If you are in Blackpool: how was it for you? I have to tell you, when you get to my age, it is not often that the earth moves for you. The minor earthquake that shook a few local buildings last night, cracked a road, knocked over some traffic lights and put the future of an already frail bridge into question, was quite unexpected. Which is the whole point about earthquakes: nobody knows when they are coming or what will be their magnitude. Thankfully, I wasn’t doing anything with a rod at the time, nuclear or otherwise. Chance would be a fine thing!
I don’t think anybody doubts nuclear power stations can be built to withstand severe earthquakes, and our one of 2.2 on the Richter Scale is hardly worth a mention, but it is when that unexpected factor comes into play that I get nervous about going nuclear. What is unexpected? Well, that is the crux of the matter, isn’t it? We just don’t know.
We do know the planet is long overdue for a hit by a sizeable projectile from space; these events happen regularly, but over an enormous timescale. We also know a huge lump of rock, about the size of the Isle of Man, is threatening to break off the volcanic island of La Palma, falling into deep seawater. Should it do so, it is arguable the resulting tsunami will make the recent one hitting Japan seem as nothing. These are just two events that could affect us drastically, and they could happen tomorrow – or not for another hundred thousand years. Nobody knows when, but just like earthquakes, they are expected to happen at some future date with unpredictable damage resulting. So too, we have to expect terrorist activity being successful at a future unknown date. Successful terrorist attacks, by their very nature, always contain an element of the unexpected. To its credit, the western world has learned how to counteract a lot of terrorism, but only a fool would say a hit of cataclysmic proportions was now impossible.
The catastrophes I’ve mentioned, and there are many more I could mention, will be hard enough to deal with on their own, and we do know they will happen one day, so why would we want the possibility of a resultant nuclear disaster added to them? Remember, how safe we are today will only be known tomorrow. Testing atomic bombs, top experts of their time, the best brains in the world, had people walking around unprotected against nuclear fallout. Who is there to say we are not equally as ignorant about something today? In truth, it can only be the people of tomorrow.
I don’t like second-guessing. There’s always a fifty-fifty chance of being wrong!
The commonly talked about alternatives to nuclear power can be expensive (not that nuclear isn’t!), often annoying, and some notoriously unreliable. However, none of them threaten such devastating results should that unexpected tragedy, that thing that eluded the boffins, actually happen. Like being hit by the No. 7 bus, some people are happy to believe it will never happen to them; such things only happen to other people. Tell that to Japan!
Modern technology has already discovered safe and real answers to our power problems, they lie within our grasp, but involving costly changes to every home in the land, the price of them is said to be prohibitive. Prohibitive? What value do we put on the lives of our grandchildren? Do we really equate that in monetary terms?
Sadly, today everything relies on how it affects the pound in the rich man’s pocket, even our politics. If it doesn’t have a handsome return, it won’t happen. So while we will bail out banks to the tune of hundreds of billions, allow the ridiculous wages and bonuses to be paid to the already indecently rich, make scathing cuts leaving the working class jobless, and let the power companies increase their prices to make immoral profits, we will never fund a national project to protect our grandchildren by saving on our energy requirements. Yes, you can do it on your own to some extent, saving up to 40% if you’re lucky, but only if you are rich enough. Meaningful energy saving is beyond the reach of the everyday man and woman in the street. The best they can do is turn off a light and not leave the television in standby, only to find the energy they’ve saved has meant the price per unit on their bill has increased dramatically because the power company still needs to make that profit, and they’ve used less!
Money makes the world go round. Yes, I guess the earth moves with a regularity for some people!
Ding-ding! Is that the No. 7 bus I hear?
