The cost of being on-line

[Peter Korsten]

Op 24-6-2011 15:06, Romain / rXg schreef:

> What is worse for you Nuclear or Charcoal Energy�?

Coal, without a doubt. The problem with nuclear energy is first and 
foremost the image. In the fifties, nuclear was magic, and good. Then 
people started to get a bit concerned about nuclear war.

And then came Three Mile Island, just a week after the film 'The China 
Syndrome' came out. This didn't do a lot of good for the image of 
nuclear energy.

Then came Chernobyl. This killed nuclear energy in quite a few western 
countries, even though the causes of that disaster were (a) a stupid 
reactor design and (b) gross disregard of procedures.

It took a good 20 years for the issue of nuclear power to make it back 
to the political agenda, and another five for a majority of the 
population to warm to it again.

And then we got Fukushima. As a result, the German government quickly 
followed popular opinion and killed nuclear energy, whilst in Italy it 
was the population in a referendum. Switzerland is going to get rid of 
it as well.

All very well, but that makes these countries hugely dependent on 
either, or both, of two things: electricity from fossil fuels, and -oh 
irony- nuclear power from France.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a 
Pyrrhic victory for the environmentalists. Fossil power will kill far 
more people than nuclear power ever has, or will. We're talking about an 
order of difference here. Not just because of long diseases, but also 
unstable weather, storms, floods, the lot.

I believe that, in the long run, nuclear power is not sustainable, 
unless the nuclear fusion project in France should all of a sudden will 
solve all our problems.

Also, solar, wind and wave energy cannot at present, and will never in 
the future, replace power stations that can deliver a base load. We will 
still need some form of power station that can deliver exactly the load 
that we require. You can't tell the wind to blow harder.

Apart from that, we'll need to drastically decrease our energy 
consumption. Has anybody ever made an attempt at what the carbon 
footprint of a performance is? So announcing it via the social media, 
you getting there, the audience getting there, the power required for 
lighting and sound... If you're serious about the environment, you would 
have to do that exercise, too.

Technology can both make and break this. All these super-fast networks 
use electricity, but if that means that we don't all travel to work in 
our cars or on trains, will that have a positive net effect?

Whatever the outcome, I think that in the future, we'll have to get used 
to not be able to do the things we now take for granted. Flying a bunch 
of Europeans to New Jersey, for example. Or to Malta, for that matter. 
Or have our personal motorised mode of transportation.

To put things in perspective: my aim is to acquire a highly 
irresponsible and not exactly environmentally friendly hot hatch. I'd 
like to have a bit of fun before my eyesight gives out. Yes, I'm a bad 
person. :)

- Peter