Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Fukushima Radiation Risks and German Infantilism!

In early April I alerted my blog readers to the radiation risks in Europe from the Fukushima catastrophe, by a link to this report. The absence of further news since then has been deeply suspicious, now we have been informed that the dangers have been concealed and that the EU Ombudsman is to investigate, read here.

Alerting adults to existing dangers and comparative levels of risk, should be a prime responsibility of any democratic state! No wonder it is missing in the EU!

Germany's early  kneejerk reactions to shutdown certain old nuclear power plants were hardly the sign of a mature democracy at work. If the day before the shutdown the national regulatory agencies were functioning properly and the safety environment imposed by the state had previously been adequate, the events brought on by a Pacific Ocean tsunami, hardly seemed a proper reason for such an alarmist government decision. After all, the day after Fukushima, nothing had changed in the operating environment for German nuclear plants. Had France followed the German lead I imagine, this blog would have been largely silent over the past month or so.

Similarly the announcement by the German Coalition Government yesterday to shut all its nuclear power plants from 2022, linked here is similarly alarming.

This is the nation that presumes to run Europe. German electors, through the ruthless use of their economic power, will in the very near future, if the EU is not soon abandoned, be the only voters in Europe who have any say in how our Continent is run, yet their own elected politicians increasingly treat them as though they were unreasoning children!

Labels: ,

4 Comments:

Blogger Robert said...

I thought the reason the Germans were shutting down their nuclear plants was due to electoral pressure from the voters, particularly the green vote.

On the other hand the Germans appear to have built new coal fired power stations ( something we in the UK have failed to do)to maintain power generation. They will have to be capable of fitting carbon capture and storage at some time in the future. How they will make up the shortfall in energy supply is not actually spelt out.

Incidently the reports you link to report of an increase of iodine 131 which normally is non existant. This may be due to iodine 131 having a half life of 8 days.

9:19 AM  
Blogger Sir Henry Morgan said...

These Germans you talk about - are they really the GERMAN Germans we knew from the old days?

11:19 AM  
Blogger Sir Henry Morgan said...

People, that is, who you could respect even while hating their guts.

Changed a bit, hasn't it.

11:25 AM  
Blogger Martin said...

Well if the old Germans re-emerge when their power supplies are running low, perhaps best not to be a neighbour with too much generating capacity, eh Sir Henry?

Is it, perhaps, a cunning plan to let the French build all the nuclear power plants and give Germany first call in the name of solidarity? Or agree concessions for Polish power plants with exemptions from environment controls and also ship it to what "old Germans" would have called the Fatherland?

Either way, is power generation really going to be a problem for Germany in the EU while it is so adept at consolidating power under "Economic Governance"?

Read my book Millennium Blitzkrieg, it is all happening with a 2014 target date, just as I predicted when I wrote it 15 odd years ago. Copies can be still had on Amazon UK. Perhaps I should make it available digitally.

6:01 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home