:00

Over at the always excellent Depleted Cranium last week, the topic was GM foods. At comment 16, we catch the first appearance of Debs in this thread, a girl apparently training to be a case study in a critical thinking class.

The problem with GM crops is that we start to think that man is capable of doing
better than nature.

But we can! Ever seen a strawberry that grows in the wild? It's rubbish. The strawsberry's we buy are the product of centuries of selective breeding with a helpful dose of agricultural technology.

We know nature made these plants a certain way for a reason and because they’re
natural our bodies are able to digest them because we coevolved.

Nature has no reason for doing anything. Nature is just... er... something not man made. Whatever it is, it has no intelligence, no reason. Save the intelligent design rubbish for the next Creationist convention.

Now we start saying that the way to do it is to take a gene from this plant and
put it here and this plant and put it here and move this one here. It’s
Frankenstein!

It's been ages since I've read Frankenstein, and I never did read it very thoroughly, but wasn't the story about the ignorant, hysterical masses reacting negatively to Frankenstein's originally benign creation and then driving the being to murder? And Dr. Frankenstein himself was quite superficial too. The moral being that hysteria is your own undoing (well that might not have been Mary Shelley's intended moral).

We don’t know what we’re doing because the system is beyond what we
understand and it exists a way for a reason.

While there is much more for us to learn, we do understand the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. To imply we don't understand genetics is simply a self-confessed ignoramus assuming that no-one could possible be more educated than herself.

We will only show how little we know when it comes back to haunt us. This
happened many time before for example nuclear we thought we understood and then
found out that it was blowing up in our face and ruining everything.

Although Debs fails to demonstrate sufficient to convince me that she doesn't think nuclear reactors are blowing up on a weekly basis across the world, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she means Chernobyl. It wasn't a lack of understanding that led to that accident, it was a lack of responsibility.

We can’t afford to ruin all our crops and pollute them with our chemicals that
were never meant for our bodies or the world!

A little apocalyptic foreboding always helps when feeding your prejudices. Who is it that never intended these chemicals for our bodies? This "nature" intelligence? Pure superstition!

All I know about it is the ppl who really care about the earth and the future
and being sustainable are all against it for good reasons. I’m
not an expert on it and I bet anyone who wants it either isn’t or maybe they are
and get paid for it, but those of us who care about it can tell you every
environment group that looked at it saw the problems right away!

Classic poisoning the well fallacy. Define anyone with a contrary opinion as either being a corporate $hill or just plain stupid. Never consider that you may be wrong.

Everyone who cares and knows feels the same way and they’re the ones I
would like to listen to.
Why should I believe you? You’re for it and that’s
why I’m not about to trust you!

Circular argument. "I only trust people who say X and I believe X because people I trust say it."

I suppose it's nice to live in a cozy bubble where you think it is rational to only listen to people who tell you things that reinforce your own prejudices.

Debs seriously needs a lesson on rational thought possibly with a wack on the head if it'll help knock some sense into her.

Ali feeds the beast

2008-03-13T07:22:00.003Z

Take a look at the latest budget. Here is what Alastair Tracy said about plastic bags. (pdf see page 18)

Legislation would come into force in 2009 and based on other countries'
experience, it could lead to a 90 percent reduction, with around 12 billion
fewer plastic bags in circulation.

The money raised should go to environmental charities.

Yes, the marionette gave the royal Thunderbirds are Go to shovelling a load of tax money into the pockets of the Usual Suspects, who, as they tend to do, will funnel it to their ~~terrorism~~ direct action division, where they will use it to further their brand of "non-violent" violence, including attacking the new nuclear power stations the government itself wants to build.

It's like giving money to Gerry Adams to organise the St. Patrick's Day celebrations.

Many environmental charities these days, particularly the more well known ones are nothing of the sort. They're political campaigning organisations masquerading as charitable organisations, who use donations made in good faith to fund illegal campaigning tactics.

And more to the point, a charity is supposed to be dependent on, you know, charity, not subsidy. A charity receiving state funding is no longer a charity, but is a QUANGO. Not only do we have enough in this country, but we certainly don't need ones which financially support criminal behaviour.

Still, it is a very effective policy by El Gordo and the marionette. By giving the revenues from the plastic bag tax to environmental charities, it means their profits are directly related to plastic bag use. I can think of nothing more likely to stop me from using plastic bags than the thought that it will be sending wads of cash straight into the pockets of Greenpeace.

Now where are resuable shopping bags my asset gave me?

The mystery of the final eleven

2008-03-11T09:22:00.003Z

According to Reuters, the UK government has offered up another 18 sites as candidates for new power reactors in addition to the four originally outlines (Bradwell, Sizewell, Dungeness, Hinkley Point).

Only 14 sites have ever been used to house power reactors in the UK. If we assume that El Gordo is not going to pick a fight with the Exalted One and that none of the new sites are Scottish, then that eliminates Chapelcross, Hunterston and Torness. So that leaves only seven exiting nuclear power stations.

Where are the final eleven?

Politics of vanity

2008-01-31T07:32:00.000Z

A great post at Depleted Cranium concerning environmentalist misconceptions.

I particularly liked this point.

Go after pollution sources with the highest cost/benefit ratio, not those which
are most noticeable

This sums up everything that is wrong with the environmentalists' campaigns. They're just so damn superficial! It's all about be seen to care more than actually doing stuff that is genuinely worthwhile.

Aviation generates 3% of all carbon dioxide emissions, half that of shipping, and yet it is their favourite whipping boy. Why? Why is there a climate camp at Heathrow but not one in Southampton? The reason is because aviation is a more high profile target. It's closer to lot more people than shipping. Airports are located across land masses, whereas ports are confined to the coast. Planes are the primary mode of long distance travel, whereas relatively few people take boats these days. Aviation is something that will confront most people directly in the face whereas, despite the real effect it has on all our lives, for most of us, it isn't in full view.

For something as prominent as aviation, environmentalists can suddenly pop their heads in like a zealous salesman, tell us all that is evil about it, and then invite our adulation for their dedication to the fight against this highly visible thing. If they tried the same thing with the shipping, most of the land lubbers of the West Midlands and Greater London would say, "Nothing to do with me."

Attacking aviation is a simple strategy for simple minds. Perfect if all you're concerned about is self-agrandisement.

Today of all days is a reminder as Brussels has just banned patio heaters (can politicians say "law of unintended consequences"?). Though patio heaters are not a particularly effective contributor to carbon dioxide emissions (they'd be even less so if they were nuclear powered), (il)Liberal Democrats delight in banning them because they can be seen to be "doing something".
Environmentalism has been turned from politics of saving the whales (being fair to Greenpeace as much as I loathe it, they having been honouring their original commitments are fair bit lately) into politics for the terminally vain.

BTW, on the anniversary of Guy Fawkes' gunpowder plot, MPs remind us that he was right all along.

EDF Energy are going to save us

2008-01-30T20:28:00.001Z

EDF Energy has a new advert out. It's interesting to watch. They play on the global warming angle with a vengeance, scary predictions and all. But it's okay! Because they're are going to save us by reducing the carbon intensity of their electricity generation.

What is particularly fun is that EDF Energy is going to achieve this by building new nuclear reactors in the South of England. Of course they don't tell us that. But why should they? Global warming is the greatest threat the planet has ever faced we're constantly told (even more than that planetoid that hit us 5 billion years ago creating the Moon). If it is the greatest threat we've ever faced, then surely it is greater than the threat from nuclear accidents, nuclear proliferation, nuclear waste blah blah blah.

So all hail EDF Energy. They're picking the lesser of two evils.

(Not that nuclear power is really evil at all. In fact, it's lovely.)

What to be done about Heathrow?

2008-01-20T15:48:00.000Z

London Heathrow has consistently been voted the worst airport through which to travel. It's terminals are old, outdated and vastly overused, making them cramped and dingy (ever seen Terminal 1?). Decades of post hoc extensions of gate peers and new lounges have turned them in a labyrinthine dungeons, which snake their way across the property like cancerous lesions creating congestion prone cul-de-sacs and a hodge podge of architectural indecision. The airport looks like it was cobbled together from scraps of other countries disused ones.

Then there's the runway situation. The airport is the third busiest in the world. Yet it must operate with only two runways on a system of alternation where only one can be used for takeoffs and one landings at any one time, limiting movements to 480,000 a year. The runways operate at 98% so any hiccup, such as a bit of fog or a 777 belly landing at the threshold of one of them and the whole system comes crashing down. Then the media recommence their obligatory Heathrow travel misery stories, featuring delayed and angry passengers huddling in tents sleeping rough on benches. It's so familiar that it's become something of British tradition.

The problem for Heathrow is that there is no where to go. The airport is surrounded by housing practically up to the fence, which makes any attempt at expansion an operation in pulling teeth. Being situated to the West of London in the first place means that arriving aircraft must fly over large parts of the conurbation to make their approach, bringing with it a massively enlarged constituency of NIMBYs (all 8 million of them!).

There is some hope on the way though. After years of dirt grinding, the new Terminal 5 will be opening in March. I've seen it (although incomplete) and can say that, while it is hardly the Palace of Heaven that BAA and BA make it out to be, it is a phenomenal improvement over what has gone before. Tourists and foreign business travellers arriving in the UK through this terminal won't be greeted by such a dire first impression of the country. What this new terminal finally does is give a bit of overcapacity to the airport, which means that finally they can close terminal 2, which is half a century old, and rebuild it as Heathrow East, a modern terminal that can replace both terminal 2 and terminal 1 (good riddance to that one too!).

By 2012, with these two new terminals in full operation, the airport will be transformed into something completely unrecognisable. The dark days of the current Central Terminal Area, will be relegated to the status of legend told around the camp fire to scare the children.

However, ultimately what T5 and LHR-E offer is a much nicer place in which to be delayed. While the inefficient designs of the CTA, with its narrow cul-de-sacs causing each aircraft to have to take their turn maneuvering in them, do play a part in some delays, the biggest problem is runway capacity. T5 and LHR-E will have a much more sensible and useable ground layout, but they will do nothing to stem problems of congestion at the holds, both in the air and on the ground. The airport needs more capacity.

BAA and the government wants to be build a third runway to the North of the airport. But this solution is just too messy. Too many houses will have to be demolished. The airport's influence will extend up to the M4 bringing in a brand new generation of NIMBYs. It will also no doubt mean the extension to the North of the London Control Zone, which will consume Denham and Elstree aerodrome. AOPA are not going to like it either. The West of London it just too cramped. There is no room for Heathrow to expand any further.

The only solution left is to make better use of the current runways. That is the introduction of "mixed mode" whereby both runways can be used to take-off and landing at the same time. This would allow theoretically 550,000 movements a year. This is actually very useful for more than just capacity. It also means that taxiing becomes more efficient. Terminal 4 is located to the South of the South runway, which means that whenever the North runway is being used for departures, aircraft operating out of T4 must cross the active South runway to get to their departure runway. This is a source of ground congestion as well as a needlessly expending fuel on taxiing. With mixed mode, aircraft could use the most convenient runway reducing taxi times and with it, delays, noise and fuel consumption.

Ah but what about those NIMBYs? How would mixed mode help relieve congestion if that extra capacity was simply translated into more movements? The answers are of course as feared. The NIMBYs would be in a strop and allowing a rise to 550,000 movements will mean the extra capacity will be absorbed by increased traffic. The runways would remain congested and the terminals put under greater strain.

But the solution to that is already in place. Currently, the airport is already capped at 500,000 movements. Even with the extra capacity mixed mode would bring, Heathrow is not allowed to utilise it to its fullest. This type of approach would reduce runway utilisation factors giving more wiggle room in the system to allow for hiccups. It would also make ground movement more logical eliminating a source of congestion that way. And a limit on movements would keep the NIMBYs from being anymore irate than they already are. Job done. Oh and Gatwick should get a second runway too.

So how does this relate to nuclear power? Er... um... Heathrow is the largest consumer of electricity in Great Britain. This electricity should be generated on site with their own nuclear reactor.

Is Clegg on course for calamity?

2008-01-14T16:04:00.000Z

Mike Smithson has got the scoop on public opinion to the government's green light to new nuclear reactors. Unsurprisingly, Conservative supporters are largely in favour. Labour supporters are fairly onboard too. But the funny bit is that among LibDem supporters, approval is much higher than disapproval.

Kind of goes to show how far away planet LibDem is from the real world and the people who would vote for them.

NB if you want a laugh, get a load of Tim13 in the comment thread trying to use Three Mile Island and Browns Ferry as an example of reactors polluting their surroundings.

Just when you thought it was safe to like Auntie

2008-01-11T18:50:00.000Z

Here's how the BBC does analysis of the government's nuclear decision. By dedicating an article to romanticising the ignorant antics of the aging dinosaurs of yesterdecade. All the other articles are pretty hard headed factual accounts of the situation (though you can almost hear the Beeboid journos' teeth grinding as they force themselves to give the pro side its share of lines as well).

The only one to stray into the realm of a more personal account is this article, which focuses purely on the opponents and their views. When are we going to get this kind of star treatment? Maybe we don't qualify because we're not in the habit of committing acts of vandalism, aggravated trespass, intimidation, disturbance of the peace and all those other wonderful things for which the quintagenarians are so honoured.

Edit: As quick as it appeared, it's gone. Replaced by this saucy number. Now this might be the article, which puts me in my place, you could say. But, I still have a gripe. While the beginning does indeed opening with what is essential a view from the perspective of benighted nuclear worker, and would indeed serve as a good counterbalance to the tribute to the opponents, they still can't resist pooring cold water on the proceeding by inviting cynicism. The final line is,

The fact is, it won't be his generation that knows if his decision was the
right one.

As a stand alone article it is fine in terms of trying to capture the inside story while offering some balance; a perspective from the nuke worker, while also raising the doubts. However, the other article is an exercise in Greenpeace propoganda. The BBC (and media in general) line is that pro-shifting articles must balance with a hint of doubt, but anti-shifting articles can go off on one all they like. In the end, it's a media victory for the opponents... as always.

NB This bit amused.

But when our short tour begins, and we cross a thick red line painted on the
ground, new attire becomes compulsory: a bright blue shopkeeper's coat, white
construction helmet, heavy plastic glasses and shoes with steel caps.

Ooh how dangerous and scary nuclear power stations must be. Not really. Sounds like just the kind of thing we wear round the yards of oil field suppliers.

Edit edit: The second article is now on the front page while the first article is still missing. Maybe the Beeb is not too bad after all.

Does radioactivity becomes more hazardous once we've touched it?

2008-01-11T12:03:00.000Z

Of course not. Radioactivity is radioactivity (of the various varieties there is of course) whether it's just lying in ground for 2 billions, or whether we dig it up and manufacture some fuel rods out of it.

So then what is this neurotic obsession with radioactive material, that was lying in the ground, once it is extracted?

Timmy makes a good observation.

Further, think about what the actual complaint is even if it does leak. There
used to be lots of uranium in the ground here. Now some of it has gone back into
the ground. Scary, eh?

Once we take some uranium out of the ground, what's wrong with allowing it seep back in? It was already there in the first place!

It's like the epic tale of 10ft metal pipe. A nuclear operator orders 10ft of metal pipe. As with all materials, there is some natural radioactivity in this pipe. The technicians get the pipe, but only need to use 9ft of it. The remaining 1ft is scrap. However, because of this natural radioactivity, the pipe must be treated as low level waste. Can't see a coal fired power station being particularly bothered about that.

This highlights more stupidity about waste arguments. Best one is depleted uranium and the outrage that opponents display towards the buildup of this EEvil substance. We take natural uranium out of the ground, which has a specific activity of 12.8 MBq.kg^-1* and return it as depleted uranium, which has a specific activity of 12.3 MBq.kg^-1. In doing so, we've made the ground less radioactive. Surely the radiophobes should like that. But because the radioactivity is something that we've touched, it automatically becomes worse than what was sitting in the ground naturally.

On nuclear waste as a whole. By disposing of vitrified fission products, which will decay to below the activity of uranium ore within 600 years, the legacy we are actually leaving for future generations is a ground, which is less radioactive in the long term than it would be otherwise.

Think about that!

*Figures are in becquerels per kilogram of uranium, ignoring all the other stuff in the ore.

It's on

2008-01-10T22:29:00.000Z

It's all going down on Iain Dale's Diary. Two anti-nuclear Tories and grumpy highlander.

And the lucky winner will be...

2008-01-10T14:13:00.000Z

British Energy's reaction to the government statement reveals their main candidate sites for new reactors.

Sizewell in Suffolk, already home to two Magnox and a PWR)
Dungeness in Kent, already home to two Magnox (shut down) and two AGR
Hinkley in Somerset, already home to two Magnox (shut down) and two AGR
Bradwell in Essex, already home to two Magnox (shut down)

So which one is going to be first?

Somehow I think Hinkley will be last because Somerset is too close to LibDem territory. The fight might be tougher. Dungeness could be good. Robert Waller says people in Kent tend to vote in a more hard headed way and so might be pragmatic about it. Bradwell currently has nothing going which could present problems with dwindling infrastructure. Sizewell already has a large reactor, so starting there might be piling on the PWRs too much.

I'm going to bet on Dungeness.

Crunch time is here

2008-01-10T11:38:00.000Z

The Cabinet has given the green light.

Now will they have the strength and competence to push it forward?

All the government should provide is a proper and sensible regulatory framework, clarity on back end processes (if the government is to handle final waste disposal, what charge is to paid for that service) and most importantly bamboo sticks to bludgeon any Usual Suspects who approach nuclear facilities.

Because Alex Salmond has control of the planning system is Scotland, he has ruled out any possibility of new reactors being built here. This of course means that Scotland's energy infrastructure will collapse in the next few years, no doubt to be replaced by natural gas and imports from England if what the government say comes to pass. Maybe in a few years time, "It's Scotland's oil!" will be replaced by "It's England's actinides!" as the new nationalist obsession.

NB you'll note in typical BBC style, right at the top of the article is a link to listen to the "Greenpeace view". As if they have anything original to say.

A few opening observations

2008-01-10T08:09:00.000Z

Courtesy of the Guardian, we get this damning report from the Nuclear Consultation Group. It opens with a criticism of the handling of the energy review by the Government of All the Talentless, but then moves on to making their own case for why new nuclear power stations should not be allowed.

Here are some observations.

Health aspects

The entire Radiation Health Effects sections appeared to be an exercise in FUD. The COMARE reports have repeatedly given nuclear power a clean bill of health, yet they delighted in constantly raising doubts over whether that was enough. There was no sense of perspective added through acknowledging that if there is uncertainty as to the health effects of nuclear power, that puts it way ahead of coal, where there is no uncertainity: it is unhealthy.
The most damaging reference they had was to a Russian study, which they quoted as,

"As Prof Alexey Yablokov, Director of the RussianAcademy of Sciences, Moscow
concludes, ‘each year it has become clearerand clearer that the real
consequences of this catastrophe are much morewidespread and severe than has
been predicted’ (Yablokov, 2006, p. 34)."

This amused because the prediction told of millions dead and we know how valid that is. It also amused because put next to the extracts from UNSCEAR 2000, it looks rather shallow; a line of rhetoric rather than a line of facts.

Economics

I don't know what it is with this lot, but why is it so difficult to accept that new nuclear operators will have to operate in a market economy? The government has said repeatedly (and the opposition have agreed) that this is a private sector matter. The only job of the government is to lay the regulatory foundations for new nuclear build. The operators are meant to pay their way. If this looks unpalatable to investors, they won't come. Simple as that.

The pessimism is overbearing. Olkiluoto-3 and Flamanville-3 are currently under construction, but they talk as though this is already a withering wine. Does anyone seriously expect France is not going to build more? Even Fortum in Finland has not be deterred by the delays in Olkiluoto-3 and are studying the possibility of building a second EPR. Besides, while Olkiluoto-3 has run into some trouble, there are a host of recent projects in places like China, South Korea and Argentina that have come in on budget and on schedule.

Their perception of the past is also rather dodgy. Saying that Sizwell B did not have a consultation is totally untrue. The public enquiry took years and is partly responsible for the cost overruns. Their line about previous British efforts resulting in a "handful of unreliable and uneconomic units that supply less than 20 per centof our electricity" is also misleading since at its peak, the nuclear sector provided almost 30% of our electricity. It's only dwindling now because the older reactors are shutting down. On the other hand, it is fairly accurate to describe the Magnox and AGR designs as unreliable and uneconomic. That's why the technology is not being followed up and we are looking at LWRs and CANDUs now.

Safety

A vicious smear is laid upon the name of the AP-1000 by suggesting that it cannot take an aircraft strike or that it lacks safety systems required for Sizewell B, which incidentally was also built by Westinghouse. This is of course rubbish.

Waste

The figure that 60 years of operation of Generation III+ reactors will only add 10% to our current volume of nuclear waste (most of which isn't waste!) is a promising one. However, this lot insist on putting a negative spin on it by converting this into radioactivity, which in this case becomes a five fold increase from 78×10¹⁸ Bq to 360×10¹⁸ Bq (they actually said . Makes it look more scary, doesn't it?

Of course, this abuse of mathematics only proves what we already know; that radioactive material becomes less radioactive with time. Spent fuel straight out of reactors decays to 0.1% of its initial activity within a few decades. Naturally, the legacy wastes have had a lot of time to decay, while the new stuff will still be fresh and bubbly.

This figure work really proves nothing horrible. It's volume that matters. Radioactivity is such a fleeting thing.

Politics

They betray rather too much of their Lovinsite agenda with sporadic references to a decentralised grid and the innuendo about needing demand side reform (energy rationing I assume). It's not their job to put out a political vision. They're supposed to be reviewing the viability of allowing new nuclear build.

They also delight in partaking in the renewables vs nuclear straw man. Why is there not room for both? We do want to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, don't we?

It's a somewhat disappointing document. It looks well referenced, but it seems that in most cases, the writers looked at those references then made up their own conclusions.

While we wait...

2008-01-09T08:24:00.000Z

... for the inevitable assault from the Usual Suspects tomorrow on the myriad of cracks from the Government of All the Talentless, why not have a read of what we could have had from them if they were more intelligent?

Randal Leavitt of Positive Energy made a submission to the energy consultation that Greenpeace is no doubt about to get voided. He has posted it here.

Crunch time approaches

2008-01-08T20:28:00.000Z

Thursday is the big day. El Gordo is expected to announce that the nuclear renaissance will at last be coming to these shores directly, (verses indirectly whereby we buy electricity from Flamanville-3 in France).

On the positive side, the BBC article hints that this green light will be entirely at market discretion, with the operators picking up the bill for decommissioning and for waste handling. That is of course as it should be.

On the negative side, it still doesn't stop this Government of All the Talentless from cocking up the second review. This is exactly the kind of ammunition needed to give the Usual Suspects a chance to cause more trouble.

Wow!

2007-12-13T02:22:00.000Z

NEI has spied the Guardian.

Bob Geldof demands more nuclear

Am I being too harsh on him to have never expected that in a million years? He always struck me as one of those cliched Hollywood/rock types.

Now the question is, will the BBC give full coverage to a gala pro-nuclear concert?

Things to do on a quiet Saturday morning

2007-12-01T13:27:00.000Z

Four fuddites declare their undying devotion to Sizewell

This may be a subjective thing, but I would normally expect a party larger than 4 to have staged their antics before headlining it as a "protest". Still, this is a rather typical Beeb thing to do when they agree with the protestors (notice how they also give plenty of space for the Usual Suspects to deliver their opinions without a word from the other side).

This bit amused though as it shows the complete lack of logical thought by the Usual Suspects:

"We were lying across the road for 15 minutes fastened together before the
security guards came," said campaigner Mell Harrison, 36, of Bungay, Suffolk.
"We were 200 metres from the reactor, if that. If we can do it so can
terrorists. Imagine that. We didn't get inside the fence. But protesters have
done that before.

If terrorists basically comes to Sizewell to stand across the road, then I don't think we have anything to worry about. When will they learn that they're going to have to do better than that?

Good luck to British Energy. Some brand spanking new Generation III+ reactors will do us well. Scotland will also be needing the imports sooner or later anyway unless the Exalted One comes to his senses.

Buddhists for nuclear energy

2007-11-24T08:19:00.000Z

If you want to see a gigantic sitting Buddha, then visit the Po Lin monastary in Hong Kong. Surrounding the big Buddha are a series of smaller figures carrying various important items. But one of them appears to be carrying a piece of a CANDU fuel bundle.

Nuclear support comes from the areas you'd least expect.