The fact that very few climate warriors are out there seriously promoting nuclear power, speaks volumes about what’s really driving them. If CO2 really was about to destroy the planet, these characters would be talking about nothing else but nuclear power, and how to deliver it to all and sundry.
Instead, for reasons that escape the logical and rational, we’re told that the only way forward is backwards: ie a life dependent upon the time of day and the weather.
Of course, if anyone wants hot showers and cold beer, wind and solar haven’t a hope of delivering them on cue.
Climate alarmists railing about carbon dioxide gas and not talking about nuclear power generation, can’t be taken seriously. Nuclear power is the only stand-alone power generation source that does not emit carbon dioxide gas during the process.
When the argument eventually turns to the obvious merits of nuclear power, the zealots start frothing at the mouth about Chernobyl and Fukushima. Nothing about the facts, mind. Just the usual emotional claptrap about the horrors of radiation, blah, blah, blah.
The French get 85% of their power from nuclear plants and haven’t suffered so much as a scratch since they started in 1962. By contrast, the wind industry (which really only got off the ground in the late 1990s and still generates a trifling amount of electricity) has clocked up around 200 fatalities, (eg, see above) and the helpful collection of stats compiled by Caithness Windfarm Information Forum all available here: www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk
Of the wind industry’s 200 fatalities (so far): 124 were wind industry and direct support workers (divers, construction, maintenance, engineers, etc), or small turbine owner/operators; 76 were public fatalities, including workers not directly dependent on the wind industry (e.g. transport workers, ecologists).
As Liberal MP Ted O’Brien points out, the hard numbers show nuclear power generation is, by a very comfortable margin, the safest power generation system, on earth. Period.
Parliamentary inquiry concludes ‘nuclear is the safest form of energy’
Sky News
Chris Kenny
27 May 2020
“Nuclear is the safest form of energy” according to a parliamentary inquiry, which Liberal parliamentary committee chair Ted O’Brien says “accounted for every possible energy you could imagine”.
The parliamentary inquiry used information from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and compared a variety of different energy producing technologies including coal, gas, wind, solar and oil.
Mr O’Brien said the inquiry also took into consideration the Fukushima and Chernobyl incidents and still concluded “nuclear is the cleanest”.
“The real insight here is not that nuclear is safe and clean, but rather the disparity and the divergence between people’s perception and the evidence”.
Mr O’Brien told Sky News host Chris Kenny nuclear energy had been painted in a negative light by “pop culture” for years which had resulted in the infiltration of “too much false logic” into the energy debate.
“Forget the ideology… and let’s stick to the evidence,” he said. We have “140 different technologies on the table” and the potential for small module nuclear reactors in particular is “really exciting”.
Sky News
Transcript
Chris Kenny: Now let’s talk about nuclear energy and the federal liberal LNP, member of parliament who says nuclear is the safest of all forms of energy. Ted O’Brien joins me now live from Brisbane. Thanks for joining us, Ted, where’s your evidence to tell us that nuclear energy is the safest? That’s going to send the green left, falling off their chairs.
Ted O’Brien: Well look Chris it might, but I have to say when I found this out and we found it out during a recent parliamentary inquiry, I was surprised myself. And it actually comes from MIT in the United States. And it accounts for every possible energy source you can imagine. Coal, gas, wind, solar, oil and what it says, including consideration for the likes of Fukushima and Chernobyl incidents, that actually nuclear is the safest source of energy in the world. They had this very morbid phrase of a death rate. Basically a mortality index and sure enough, it says nuclear is the cleanest. And so it surprised me, but for me, Chris, the real insight here is not that nuclear is safe and clean, but rather the disparity, the divergence between people’s perception and the evidence.
Chris Kenny: Yeah, I’ll come back to that in a second, just on that safety-
Ted O’Brien: If you walk down the street and ask the average punter, they wouldn’t be saying it.
Chris Kenny: Well no, but although I think people … you think of having a nuclear energy plant in your neighbourhood compared to having a coal fired power station in your neighbourhood, I know which one’s going to have the biggest impact on you. I do recall when you talk about this safety thing, one of my favourite ever cartoons from 20 or more years ago, I wish I could track it down, but it had like a cave man. First off it had the person who invented nuclear energy and they’re saying, “Over here, this is a great form of energy, but it could cost a lot of lives.” And next to him, it had a cave man who just chiselled out the first wheel. “So this thing looks kind of handy.” But another bloke says, “It might cost a lot of lives.”
Ted O’Brien: Yeah well, this is just data. And you can go back to the Godzilla movie. You can go to the Simpsons. This has been a part of pop culture, nuclear, and unfortunately it’s always been negative. And this is the problem we’ve had in some of the energy debate. There’s too much false logic out there. What we need to do, and this is why the government’s new roadmap, the technology investment roadmap, is so important because it basically says, “Look, forget the ideology, forget all the wind and puff on this, let’s actually stick to the evidence.” And now we have an opportunity that we haven’t had before. And that is to ensure that we have about 140 different technologies on the table. And that includes new and emerging nuclear technology. And that’s the small modular reactors in particular, Chris. And that’s where it gets really exciting.
Chris Kenny: Yeah. Well, it’s fascinating stuff. And you’re going to look at this and so we should. I’m often amazed by how little focus there is on nuclear from the green left from the climate activists, because if ever there’s a problem that has a silver bullet, it is the fix for the generation of electricity and getting rid of emissions. If you really want to do it, nuclear is your obvious available option in the here and now.
Ted O’Brien: It’s a zero emissions base load technology, Chris. So you’re right, that there’s been two big game changes in this. Number one, it’s been climate change. And so the more that we need to reduce emissions, the more that nuclear comes into play. And the second big game changer is technology. And so people sometimes picture these big old smoke stacks, when they think about nuclear technology, we’re not interested in that. No one wants the old Soviet era technology. Now we’re looking at small modular reactors, which should be coming off the factory shelf in the mid 2020s. So these things aren’t built onsite, they’re built in factories. They’re put on the back of a truck and they’re taken to site, they’re plugged in.
They had the ability to go to remote regional areas. They can fire up towns, producing electricity for small towns. They can desalinate water. This technology, especially the new and emerging technologies that the government has put on the table for consideration, is one of the possibilities for us to ensure that we continue to decarbonize the economy, while making sure that we get cheap electricity, so we keep competitive and we keep our industry’s competitive internationally and we deliver jobs-
Chris Kenny: Now I can’t …
Ted O’Brien: Ultimately, that’s what it comes down to.
Chris Kenny: Yeah. I can’t wait to see more of the debate, more information coming to play. If their nuclear energy was so scary, none of us would be going to France for holidays for a start and not to mention a bunch of other countries. Just on the energy debate-
Ted O’Brien: If anyone gets excited about that champagne region, Chris, in France, rest assured there are nuclear plants all around that place. No, one’s complaining.
Chris Kenny: Yeah, no one’s complaining. The only CO2 is inside the champagne bottles!
Sky News
One power source safe, the other, not so safe.
About stopthesethings
STOP THESE THINGS 
“I’m often amazed by how little focus there is on nuclear from the green left from the climate activists”
There is no reason to be amazed. The public face of “the green left” and “climate activists” are the “environmental” NGOs, which are paid to oppose nuclear energy and maximize market share for natural gas.
It. Is. Their. Job.
If they stop opposing nuclear power, they will not get paid.
So there’s no reason for all the confusion over why the green left does not emabrace nuclear. It’s not a lack of information, or a misunderstanding (at least amongst the NGO leadership), it is because their publicly stated goals and their private goals are not the same as each other.
Publicly, they claim to care about the environment. Privately, all they really care about is continuing to get the fossil fuel funded pay check that pays them to oppose nuclear power at every turn.
Reblogged this on ajmarciniak.
The ‘green’ gimmicks have got us no where – rather environmental damage left, right and centre. Hydro storage to impair more waterways; wind turbines to perturb air currents and change local climates; vast solar PV black fields over agricultural land that could have instead been dedicated to reforesting the planet.
Instead nuclear is pretty simple, small amounts of matter to produce vast amounts of energy. Much cleaner than coal and no need for endless patchwork solutions.
Australia will have to follow other nations that will be forced by investor pressure to abandon renewables and so they can get their pension pots into advanced nuclear power plants (npps). Advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) will have a 2 years build programme, so the cost-of-capital that has crucified investment in nuclear for decades is utterly negated; the playing field with renewables is levelled.
The SMR leading the charge is GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 Small Modular Reactor (SMR), which should be available in Australia by 2030. It is the simplest and most cost-effective nuclear power plant (npp) that has ever been designed or is ever likely to be designed. It is a kettle! But instead of the element, you have a passively safe, 300 MWe nuclear reactor, which will operate at 90% capacity factor for a 60 year lifespan.
For investors, in terms of income less significant costs, from the earnings with the potential to pay dividend they can expect:
For every$1.00 invested in utility scale solar projects – $0.34 for 30 years (totalling $590 million)
For every $1.00 invested in a BWRX-300 npp – $5.75 for 60 years (totalling $9.94 billion)
Those pseudo-green Australian fund managers will be clawing at one another’s throats to get their pot into where the real money can be made. The ‘pliable’, brain-overloaded politicians will simply follow the money and wave nuclear through to get that particular monkey off their backs. Screams of joy will be heard from industry and the public will be told – you’re getting nuclear; it’s safe; it’s cheap; it will dramatically cut your bills. The shoulder shrugging will be palpable and the message coming back – just get on with it!
https://bwrx-300-nuclear-uk.blogspot.com/2020/05/fund-managers-with-a173-billion-to.html
Book: Merchants Of Despair, by nuclear PhD engineer Robert Zubrin.
All the facts, clearly presented.
Also exposes the grim depopulation work the so–called “environmentalist” freaks are doing.
John Doran.
Reblogged this on uwerolandgross.