From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Mar 22 2002 - 03:24:37 MST
On Thu, Mar 21, 2002 at 05:48:11PM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> I thought this article:
> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-civil-02k.html
> fairly enlightening.
>
> Are the folks over there *crazy*?
Yes. What else is new? Of course, the folks on your side of the
atlantic are also crazy, but in other ways.
> >From the Swedish perspective I think it is really unrealistic.
> How do they think the are going to produce the necessary
> energy? I don't know what the tides are like in the Gulf
> of Bothnia, but this seems really unrealistic.
There are no tides to talk about. Sweden has no fossil fuels,
geothermal might be locally useful for heating in some regions
but not for energy production. Wind power might have some local
uses but is seriously NIMBYied, the latitude is too high for
large-scale solar power and practically all water power that can
be built has been built. Thank heavens for expensive imported
continental dirty fossil fuel power or Finnish nuclear power!
> What is the problem? Russia certainly has ample supplies
> of materials that could be used to fuel nuclear reactors.
> So it has to be either a perspective that nuclear power
> is unsafe, or a waste disposal issue that radioactive
> isotopes cannot be transformed into nonradioactive variants.
These perceptions combined in Sweden in the late 70's, and there
was a referendum about nuclear power. Unfortunately the ruling
Social Democractic party was split about the issue, something
they can never accept. So they made the referendum have three
alternatives: yes, no and yes-and-no. This kept the SD voters on
the same side. The yes-and-no alternative was to keep nuclear
power but not build any new reactors, and have it removed
altogether by 2012 - far off in the unimaginable future where
many believed advanced technology like fusion or solar power
would be far more efficient anyway (and few of the involved
politicians would be politically around by then).
In some sense the decision might be irrelevant - if Germany and
Sweden buy their electricity from elsewhere rather than produce
it themselves they still get the power they need. And they cannot
turn inwards, they now have to participate in international trade
both to get the power and to earn the money to pay for it. But it
is also a sign that a not very well planned decision a long time
ago can haunt us even when it should be re-evaluated, especially
if public - and political! - understanding has not developed.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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