Suggestion: Start a petition for nuclear power

[gerdler]

I heard yesterday that a petition against nuclear power in europe had been started. Their goal was to bring 1 million signatures to the EU-commision to ban nuclear power in europe. Now I can't imagine they will succeed in getting a ban in place but the 1 million signatures is probably not that hard to get.

What if someone did the reverse though, a petition calling for new safe nuclear power plants across europe and for increased research in fields contributing to safer and more efficient reactors for the purposes of reducing the electricity prices, creating jobs, reducing fossil fuel consumption, improving our energy security aswell as to protect the people of europe against future radiological accidents.

Would we not be able to bring in 1 million names? Im curious what you all think of this.

[Michael]

Hello!

Well... I don't believe in a petition.

First: petitions are slacktivism, which I am firmly opposed to.

Second: the petition is a knee-jerk reaction... and a stupid one at that. The event isn't even played out yet. Trying to launch a counter-petition gives credibility to the first one, and it doesn't deserve that.

Third: it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of actually causing any such legislation. The probablity of another multiple INES-6 accident is larger than such a stupid action actually succeeding.

I hear you... and I disagree. What we need to do now is just sit down, wait for the fatcs to come in, and act rationally while we argue the danger of rash actions. This we do while the anti-nukes run around in circles twining the rope with which they eventually hang themselves.

/Michael

[gerdler]

Thanks for the response. I share your analysis on the probability of a ban as a result of the petition. Still I am afraid that cooler heads might not always prevail in the end.
Populists, and lets make it clear that thats what the nuclear naysayers are mostly, can get alot of votes and alot of power just playing on peoples fears. I think it could be an important fact to bring to light that in most european countries have a large number of people, in most countries a majority even, that is positive towards nuclear power. In the media mostly seem to see the naysayers.

I also would like to ask you if you think that cooler heads have prevailed in this issue in the past?
One year after the Three Mile Island meltdown, which killed and hurt 0 people. Sweden had a referendum that resulted in a final date for nuclear power in sweden 2010 and a ban on research towards nuclear power. It has left sweden with 10 deteriorating reactors that could arguably, because of bad maintainance and very low numbers of nuclear engineers trained, be some of the least safe reactors in the western world. They have a very low availability as a result atleast. Did cooler heads prevail, I don't think so.

[Michael]

Thanks for the response. I share your analysis on the probability of a ban as a result of the petition. Still I am afraid that cooler heads might not always prevail in the end.
Populists, and lets make it clear that thats what the nuclear naysayers are mostly, can get alot of votes and alot of power just playing on peoples fears. I think it could be an important fact to bring to light that in most european countries have a large number of people, in most countries a majority even, that is positive towards nuclear power. In the media mostly seem to see the naysayers.

I also would like to ask you if you think that cooler heads have prevailed in this issue in the past?
One year after the Three Mile Island meltdown, which killed and hurt 0 people. Sweden had a referendum that resulted in a final date for nuclear power in sweden 2010 and a ban on research towards nuclear power. It has left sweden with 10 deteriorating reactors that could arguably, because of bad maintainance and very low numbers of nuclear engineers trained, be some of the least safe reactors in the western world. They have a very low availability as a result atleast. Did cooler heads prevail, I don't think so.

You are right that cooler heads failed to prevail in the past. We can only hope that we don't have a third meltdown in this area. The best way to coll things down is to play it cool ourselves and argue the futility of what the anti-nukes are doing.

So far, the accident itself is our best friend: no deaths... very limited contamination. This could change... but so far they are still holding the score. If this keeps up, all hysteric anti-nukes will come out as fools.

/Michael

[morikawak]

Hi, I happened to come across this and found it a really interesting idea; I also just tried looking for one online but I can't seem to find any. Do you have any ideas why and if any exist at a major scale? It's an interesting idea; from researching online and looking at online forums it seems like many people recognize the benefits of nuclear power but no one takes action to start a petition whereas many petitions against nuclear power exist.