Pertinent questions...

Why are the Poms obsessed with sex?

I have a confession. I have a soft spot for British politics. This article reads like a storyline from the OC (which, as an aside, is clearly going to be as weird as possible until it whimpers its last – out of body experiences, gigolos, frogs and otters Brokeback Mountain style).
It’s certainly a refreshing change from trying to separate the parties in our country from each other. It can sometimes be like getting the bread from the freezer and trying to get a bit to put in the toaster. Economic rationalism still rules them both, thank god for the differing stance on industrial relations. So far, Rudd hasn’t snapped off into crumbly bits – I am only slightly worried about his overtly Christian stance.

Who are they trying to kid?

Another report commissioned by the industry with the most to lose from renewable energy advancement, and another article on the news.com site which throws any pretence of balanced reporting out the window.

Now, I don’t know enough about the subject for an objective comment. For one thing, I fumbled through three years of an electrical engineering degree and, as you can imagine, those people aren’t the most environmentally conscious about.
And on the other hand, my olds are my olds. Grass Roots magazines, Franklin Dams stickers, Steeleye Span (I’m not sure if that’s related, but there must be a link somewhere).
The new thing seems to be that there is general agreement that climate change is an issue which needs to be addressed (random flat-earthers aside). The difference in the camps now concerns the best way to address the issue.
The mining corporations and big business (read: those with most to lose) support tarting up coal generation, nuclear power and other big capital power projects. Most scientists, environmentalists (obviously) and, according to the polls, the general public seem to favour renewable power generation.

There are strong arguments on both side.

Or so they seem.

You really need to do your own research, and also ask yourself what people have to gain. I mean, when a person gives you an opinion on something, there is always a reason they feel that way.

My personal belief is based on the realisation that a corporation must put the profit motive above all others. They don’t have a choice – it’s the law. So when a corporately funded report supports nuclear and coal power, there must be a profit motive behind it.

And what is the major difference between nuclear and coal power, and renewable energy?
First let’s assume that cost is ignored: do some research – you’ll find out that the cost of developing renewables to a viable level is line ball with the capital costs of nuclear and clean coal technology.
Forget about the fact that renewable energy produces no waste: I don’t give a shit how “safe” we can make nuclear reactors – this diverts from the fact that renewable energy simply does not have this problem in the first place!
Ignore the “renewables cannot provide base load” – that argument is also bollocks. In some ways this is the case now – the first reason is the technology is not advanced enough (read point one). Another is that the assertion is wrong anyway – it’s being done in parts of Europe. And finally – the grid is set-up for single large source power generation, so replacing old power stations with new ones would be easy. Of course, a progressive replacement approach to the power grid could be taken to insert more localised generation capacity, and this leads straight to the real reason there is strong corporate support for the contents of these types of reports – nuclear energy in particular.

The major difference is that once you have a solar panel, or a wind turbine, you don’t have to pay anything for the juice to run it. How can the poor old miners make any money if they can’t sell someone yellowcake?

Holy crap. That was longer than I expected.

Anyway, that’s all for today.

Adios, amoebas.