The equation has changed: Today, with oil approaching $150 a barrel, most European countries, which generally have no oil and gas resources of their own, have been forced by finances to consider new forms of energy -- and fast. New nuclear plants take 20 years to build. Also, instead of Chernobyl, Europeans have more recently watched in horror as Russian president Vladamir Putin cut off the natural gas supply to Ukraine in a price dispute, leaving that country in darkness.
Breathlessness and ignorance on every line: oil at $150, countries "forced by finance" to look at energy, nuclear taking 20 years to build, Ukraine in darkness.
Scary to see such incompetence in the NYT. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
And to tell the truth, an Italian minister saying something only means so much. There's hardly a consensus and there will be delays and trouble.
Interestingly and in difference from Sweden, another phase-out basket case, the Italian nuclear industry has persevered and gotten lots of foreign contracts. They still have competence. If (=when) we would (=will) do the renaissance thing up here, there will be strains, and looooots of retired engineers brought back form retirement as consultants.
At least I'll get a job. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
But it's okay. Serious people have decided that nuclear must be our base load capacity and if we all end up glowing in the dark cos the people running it are criminals and militarist authoritarians, well at least it'll save on lighting costs.
Nuclear power has only delivered in one country (and we don't know the dismantling costs), and that country seems to be committing reformist hari-kiri even as we speak, so I don't give us much hope over the tens of thousands of years we need to keep this idiotic policy going.
glad i don't have kids, I don't have to care what happens after I'm gone. keep to the Fen Causeway
