Keep It In The Family, GordonWhat makes this decision politically sensitive, is that Gordon Brown has close family connections to the nuclear industry. His younger brother Andrew Brown works for EDF Energy, the UK subsidiary of EDF, which operates nuclear power stations in France, and which is one of the leading companies pushing for a nuclear rebuild programme in the UK. Andrew Brown was appointed as EDF Energy's Head of Press on 13 September 2004.http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/Gordon_Brown
Keep It In The Family, Gordon
What makes this decision politically sensitive, is that Gordon Brown has close family connections to the nuclear industry. His younger brother Andrew Brown works for EDF Energy, the UK subsidiary of EDF, which operates nuclear power stations in France, and which is one of the leading companies pushing for a nuclear rebuild programme in the UK. Andrew Brown was appointed as EDF Energy's Head of Press on 13 September 2004.
http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/Gordon_Brown
If you think the Labour government has done the right thing in its decision to expand nuclear power in the UK by 50%, see how you fare with this quiz. Are the following dozen statements true or false?
The UK experience is different in that we've been badly lied to about the nuclear power programme. Very serious accidents have been covered up and denied, large tracts of land and the people living there were irradiated and not told, the Irish Sea north of Windscale Seascale Sellafield was deliberately contaminated as part of a long term experiment into the effects of low level radiation (why keep changing the name unless for pr cleansing).
And all the time they were telling us that nuclear energy was our future, was too cheap to meter, even as costs sky-rocketed and they still don't know what to do with the waste. So, given our expeiences of the deceit and duplicity of government when it comes to nuclear power, that list is both persuasive and politically powerful.
I fully accept it doesn't have to be the way it has been here in the UK, that the french experience is somewhat different. So I accept you find the list unpersuasive. The British will see it differently. keep to the Fen Causeway
A bright nuclear future: true or false? | Jeremy Leggett | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
5) This July, a heatwave shut a third of French reactors, because rivers became too hot to act as coolant. France was forced to import electricity from the UK.6) Things got little better as winter approached. With almost one third of France's reactors out of service for maintenance and other reasons, France will have to import electricity at peak hours during the winter - for the second year running - to avoid the risk of blackouts.
5) This July, a heatwave shut a third of French reactors, because rivers became too hot to act as coolant. France was forced to import electricity from the UK.
6) Things got little better as winter approached. With almost one third of France's reactors out of service for maintenance and other reasons, France will have to import electricity at peak hours during the winter - for the second year running - to avoid the risk of blackouts.
At least if you ignore evironmental and security of supply issues, if you include them the the too high nuclear fraction becomes more reasonable. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
