The hidden cost of Britain’s new generation of nuclear power could be the destruction of the Kalahari desert in Namibia and millions of tonnes of extra greenhouse gas emissions a year, the Observer has discovered.
Yes, that’s right.
We shouldn’t have nuclear power because mining uranium might “destroy a desert”.
Seriously? We should welcome the planting of windmills all over our green and pleasant land, flood our largest estuary, but digging holes in a desert is not to be allowed?
The UK has justified its planned expansion of nuclear power partly on the basis that it provides low-emission energy. However, the energy used in drilling, blasting, excavating, separating and transporting the uranium to Britain are not taken into account.
Depends whose figures you’re looking at matey. Looking at the entire life cycle (which is obviously the way to do these things) nuclear power has emissions a faction above hydro, about the same as onshore wind and one third of solar PV. Yes, including all those costs for all of the alternatives.
4 responses so far ↓
1 The Doctor // Nov 9, 2009 at 10:15 am
Honestly, the way the lentil-munchers talk about carbon emissions from power generation you’d think wind turbines grew from fucking seeds…
2 Brian, follower of Deornoth // Nov 9, 2009 at 11:33 am
Brilliant idea, Doctor. Of course, they’d be Genetically Modified Organisms. Are they allowed, or not allowed, this week?
3 FlatEric // Nov 9, 2009 at 3:46 pm
If they really cared about it, they might have bothered to find out that the desert the uranium mine is in, is not actually The Kalihari. But hey, it’s a unique priceless treasure, wherever and whatever the f*ck it is, right?
4 The Great Simpleton // Nov 9, 2009 at 8:29 pm
But surely its OK to damage that desert because when global warming kicks in we’ll have plenty of deserts to go round?
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