Heh - a kind of religious conversion
From
World Nuclear News:
U-turn for nuclear opponents
In a landmark article for the left-leaning Independent newspaper, a former head of Greenpeace, a Green Party activist, the chair of the Environment Agency and a leading green journalist all discussed their 'religious conversion' to support nuclear power.
"What's happened is that we've woken up to the very serious climate-change problem, the essential task of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and the need to decarbonise electricity over the next 20 to 30 years," said Lord Smith, who chairs the Environment Agency.
New Statesman writer Mark Lynas, who published a 'coming out' piece on his new views on nuclear power last year, said the anti-nuclear campaigns of the past "will come to be seen as an enormous mistake for which the Earth's climate is now paying the price." He cited the case of Austria where coal-fired capacity was brought online after the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant was stopped from ever operating, despite being fully constructed.
In a comment piece, Chris Goodall of the Green Party called for a realistic debate on energy policy, even describing certain drawbacks of renewable sources and the "cautionary tale" of Germany, where coal power is also likely to replace nuclear plants closed early after the policies of that country's Green Party.
Here is the article in
The Independent
Here is the
inevitable stupid followup:
Pro-nuclear Green candidate faces axe
A Green Party parliamentary candidate is facing disciplinary action after calling for the reintroduction of nuclear power, which is strictly against party policy.
Chris Goodall, prospective parliamentary candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon, upset many party members with his assertion in yesterday’s Independent that atomic energy has a role to play in the fight against climate change. Mr Goodall was one of four prominent environmentalists disclosed as having had a change of heart about the nuclear issue, having moved from an anti-nuclear stance to believing that atomic power is a necessary part of the energy mix in the struggle to cut carbon emissions and halt global warming.
The others are Lord Smith of Finsbury, the former Labour cabinet minister who now chairs the Environment Agency; Stephen Tindale, a former executive director of Greenpeace, and Mark Lynas, the author of two studies of climate change. But while the others are in essence free agents, Mr Good-all’s case is distinctive in that his views are now formally at odds with one of his own party’s key policy positions.
Resolute opposition to nuclear power has been a cornerstone of Green party policy for years, as is made clear in the party’s principal policy document, Manifesto for a Sustainable Society, which states unambiguously that a Green government, on taking office, would set a deadline for phasing out all nuclear power.
And here is Tinsdale's
follow-up article in The Sun.
Be sure to read some of the comments in the two Independent articles, a wonderful blend of three views:
More Nuclear Faster, the regressive Watermelon
No Nukes and the conspiracy theorists -- it's all a dark nefarious plot by big business...
Let's see -- the known fuel reserves are good for well over 500 years, essentially zero emissions, much smaller volume of waste (although parts of the waste are highly radioactive, there are possible ways to deal with it if we are allowed to reprocess the spent fuel (thanks Jimmy Carter!))
Nuclear Power is the
best ONLY option.
Posted by DaveH at March 20, 2009 8:52 AM
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