nuLabour greenwash wearing very thin

[Bernie Gunther]

The cynical nuLabour greenwash is wearing very thin.

Most recently we have Government legal challenge to allow UK to pollute more under EU climate scheme

We also have Blair's born-again nuclear enthusiasm and shameless arse-licking of the Bush regime on climate change policy

nuLabour now has zero credibility on these issues as far as I'm concerned.

I think it was just another pack of lies designed to secure a few more votes.

 

[chooch]

I think it was just another pack of lies designed to secure a few more votes.

But Tony said they have put the environment at the heart of government. Tony said. He said.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Yeah well, Tony said a lot of stuff, but most of it was lying bullshit wasn't it?

 

[chooch]

I had the misfortune to see his big environment speech a while back when they launched that energy policy that's been lost behind the sofa. It was quite something.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

This greenwash shit really pisses me off. Anyone would think they're taking some sort of effective action on climate change and other deadly serious environmental issues. In practice though, they're just finding new revenue streams for big corporations and pretending it's some kind of effective action.

 

[greenbrain]

There was something in the Guardian today or yesterday about changes in the support for renewable energy which could shaft solar power and other renewable technologies. Suppose it's just co-incidental that nuclear power is being pushed at the same time ?!

The Labour government have got so bad on this issue that even the Tories are able to portray themselves as being greener.

 

[FreddyB]

I picked a guy up from the airport in my cab on wednesday who builds powerstations.

Had a chat with him about renewable energy sources and the way he sees things going and he essentially reckons that environmental concerns are going out of the window fast.

He predicted we'll be going back to coal fired stations and nuclear in a big way because of the rise in gas prices and a lack of political will to do anything else.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well, there is an argument for nuclear as a bridge fuel, but it's a pretty marginal one. The argument you'll hear from nuLabour that it's "clean, cheap energy" relies on leaving out a whole pile of costs and environmental impacts.

 

[Crispy]

Didn't I read somewhere that for the price of a bunch of nuclear power stations, you could install passive solar and PVs on every house roof in the country and actually generate more energy? Something like that.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Didn't I read somewhere that for the price of a bunch of nuclear power stations, you could install passive solar and PVs on every house roof in the country and actually generate more energy? Something like that.

I'd have to do the maths to be sure but I wouldn't be a bit surprised. The reason you won't see it funded by nuLabour though I suspect, is that most kinds of local energy self-sufficiency, cut several influential corporate interest groups off from large chunks of their revenue streams.

 

[Matt S]

This might interest people looking at the renewable/nuclear argument.

http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/publications/PubSmallOrAtomic/

Matt

 

[Crispy]

I'd have to do the maths to be sure but I wouldn't be a bit surprised. The reason you won't see it funded by nuLabour though I suspect, is that most kinds of local energy self-sufficiency, cut several influential corporate interest groups off from large chunks of their revenue streams.

Absolutely. Heaven forbid that this (or indeed any modern capitalist) government would ever take power from corporations and give it to the people. That's not the function of the state!

 

[Bernie Gunther]

This might interest people looking at the renewable/nuclear argument.

http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/publications/PubSmallOrAtomic/

Matt

Interesting stuff. Thanks Matt.

Here's a source on nuclear energy that doesn't hide or ignore everything but the operation of the plant itself (as most pro-nuclear studies tend to do)

Van Leeuwen: Nuclear Power Primer

 

[Crispy]

This might interest people looking at the renewable/nuclear argument.

http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/publications/PubSmallOrAtomic/

Matt

That was the one I read
I think one of the most important benefits of local power generation is the sense of ownership and responsibility it gives. If, for example, there's a meter on the front of your CHP boiler with a marking that reads "this is all the power you actually need" then it becomes much more obvious how much energy you use and waste. If it can be seen as 'keeping up with the Joneses' to save and generate energy, we're on to a winner.

 

[Crispy]

Interesting stuff. Thanks Matt.

Here's a source on nuclear energy that doesn't hide or ignore everything but the operation of the plant itself (as most pro-nuclear studies tend to do)

Van Leeuwen: Nuclear Power Primer

Another good link, but this bit irritates me:

Assuming that the lifetime costs of the nuclear park are three times the initial construction costs, a PV system (current technology) with a production rate of at least 70 EJ/a could be built for the same costs.

I'd like to see facts replace that assumption. I hope that's possible.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Another good link, but this bit irritates me:



I'd like to see facts replace that assumption. I hope that's possible.

He's given a much more detailed review of the lifetime costs for a nuclear power plant here (pdf!) derived by approximating from historical sources, using a variety of approaches in order to have several results to cross-check with each other.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Meanwhile, on the other side of the nuclear fuel cycle, Blair seems intent on spending tens of billions on dangerous, useless (but extremely profitable if you make them) nuclear weapons, without giving parliament any opportunity for debate the matter. He wants to sell Sellafield to fucking Halliburton or Fluor. He's changed his mind about climate change and thinks "technology" (guess which kind?) is the answer, not renewables or cuts in energy consumption. He's consistently been in favour of GM organisms, despite the clear opposition of the majority. He even hired Monsanto's former spin doctor to replace Aleister Campbell.

Who the fuck does this lying cynical corporate lackey think he's fooling?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The nuclear industry is rubbing its hands with glee at the prospect.

"Nuclear power is in the ascendancy worldwide," says Ian Hore-Lacy of the World Nuclear Association (WNA), which promotes nuclear power as a sustainable energy resource.

With scientists' warnings about global warming increasing the pressure on rich nations to cut carbon dioxide emissions, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has pledged a review of the country's climate change commitments, which he says must include looking at the nuclear option.

<snip> Hore-Lacy says it is not hard to envisage nuclear reactors providing 50 percent of world electricity by 2050.

source

 

[greenbrain]

I remember nuclear industry propaganda from the sixties which stated that that would be true by about 1990 - its the same old story.

Of course, if energy use was brought down to a fraction of its current level it might be possible.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The whole "nuclear power will save us" thing is one big scam. Here's a pretty good summary of why that's so, from the Australian Friends of the Earth site.

Nuclear Power: No Solution to Climate Change (pdf!)

 

[Rob Ray]

The really disturbing thing is this all goes alongside two other factors.

1. Russia is emerging as the favourite contender to provide land for international nuclear waste dumping, despite an appalling record in both handling and protecting their own nuclear waste/weaponry/reactors.

2. Blair himself is helping to push through privatisation of our own waste handling business, most likely to US contractors. We did an investigation for this in an edition of Freedom earlier this year, and discovered that of the five major bidders, three had been punished for lack of care with hazardous materials in the last couple of years, one has just left administration and had a work backlog of $4bn and the last one had no expertise in the subject whatsoever.

Oh yeah, and the rules as laid out by the government so far say that the bosses won't be held responsible for any leaks/shoddy work. As they live in the US, this presumably means they their only motivation will be to spend as little of their (fixed) contracts as possible on making sure disposal is done properly.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I think an interesting test of the validity of the nuclear industry/nuLabour PR claims would be to try to get a quote for liability insurance on, say Sellafield.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The really disturbing thing is this all goes alongside two other factors.

1. Russia is emerging as the favourite contender to provide land for international nuclear waste dumping, despite an appalling record in both handling and protecting their own nuclear waste/weaponry/reactors.

2. Blair himself is helping to push through privatisation of our own waste handling business, most likely to US contractors. We did an investigation for this in an edition of Freedom earlier this year, and discovered that of the five major bidders, three had been punished for lack of care with hazardous materials in the last couple of years, one has just left administration and had a work backlog of $4bn and the last one had no expertise in the subject whatsoever.

Oh yeah, and the rules as laid out by the government so far say that the bosses won't be held responsible for any leaks/shoddy work. As they live in the US, this presumably means they their only motivation will be to spend as little of their (fixed) contracts as possible on making sure disposal is done properly.

Maybe it's time for a re-run of Edge of Darkness ...

Perhaps though, nuLabour and their sinister friends in the nuclear industry are going to arrange for us all to be living it instead of just merely watching it?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well, well. While I'm not quite sure I buy the spectacle of Monbiot calling someone else a sell-out, he's written a rather savage attack on Sir David King and I think some of his arguments might have some merit.

Last month he was attacked again, and this time he deserved it. At a meeting of climate change specialists, King announced that a "reasonable" target for stabilising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 550 parts of the gas per million parts of air. It would be "politically unrealistic", he said, to demand anything lower.

Simon Retallack, from the Institute for Public Policy Research, reminded King what his job was. As chief scientist, his duty is not to represent political reality - there are plenty of advisers schooled in that art - but to represent scientific reality.<snip>

King replied that if he recommended a lower limit, he would lose credibility with the government. As far as I was concerned, his credibility had just disappeared without trace. By shielding his masters from uncomfortable realities, he is failing in his duties as both scientist and adviser. Anyone who has studied the BSE crisis knows how dangerous the cowardice of scientific counsellors can be.

As if to prove that his nerve has gone, on Friday King made his clearest statement yet that he sees nuclear power as the answer to climate change.<snip>

A memo sent by Blair's private secretary, Ivan Rogers, a month after King's article was published in Science, instructed him to stop criticising the Bush administration on the grounds that it "does not help us achieve our wider policy aims". Mock interviews King conducted with his political minders, which were found by a journalist on a disk dropped by his press secretary, show him learning to recite the government's line.

source

It's not just BSE that shows the dangers of government scientific advisors being leant on by politicians to compromise reality with spin, the process is rather analogous to that by which they made the case for Iraq having WMD.

Anyone who doesn't fall in with the programme gets excluded, bullied or undermined. So the advice the politicians receive, becomes what they want to hear. Dr David Kelly could tell us where that leads, if he were still around.

It is clearly not in the public interest for the government chief scientist to start going wobbly when he's getting pushed around by these cynical, irresponsible corporate lackeys. We need him to be doing his job, which is to stand up for science.

I very much hope that the scientific community steps forward to encourage Sir David to stand up to his political masters and to support him in doing so.

 

[aurora green]

...

I very much hope that the scientific community steps forward to encourage Sir David to stand up to his political masters and to support him in doing so.

Yeah well, lets hope so.
What motivates a chief scientist to value credibility with the government over credibility with their own peers, I wonder?

 

[aurora green]

It was the time of the preacher when the story began.
Of the choice of a lady and the love of a man.
How he loved her so dearly, he went out of his mind.
When she left him for someone, she'd left behind.

An' he cried like a baby;
He screamed like a panther in the middle of the night.
An' he saddled his pony,
An he went for a ride.

It was the time of the preacher in the year of 01.
Now the preachin' is over and the lesson's begun.

Instrumental close.

PART TWO:

But he could not forgive her,
Though he tried and tried and tried.
And the halls of his memories,
Still echo her lies.

He cried like a baby;
He screamed like a panther in the middle of the night.
An' he saddled his pony,
An he went for a ride.

It was the time of the preacher in the year of 01.
Now the lesson is over and the killin's begun.

PART THREE:

It was the time of the preacher in the year of 01.
An' just when you think it's all over, it's only begun.

(apologies to get all JC2, but Edge of Darkness was a truely brilliant price of television).

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The really disturbing thing is this all goes alongside two other factors.

1. Russia is emerging as the favourite contender to provide land for international nuclear waste dumping, despite an appalling record in both handling and protecting their own nuclear waste/weaponry/reactors.

2. Blair himself is helping to push through privatisation of our own waste handling business, most likely to US contractors. We did an investigation for this in an edition of Freedom earlier this year, and discovered that of the five major bidders, three had been punished for lack of care with hazardous materials in the last couple of years, one has just left administration and had a work backlog of $4bn and the last one had no expertise in the subject whatsoever.

Oh yeah, and the rules as laid out by the government so far say that the bosses won't be held responsible for any leaks/shoddy work. As they live in the US, this presumably means they their only motivation will be to spend as little of their (fixed) contracts as possible on making sure disposal is done properly.

As I was saying earlier in this thread, and as Monbiot has mentioned in today's article attacking Sir David King for going native and forgetting to stand up for the science, it would be interesting to see them get a quote for liability insurance. Of course, that would completely screw their already fraudulent case for any of this being cost effective, so they'll just forget that little problem.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Yeah well, lets hope so.
What motivates a chief scientist to value credibility with the government over credibility with their own peers, I wonder?

He seems to have started going wobbly after he was hauled over the coals for that Science article.

A memo sent by Blair's private secretary, Ivan Rogers, a month after King's article was published in Science, instructed him to stop criticising the Bush administration on the grounds that it "does not help us achieve our wider policy aims". Mock interviews King conducted with his political minders, which were found by a journalist on a disk dropped by his press secretary, show him learning to recite the government's line. Could he have had his arm twisted over the nuclear issue too?

source

My guess he was put under a lot of pressure and threatened with exclusion and loss of any influence if he didn't learn to sing from the Blair hymn-book. That last bit Monbiot is saying is quite interesting. I wonder if these coaching sessions with "political minders" are going to get published anytime?

That's why I suggest that what he needs is the firm support of the scientific community, not simply rejection that would leave him with no other influence except as part of Blair's spin team. He seems like his heart is in the right place, but he also seems like he needs a bit of help to remember his real job.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

More nuLabour greenwash?

Every British motorist will soon be driving on petrol made from sugar beet and diesel made from oilseed rape as part of the Government's fight against climate change. <snip>

Replacing 5 per cent of Britain's standard road transport fuel consumption with biofuels is calculated to save a million tonnes of emissions annually, out of Britain's current total of 155mtC (million tonnes of carbon).

The Government is desperate for the saving because it is struggling to meet its much-promised commitment to cut British CO2 emissions back to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010 - a figure of 129mtC. On present trends, the Government will fall embarrassingly short of this target, and its prospective failure is undermining Tony Blair's status as a world leader on climate change.

source

Up to a point, this might do some good as a temporary measure. The subject is much more controversial than the report above makes out though.

The big problem with biofuels is that they don't make sense except when they're a by-product of something else you're already growing the crops for. Once you start trying to grow the crops purely for biofuels, you're competing with food crops for the available land and if you project out current demand for liquid fuels, you end up needing to grow unfeasible amounts of biomass to provide them by this method. The US figures imply anything between 60 and 90% of US land mass needed to grow enough.

Also the net energy balance for all the biofuels I know of is negative (you put more energy in than you get out) according to credible academic research not sponsored by agribusiness, but is claimed to be positive according to some research that is sponsored by agribusiness and heavily promoted by their trade associations. I think the latter are cooking the books, by ignoring some of the costs and issues with doing it on a mass scale.

Here's a quick summary of the case against biofuels and here's a link to one of the sceptical papers mentioned. pdf!

You can easily find plenty of industry sponsored articles and even whole web-sites asserting the contrary and dissing this research by typing "pimentel biofuels" into Google. Which of course raises the question, if this makes so much sense, why are trade associations spending so much PR money to attack research that they claim is wrong and to promote contrary research they paid for?