More Power to Nuclear Power
Sometimes idealism can make people a bit blind. Take the climate debate; everyone is in reasonable agreement that a little less CO2 in the air would do this globe a world of good. To achieve this it’s probably a good idea to turn off some of the machines that produce the stuff as a by-product of burning various fossil fuels. But some go further and claim that if we intend to take care of this large environmental problem called carbon dioxide, or CO2 for short, we might as well use the opportunity to tackle some smaller environmental problems too. They are completely and utterly wrong.
A representation of a CO2 molecule, scourge of humanity, disguised as a harmless toy. Such is the power of our enemy, that is has managed to spread its disgusting propaganda into most of our schools. We must search those schools and throw these imposters into the fire to show our enemy’s true face: Thick black smoke and the smell of burning plastic.
When you get right down to it, there really aren’t that many ways one can generate electricity. The most common way to do it, burning stuff, is part of a tradition that goes back all the way to the beginning of the human race, when our ancestors used fire for warmth. Nowadays instead of felling a tree and setting it alight in our living room, we pump oil out of the depths of the earth, burn it, use the warmth this generates to evaporate water which in turn drives a turbine connected to an electrical generator, transport the electricity hundreds of kilometres to its destination where it is converted back into heat using large resistors. Clearly, technology has made our lives much simpler.
A far more recent arrival on the energy market is wind energy, traditionally used in places where mechanical energy of some sort was need. However, with the invention of the steam engine and the realization that mechanical energy too could be extracted from the better understood process of burning stuff, wind energy fell out of grace. Recently however, it has been working on a comeback.
It will lie still, waiting, for as long as it needs to. It will come for you when you least expect it. It is a windmill, plotting its revenge.
In wind energy’s absence a new form of energy made its entrance; nuclear power or fission to be precise. Nuclear fission and humanity got off on a bad start. A period in which humanity slowly figured out that the nice glowing quality of radium actually meant it was a supremely unsuitable material for use in paints, toothpaste and food supplements made sure radioactivity was omitted in the top ten most popular physical processes of the day.
Three nuclear explosions, two detonated by America and one by Russia, didn’t help matters either. And then there is the matter of nuclear waste, which will continue to glow long after humanity’s last light bulb has been extinguished.
However, most of these arguments are already pretty old, and are ageing further at a rapid pace. We are getting better and better at storing nuclear waste, and newer reactors produce less and less of the stuff, where older reactors never produced a lot of it to begin with. Also, modern reactors don’t do a Chernobyl, but rather sabotage their own nuclear reaction when they overheat.
This is white smoke, it fights on the side of good in the epic battle for our atmosphere.
So nuclear power has already grown to be quite a mature piece of technology, with more progress on the horizon still. Meanwhile, in the atmosphere, CO2 molecules are joined by more and more of their brethren each year in their holy quest to drive humans of the face of the Earth. Facing this environmental problem already is extremely challenging without placing additional restrictions on possible solutions.
Yes, ‘green power’ has made a lot of progress as well, but it is by no means perfect. Nuclear power and various forms of ‘green’ electricity all have their strengths and weaknesses, and anyone claiming some of these beat others on all counts is lying plain and simple. Also it’s notoriously difficult to predict with any accuracy what new technologies the future will bring. Nuclear power and different forms of ‘green’ power all promise a bright future filled with breakthroughs. Which of these will become reality and which will turn out to be mirages is something only time can tell.
If there ever was a point at which ending nuclear research made sense, then it lies in the past. Killing nuclear power now isn’t good for anything and, more importantly, will needlessly make our attempts at finding a solution to our climate troubles even harder than it already is. Lets get through this climate crisis on normal difficulty first, then when the next crisis comes round we can try hard.