<Revisiting the EU Energy Plan - and its coverage.The Oil DrumIs the World's Biggest Machine Breaking Down?>
<DrumBeat: January 13, 2007DrumBeatDrumBeat: January 15, 2007>

177 comments on DrumBeat: January 14, 2007

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Boof on January 14, 2007 - 9:51am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Re nimbyism and slow uptake of nuclear in the West. This is going to hit the middle classes like a lump of 2X4. For the moment the Anglosphere can't think any further ahead than what the Beckhams are up to. Meanwhile China is tying up deals for uranium and other resources. More importantly they have the jump on the reactor building program AND are going into renewables. One day the West will suddenly notice it has been left behind.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Marco on January 14, 2007 - 10:23am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I'm with yo 100%. I live in the u.k (Scottish) and am quite frankly embarressed about which issues our media chooses to focus on. The amount of Wind farms that have been rejected at various planning stages because of NIMBYism and twitchers is horrifying. "It [new wind farm] will kill 1 lessrer spotter mergander a year". Who will really be twitching once climate change sets in and we lose many species of bird? (REF: TWITCHER - UK colloquial for birdwatcher). The London estuary windfarm which could provide enough electriciy for 1/5th of Londons' population is again stuck due to some protest. Ironically Londons biggest long term worry in terms of global warming is it's Thames barrier flood defence.

Marco.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
NeverLNG on January 14, 2007 - 11:46am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Well, at some point, everyone is a NIMBY. Do you want an industrial pig farm adjoining your back yard? Or a brothel in the flat next to you?

True, some people do carry it to extremes.

I can tell you that we were all glad when the Trojan nuclear plant was dismantled up river from us -- and we aren't happy about all the decommissioned reactors that go even further up river to Hanford -- which as we speak, is leaking radioactive crap into the ground water in the plateau above the Columbia River.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Marco on January 14, 2007 - 1:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Governments and commerce will never be able to please everbody and I'm afraid that this is an issue where the mass must benefit. The number of people protesting here in the U.K rural areas where all of the proposed wind farms will go is relatively small. We are talking very sparsely populated area.

So you ask yourself the question: do you forgo the benfit to tens and hundreds of thousands of people because less than a hudred people can see the turbine or are dangerously close to a reactor?

The answer is no. You have to benifit the many at the expense of the few. Tough. Politics has been like this for thousands of years.

To address your first question - well, we live in a capitalist democratic society where we our only interested in out own advancement - it's every man for himself. Yes we are all NIMBY's but if it's not happening to me, I don't give a S**T. Move house. We have a choice.

Marco.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
NeverLNG on January 14, 2007 - 7:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The answer to your rhetorical question is "YES".

No rational person will give up what his his for the "benefit of the many". That notion died with Communism. There may be some sort of free market exchange. But to forcibly take from the few to "benefit" the many is coercion. It is fascist, and un-American

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Freddy Hutter on January 14, 2007 - 8:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I luv listening to americans that knock communism while their agriculture system and its subsidies have been the WTO's greatest battle for a generation.

The socialists reign. And btw real farmers live in Brazil ... not on subsidies: http://trendlines.ca/#Brazil

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
NeverLNG on January 14, 2007 - 10:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I'm not a farmer.

I live on subsidized, taxpayer coerced medical insurance money. Not my choice.

You're right. America is a socialist paradise. For the corporate socialists, that is. Used to be, that was called "facism."

Main beneficiaries? Halliburton, ConAgra, Raytheon -- so many more.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
JeffreyET on January 17, 2007 - 7:58am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Are you aware of the Eminent Domain issue that has been quietly simmering in the USA the last few years?
The crux of the issue is that the Supreme Court has upheld the right of local governments to condemn and sieze private property not only for public good, but for PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT. The tenuous argument is that higher-end development will suck more tax dollars into city hall than modest 45 year old homes, and therefore it is "public good".
The whole concept utterly sucks, and of course this is another issue that the NSM does its best to keep off the radar screen.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
NeverLNG on January 14, 2007 - 11:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Looks like they will also have all the cash, all the industrial capacity, and a giant pool of slave labor.

Future looks bright if you are upper class Chinese.

Except, what are they going to breathe?

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
pickyreader on January 14, 2007 - 12:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Morpheus: "You think that's air you're breathing?"

Neo: !

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.