Nuclear energy just doesn't stack up. It's not the magic bullet people would have you believe. The fact is Nuclear energy is subserdised to make it work, to the tune of billions. Think of the costs involved - fuel mining, fuel transportation, capital costs, maintenance, decommissioning, waste storage for upto hundreds of years, costs associated with running waste repositories, etc etc etc. Anyone who thinks Nuclear is viable needs to get with reality. If you then add in the inherant dangers associated with this industry, you would have to be a lunatic to use it. And accidents can and do happen - anywhere, at any time - not just Russia. The RBMK at Chernoby was the most advance design the Russians had, and it failed bacuase of user error, not inherant flaws. User error is not restricted to the former Soviet Union. The short history of the Nuclear industry is littered with near misses, which have been averted due to luck, not design! And those near misses happened in the US, UK, Japan, Russia etc etc etc.
We need to push the vast subsidies from Nuclear into renewables R&D, along with reducing and improving our energy efficience. We can not consume for ever. We have to start being resposible about our energy policy, and that will mean chaging our lives, and making tough choices, especially in the rich west.
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Nuclear energy just doesn't stack up. It's not the magic bullet people would have you believe. The fact is Nuclear energy is subserdised to make it work, to the tune of billions. Think of the costs involved - fuel mining, fuel transportation, capital costs, maintenance, decommissioning, waste storage for upto hundreds of years, costs associated with running waste repositories, etc etc etc. Anyone who thinks Nuclear is viable needs to get with reality. If you then add in the inherant dangers associated with this industry, you would have to be a lunatic to use it. And accidents can and do happen - anywhere, at any time - not just Russia. The RBMK at Chernoby was the most advance design the Russians had, and it failed bacuase of user error, not inherant flaws. User error is not restricted to the former Soviet Union. The short history of the Nuclear industry is littered with near misses, which have been averted due to luck, not design! And those near misses happened in the US, UK, Japan, Russia etc etc etc. We need to push the vast subsidies from Nuclear into renewables R&D, along with reducing and improving our energy efficience. We can not consume for ever. We have to start being resposible about our energy policy, and that will mean chaging our lives, and making tough choices, especially in the rich west.