Dear Foxy,

As far as I can make out, those French plants were temporarily shut down more as a precaution than because of anything actually going wrong. I don't know how many nuclear power stations there are in France, but I wouldn't be surprised - because of the extreme safety precautions necessary - if one or two of them were shut down temporarily at any time for servicing etc.

We're a hell of a long way down the track from crap power stations like Chernobyl with its first generation, 1950s, BS-socialist-style 'our-technology-is-naturally-superior-to-anything-in-the-capitalist-west' mentality. Can you cite any actual problems with the French reactors themselves ?

My hang-up with wind and solar technology is that the actual bits and pieces are manufactured using fossil fuels, so for all the con job about not producing CO2, they produced it before they were even up and running. I wouldn't even mind if they WERE produced using renewable energy, at least that would be honest, albeit somewhat more expensive. Prohibitively expensive. When wind towers and solar panels are produced using renewable energy, let me know.

Love,

Joe

Dear Bazz,

I'm of two minds on this subject.

Of course I realise that we have to get away from fossil
fuels but nuclear makes me nervous. Perhaps the final
result should be a combination of both? I'm not sure.
That's why it is good to have a debate such as this.
Where a variety of views can be heard and we all learn
something from each other. Having an open mind is crucial.

The following link is worth a read:

http://www.debatewise.org/debates/2499-energy-crisis-nuclear-vs-renewable-sources/

Dear Joe,

It certainly is a complex issue and there's so much
on the web that presents good arguments on both
sides:

http://theconversation.com/is-it-time-for-nuclear-energy-for-australia-16381

cont'd ...

More on the subject from Derek Abbott:

http://www.phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.html

http://www.ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6021978/

cont'd ...

Still having problems with the second link.
However look it up under title -
"Is nuclear power globally scalable?" by
Derek Abbott. His Conclusions are relevant.

Foxy, that was an interesting site.
However we are passing the point of discussing the matter.
By "we" I mean the nation as a whole.
If we do not make a decision in the next year or two we will probably
never build or complete one.
Some say it is too late already as the next economic crash will rob
us of the financial ability to finance a nuclear power station le alone several.

Some financial people are very concerned about this year. Some in
positions you would not expect say derivatives will spark of a crash
this year. Also HSBC bank has warned that peak oil is well behind us.

I hope the financial people are wrong because if they are right we
better turn our backyards into veggie gardens.
Just remembered that the permaculture movement has shown how a
suburban community could remove many of their fences and make
significant gardens at an economic scale.

Still hopefully it won't come to that but it is by no means certain.