Powering up... oops power is down!

The new power plant is opened to tackle the country's energy shortage, but some people did not appreciate that.

No wonder Lord May of Oxford today had said that "Sadly, for many, the response is to retreat from complexity and difficulty by embracing the darkness of fundamentalist unreason." in his final speech as Royal Society President.

Now let's look at the logic of turning to atomic energy:
1. Use of certain atoms to create energy by striking it usually with a neutron, the unstable nucleus of the atom will then split, releasing lots of energy. This will then trigger a chain reaction as more neutrons are released from the atom. Atoms used are usually uranium.
2. Highly efficient, very low CO2 emissions, and not very susceptible to fuel price changes (and not a lot of uranium is needed anyway).
3. Expensive to build, but the energy output is about twice the amount of a fossil fuel power station.
4. Problem: Radioactive waste. Where to put them?

Unfortunately, when one thinks of a nuclear power plant, it is immediately associated with atomic bombs or Chernobyl.

Now let's look at the alternative (for producing large amounts of energy):
1. Wind power: Renewable, "eco-friendly", quite cheap and the exploitation has been in use for a long time (think windmills!). Very promising considering that the country has such good winds! But the actual energy efficiency? Though this concept is good, I think there is a limit to how many wind turbines we can build as UK is such a small island. And there is a problem that some people says it's ugly and/or noisy...
2. Hydro power: Hydroelectric is renewable too, still quite cheap and "eco-friendly" in the sense that it will not produce any pollution. But the building of the dams which means submerging lots of land area is a major environmental issue. And of course, this method is reliant to the amount of rainfall.
3. Fossil fuel power: Basically burning up fuel and generating power that way. Not efficient. Fossil fuel power includes coal, gases, oil. Cheap, but produces lots of pollutants and of course CO2 emission high. Pollutants release sometimes causes acid rain. And as energy is not renewable, fuel prices goes up and up and up...
4. Solar power: In Britain? Get real. You can use it to generate some energy but not efficient to power the country (unless technology improves).
5. Biofuels power: Like fossil fuels, but renewable as fuel source is from crops and can be sometimes methane from animal excretions. Polluting by emitting lots of CO2 and other gases and particulates that you get when you burn stuff. No risk of acid rain. Good idea, but the current method is not cost-effective and needs refining.
6. Wave and tidal power: Like solar, it is not enough to power the country, the technology is way behind.

I'm opposed to using power generating by combustion and hydroelectric dams for obvious reasons! We should stop using these as soon as we can by switching to alternatives.

Now I'm not saying that we should all turn to atomic energy, but it is a good option. When weighed with all the pros and cons, nuclear at this stage seems to make sense. Unless you want government to ignore the energy shortage! Nuclear is needed until science in renewable energy improves... or when many of us can really cut down on energy consumption. But that is difficult for many of us, as we want machines to do our daily chores and heating/cooling and lights etc... And that requires lots of energy.