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what exactly is "renewable" ???
Can you believe the
ignorant arrogance of these EC officials ?
NUCLEONICS WEEK - July 26, 2001
EC WANTS EXTERNALITIES
FACTORED
BUT NO BENEFITS GIVEN
NUCLEAR
The European Commission (EC) says the external costs of
electricity production technologies, as calculated in a recently
completed report, should be factored into decisions on technology
choice. But despite its low overall costs, the commissioners
do not believe nuclear power should be subsidized or
otherwise encouraged alongside more "renewable" energy
production technologies.
<SNIP>
Andrea Dahmen, spokeswoman for Research
Commissioner
Philippe Busquin, said that despite the calculated
low
external costs of nuclear energy, the EC had no
intention
whatsoever of allowing member states to subsidize
nuclear
power production or to otherwise "encourage" it.
"It’s not
renewable," she said, and thus doesn’t fit into
the February guidelines.
She said the guidelines are "basically" directed at encouraging
hydro, wind power production, and solar photovoltaics,
technologies which have a "very good chance of being
cheap."
....since when is ANY
energy source that depends on the nuclear fusion reactions of the Sun
"renewable" ?
Some time ago, B.L.
Cohen calculated that with nuke fuel reprocessing (never mind thorium use &
reprocessing) and U-extraction from seawater, nuclear energy is very much
comparable in long-term availability to the Sun's expected operating life of
some 4GY -- even assuming large energy consumption
increases....
How "renewable" will
hydro be during the next ice age, with reservoirs buried under a mile-thick
sheet of glacial ice ?
According to geologists,
we are overdue (geologic time scale) for another period of massive increase in
volcanic activity... how will photovoltaics fare in such a climate
?
Windmills may be cheap
without networks of transmission lines and backup power sources -- but do we
want the entire globe to be covered forests of concrete & steel towers and
maintenance access roads ?
Are these people on
drugs or something ?