Germany returns to the dark ages!

Germany made the momentous decision today to phase out nuclear power plants - for good.

"We want the electricity of the future to be safer and at the same time reliable and affordable," said Chancellor Angela Merkel. "That means we must have a new approach to the supply network, energy efficiency, renewable energy and also long-term monitoring of the process."

This is in response to the terrifying nuclear disaster still taking place in Japan - but is it a wise response? After all, nuclear power plants currently supply Germany with 22% of its power needs.

Although the impact of a nuclear disaster can be completely devastating - as we're currently witnessing in Japan - such disasters are very, very rare. That's important to note when comparing the environmental impact of what we consider "safe" means of energy production - coal and gas - which churn pollutants and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere twenty-four hours a day.

Obviously in an ideal world we'd rely on so-called "renewable" sources of energy - hydroelectric, solar, wind and geothermal. However, it's currently not possible to meet the world's energy needs through renewable energy - which is going to be the crisis Germany faces as it phases out nuclear power. Their decision is reactionary, impractical and unsustainable - which is why Daimler chief executive Dieter Zetschke was quick to classify the decision as "strongly colored by emotions" and that it risked Germany's economic future.

Personally, even in the wake of the Fukushima catastrophe, I think first world countries should be investing more money in nuclear plants, not less.

But that being said, I certainly don't want to ever live within 100 miles of one.

How safe are America's nuclear power stations?

The tragedy in Japan has been a wake up call to a lot of people.

Watching entire villages get swept away by the tsunami – leaving nothing where they once stood – is a dramatic reminder of how powerless people are in the fact of nature.

It's shocked a lot of us out of our Starbucks-slurping, suburban stupor and reminded us just how fragile everything we hold dear is.

Now, of course, Japan face another crisis – the possible meltdown of three of their nuclear reactors.

This comes just months after many Republicans and pundits – Militant Ginger included – were questioning America's 30-year moratorium on constructing 'safe, affordable' power plants which might finally lift us out of our current dependence on oil and coal (and resolve the 'brown outs' that are a perennial peril each and every summer.)

But the problems affecting Japan's nuclear power stations reveal the major weakness of every fission reactor – the need to keep the fuel rods cool to prevent them literally 'melting down' and releasing radioactive material.

There were no less than three standby pumps at the Fukushima station intended to keep water pumping through the core – but all three of those failed, and the Japanese government has since been reduced to pumping seawater through the core in order to try and cool it down.

It just shows how vulnerable and dangerous nuclear reactors can be – especially in the wake of natural disaster. In America, compounding that issue is the fact that our nuclear reactors are not built to the same standards as the Japanese ones now in the midst of crisis.

For example, if the reactors lose electrical power (as they did in Japan) there are batteries in place to keep pumping water through the core for hours afterwards. In Japan, they had eight hours of battery power – which turned out to be insufficient. In the United States, the standard is four.

Likewise, in America more than half of the 104 operating nuclear power plants don't even meet federal fire regulations (which led to a crisis in 1975, when a worker at Brown's Ferry Nuclear Power Plant used a candle to check on cable leaks - and set the plant on fire!) Federal regulators have still not forced the plant operators to bring their plants up to code.

And while many of America's nuclear power plants are not on fault lines, or in areas where a natural disaster similar to the Japanese earthquake could happen, there are other factors that need to be considered; and often aren't.

In Tennessee, for example, they're building two new reactors in Scottsboro – right in the path of potential Tennessee River flooding.

While it's true that nuclear power has had, relatively speaking, a stellar safety record over the years, the situation in Japan is a reminder than when things go wrong, they really go wrong – and hundreds of thousands of people could be impacted by the result.

Although a Chernobyl-style disaster is practically unthinkable, it's worth looking at the images of the 'Atom City' Prypiat, which remains abandoned to this day, to remind us of what could happen if we get too complacent about nuclear safety.

The Ukrainian City of Pripyat was abandoned in 1986, and remains so to this day

Safe Nuclear Power - for real?

There's been much debate in America about the wisdom of building more nuclear power stations.

Currently, America's had a moratorium on building new stations for almost 30-years - and has hurled itself back three decades in the process.

While countries like France generate no less than 80% of their power through nuclear energy, the United States continues to rely on gas and coal generators, and suffers rolling blackouts through much of the summer as a result.

Yet there are legitimate concerns about building new nuclear power stations - not least of which are the radioactive waste materials produced.

While popular opinion in France supports nuclear power, there's a growing movement there which points to long term health affects they attribute to poor management of radioactive waste. In a country like America - which is notoriously litigious - getting rid of the radioactive materials presents a significant challenge.

Secondly, there's the safety aspect. While nuclear power has an excellent safety record, the sheer potential for devastation worries us all.

The word 'Chernobyl' remains on people's lips, and most Americans are aware of how close we came to our own Chernobyl when the reactor on Three Mile Island suffered a partial core meltdown in 1979. Nobody wants a potential nuclear bomb sitting on their doorstep, or to run the hypothetical risks of living in close proximity to a nuclear reactor.

Finally, there's the cost. Despite hurling almost a trillion dollars at wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many of the more conservative members of Congress are appalled at the idea of investing in America's infrastructure (and hurting the cause of their corporate paymasters in the fossil fuel industry when they do so.)

But the inimitable Mycroft pointed me towards a substance that could solve all three of these questions, and revolutionize America's infrastructure virtually overnight.

Thorium!

I'd never heard of it before (but I'm woefully ill-informed and a writer, not a nuclear physicist, so I'm not going to feel bad about it.)

But this naturally-occurring, radioactive metal is theorized to be a significantly superior nuclear fuel than uranium (what we currently use) and infinitely superior to current fossil fuels. What's more - it's safe. In fact, so safe that using it to produce nuclear fuel could also burn up current radioactive waste as well!

A single ton of Thorium produces as much energy as 200 tons of uranium, or three and a half million tons of coal. It can't be used to produce weapons-grade material (so we could ship it to Iran and North Korea with impunity.) Even more importantly, it's impossible to make it go 'boom' in a nuclear meltdown.

It's like the answer to all our energy prayers. As the Daily Telegraph reported: "it could put an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years." Plus, there's enough naturally-occurring Thorium in the United States to meet our current energy needs for the next ten centuries.

So why the hell aren't we doing anything about it?

Well we are - very, very modestly. In Texas, they're experimenting with a modest reactor. The military is also funding research into a destroyer-sized nuclear reactor. That's about it.

Meanwhile, in India, they're close to turning the switch on the first full-sized Thorium reactor next year - and have already started building five more. The effect this could have on the nation's infrastructure is unprecedented. Currently one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuels, this could be turned around within a decade - making India the power to watch as the world's industrial hierarchy shifts.

The fact is, America needs to get cracking. We're already being outpaced in 'clean' technology by nations like China. To miss an opportunity like this - to totally transform our nation from fossil-fuel addiction to energy independence - would be a slap in the face to every intrinsically American value we have.

The problem is, to do so would involve combating the complacency and self-serving attitudes of our current crop of porcine politicians. Just look at who is ranking member of our Committee on Energy and Commerce - none other than Republican Joe Barton, who apologized to BP when they caused the greatest oil spill in history (and fought bitterly against wind farms because he believed they'd 'slow down' the wind - no joke!)

The fact is, America can't continue her addiction to dirty, expensive, inefficient fuels bought from nations who fund our greatest enemies. But the fact also is; we don't have to.

We have at our fingertips the opportunity to cut those puppet-strings and start a new era for this great nation - one which sees us embrace clean, cheap, plentiful energy to benefit everybody.

Whether or not the powers-that-be will let us do so? Sadly, that remains to be seen.

Find out more about Thorium from the Thorium Energy Alliance - finally a 'TEA' party I'd be proud to be a member of!

A snobby Eurotrash rant about America and electricty...

Wifey called me at work and warned me that rolling brownouts were hitting the state.

That meant absolutely nothing to me - so she explained.

Brownouts, apparently, are like electrical blackouts. All your lights dim, your blender slows and your toaster oven doesn't cook bagels so quickly. It's not quite like a blackout - when you lose power altogether - but a brownout basically means your house isn't getting all the electricity it needs to run everything. It happens all the time in America.

This, to me, is an entirely new experience.

Sure, I remember power cuts when I was growing up in England. But that was back in the eighties. For the last twenty years, they've been practically unheard of. All the cables are underground and England's pretty sorted as far as the power is concerned (because it's all privatised, but that's a rant for another day.)

In America, however, things are different (they're also privatised, but that's another rant for another other day.)

First off, the power grid is pretty suspect even in the best of times. Whenever Wifey plugs in the hair dryer, for example, the lights dim like that scene in The Green Mile when the electric chair was switched on. Lights dimming is not a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Then there are the plugs... In England, we have chunky three-pronged electrical sockets that have a comforting 'click' when they slide into the wall socket. Here in America, because we require twelve appliances plugged in at the same time, as opposed to just one, there's a much sketchier system of two-pronged plugs that look about as robust as something you'd use to plug in an electric train set. What's worse, they actually spark and sizzle when you plug something in.

These sketchy sockets are used to power long daisy-chains of dollar store surge protectors, which mean you end up running long lines of rickety wiring that would have British Fire and Safety screaming in terror.

The average American house generally has wiring that you wouldn't recommend fiddling with unless you had valid life insurance and rubber soled shoes.

Now all the power to our homes comes from power lines, strung along the road on Telegraph poles. These are deliciously precarious things and strong rain storms, lightening or drunk drivers can knock out power to a block simply by pushing one of the poles over. The electric company tries to put a redundancy in to prevent this sort of thing by coiling lots of 'slack' at the top of each pole, so if one falls down, enough cable slacks out to prevent the electric cable snapping.

But it's not an exact science and it looks really crappy and badly strung together. At best, all that cable looks really messy and untidy. At worst, the damn thing snaps whenever a pole gets knocked over and that leads us onto the next thing that happens in America, but not so much in England.

Death by puddles.

Because New Jersey drivers simply aren't very good at driving, they're always driving into telegraph poles and knocking people's power out. Then, hopping cheerfully (or drunkenly) out of their cars, they exacerbate the situation by getting zapped by the fallen power cable.

The problem with all these above-ground cables and telegraph poles is the shitload of live high-voltage wiring that gets knocked over when people drive into them (or the wind blows them over.) If it's been raining, people jump out of their car into a puddle and then become human conductors of thousands of volts of electricity.

This is where the famous America motto (which I cynically thought was invented by Drive-Thru MacDonald's promoters) 'Never get out of the car.' If you crash into a pole, stay in the safety of your SUV until the cops arrive and give you the all clear.

So basically, American houses are badly wired and the electrical grid is strung together by a bunch of incompetents who only got the job because they submitted the lowest tender. If you want to get an impression of just how pathetic the American electric infrastructure is, remember that the three day electrical blackout in 2003 was caused by a single branch falling on a single transformer in Canada.

God help us if al-Qaida ever get their shit together and attack us with lengths of wood. We'd be plunged back into the dark ages overnight.

But ignoring the badly wired American houses and the badly wired American power grid, there's one more crowning achievement in the inadequacies of America's energy incompetence.

There's not enough power to go around.

Considering America is the biggest energy consumer in the world, you might be surprised by this - but it's true. Union heavies promoting inefficient coal power plants, combined with environmental idiots keeping America's nuclear industry four decades behind the rest of the world, has resulted in a nation that can't even supply it's own appetite for waffle irons, air conditioners and electric curling irons.

In the height of summer, when we sweaty Yanks turn on our air conditioners, the power grid suddenly sucks up a whole lot more juice and there's not enough to go around - so we end up getting rolling 'brownouts' as our energy gets thinned out worse than American beer.

It boggles the mind.

I mean, this is America. The greatest nation in the world. It seems remarkable that we can't even supply our own energy without making an (expensive) pig's ear of it.

But where do the problems lie?

Well, let's start at the top and work our way down, shall we?

There's not enough electricity to go around...

As much as I dislike his snotty attitude, Barack Obama's got a point. Our current energy crisis is caused, at least in part, by the fact that we consume an incredible amount of energy. Wifey and I are following the pediatrician's advice and keeping our 650 square feet apartment air-conditioned to a tolerable 76 degrees - and that takes the work of three different air conditioners and four ceiling fans. Our neighbours have bigger houses and chill them to an icy 68 degrees.

The quickest and easiest way to eliminate brownouts would be to ration ourselves and stop consuming so much electricity. If we used less, we'd need less and there'd be more to go around.

The other option is to make more electricity. You'd think this would be the most logical idea and power companies would jump at the opportunity. But the problem is - they can't.

The environmental lobby has protested the building of any new nuclear power stations for thirty years (despite them having provided cheap, clean and safe power for countries like France for decades.) Besides, considering Americans are scared of talcum powder and plastic bottles, you can hardly expect them to line up and volunteer for them to have a big, scary nuclear power station built on their doorstep.

The lumpy old coal power plants still give America the majority of it's power (and the majority of it's pollution) and any talk of shutting them down is met by angry blue collar resistance from the Mafia-like unions, who remind people that the coal industry employs millions of Americans (although if they all got retrained to work in the nuclear industry, they'd statistically live longer, healthier lives than they would working down a coal mine all day.)

Just like the environmentalists block any progress in the nuclear field, the union heavies block any progress in the coal arena. It's all blissfully, transparently corrupt - but apparently nobody's got the testicular fortitude to stand up to them (after all, it's people like this who can win or lose Swing State elections, so politicians don't want to piss them off.)

Finally, the 'acceptable' options, like wind farms and hydroelectric power, run into the most practical problems facing the energy industry. They're expensive and inefficient and although the politicians and public applaud them, these environmentally sound options are never going to get put into production because nobody's stupid enough to invest in them. Besides, people don't want bloody great wind turbines on their horizon any more than a nuclear power station.

The electricity has problems getting to us...

Ignoring the fact that we don't have enough juice to go around, the problem of actually getting it delivered to our house creates major issues.

The snarling cable. The wobbly poles. Why can't we tear them all up and put them underground, where they'll be safely out of the way and less likely to get run into or snapped by falling branches? That's what (adopt snotty Euro accent) we do in Europe.

Well, the fact is, nobody stateside wants to invest in doing that.

The electricity companies are out to make a profit. Large-scale investment in their rickety infrastructure is going to hurt their short-term profits (and they couldn't care less about the long term) so they've got no intention of getting their chequebooks out to fix the problems.

The local townships could do it. You'd think it would be a great idea - providing work for local contractors and making the whole township safer and more beautiful. But despite demanding property taxes ten-times higher than Great Britain, the local township has their hands tied by the greedy school systems and the local law-enforcement, who thuggishly demand their 'pizza de action' and leave very little money left for doing anything remotely useful. (Trust me - our local township resembles Mexico City, but all the local police officers drive about in brand new, $30,000 Dodge Chargers.)

So short of getting a shovel and a wire cutter and doing it ourselves, there's really not much hope that anywhere except the swanky suburbs of Maryland and Connecticut will get their local electric grid sorted out any time soon.

Seeing a pattern here? American politics (and business) is centred around the Short Term Gain and ignoring the Long Term Insurmountable Problems (after all, these can be left to the next Mayor/CEO.)

But it's not all glumness!

No, there is hope!

Okay, I'm not exactly sure what that hope is, where it's coming from or what it consists of, but you know I'm an enormous fan of America in general, so I didn't want to end this rant on a bum note.

Although, with the elections coming up, maybe there is hope for the future.

Barack Obama's right out. With Al Gore strong-arming him, I don't think our Democratic candidate actually has any hope of pursuing a practical solution to the energy crisis.

John McCain's a much stronger proposition. He actually understands the energy crisis and believes in climate change (meaning, unlike most idiotic Republican politicians, he's looking beyond 'drillin' fer more oil, yuck yuck.')

He's actually looking at practical solutions to the energy problem. Like building 150 more nuclear power stations (to the ire of both the lunatic left and retarded right, who want airy-fairy windfarms or more coal and oil power plants respectively.)

John McCain is enough of a maverick to resist the idiots within his own party and the more verbose villains in the environmental movement. He's practical enough to look at both the long term and short term when it comes to finding a solution to the energy crisis.

Maybe - just maybe - there's hope for us yet.

But as for our 'local' problems - like the ropey wiring and precarious telegraph poles?

Well, maybe it's time to just chalk that down as an 'American idiosyncrasy' and stop worrying about it. After all, what's a brownout every now and then?

Nuclear Family

America has a problem.

Despite being the nation that put the first man on the moon and pioneered the technology behind the Perfect Pancake Maker, compared to most European countries, American infrastructure is pretty pathetic.

Take, for example, the power-cut that crippled the North East back in 2003. That was all caused by a single branch falling into a single power station somewhere near Canada.

Even today, places like California commonly suffer 'brown outs' as the beleaguered power plants struggle to supply all the juice needed to run millions of air conditioners and televisions. In my home, I find it slightly scary that plugging in a hairdryer causes all the lights to dim!

Money that's wasted on foreign wars, bridges to nowhere and shadowy foreign internment camps could be much better spent fixing the wiring and bringing America up to the standards of the 21st century. We're the world's greatest superpower - surely there's no excuse for people in the suburbs of Los Angeles not having electricity!

One excellent suggestion that John McCain is advocating involves building another 45 nuclear power stations.

It's not rocket science [Actually, it pretty much is - Editorial Bear]. Nuclear power is safe, clean, cheap and efficient. Yet because of bad press and the legacy of Chernobyl, people in America shy away from the concept and prefer to rely on dirty old coal power plants (compare coal-mining deaths to the casualties of Chernobyl and it's pretty clear which is safer.)

In fact, America hasn't built a nuclear power station for thirty years - and John McCain admits that the major hurdle in building new power plants will be the fact that the technology and expertise has largely been lost!

That in itself reveals something scary - that to some extents, America is in the midst of a technological 'dark ages.'

Places like France have proven that nuclear power is effective and efficient in delivering a nation's energy needs. What's more, switching just 1/5th of America's power from coal to nuclear would save the entire world from carbon emissions equivalent to every single automobile in the United States.

Environmentalists claim the key to overcoming the energy crisis is to embrace new technology. A little research reveals that, in fact, the technology doesn't even need to be that new.