When I was a teenager I was a bit of a romantic idealist. Please don’t hold this against me - I think many of us were.
Since then, however, I have grown up significantly and I now understand the way of the world slightly better than I did when I was sixteen… thankfully. Anyway, you can probably tell I am building up for something, so here’s the confession:
When I was sixteen, I was an active member of CND. In fact, I wore its badge with beaming pride. But we all make mistakes when we are young; don’t we?
I now accept that I was totally and utterly wrong. It’s amazing how blind ideology can lead good people into believing wrong things.
As the Americans say during their ruination of our beautiful language, I am now looking for “closure” on this issue. It is the 21st anniversary of the birth of an idea of mine – an idea that needs to be buried. So, the time is right for me to decapitate a shrimp called Henry, a crustacean with a surfeit of heads.
Cerberus of the deep
During my time helping out the sandal wearers, I was involved in the production of a magazine in Manchester aimed at fellow young idealists. This led directly to the birth of Henry The Three-Headed Shrimp, my main contribution to the publication.
Henry was a character in a cartoon strip I devised with a friend who could actually draw. Henry lived in the Irish Sea just by Sellafield, where the radioactivity had caused him to grow three heads.
Henry got up to lots of eco-adventures with fellow irradiated friends Katy the Boneless Cuttlefish, who could never stand up for what she believed, and Sally the One-Eyed Seagull, who flew in perpetual circles. I never noticed at the time, but Sally was actually a bit like CND itself – spinning around in circles and achieving very little.
It’s finally time I put this dark episode from my past to rest – as Henry has now finally come of age. It is 21 years since I first thought of him under the gothic splendour of a meeting room in Manchester Town Hall – and I feel the need to decapitate two of Henry’s heads. I was totally and utterly wrong. Henry really only has one head, I know that now.
Nuclear power is not something to be feared, it is something that should be embraced. The UK is making a massive error by not pushing forth with new plants as quickly as we can. We are not doing this because Tony Blair fudged the issue and did not take on the misguided young idealists in Greenpeace. The organisation then managed to scupper our nuclear strategy in court on a technicality.
Greenpeace is anti-nuclear, but it has been a supporter of biofuels. Thankfully, they are starting to realise the reality of biofuels and are expressing caution. A few week ago they launched a campaign against the widespread scattergun approach to biofuels, they have finally realised they will destroy the planet. Take a look at their excellent video Choose The Right Biofuel or the Orang Utan Gets It.
As I have been telling readers of my Outstanding Investments newletter for months, biofuels are NOT a green alternative. (Take a look at the ad in the middle of this email). This strategy will lead to the deforestation of Indonesia, the extinction of the orang utan and, ultimately, the ruination of African farmland. It’s just plain daft.
So Greenpeace, you have proved to me that you have started to get it right on biofuels, now it's time for a volte face on nuclear energy. But it must take action soon.
When it comes to nuclear power, Greenpeace’s motivation, like mine when I created the character of Henry, is honourable. I believe that its conclusions, however, are just plain wrong.
When green = naive
This is what Greenpeace says on its website about nuclear power:
“Despite what the nuclear industry tells us, building enough nuclear power stations to make a meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would cost trillions of dollars, create tens of thousands of tons of lethal high-level radioactive waste, contribute to further proliferation of nuclear weapons materials, and result in a Chernobyl-scale accident once every decade. Perhaps most significantly, it will squander the resources necessary to implement meaningful climate change solutions.”
In this case, I honestly believe that green means naive and not environmentally friendly. The prediction of an event such as having a “Chernobyl every ten years” is meaningless and misleading.
There is no way that this claim can stand up to any credible argument. Comments like this should be left to Mystic Meg, not an organisation aiming to contribute to a credible argument about our future energy strategy.
Do you honestly believe that safety isn’t paramount in the nuclear industry? Do you think lessons have not been learned? That comment is preposterous.
Building nuclear powers stations to address global warming will cost trillions. That is true. But this is not a huge amount of money globally. The US has managed to find more than a trillion dollars for its war in Iraq, so a world longing for more energy certainly can dig deep and build the power stations. It’s a non-argument.
The issue of what to do with the radioactive waste is a serious one. In fact, it is a subject I want to deal with in more detail next week. But to give you something to think about over the weekend, I would like to leave you with a photograph. Take a look at the picture below, which is from the Australian Uranium Information Centre website.
This picture shows a representation of the total radioactive waste embedded in borosilicate glass from the first waste vitrification plant in UK in the 1960s (ie Sellafield, née Windscale).
This block contains material chemically identical to high-level waste from reprocessing. A piece this size would contain the total high-level waste arising from nuclear electricity generation for ONE PERSON throughout a normal LIFETIME.
Small isn’t it? You’d never believe that it would fit in the palm of your hand – but it can.
They’ll be more on nuclear waste disposal next week. P.S. If you enjoyed this article then sign up for Smart Commodities UK. It’s dedicated to searching out the investment trends that could provide our biggest profit opportunities for the next decade…
