NZ Rejects Again Nuclear Energy

News out of Sydney is that Australia and the US are pushing nuclear energy as the way of the future and an absolute guarantee of energy production without carboniferous emissions. This is an eminently sensible policy and strategy and has the support of none other than James Lovelock the UK's celebrated greenie and originator of the Gaia hypothesis. His account is here.

New Zealand's political leadership has rejected again the nuclear option. We're not budging says Winston Peters.

What inhabits these people's minds? Perhaps we should quote from Lovelock himself:

"Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media"

"These fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Nearly one third of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen."

Readers will recall I have blogged on the nuclear option before. Recall again my advocacy for exploring advanced technology including the Pebble Bed Reactor being developed in South Africa and in China under license to German developed technology.

Minister for Disarmament Phil Goff says Nuclear power causes environmental concerns. Is the fact it was NZ's Disarmament Minister commenting proof the unreformed peaceniks at the top of the Labour tree still confuse nuclear power with nuclear weapons, 40 years after they first marched up Queen Street?

These people really need to get out more.

All first world economies are embracing nuclear power as a solution to power demand and the desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealand is alone in rejecting the option. Talk of embracing sustainable options is fallacious. We won't allow any more dams, wind power is hard to get going with nimby concerns and anyway it is ineffective when needed (demand curve seldom meets the windy day curve).

We are facing future energy shortages and Labour cannot get over their ideology.

Remember China kills about 4,000 coal miners a year - the nuclear power industry has killed no -one since Chernobyl. No options are risk free.