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Extinction Rebellion: Nuclear power 'only option' says former spokeswoman
- smhg 6y agoI think it would be a good idea to put the first 2 words at the end of the title to make it less sensational?
- sandGorgon 6y agoExtinction Rebellion (XR) is the name of the org -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_Rebellion
- smhg 6y agoBut they aren't saying this if I understand correctly? Only someone formerly affiliated with them?
- _Microft 6y agoThe current title [0] seems misleading indeed as she is no longer involved with them. The title suggested by user loulouxiv sounds less misleading decent. Maybe use this one? [0] "Extinction Rebellion: Nuclear power 'only option' says former spokeswoman"
- loulouxiv 6y agoYes it would be even more logical to write Nuclear power 'only option' says former Extinction Rebellion spokeswoman since this not directly linked to this organization
- Krasnol 6y agoBut it has to be sensational. The proper title should be "Michael Shellenberger buys prominent Extinction Rebellion member" and it should be in the boulevard section. It's not like she ads any relevant insight or information to the topic. She just repeats the tag lines of Shellenbergers campaign. The only thing missing is someone mentioning his book.
- kasperni 6y agoMy heart says no to nuclear power. My brain says yes.
- coldtea 6y agoMy reasoning says regarless of the technical merits in theory, people have managed to mess every kind of nuclear reactor setup, have been saying for decades "this time with the new design it's different", and have a horrible track record of nuclear waste storage/disposal (or lack thereof).
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago>"mess every kind of nuclear reactor " There are many reactor designs that have never suffered an accident, and some of them have been around since the 50's. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor >"horrible track record of nuclear waste" Compared to what? On a normal year air pollution (combustion waste) kills 500,000 - 2,000,000 people, nuclear waste kills 0.
- p_l 6y agoIf you limit to USA, maybe that's true. France managed to keep all its waste in a small hall thanks to reprocessing. Both Chernobyl and Fukushima involved ancient designs coupled with extra non-reactor errors.
- yodelshady 6y agoMy reasoning says we have a few thousand tonnes of solid radioactive waste and a few tens of billions of tonnes of gaseous fossil waste that is wreaking havoc planetwide. California alone, THIS YEAR alone, has lost an area 3 times the size of the Chernobyl exclusion zone due to weather that should be unusual, but won't be. Australia likewise. Forests near me have been lost due to parasites who should be killed by a frost that never came. This is the new normal. This doesn't end. Those were the two options, and you knew it. Sorry but my life has been stories of people who claim to be environmental and frustrate every single practical effort to reduce emissions, then claim ignorance of the consequences. You knew.
- jamescun 6y agoNuclear was perhaps the correct option 20 years ago. A nuclear power plant can easily take a decade to build (Hinkley C, announced 2010, approved 2016, generation expected 2025), how many decades will it take to build enough plants to replace our current fossil fuel based generation? It is time we don't have anymore. We should now be focusing renewables and, more cruicially, storage.
- carlmr 6y ago>We should now be focusing renewables and, more cruicially, storage. And don't forget reducing power usage. Corona has shown that we can drastically reduce the amount of commuters on the road and airplanes in the sky.
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoThe lockdown is/was an extraordinarily shitty situation for a lot of people and is therefore not a permanent solution for climate change.
- nefitty 6y agoI understand that some climate change deniers may be motivated by their belief that the adaptations we would have to make to reverse it would negatively impact the economy. Interestingly enough, the those change that covid has forced have had devastating economic impacts.
- ben_w 6y agoI wouldn’t count on that. A lot of people are already brisling against the restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic despite the virus actually existing — I doubt they would be sustainable once this crisis has passed.
- shakermakr 6y agoAnd also reduced our basic freedom, our economies, and placed millions into poverty. Covid isn’t a good example of a sustainable balancing of the environment over human activity.
- lawlessone 6y agoI'm not really a fan of ER, calls itself a rebellion and then has the most milquetoast performances that could scarcely be even called a protest.
- pjc50 6y agoAnd yet they've got Priti Patel condemning them, putting them on the PREVENT list: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/10/xr-extinction-rebellion-listed-extremist-ideology-police-prevent-scheme-guidance https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/10/xr-extinctio... and more recently talking up banning them entirely. It looks like their recent protest against the Murdoch press hit a nerve.
- bergoid 6y agoWhat's an example of a decent protest in your view?
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoI've had many people tell me their methods are too extreme, and how dare these people block roads for some protest, you should just sit quetly in the corner corner a sign or soemthing.
- pvaldes 6y agoNot, Not the only. There are a lot of room for improvement in using energy better. Cars do not need to spend so much fuel as before, and there is room for improvement in isolation of houses so they don't need so much energy. None of those are related with nuclear energy but would reduce the climatic problem just now, not in ten years, without putting a low probability but catastrophic collateral effect in the middle of the road for our grandsons. In any case with or without nuclear, with the highest wildfires registered in the history in Russia, Australia, Brazil and US (2019-2020) we either focus and solve the arsonism crimes, predatory logging, and environmental lack of water problems or we aren't going anywhere. Deliberate arsonism should be reclassified worldwide as crime against (the future of) humanity. If we can bomb a whole city in Irak, we should be able to drop water in California or Canberra.
- pjc50 6y ago> If we can bomb a whole city in Irak Notwithstanding the human and archaeological impact of this, the environmental impact was pretty terrible as well. The oil consumption of all those tanks and planes can't have been small, as well as the burning oilfields that blackened the sky and all the depleted uranium rounds littering the country.
- pvaldes 6y agoYou have a point here. I'll rephrase it. If we can bomb a whole city in Irak, we should be able to stop bombing cities also. Is a much easier task and would help also to fix the climate problem. Has anybody calculated how many greenhouse effect gasses are released when moving and dropping a bomb?
- agumonkey 6y agoCultural change can do a lot. Less consumption, less waste. When I think about ICE.. every time someone used brakes in the past they were wasting energy ... at least EVs will recapture some of that.
- dispat0r 6y ago
- webreac 6y agoWe have passed the peak of oil production. Nuclear is the only solution to mitigate the crisis we are going to face. I think we will need to get rid of nuclear at long term (like 50 years). But for the next 20 years (probably 40), we need nuclear.
- pjc50 6y agoYou can't get rid of nuclear in 50 years, the decay products take centuries to become safe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53595839 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53595839 "Trawsfynydd was shut down in 1991 after operating for a quarter of a century. Magnox said it still expected the site to be completely cleared by the 2083 target."
- input_sh 6y agoWe have one long term nuclear waste facility in Finland (expected to be operational in 2023). It can handle about a hundred years of waste from an associated power plant before being completely buried. It was made because the Finnish law requires nuclear waste produced in Finland to be disposed of domestically. I don't really know if any other country with nuclear power plants have any sort of a plan for what to do with it.
- ourlordcaffeine 6y agoAs someone who works in the energy industry: it isn't.
- ZeroGravitas 6y agoIt seems odd that extinction rebellion need to do crazy stunts like glue themselves to tube trains to get in the papers, yet someone who leaves and says its unreasonable to abandon fossil fuels gets featured across multiple publications.
- nix23 6y agoWhy does she wear a kryptonite amulet?
- Krasnol 6y ago> Ms Lights said she has since taken a role at campaign group Environmental Progress UK, whose campaigns include supporting the building of the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk. So she got a job at a nuclear lobby organisation. This is great for her. I'm not sure the lobby will able to pay until her retirement but maybe she can make the jump back into renewables.
- LatteLazy 6y agoIt seems like the environmental movement spends an enormous amount of time and energy arguing over small details over what we should do (how much of electrical energy should come from nuclear). Meanwhile we do nothing because people who don't want to are a majority. So what's the point in arguing?
- cm2187 6y agoRather, whatever diet you impose on western co2 emissions, which are already decreasing, is going to be dwarfed by China’s increase. China is building new coal power plants now. Environmentalists are not helping their credibility by focusing on second or third order details.
- LatteLazy 6y agoThis is the core environmental problem: how do you get every country to cut their emissions and buy quite a lot? If you can't get them to do that (and we've failed completely) trying to get them to cut and cut a lot AND do it with nuclear (or whatever else) is a non starter.
- pjc50 6y agoInternational agreements? Like the Paris agreement that the US sabotaged for domestic political point-scoring?
- LatteLazy 6y agoYeah. But if the US won't sign it it's already badly damaged. And if others won't act without them we're fucked. The US should get its shit together and get going. But I think plenty of other nations also wouldn't sign but can avoid admitting it because the US sabotages it for them. Otherwise we'd have a real agreement on climate between the EU, China, India and others. And then gradually force more people to join with trade scantions etc.
- 6y ago
- growlist 6y agoAnd exactly why is this newsworthy? What makes this person's opinion worth more than any other member of the public? Apart from that - is anyone really naive enough to believe that ER aren't a front organisation for something else?
- pjc50 6y ago> is anyone really naive enough to believe that ER aren't a front organisation for something else? Content-free slur. Who are you a front organisation for?
- growlist 6y agoIt's all out there, one really doesn't have to look hard: 'I’ve been with Extinction Rebellion (XR) from the start.' ... 'I’m here to say that XR isn’t about the climate.' ... 'It’s worth naming some of these constructed delusions that have been coded into societies and institutions around the world: 'The delusion of white-supremacy centres whiteness and the experience of white people, constructing and perpetuating the myth that white people and their lives are somehow inherently better and more valuable than people of colour. The delusion of patriarchy centres the male experience, and excludes/hinders female assigned people from public life (reducing them to a possession or object for ownership or consumption). Patriarchy teaches dominating and competitive behaviours, and emphasises the idea that the world is a place of scarcity, separation and powerlessness. The delusions of Eurocentrism include the notion that Europeans know what is best for the world. The delusions of hetero-sexism/heteronormativity propagate the idea that heterosexuality is ‘normal’ and that other expressions of sexuality are deviant. The delusions of class hierarchy uphold the theory that the rich elite are better/smarter/nobler than the rest of us, and make therefore better decisions.' https://medium.com/extinction-rebellion/extinction-rebellion-isnt-about-the-climate-42a0a73d9d49 https://medium.com/extinction-rebellion/extinction-rebellion... Please do carry on though, and tell me how - despite very good evidence to the contrary - ER aren't just the same sad old bunch of loser-malcontents agitating for global revolution, only this time with pathetic psyops including stupid costumes, fake blood and (ab)use of children to push their propaganda.
- aaron695 6y agoIf you don't know why Zion Lights about turn is interesting, it's because of this well known disastrous interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3kJwQBZOkM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3kJwQBZOkM I have to say, I'm quite surprised and happy, it seems there is hope yet.
- gralx 6y agoThe world's supply of containment elements beryllium, niobium, zirconium, yttrium, and hafnium would be exhausted within ten years to thirty years if we were to produce enough nuclear power plants to supply our 15TW energy diet, assuming all other industrial uses of those elements were to cease and no advances in engineering were to provide alternatives.[0] To obtain one-tenth of our diet, we could get from 100 years to 300 years out of nuclear power under those same assumptions, exhausting those materials for the duration of our species due to irradiation of the containment materials. If nuclear is a stop-gap measure worth pursuing, then we must face dire resource limitations. [0] Derek Abbott. "Is Nuclear Power Globally Scalable?" Proceedings of the IEEE, October 2011
- DuskStar 6y ago> exhausting those materials for the duration of our species due to irradiation of the containment materials. Not going to comment on the rest of this, but I'm pretty sure we could reclaim those rare-earths if we really wanted to.
- gralx 6y agoSince speeding up the half-life of the radioactive elements is off the table, what do you propose?
- DuskStar 6y agoI propose that 99.9% of the rare earths have not undergone nuclear changes, and so could be separated out. If there are +neutron changes that create unstable isotopes, that would be hard - but ones that resulted in fast beta decay or fission would be easy.
- gralx 6y agoProblems with transporting this large quantity of radioactive material (these elements being only a small fraction) to separating facilities and their subsequent handling are obvious, but the stakes are high enough that they're worth considering if what you say is true. Do you you think it's feasible on an industrial scale and without careful laboratory controls?
- ftr45 6y agonuclear is practically the only option to completly decarbonize our energy not only electricy but transport , heat and industry , renwebles can't produce energy continuosly and are more expensive than nucleare so they can't be use to totaly decarbonize even electrity