Sat 21st & Sun 22nd November 09, Russell Square London.

Campaign Planning Weekend

For grassroots campaigners to network, share ideas and info, and make plans to win. By developing skills and confidence in creating and implementing campaign and action plans, we can identify when and where our interventions can be most successful.

Whatever your campaigning tools are, wherever you are from, if you are in a group or an individual, this weekend is for us all. The more of us who can make it the better plans we can make.

For more details email  nonewnuclear@aktivix.org

At least it will secure our energy requirements given the unstability of the oil producting nations.
Best not to have all your eggs in one basket i always say.

I hear all these people protesting but no-one offers a viable solution. Renewables arnt up to the job on a cost per kw basis

Mrs Thatcher also wanted to build ten nuclear stations I recall. She built one. Now is not the time to give up, now is the time to fight.

This has not been sneaked through. Anyone interested in energy has known about it and been able to think about the best way of stopping this mad idea.

Any bets on which nuclear company Milliband will become a well paid director of when he is booted out of power at the next election? There must be a promise of this sort of inducement from at least one of them. Perhaps Brown's brother, a nuclear lobbyist, has offered similar inducements to members of the cabinet.

See:

The Death Knell for Nuclear Power
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387359.html

More info the the new campaign:

No New Nuclear. Planning to win
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/10/440224.html

Renewables aren't up the job. Like it or lump the populace of this country are not going to become green en mass, they're not going to give up their widescreen tv's, fancy cars, and gadgets. If you try to force them into giving them up you're simply going to get a broken nose and be laughed at.

Trying to couple alternative energy sources with reducing demand for energy is not going to work, especially with population set to increase by 10 million over the next decade or so. That's 10 million extra people on top of the current 60 million who want tv's, computers, cars, etc.

You cannot meet current demand using renewables alone, even with widespread adoption of tidal and geothermal power you'd fall well short of what is needed.

Large nuclear power stations based upon modern designs are able to produce up to 3% of the UK's total demand each, that's a phenomenal amount of power generating capacity. Wind, tidal, geothermal, etc... they just don't measure up. 10 new nuclear power stations will easily supply 25-30% of the UK's total demand for electricity. In order to produce the same amount via renewables you'd need several hundred large offshore wind farms, multiple tidal turbines, and hundreds of localised geothermal plants.

there was an ofgem report the other day that concluded onshore wind was the cheapest option.

nuclear doesn't give us 'security' - it gives us maybe some power in 2015 ish (but is bound to be delayed by mass opposition, because hardly anyone thinks it's worth having, and lots of people think it's a nightmare)

would love to see e.on continue to be targetted over their nuke station (to be rebuilt) at oldbury.

nuclear is too little too late, and it's massively dangerous. look to plymouth and the nuclear submarine deconstruction they want to do there.

plus nuclear sites are mainly close to the sea - great when we get sea level rise (which we're locked into some of already)

oh - and - other than mass investment in renewables, the best way to ensure 'security of supply' is to massively reduce demand. when they occupied didcot the company turned it off claiming leccy prices weren't worth producing for. kingsnorth got shelved because e.on claimed there is insufficient demand. the recession has suppressed leccy demand and we can go on from there to continue reducing it... so that renewables can cover the vast majority of our needs.

> there was an ofgem report the other day that concluded onshore wind was the cheapest option.

Hmmm never matched what i've read before now. Is that with subsidese included?
I think those figures have been massaged to steer people towards renewables.

IF wind was the cheapest, you would find the energy companies flocking to it and ditching coal/gas/oil.
Afterall, they are just businesses and their first priority is to be competitive and to produce the aximum profit

A carbon sink is something that stores carbon for an extended period, keeping it out of the atmosphere, such as a peat bog. A carbon sink is therefore a good thing.

A nuclear power plant does not store significant amounts of carbon, therefore it is not a carbon sink.

So who wants to work in an environment where you are expected to spy on your fellow workers?

Not only storing up deadly toxins for our children and many future generations, but the security implications of going nuclear mean people are also expected to spy on each other, you know, reporting on whether your workmate likes foreign travel, their sexual/emotional life etc etc.


 http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/nuclear-workers-asked-to-spy-on-colleagues-lives-1.931040

lou and Engineer, you've been swallowing too much nuke-industry greenwash - radiation sickness!

Of course renewables, combined with energy efficiency are up to the job; you're just choosing to ignore the studies and arguments 'cos you want your radioactive pill, without a thought for what the kids'll have to deal with, and how carbon intensive an industry it is. There's lots on viable solutions if you actually want to think differently than the mainstream.

Anyway, it's a choice between a future (without coal, nukes and oil) or no future, killing those furthest and least white first, then our kids. That's not a choice I'm willing to make.

And as for massaging figures, I remember the 70s/80s problem with wave power - Salter's duck - that killed investment in renewables, in favour of old polluting technologies, because the figures were massaged to show that Old King Coal and Madame Nucleaire were the way forward.

You can fuck your new nuke power stations, and your coal bullshit.

Nice sophisticated argument Humpty.

It's often asserted that nuclear power is carbon-intensive, but I've yet to see any evidence for it. Can you provide a reliable reference for it? ie not a Greenpeace agitation leaflet etc.

Ed, I will if you will! Please first show evidence of nukes being a low-carbon industry (it's always the nay-sayers that are asked to do research, rather than the folks supporting the mainstream view that's repeated in most places - that doesn't seem just).

Also, fair enough to say a leaflet isn't enough, but would you also dismiss any Greenpeace research? I'm not going to search unless I know that you won't dismiss any pro-eco or anti-nuke organisation's research (surely the only people who might fund it and not as well resourced as the nuke industry & government who should have ample studies to prove your point?!).

As for carbon sinks - I hope the level of your arguments isn't peat bogs = carbon sinks therefore all carbon sinks = good?
Peat bogs are getting stripped out for development, horticulture and, yes, power generation!!
Carbon sinks we 'create' generally are NOT good - trees will die when the climate changes by even the small amounts all studies are pointing to, then releasing all their carbon thus leading to a 'tipping point'. There's also lots of problems with big monocultural plantations in Southern countries where they would otherwise be living/growing their own crops/leaving to wilderness.

Ah, Ed, nice to see you on another thread (here's your reference/research -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/11/441490.html?c=on#c236886), just being provocative for no good reason and not contributing to an actual discussion in a constructive way...

So either we should ignore you here, or I should reiterate, put up or shut up (you show me yours, and...)

you act like polish government in XIX th century, when other nations said no need to attack them, they will fuck themselves up' it is the same in relation between state and activists in UK, state has got much power, but none of it is really used against anything, because its not needed. the circus goes on and unity can't be seen on any subject.

An excellent scientific study of the limitations of uranium and other nuclear supplies and the true carbon cost of nuclear power can be found here in: "The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy- A life Cycle In trouble" by David Fleming.


Summary:

1. The world's endowment of uranium ore is now so depleted that the nuclear industry will never, from its own resources, be able to generate the energy it needs to clear up its own backlog of waste.

2. It is essential that the waste should be made safe and placed in permanent storage. High-level wastes, in their temporary storage facilities, have to be managed and kept cool to prevent fire and leaks which would otherwise contaminate large areas.

3. Shortages of uranium - and the lack of realistic alternatives - leading to interruptions in supply, can be expected to start in the middle years of the decade 2010-2019, and to deepen thereafter.

4. The task of disposing finally of the waste could not, therefore, now be completed using only energy generated by the nuclear industry, even if the whole of the industry's output were to be devoted to it. In order to deal with its waste, the industry will need to be a major net user of energy, almost all of it from fossil fuels.

5. Every stage in the nuclear process, except fission, produces carbon dioxide. As the richest ores are used up, emissions will rise.

6. Uranium enrichment uses large volumes of uranium hexafluoride, a halogenated compound (HC). Other HCs are also used in the nuclear life-cycle. HCs are greenhouse gases with global warming potentials ranging up to 10,000 times that of carbon dioxide.

7. An independent audit should now review these findings. The quality of available data is poor, and totally inadequate in relation to the importance of the nuclear question. The audit should set out an energy-budget which establishes how much energy will be needed to make all nuclear waste safe, and where it will come from. It should also supply a briefing on the consequences of the worldwide waste backlog being abandoned untreated.

8. There is no single solution to the coming energy gap. What is needed is a speedy programme of Lean Energy, comprising: (1) energy conservation and efficiency; (2) structural change in patterns of energy-use and land-use; and (3) renewable energy; all within (4) a framework for managing the energy descent, such as Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs).

To find out more take a look at the full report, The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy, available free of charge.  http://www.theleaneconomyconnection.net/downloads.html#Nuclear

Actually speaking we need to use the renewables to end fossil fuels and nuke energy wasting our environment such as using the remaining oxygen and nuclear waste ruining our underground water supplies. Thirty-five percent of our oxygen is already gone, transformed to the molecule CO2 carbon-dioxide and our specie cannot live on CO2. What that means is every roof in the world should be equipped with solar panels that would precipitate a 97% drop in CO2, which would allow the trees and green ecological organic power to take the carbon out of the Carbon-Dioxide, and give back the oxygen again. As it stands now the daily dose of fossil fuel emmissions is so large that it is not sustainable to our living on the planet anymore. That is what this struggle for a correct position world wide means for the community parties of the world. That is what 350 maximum CO2 EPA stats, and now were at 390 which means the livability is already functioning to destroy the living planet. Get serious, renewables such as solar, tidal, and wind power are proven non-pollution and coal, gas, oil, and atomic energy is simply put the failed technic of the past centuries. Continuing this society by maximizing profits for pollution is a deadly practice that ought to have been ended by the 80's of last century. We are already too late so sooner rather than later is our need to change for the ecological green organic answer.

Think switching to solar energy will make you green? Think again. Many of the newest solar panels are manufactured with a gas that is 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to global warming.

Nitrogen trifluoride, or NF3, is used for cleaning microcircuits during the manufacture of a host of modern electronics, including flat-screen TVs, iPhones, computer chips—and thin-film solar panels, the latest (and cheapest) generation of solar photovoltaics. (Time named the panels one of the best inventions of 2008.) Because industry estimates suggested that only about 2 percent of NF3 ever made it into the atmosphere, the chemical has been marketed as a cleaner alternative to other higher-emitting options. For the past decade, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has actively encouraged its use. NF3 also wasn’t deemed dangerous enough to be covered by the Kyoto Protocol, making it an attractive substitute for companies and signatory countries eager to lower their emissions footprints.

It turns out that NF3 might not be so green after all. “NF3 has a potential greenhouse impact larger than … even that of the world’s largest coal-fired power plants,” according to a June 2008 study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine. Because NF3 isn’t covered by Kyoto, few attempts have been made to measure it in the atmosphere. But last October, scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography reported that four times more NF3 is present in the atmosphere than industry estimates suggest, and its concentration is rising 11 percent a year.

Compared with the damage caused by CO2 emissions, NF3 remains a blip because far less of it is emitted. But Ray Weiss, who led the Scripps team, thinks that, unless regulations require more complete greenhouse gas measurements, more unpleasant surprises will be in store. With NF3, he says, “We’re finding considerably more in the atmosphere than was expected. This [gas] won’t be the only example of that.”

> 5. Every stage in the nuclear process, except fission, produces carbon dioxide.

Making anything industrially produces carbon dioxide. Producing wind turbines or solar panels makes carbon dioxide. Without saying how much is made relative to how much is saved by not using fossil fuels, the statement is meaningless. Is it 1% of the CO2 produced by an equivalent fossil fuel power station, 50%, 100%, 200%? Without quantifying the amount, stating this fact is fatuous.

>6. Uranium enrichment uses large volumes of uranium hexafluoride, a halogenated compound (HC). Other HCs are also used in the nuclear life-cycle. HCs are greenhouse gases with global warming potentials ranging up to 10,000 times that of carbon dioxide.

Those three statements don't have any logical link because uranium hexafluoride is not a solid, so it cannot be a greenhouse gas...

This simply shows that the debade is being conducted without either basic scientific knowledge or logic.

Ratamahatta: "Think switching to solar energy will make you green? Think again. Many of the newest solar panels are manufactured with a gas that is 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to global warming."

Solar energy doesn't necessarily mean technofixes like solar panels that produce electricity. Just plain black pipes that warm water directly can be useful. Ultimately all our energy comes from the Sun anyway, including nuclear, coal and electric.

Regardless of the polluting effects of nuclear power, it is still a Big Government solution. We need small scale thing people can do themselves or in small communities, not something that requires centralisation and authoritarianism.

Also, see this article from today:
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/14/copper-nuclear-containment-vasa-sweden
Nuclear disposal put in doubt by recovered Swedish galleon - The plan to use copper for sealing nuclear waste underground has being thrown into disarray by corrosion in artefacts from the Vasa)