environmental notions

peaky

I like the point raised at the end. This sort of thing happens a lot (it happens all the time in debates about income inequality or taxes). Shifting the conversation in mid-stream to make a point that doesn't actually exist. In that case the real and undisclosed point being that the amount of power needed to electrify British homes was relatively minute in terms of the carbon footprint of the UK. 4%? We obviously know that home energy usage is important to individuals, because we pay the bills. But it seems disingenious to claim that one method of cleaner energy is less effective without actually acknowledging that they're both less effective.

The actual issue involved in nuclear power isn't safety (the USN has been using nuclear reactors for decades without incident) and it certainly isn't cleaner air (since it is far less polluting than coal or gasoline fuels). It's getting rid of the spent uranium fuel rods. The next vital comparison would include an analysis of how much it would cost to build these 10 nuclear plants versus an equal sized ocean-based wind power array, and how much maintenance, and disposal of spent fuels, would cost over the next 50 years or so. I would guess that the wind power would cost more for installation, but much less for yearly costs, but I haven't seen any numbers yet. I should probably look into these more carefully considering its very likely we will be building various alternative energy plants over the next 10 years or so. How much will that cost relative to the environmental cost of coal spewing into the air or nuclear waste? I'm not sure anyone knows the second part yet (the cost of environmental damages). But I'd guess we should at least have a price tag on energy infrastructural change.