 Not long ago, you could have been forgiven
for thinking that nuclear technology was on its way out.
After
major disasters such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl,
officials were sizing up the nails for the industry’s coffin. But
it would seem that nuclear power wasn’t dead – just
resting. And in Asia it has been experiencing something of
a renaissance.
Now with climate change emerging as a matter for urgent
attention, nukes are getting a new look-in in countries which
had, until recently, shunned
the atom in favour of oil, gas and coal. ‘Nuclear is the new black,’ remarked
my friend Ell in exasperation at pronouncements from some prominent environmentalists
who’ve swallowed the climate-friendly hype coming from the industry.
And hype is just what it is. As anti-nuclear campaigners
often say, the industry is ‘all subsidies, no substance’. Its climate claims
are equally full of hot air. Meanwhile, all this talk of a new nuclear
dawn is just holding us back. Nuclear’s had its chance (remember
those promises of ‘electricity too cheap to metre’?). The nuclear
power station – big, expensive, corporate, toxic and wasteful – is
a perfect symbol of the kind of blinkered development model we have been
pursuing. And now with the race towards fusion, it seems we are still blindly
following this destructive path. It’s time to change the way we think
about power – literally and politically.
As the anti-nuclear movement folks would say: ‘Nuclear Energy?
No Thanks!’ |
