a peaceful and nuclear-free future...

Just a quick rant, its waaay too late and I should be writing essays instead of blogs...
Procrastination Nation...
Yeah so...
An interesting article by Geoffrey Garrett over at The National Times today..

The debate over climate change reform has reached the US senate. The bill that has already passed congress is expected to be highly ammended before it passes the senate. Some of  the proposed changes to the current bill, which is supposedly quite green, seem to be designed to ensure the bill isn't so radical and revolutionary that it will cause panic amongst big business. As I've written about before, I worry that Obama is opening himself up to propaganda attack from conservative America by being quite so open about his more left-centric political rhetoric and policy decisions. As Garrett's article points out, reform policy such as the health care bill, put forward by the administration and passed by the overwhelmingly democrat, Obama-loving house of congress are being toned down and tempered by ammendments put forward by the less-left senate. Maybe having a leader with strong ideologies being kept in check with the political mainstream by a moderate senate is a good thing...

As I was saying, some of the changes being championed by, amongst others, former presidential candidate John Kerry seem to be aimed at tempering the bill as to avoid too much of an ideological backlash from the right. Although some of the taxes and tarrif changes will probably make it more difficult to significantly encourage big polluters to reduce emissions, in the real world of politcal game-playing they may be a necessary evil. The Rudd government took a similarly frustrating but possibly politically unavoidable option when they offered up big compensation dollars to Australia's dirtiest polluters as part of the emissions trading scheme legislation...
BUT....
As you can see, it is a pretty big but...
As well as changes to tarrifs and the ugly probability of America not submitting itself to binding emissions cuts anytime soon, Kerry and his cohorts are advocating nuclear power as a key factor in combatting emissions.

"nuclear power needs to be a core component of electricity generation if we are to meet our emission reduction targets" - John Kerry

Two words...
FUCK. THAT.
This announcement immediatly brought to mind a Quarterly Essay I read a couple of years ago before attention-span crippling internet addiction began to destroy my capability to read anything on paper longer than ten pages. A severely abridged version of the 25,000+ word essay can be found here. The QE, titled "Climate Change and the Nuclear Option", was written by one of Australia's leading commentators on science and the environment, the current professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University and all round really-smart guy Ian Lowe. The dude has a PhD in Physics alright kids? As well as a compelling range of others, these are the main reasons Lowe denounces nuclear power as a solution for climate change:
1. There is still no proven way of safely storing nuclear waste created by the nuclear power process.
2. Nuclear power stations are still imperfect in design and susceptible to catastrophic nuclear meltdowns.
3. Nucear power stations are a prime target for terrorists, the consequences of an attack would be immense.
4. It is still common practise for countries to either use or sell excess uranium for the purpose of making nuclear weapons.
5. The economic and carbon emission costs of effectively building nuclear power facilities to replace coal and gas generated electricity would have severely negative ramifictions for both the economy and the environment.
6. Renewable enrergy sources such a solar, wind, and geo-thermal enrgies are more econimically feasible, safe, and environmentally friendly.

These are admittedly brief and simplified surmations of the problems outlined by Lowe, the essay goes into the nitty gritty details of each...  but yeah you get the drift...

Uranium is dodgy shit.
Hiroshima.
Chernobyl.
Leave it in the ground.
Spend money on safe renewable energies.
Covering a large section of the Australian desert in solar panels would generate enough energy to power a large percentage of the world's energy grid. The only thinng holding society back from progressing away from environmentally dangerous and harmful energy sources is the cost, and nuclear energy is, according to Lowe, at least equally, but more likely even more expensive, than renewable energy sources.

Nuclear power as a solution to climate change, he argues convincingly, is like ADVOCATING SMOKING AS A CURE FOR OBESITY. Yeah, it might work for a little while, but even during that little while it will be incredibly expensive and polluting. After that little while, there there is such a broad range of life-threatening health risks involved that you're almost certainly fucked. And although I suck down a hundred of the cancer-canes a minute, I know it is eventually going to kill me and I don't suggest the whole world should smoke. Nor would I suggest to a fat person that they become addicted to ciggies in an effort to lose weight. The US senate should take the same stance on Nuclear Energy as a solution for global warming.

Wow. That rant didn't turn out so quick. Oh well.

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