Melseke column: 2011

2011

The German Government has decided to temporarily shut down 7 nuclear power stations built before 1980 and investigate into the ’safety’ of all stations during a moratorium of 3 months. A survey in Germany says that 84 percent of the German population wants to get out of nuclear energy asap. But the Dutch government, in all its wisdom, is planning to build a new nuclear power station starting 2015. Even when all requirements are theoretically met and risk analysis for design and for operation show no deficits, when contingency planning is properly done and crisis management is in place, even then ’safety’ is a term that speaks of an appalling, naïve and irresponsible belief of leading politicians in the infallibility of the human capacity, the infallibility of technique and the predictability of nature. And even when theoretic risk models have an outcome of once in a million year, that once in a million year could be tomorrow. The question should not be if our nuclear power plants are ’safe’. The question should be if we are willing to accept the ultimate consequence, if we are willing to accept the chance of the apocalypse.

MELSEKE

PS
Many ‘green’ alternatives are available and could have been in place if successive governments since the oil crisis of 1973 had spent time on managing our future.

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