Hmmm... Cumbria is on the SG News Wire - i never thought i'd see the day...

Scaremongering it maybe but the reality is, particularly at Sellafield there is a lot of radioactive waste being held above ground at drigg which wouldn't be too hard to hit even with a light-aircraft stolen from one of the many airfields within the county.

Oh well... but as i said in the UK Politics Group earlier we can't allow the threat of terrorism to bully us into making a decision regarding our future energy needs and if the Govt. decides not to use Nuclear it is because of the other complications that Nuclear energy brings with it and not because some nut-jobs want to fly air planes into the stations in the name of a fictional story.

The problem is that the uneducated or should I say uninformed only seem to understand scare tactics. Just look at empiror Bush's re-election and all speeches since...
You are right, Yushi, there are far better was to arue against nuclear facilities.

Well it's nasty scare tactics to be honest. Though Sellafield is a hideous polluting scar on the the world, that not only affects the UK but Ireland and possibly the rest of Europe.
Judging by the severe lapses in security, standards, quality and overall managment....I'm surprised Greenpeace has to resort to such blatant scaremongering tactics to come up with arguments against nuclear power...

Don't take this as flaming, cause it's not intended to be. Just my 2 cents.

My dad has worked in, with and around nearly all types of power plants (fossil, nuke, hydro, etc..) since the mid-70s, and I've worked in a few gas-powered myself. I've also toured a few nuke plants in the past (Brown's Ferry in Athens, Alabama, for instance) and I don't think it's fair to give such a bad rap to nuclear power. Yes, it does generate extremely harmful byproducts, but so does driving your car. The majority of nuke plants have beefed up security (I'm speaking only of plants in the states. I've never been out of the country) and it's not uncommon to see guards armed with assault rifles at the gates. I will agree that, from what I've just read about this plant in question, they need to seriously reinforce the structure, or just shut it down. But, given most alternatives (coal, natural gas, etc..) nuclear power is one of the best options we have to control pollution. I realize you also have wind and hydro, but neither has been implemented enough (again, talking stateside) to support demand.

Ok, so that's it for my longest comment ever. Hope I haven't pissed anyone off.

I don’t know. The worry of a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant seems to be a reasonable rationale for scrapping all the nuclear programs on the planet.

I mean...I remember in the 80’s when bottles of Tylenol were tampered with and caused a number of deaths. I was in favor of removing all over the counter medicines from the U.S.



Come on people...even Stewart Brand has reversed his stance on nuclear power. Granted, it creates some horrible waste – the disposition of which needs to be addressed. But, we will figure that out soon enough. If we can learn to control fusion, even the existing waste won’t be an issue.

P.S. You do all realize that every oil refinery in the U.S. contains gargantuan vats of Hydrofluoric acid (amongst innumerable other chemicals) which, if released into the atmosphere, will kill anyone it touches within 50 miles downwind before they could run to their cars...right? Besides all that greenhouse gas stuff.

am I the only one here who thinks that Nuclear plants should be equipped with SAM (Surface-to-Air missiles) just in case ?? After 9/11, US army set-up SAM around the Washingon DC area just in case there were follow up attacks ...
I mean let's face it if somebody does hijack a plane to crash into a nuclear plant , what can the guards on the ground do ?

Actually, French nuclear sites are protected in a similar manor... we just use road cones.

Actually, it hasn't. The Independant is the only main newspaper in the UK running with this one, and in the last 24 hours, there's only five items on Google News for this story.

Just so your aware, Sellafield isnt a Nuclear Power Plant these days, you may not realise its now a Nuclear Decomissioning site. It deals with storing Nuclear Products in a safe fashion... if i remember rightly.

My father has been working there for about 25 years, i've worked there too in the systems support section on the New Term Work plan for the site.

When the terrorist activity was about i remember people worrying about Sellafield being a target and i laughed asking when would people bomb Cumbria, you'd just be killing sheep mainly.

There's only so much you can do to try and stop certain things happening, i dont think suggesting we stop using Nuclear Power is a relevant one however.

[Edited on Jan 14, 2006 2:12PM]

In response to what xgenehawk said regarding SAMs: it's just not feasible. There are entirely too many nuke plants around. The gummint would choke if they saw the cost of equipment, maintenance, and monitoring for every single plant. It would be a great idea if there were fewer sites to guard. If I remember right, the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) has seen to it that every nuke plant in the country can take a direct hit from a 747 and maintain core stability. So setting up SAMs would be a waste, as a plane-turned-missile will essentially only ruin the paintjob.

I love the fact that people insist on Giving terrorist more and more ideas........

"Hey come blow up something by me".......

Oh u don't know how...... Here watch a video on it

agreed

You don't have to give these punks ideas. You'd be surprised to find that a lot of those terrorists carry PHD's.

Is there a viable form of energy production that Greenpeace actually advocates?

The no fly zones round uk nuclear facilities should in theory prevent this kind of incident.


Anyone breaching a nuclear no fly zone will get a pair of tooled up F3's screaming after them.




As far as i know greanpeace dont have a clue what they want....

And nuclear power isnt quite as viable as people think, theres not a huge amount of usable fuel available. Its still considerably more realistic and practical than most of the other methods.