Hey, don't jinx a good thing! Nuclear reactors and the requisite waste dumps are the only source of government investment outside of London and the South East. :-p Seriously though, Westminster trying to claw back power to commission nuclear power plants in Scotland just sums up Westminster's approach to national and devolved government; Political NIMBYISM. :-@

The Conservatoids have never been big on forward thinking, just on ideology. To them, investment in infrastructure is just something the happens like magic (when they're voted out of office and a Labour government has to inevitably overspend to make up for years of underinvestment). Besides, who cares about some dusky faced steel workers, we need to be catering for the real wealth generators in this country; the bankers and boardroom fat-cats (you know the ones, they work 2 hours a week, play golf on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and are the least productive puddles of plankton on the planet). :-p

You're talking about a nuclear reactor that was commissioned in 1971 (i.e. old technology) and was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami in quick succession! Japan is thus probably not the best place to build nuclear reactors, or at least those of the older design (my understanding is that molten salt reactors essentially shut themselves down should such catastrophe strike). More people died in the tsunami itself than as a result of any release of radiation!

I think you mean geologically improbable, not that I agree with this thread founders coo-coo 'what if 1000 hippos show up on Sellafield's doorstep and simultaneously explode with the force of a thousand supernovae' sentiment. ;-)

Damn straight they're not, and now that we have a pro-business tory government it's unlikely that we'll get any action on that in the near future. Also, I remember reading a while back that shipping is a major contributor of CO2 emissions (and I mean major), that one seems to have slipped through the cracks though (no sod ever complains about shipping as a source of pollution).

Simple solution: Ban NIMBYs! Or, cut off the electricity supply of all NIMBYs and inform them that they will now have to generate their own electricity. All that hot air and outrage has to be good for something afterall (generating energy?). :-p

That may be somewhat true of UK politics, but I suspect not so for European politics on the whole. It's also important to note that elitism doesn't just take the form of aristocracy and class systems, the US has it's fair share of political dynasties and has always been a (rather distasteful) undercurrent of neo-aristocracy in the US.

I think the continued prominence of monarchies in Europe has more to do with a lack of political momentum, than it does a general acceptance of the aristocratic principle or inherited privilege. I've heard more than a few so called 'Monarchists' proclaim that they'd prefer to see the crown skip Prince Charles and go to Prince William when the Queen dies. That speaks to a population of 'Monarchists' who don't really understand what Monarchy is (you don't get to choose!).

As for the House of Lords, all but 8/9 of the hereditary peers have been defrocked and most of the remaining were appointed by the Prime Minister. Some, like Prof. Robert Winston, are generally worthy of the honour; others, like Baroness Thatcher and Lord Prescott are there purely because they were once elected to government. Under the current system (whereby the Prime Minister selects the Lords, and Lords cannot be impeached or removed without primary legislation) the House of Lords is becoming a little more than a dumping ground for former Members of Parliament (Commons) and party political backers. The power to appoint, impeach and/or remove Lords should be handed to a separate apolitical body charged with selecting true talent (retired academics, diplomats and alike) rather than the buddies and backers of our elected officials.

These are outliers and supporters of capitalism and trickle down economics do like to highlight them, but the fact of the matter is that the USA has the least upwardly mobile population on Earth (with the UK a close second). What that means is that Average Joe would have a better chance of reaching such heights if he lived in France or Germany. He'd have an even better chance if he lived in a Scandinavia, whose countries are amongst the most upwardly mobile on Earth (and also the most socialist in their governance).

The business world does not necessarily trim the idiotic. Admittedly you're not going to see a CEO with an IQ below 80, but what the business world does seem to do is raise the profile of the most unscrupulous, manipulative and greedy. These aren't the people who should be influencing the structure of our economy or our financial system, let alone science policy, health policy, foreign affairs, etc...

And my point entirely! If they depend on them politically (or financially) then they may well place greater weight behind them. Elected officials, like it or not, have their balls in a metaphorical vice (they depend on financing and popular support to be elected) and without a check on their power (which isn't reliant on outside financing and popular support) what we end up with is a plutocracy by proxy (as financially support tends to enable popular support to some extent, it is invariably the dominant force in a privately financed party political system).

The point I was trying to make is that the risks are immeasurable due to the time scales involved, and that makes the potential risks too great (for me at least). By building reactors that generate radioactive waste with lifetimes in the range of 10,000-100,000+you are committing the next 4000+ generations of human beings to managing that risk. I have some moral qualms with making that decision for my ancestors, ancestors who'll be alive 1000s of years after my bones have turned to dust. What's more, can you guarantee that economic considerations will not intervene to make management of this waste non-viable, or that our civilisation will continue uninterrupted by war, famine or disease, to such an extent that these waste stockpiles will not be abandoned or forgotten? 100,000+ years is a long time, longer than recorded history itself!

Then you and I are in agreement, although I still think that renewable energy should receive a bigger slice of the pie (the lack of consistent and sufficient funding has slowed the pace of development for decades; we'd have viable wave power by now were it not for the conservative funding decisions of previous UK governments)

My understanding however was that the only nation actively perusing breeder reactor designs (in their case based on the thorium cycle) was India, although I do recall reading somewhere that France and Japan were collaborating on research reactor(s). In any case, my understanding is that breeder reactors are off the table for the next generation (currently being tabled) in the UK and the US, and I can't see Frances collaboration with Japan yielding result until the next, next generation of reactors due to be tabled in 20-30 years time.

Agreed, although I suspect that we want to reduce the current stockpile without adding to it (in quantity of radioactive waste, rather than lifetime), we'd need to implement it on comparatively small scale. Note I said that I suspect; I just don't know enough about the fuel/waste economy of breeder reactors to know whether deploying them on the current scale would be a good thing (i.e. would it yield more and ever increasing amounts of nuclear waste, albeit shorter lived?). "So relying on things that are "on the horizon" is okay with coal but not with nuclear?"

Erm... Yes, because these 'on the horizon' technologies for carbon capture and sequestration are already in the pipeline. They are under active research, are far less complicated and could well be a reality within 10 years. They're a gamble, but a less risky and expensive gamble than nuclear (and one that doesn't burden future generations ad infinitum)

As for prospective future nuclear fission technologies, I'm in favour of breeder reactors (in particular those based on the thorium fuel cycle) as long as it can be proven that they will not proliferate waste (in terms of shear amounts, not lifespan) or weapons grade material (I think the latter point is already won in the case of thorium molten salt reactors) on the scale of deployment we're speaking of here (i.e. comparable to current levels of nuclear power). But as I said above, it looks like the major players in this field are playing it safe when it comes to the next generation of fission reactors (they're only now beginning to research it, and there's a significant lead time with these sorts of things)

So... Come On!

No I'm not high, but can you read

If you can you might have read my allusion to the waste that coal power pumps into the atmosphere, as well as my allusion to the fact that certain carbon capture and storage technologies are well on there way to becoming viable. So yes, coal power does have its down sides. Not least the facts that it emits airborne contaminants (Ooo big word) and relies on a finite and possibly non-renewable (I'm alluding to efforts to produce synthetic fossil fuel analogues) resource. However there is every chance that we will have clean coal within 10 years.

Any other (non-airborne waste) waste generated by coal power stations are no doubt chemical in nature, and are thus easier (and less costly and dangerous) to handle, and conceivably be recycled. I must confess however, I'm not familiar with the particulars of any toxic non-airborne waste from coal power stations.

Whilst I have no doubt that the older generations of nuclear power station are less efficient and produce more waste, the only technologies that I'm aware of that claim to be able to use nuclear waste, produce power from it and spit out less radioactive waste, are those based upon the thorium cycle. The only nation putting any serious effort into developing thorium based nuclear power (at present) is India (it has the worlds largest reserves of thorium). Most proposals to replace existing nuclear power plants in countries like the UK, US and France are still based on the uranium cycle, and whilst these 4th generation designs claim to be safer they still produce a significant quantity of long-lived radioactive waste (and will cost a bucket load to decommission).

What's more there is NO reactor design, uranium-cycle or thorium-cycle, that claims to reduce the life-time of the most long-lived radioactive waste from 100,000s of years to 100s of years. The thorium-cycle designs I've read about talk about reducing lifetimes by a factor of 5-10 (100,000 to 20,000/10,000) what you're talking about just isn't possible with todays technology. I think you may be referring to nuclear fussion (which is a very different beast entirely, and will not be commercially viable for at least another 30-50 years). The 100 years lifetime refers to the reactor casing of the tokamak class of nuclear fussion reactor.

For the record, if thorium-cycle reactors could be proven viable as a means of processing our existing stockpile of radioactive waste, I would have no objection to them being rolled out on a small scale. On the grounds that they could process existing nuclear waste and ameliorate the burden on future generations. But I am wary of any large scale implementation, as they still produce long-lived radioactive waste.

There are already some very promising technologies (solar-thermal, wave, high-altitude wind, hydroelectic, etc...) in the pipeline that could bridge the gap left by nuclear, and with the development of more viable storage technologies (such as super-capacitors and pumped power) other technologies (such as solar-voltaic and wind) could begin to contribute to the baseload also. So I'm not proposing that we wait for whimsical technologies (like nuclear fussion) but rather invest in existing technologies which are either already viable (but costly) or on the cusp of viability such that we can make them economical and/or viable.

"But those social connections are the hedge against mob rule."

Maybe I should have elaborated upon what I meant by social connections. I am referring to what is commonly known to as 'the old boys network' in the UK, and a trend that is best represented by elitist dining clubs, freemasonry, alumnus associations and fraternities (particularly of the more elitist, aristocratic variety). In short the aristocratic principal in action.

What emerges is a political system (and social order) cultivated around inhertibility (whether that was the intention or not) and not round meritability. Just look at some of the leading figures in US, UK and European politics. Men like Tony Blair, George W. Bush, David Cameron, Silvio Berlusconi and George Osborne. These are not men of merit, they are not men who have any technical qualifications to call themselves experts in anything, many of them studied soft-subjects such as politics or art history, or subjects like history or law (making them well educated in politics, but little else). These men are no better qualified to make decisions about energy policy, foreign policy, education policy and health policy (etc...) than the average man on the street (excepting of course for the fact that their job requires them to read themselves into these fields and affords them the time and resources to do so), they are not better than us (such thinking is the very definition of the aristocratic principle). They got to were they are because they have the 'gift of the gab', they are charismatic, they had the funds to pursue a nationwide political campaign (secured through their charisma and the old boys network, or some combination thereof) and the backing of other politicians who saw them a a free ride (because they were charismatic and/or had connections) to power.

In short, politicians, our representitives, are men of power, of money and of privilege (the later especially true of UK politics at the moment). They are not men of merit!

This is true of anyone (at least any one who fits some rather basic criterion). If all you want is someone who has the time, resources and inclination to thoroughly research the issues you could pick any man off the street to do the job. The Job (of MP/Congressman) would afford said 'man off the street' the time and resources, all he'd have to bring to the table is the inclination to do the job and the requisite intelligence to conduct the research (and popular elections guarantee neither of a winning candidate).

As for the notion that a politician should lean on lobbyists for an understanding of (e.g.) nuclear power, that is simply lazy and unqualified research. Lobbyists by their very nature are biased, they are unlikely to give an MP/Congressman the full picture and are more than likely to advance their own agenda during such exchanges. I don't particularly want a representative who relies on lobbyists, and furthermore, if you using reliance on lobbyists as a unique qualification of elected officials, I've got news for you; any idiot can navigate their way to a lobbyists website and read through their biased garbage they publish and anything they don't publish and which is only available to our politicians for review, we should be very concerned about.

In fact, a reliance on lobbyists is a un-resounding disqualification for a legislator. I want my legislators to be intelligent and resourceful enough to research the matter thoroughly before even considering consulting lobbyists and environmentalist groups (who are lobbyists by the way). That, I assumed, was the character of politicians that you were saying arose from representative democracy (I'm saying that is precisely not the character of politician that arises from representative democracy)

What emerges is an elite ruling class! Just look at the political dynasties that have arisen in the US and UK, and the composition of the UK cabinet, a significant majority of which are multi-millionaire ex-public (or what everyone outside the UK call private) schoolboys. Yes, it's an elected ruling class, but it's a ruling class none the less, and the fact that is elected (and not appointed or promoted) means that it has little claim to being a ruling class of any quality or technical proficiency Which is precisely why I favour a technocratic upper chamber as well the better regulated and more frequent referenda (the UK has had two in it's 1000+ year history, and both were thought atrociously with lies and mud slinging from the political classes). The upper chamber is one of regulation, it's there to advise the lower chamber (elected) and advance technical legislature for consideration (of the elected lower chamber). Thus there's no question of being ruled by an unelected elite, but rather of tempering the power of the current elected elite, providing it (and the wider public) with qualified oversight (and information). Without such qualified oversight, our elected legislators are little more than a small self-important mob of pseudo-aristocrats pursuing their own interests above those of the public.

Trustworthiness (or more often the illusion thereof) does not equate to technical proficiency and/or intellectual capacity. The mob do not elect people based on technical criteria, especially within the framework of party politics where the qualifications of the individual candidate are often overshadowed by party allegiance and pure (loathsome) politics. For the love of all that is logical man! You had a trained chimp as your president for 8 years, and my country recently elected a toffee nosed former PR-Man ill qualified to run a branch of McDonald's as Prime Minister. Representative democracy suffers from exactly the same pitfalls of direct democracy, only to add insult to injury you end up with a dumb elite ruling rather than a dumb majority self-organising.

Only some measure of technocracy/meritocracy can provide the wise leadership/regulation that you seek (and I advocate for), but our representatives/oligarchs are unlikely to temper their authority with such amendments to representative democracy (at no point has it been mentioned that democratising the UK House of Lords would cancel out the much vaunted cost savings of eliminating 50 MPs from the House of Commons, whilst also rendering the House of Lords and costly and non-beneficial bottleneck in the legislative process. Nobody has suggested that a meritocratic selection process for the House of Lords would be reform enough (and a better reform than full democratisation at that).

For countries like the UK wave is rapidly becoming a viable alternative to nuclear, and with new energy storage technologies (super batteries/capacities, pumped-water storage, etc...) wind could become a more viable contributor to base-load (though admittedly, in it's present state it's not suitable for base-load).

Until you take into account the costs of decommissioning these plants and safely storing the long-lived waste products for 10,000-100,000 years. Those costs are inevitably borne by the public purse, through both public subsidy and regulation.

Nuclear (fission) is NOT cheap, and the only reason alternatives such as wave, wind, high-altitude wind, etc... are comparatively more expensive is because they are comparatively young technologies which haven't benefited from steady funding over the past 50 years (wave energy was mooted in the UK during the Thatcher era by the same people now making it a reality; it was significantly set back because the then UK government cut its funding).

How would you propose selecting these experts, without a formal and unbiased process designed to weed out lobbyists and other biased sources all you have are the vested interests of big business and environmental groups. To be entirely frank, I prefer the environmentalists (whose motives are at least pure and routed in the long term) to big business (whose motives are tainted by profit motives, funding considerations and short terms gains). What I would prefer even more would be an unbiased, regulated and entirely public model of 'expert opinion' or technocracy, but until that comes along I far prefer that the flip of the populist coin decide the fate of our energy infrastructure than the flip of a literal (i.e. well funded lobbyist) coin.

I find thus statement along with the quoted figures a tad misleading. Does it take into account the largely immeasurable risks (both to human health and the environment) associated with containment of long lived nuclear waste? Whilst I'm no fan of coal (and have for along time been a fence sitter w.r.t. nuclear), coal power doesn't leave future generations with tonnes of highly radioactive and long-lived waste to manage and dispose of. Whilst coal power does leave future generation with a significant environmental burden (atmospheric contaminants and greenhouse effects) there is at least the prospect of clean coal and carbon capture on the horizon. There is no such equivalent for today's generation of nuclear fission (unless you count the possible, and as of yet unproven, ameliorative effects that the thorium cycle might have on the lifetime of nuclear waste).