REACTORS
NUCLEAR POWER AND CLIMATE CHANGE
It is widely accepted that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions must be sharply reduced to avert climate change. However, nuclear power is at best a very partial, problematic and unnecessary response to climate change:
NO NEW NATIONAL NUCLEAR REACTOR
The government has constructed the second reactor in suburban Sydney to replace the outdated Lucas Heights nuclear research reactor. The reactor is not used to generate nuclear power, but is a research reactor used to split atoms for scientific and medical purposes.
Viable alternatives mean that we do not need a new reactor. The government tells us that the new reactor is needed for production of crucial medicial isotopes for cancer patients. The real reason for the new reactor lies with government secret nuclear ambitions and strategic objectives.
NUCLEAR ENERGY CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE
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Nuclear is the problem not the solution
Our planet, its ecology and our society are faced with the incredibly serious problem of climate change. Already temperatures and seas have risen, global ice is melting, species have become extinct, storm damage has broken all records, annual deaths are measured in hundreds of thousands.
The future looks far worse with predictions of wide spread ecosystem collapse, increased spread of tropical diseases, huge numbers of extinctions, millions of refugees fleeing effected areas, flooding of our coasts, and storm damage equaling human economic output by 2060.
Sadly all this will have been caused by our own hands due to our increasing the level of Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases allow energy from the Sun to reach the earth but trap the heat the sunlight
generates. These gases include CO2, released from and clearing and burning of fossil fuels, and methane CH4) released from agricultural practices such as growing cows, sheep and rice.
We have no choice but to reduce our Greenhouse gas emissions. In this context the nuclear industry have sort to position themselves as the solution to climate friendly energy.
“With carbon emissions now threatening the very stability of the biosphere, the security of our world requires a massive transformation to clean energy. ‘Renewables' like solar, wind and biomass can help. But only nuclear power offers clean, environmentally friendly energy on a massive scale”
CHERNOBYL DISASTER BACKGROUNDER
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"There will be cesium in the silage this winter and there will be cesium in milk & meat next year. I would not like to predict the effect on people."-
UK Radiological Protection Board, 1986.
Chernobyl
26.4.86
and still killing.
Lest we forget.