Germany has announced that it will phase out all of its nuclear reactors by 2022. This is a direct response to anti-nuclear protests in the wake of the Fukushima power plant disaster in Japan which was itself the result of a massive earthquake and tsunami, which are two things that don't occur Germany!
What I find so particularly piquant about this decision is, where the hell do they expect to get their energy from in ten years? Sorry, but wind and solar are far from being efficient enough to power an entire industrialized nation. I don't see those two sources being the answer in ten years. And the price of oil is not going to drop significantly in the next decade as it becomes scarcer and scarcer. Not to mention, you know, that everyone's supposed to be in a tizzy about carbon emissions and global warming, right?
Also, the panic over the (un)safety of nuclear power is unfounded. How many deaths have there been as a direct result of nuclear power production? Far far fewer than deaths resulting from coal mining and oil production, I would say.
Yes, nuclear power presents its problems. What do we do with the spent fuel rods, for one? But does the Germany government really think closing its nuclear plants isn't a giant step backwards?
No comments:
Post a Comment