New Labour is a party of ideas and ideals but not of outdated ideology. ..... We see no economic case for the building of any new nuclear power stations.All part of Blair's concessions to the left-wing
So this little matter caused my eyebrows to raise...
BBC.
Strangely enough if anyone 10 years ago had asked me where Dungeness was I'd have hazarded a guess at Scotland. As it is it seems so strange to have people clamouring to have a nuclear power station in their back yard. Yes the jobs are certainly welcome and yes it is essential on top of Labours attempts to strangle at birth any attempt to build any power station that actually worked, now currently carried on by that idiot Chris Huhne in the coagulation.Hundreds of people have called on the coalition to reconsider a decision to rule out Dungeness as the site of a new nuclear power plant.The previous government dismissed Dungeness as a location for one of 10 new nuclear power stations in 2009.About 200 people gathered at the meeting in New Romney on Saturday, to pledge their support for a new plant.Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe Damian Collins vowed to take the issue right to the heart of government.He told the meeting he would take a petition signed by hundreds of residents supporting Dungeness to Downing Street on Tuesday.Mr Collins said thousands of jobs in Kent and East Sussex were dependent on the power plant.The meeting in New Romney was also attended by officials from the Department of Energy and Climate Change.Dungeness was rejected as an option for a new nuclear power station primarily on environmental grounds.It is in an area prone to flooding and the shingle beach which protects the current site from the sea often needs to be replenished.
How things have changed in the last 14 years, any attempt to build a new generation of nuclear plants would have been the cause of marches up and down the country, public enquiries and various attempts at sabotage by enviroloonies. Now staring into the abyss of power brown outs in the next few years nuclear power is the only guaranteed power source that can produce the necessary giga-wattage reliably and of low carbon that the green movement can stomach.
Hypocrisy writ large, though still not the quickest and cheapest way to stop the blackouts, but as that would bring the enviroloons out of the woodwork (google Kingsnorth) it does give me a wry smile to see the damascene conversion of the Green movement and the idiot left.
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Switzerland has 2 new French built nuclear power stations coming on line in 2013 which will make them self sufficient, so the French who supply them with electricity right now will be looking for a new market, not that they don't know exactly what is going on in the U.K. at the moment. As an ex-pat permanently residing in France I find it beyond belief that the various govts. of the U.K. have allowed the generating infrastructure to become so catastrophically depleted and I cannot understand how Huhne can be so stupid as to believe in wind generated energy as any sort of viable alternative. A new 3+ generation 12 gig reactor can be producing electricity to the National Grid in less than 4 years from start of construction and it will have an operational life of 60 years AND produce 24/7 a minimum of 13 times, (1.300%) more electricity than the new wind farm of the coast of Kent, for the price the govt. will pay in subsidies over it's 20 year operational life to the Sweedish company that built it, but hey, these greenies know nothing about the facts but everything to do with their own agendas when it comes to reasoned debate about the environment.
I don't think it's hypocritical QM - the people who want the power station are those who depend on it and live there. They're not the ones who would have protested against an upgrade - they know the reality that if the power station goes, so does their ability to pay their bills.
Similarly with the protests against the new "clean coal" plant at Kingsnorth. Many of the protesters were from out of the area, and seemed to be "professional" protesters. If they were local, why did they establish a "camp" near the station, and not just go home in the evenings?
If I lived near the station, I certainly wouldn't have greeted the protesters with open arms. The people who live near there tend to work at the plant, and like the residents of Dungeness on the other side of Kent, if the station closes they lose their jobs.
Looking at Wikipedia, it seems the station is to close in 2015 and the building of a replacement has been shelved. Still, there's always that wind farm off the North Kent Coast, maybe they're hiring? No?
Having seen this power station when I went for a ride on the R,H& D railway, I would certainly rather have a nuclear power station in the vicinity than a coal or oil fired station or even a few windmills. There is very little external activity other than staff going to work, no slag heaps, coal trains, dust in the air.
Yes, maybe there is some risk of a nuclear mishap, but I believe this to be minimal and decreasing all the time as design, construction and operating knowledge increases. Various terrorist scenarios are also mooted by the antis, but as the entire structure is virtually all reinforced concrete, even crashing a plane in a 9/11 type attack would be most unlikely to release any radioactivity.
I'm with the locals, it would provide work and is probably safer place to work than most.
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