Telegraph: Paul Newman - the nuclear secret he took to his grave
Paul Newman, who died recently, took a carefully guarded secret to his grave - something that would have disgraced him in Hollywood.
Did he have a secret mistress? (No, that wouldn't disgrace him.) Did he have a clandestine fleet of SUVs? (That's more like it.) Was he addicted to McDonald's hamburgers? No, Paul Newman was a closet but increasingly open supporter of nuclear power.
This is so bloody infuriating: a prominent environmentalist who listens with an open mind to the arguments and is gradually persuaded to turn pro-nuclear, but who feels he can't admit it because it will harm his charity interests. Climate change is the most important issue facing the planet, yet people who care passionately about the subject are being gagged by peer-pressure.
This planet really is fucked if we're not even allowed to mention our last, best hope.
For the record, I am pro-nuclear-power. (But you probably already knew that.)
I was brought up to be anti-nuclear power, but as I've weighed things up over the years I too have come to the conclusion that it's our best hope. There's nothing fouler than nuclear waste, but compared to the CO2 that we've spread over the entire globe it's incredibly well contained. Chernobyl was truely awful, but in the grand scheme of things its effects will probably prove to be insignificant compared to the damage done by the coal we've burnt.
Justin gets it, chaps.
'chap'...yes, that's what you are. Why not come out & publish a photo of you in plus-fours, holding a shot-gun!
Jen won't let me have a shotgun. Something about it upsetting the cat-owning neighbours. I'd have thought that was the whole point.
Coal ash is more radioactive then nuclear waste It's not just the acid rain and the greenhouse gas, it is the inadvertent concentration of naturally occuring radioactive elements in coal into the remaining fly ash that makes it more toxic than living outside a nuclear establishment (Chernyobel excepted !).
However there are naturally occuring rock formations like Radon gas in the South West which have even higher levels of naturally occuring radioactivity. Hasn't naturally occuring radioactivity had a part to play in evolution ?
Necessity is the mother of invention said a famous greek. By the time we really need the energy, someone will have found/perfected an alternative.