Back in 1979, a little movie called The China Syndrome scared the bejeesus out of people with it's depiction of an American nuclear plant on the verge of a meltdown...along the lines of what's going on on Japan right now. In the movies supposed near meltdown, the core would have melted into the earth, hitting groundwater & contaminating the surrounding area with radioactive steam. Doesn't sound very pleasant, does it?
I remember seeing this movie & not being very enthusiastic about all the nuke plants on the table at the time. But in the ensuing years I had begrudgingly become somewhat of a...not really a fan of nuclear energy, but a realist. Coal power plants are just...bad. Fouling the air, fouling the waters...just not good. Wind, solar, natural gas...good alternatives that we should be using as much as we can to supplement but can they really even put a dent in our energy needs? I'm not even going to mention oil.
But now let's talk about nukes. The bomb. The ones that we eradicated 2 cities with. This is our other use of nuclear fission...to blow stuff up to absolute unrecognizable smithereens. Some of us have it...and some of them don't. It's now known as a "nuclear deterrent." It's why we don't go smack North Korea around. It's why we play nice with Russia. It's supposedly why we invaded Iraq...although that turned out to be a crock of shit.
The 2 reasons why I have been thinking about the nuclear issue? Japan and.......Libya.
Japan is very dependent on nuclear energy, which is why they they are struggling so much now...not only to keep from having meltdowns but also in general trying to keep the radioactivity from contaminating the water they drink, the food they eat, and the air they breathe. We can't even imagine what these poor people are going through. And when are they going to have electricity again....next month...next year? I'm sure they tried really hard to make these plants safe, but who can plan on a monster earthquake & a giant tsunami? Not them, evidently...
And here's something interesting I learned today. Remember back in the 80's I think when Ghaddafi was being a real jerk...we though he was trying to build a nuclear arsenal & we had all the sanctions & stuff against him? Well a few years ago, he decided to forgo building nukes & we dropped the sanctions & he became one of our bestest buddies in the middle east. What a guy!
Here's the downside to that. When he gave up his nuke making abilities, he also lost his..."nuclear deterrent." Remember that? When people don't mess with you because they think you have nukes? When his own people finally got sick of his crap & revolted...we ended up HELPING THEM. Probably because of oil...perhaps because of our misguided attempt to make everybody everywhere a democracy...we are helping to put the smackdown on our former adversary turned bestie.
And guess who's watching this carefully? All the nations who we've been trying to get to give up their nukes. You think North Korea is not going...."see...this is what happens when you give up your "nuclear deterrent!" You haff no levrage! You lafifngstock!
So...in the space of about a month I am totally rethinking my stance on nukes. Bad energy...really bad bombs? Europe today is already reviewing all it's nuclear power plants...Germany totally is suspending construction. But what to do? Build more of these plants and hope for the best? I don't know what the answer is....
Fusion's the answer, the question is how to instigate it, stabilize it and harness it. But aside from that, UK's got a crapload of nuclear power plants. When we were in the UK, on the train ride from Market Rasen to Edinburgh, we saw a variety of six-packs of these things. Literally, six-packs. Six nuclear stack in close proximity in what's predominantly rural areas. It was almost unsettling, but then again the air was fairly clean and breathable in all the different areas we visited...
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