Hidden fears over Britain's nuclear plants

This disturbing report, straight after Tony Blair gave his personal support to nuke power, has to put a further question mark against the idea.

the company does not know the extent of the damage to the reactor cores, cannot monitor their deteriora

In fact it reminds me of another set of reasons to be fearful. The disposal [read long-term storage, 'long-term' as in 250,000 years] of the spent fuel and related substances requires geological stability in low lying usually coastal regions. These are just the kinds of regions likely to be affected by flooding due to global warming. And in any case the effects of global warming on geology are difficult to determine but likely to be non trivial in at least some cases. Nukes are not a good idea in a time of climate change; the time-scales are huge and we just cannot know that there will be a safe storage for that long in a changing climate. Moral irresponsibility would be one word for it - well, two.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Documents reveal hidden fears over Britain's nuclear plants:
Filed in: nukes, power, UK, maintenance

Heat 'relieves internal pain'

I found this and thought it interesting:

Dr King found that if heat of more than 40C (104F) is applied to the skin near where internal pain is felt, it switches on heat receptors at the site of injury. These in turn block the body's ability to detect pain.

Partly because it demonstrates that sometimes 'folk' remedies have some sense in them [even if the mechanism is not understood or even misattributed as in a lot of qi/chi 'science' from the east] and it tells us a little more of how 'fearfully and wonderfully made we are. But awe aside, there are also really helpful practical things can flow from this which are of interest to all who care about human suffering.

Dr King hopes his discovery will lead to new pain-relief drugs that could reduce the need for opiates such as morphine.

Guardian Unlimited | Science | Heat 'relieves internal pain':
Filed in: pain, control, relief

Blair says Muslim leaders must do more

At first glance, I thought that Mr Blair was saying pretty much what I'd been saying at more than one point [you reading this Tony?]. Then I looked more carefully and realised, 'not quite'. Blair said:

Mr Blair said: "The government has its role to play in this, but the government alone cannot go and root out the extremism in these communities." He said there was an impression Muslim leaders sympathised with extremists' grievances, but disagreed with their methods.

Whereas I've been saying that the issue goes deeper than disagreeing with methods, it is whether those methods have 'canonical' status whereas many of these leaders seem to have been expressing what could be a merely tactical disagreement: that violence is 'counterproductive' rather than religiously outlawed.

I actually would say that I would fall foul of Blair's indictment here: I actually think that I have sympathy with the grievances; British/US foreign policy is a bad thing at the moment in relation to the things that concern the Muslim communities. I disagree with their methods. However, I disagree because I think not only that terrorism is counterproductive in the longer term and the bigger picture but also that violence is something God hates. However, that latter theological idea is not something you would naturally surmise from the Qur'an and Sunna the way you would from the Sermon on the Mount or the Noble Eightfold path, or even 'an it harm none ...'.

The real problem, I still contend is more deeply hermeneutical and theological. But in that respect, Blair has it right [though he clearly wasn't understanding it the way that I've just outlined].

Mr Blair insisted government alone could not root out extremism.

In fact, the ulema can't either unless there is an Islamic reformation that sanctions a renewed hermeneutic of the Sunna and Qur'an. The hopeful thing is that, the consensus of the Muslim community is clearly moving towards more humane interpretations and hermeneutics, however, those humane hermeneutics are not 'officially' sanctioned and so are fragile in institutional terms and liable to be trumped by more traditional hermeneutics. It is the latter that the extremists are mining for their approach. This is a crisis for Islam in the sense of it being a time of judgement but also of opportunity.... But what do I know? All I know really is that I want the humaane approaches I hear from Muslim colleagues to be the ones that are more authentically Muslim, but I fear that they are not [yet?!].

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Blair says Muslim leaders must do more:
Filed in: Islam, Islamists, extremism, terorrism, UK, politics, Blair

Blair's mind is made up on nukes

the PM said he didn't think energy needs, or security of supply, would be "curable" by renewables alone. He denied claims that he had pre-empted the review and insisted that he was responding to the evidence before him. "If the review had come out with evidence that this was a bad idea, then of course my mind would have been differently made up,"

I can't help but think that means that the carbon footprints of mining, transporting and milling the fuel and then of building and decommissioning the power plants have been omitted from the report, unless the whole thing has been a set up by the pro-nuke lobby or trumped by some other consideration. There is just no real argument for it.

As Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat's environment spokesman, said:

"Nuclear is a tried, tested and failed technology. Not a single nuclear plant has been built anywhere in the world by private investors without lashings of government subsidy since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Other countries like Germany and Sweden have opted for a non-nuclear future and are making good progress with energy saving and renewables. The prime minister's prejudgement of the energy review merely underlines his infatuation with big solutions rather than pragmatic ones."

Though it's not yet available online, the Ecologist has an excellent series of articles on the true environmental costs of nuclear power. Don't let anyone tell you it's carbon free or neutral; the total lifetime carbon cost is pretty high. Worse, potentially than gas-fired power stations.
Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | I've changed my mind on nuclear power, admits Blair
Filed in: nuke, power, generation, electricity

UK to miss emission targets deadline

The EU's ambitious greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme (ETS) is in further disarray as 11 of its 25 governments, including Britain, face warnings of legal action from the European commission for failing to meet last Friday's deadline for submitting their plans to cut carbon dioxide between 2008 and 2012.

Tough on global warming, tough on the causes of global warming?

Computers and energy usage

The ANUgreen Team recently logged the energy usage of a desktop PC to determine energy usage levels in different operational modes. The results are as follows.
17 inch monitor (running)
66 watts
17 inch monitor (sleep mode)
2.6 watts
Computer (on but not in use*)
32 watts
Computer (hard disk sleeping)
27.5 watts
Computer (standby mode)
4.3 watts

*Energy usage of the computer will fluctuate during use as the hard drive is accessed. The figure recorded here is the baseline usage.

Hat tip to Phil Johnson for finding these figures. He also includes some other links that may help direct decisions about computer usage.
circle of pneuma: Energy Consumption & Computers:
Filed in: energy, usage, watts, computer

Sleep and spirituality

In the light of current medical knowledge I keep finding myself looking askance at the reports of what was considered to be heroic dedication to ascetic discipline. And indeed, if the reports are right, it was. However, sometimes I wonder what the cost was. Take this report on the effects of sleep deprivation and think about the ascetic lionising of sleep deprivation as an aid to spiritual devotion.

Lack of sleep has long been connected with reduced ability to concentrate, trouble learning, decreased attention to detail and increased risk of motor vehicle accidents. More recent studies have tied chronic partial sleep deprivation to medical problems, including obesity, diabetes and hypertension.

You see, it looks to me more like someone who does vigils a lot, unless they sleep at other times is actually making themselves less charitable and 'useful' to their neighbours and to God's mission. It does seem to me that we have a primary duty of self-care in pursuing a spiritual path, not so that we pander ourselves and become narcissistic, but so that we can give our best care and worship to God and neighbour and to fulfil with our best efforts our vocations. Only in a personal context of good self care can we then, from time to time think about some of the exercises in asceticism that are implicitly commended by the lives of some saints. Part of the doing of them should be perhaps to count the cost of doing them in terms of the things that they may get in the way of us doing for God and neighbour, and planning to be away from company where our lack of consequent self-restraint or whatever will be less injurious to others ... ?
ScienceDaily: New Study Shows People Sleep Even Less Than They Think:
Filed in: sleep, health, functioning, demographics