<div>On 5/23/05, Simon Huxtable <<a href="mailto:jetfromgladiators@yahoo.com">jetfromgladiators@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> > > From: Gar Lipow <<a href="mailto:the.typo.boy@gmail.com">the.typo.boy@gmail.com</a>> > The details of the Britains religious hatred laws I > don't know. Tend to be > close to a freedom of speech absolutist, so I might > well be against them. The law regulates against incitement to religious hatred. It's as vague as that. More here: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3873323.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3873323.stm </a> > But nuclear power - horribly overpriced way to > produce electricity. Wind is > cheaper per kilowatt hour. And the UK coast has > plenty of wind, not mention > some of your highland areas. This is shaping up to be a major debate in UK politics. Wind power is a political no no in the UK. Liberal politicians tend to agree with it in the abstract whilst locally opposing it for reasons of political expedience. In general, residents of areas where wind farms are located object to the blot on the landscape that wind farms create (I tend to find them eerie, rather than ugly). Wind provides less than 1% of Britain's energy at the moment. The debate is not between wind and nuclear power. It a debate over how Britain should cut its fossil fuel omissions and how that energy gap should be filled. Nuclear is being promoted as a relatively cost-free way of filling that gap. Somewhat lost in the debate is the idea of energy conservation.</blockquote><div> Yes efficiency makes a great deal of  sense; in the U.S. I think we could cut use by about 75% without compromising production.  Britain, being more efficient to begin  with probably has a slightly lower potential -60% as a silly wild arsed guess But you have to get that remaining precent from somewhere.  When it comes to electricity don't see why wind should not fill a great deal of the gap. </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">FWIW, an environmentalist friend of mine tends to the view that nuclear is perhaps the least worst solution. </blockquote><div> He prefers nuclear energy to wind energy - because people don't want to look at windmills.  This does not  puzzel me. It appalls me. We are blasting the top off  of mountains in the U.S. to mine coal; the UK has a fair sized coal industry too.  And people oppose wind energy because wind generators  spoil the look of the landscape?  I mean  I'm not doubting  you. We have the same phenomena in the U.S.  I think the problem with wind generators is that they are put up where rich people have to  look at them. All energy forms have social costs (including efficiency - the mercury in flourescent bulbs  for example.) Wind has about the lowest social costs of any energy form - but since they can't be mostly imposed on the poor the way the costs (for example)  of coal or uranium mining our, it stirs  up  tremendous opposition. I seem to remember that one in four children in  Harlem have asthma - largely due to coal use. </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Simon ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? <a href="http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com">http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com</a> ___________________________________ <a href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk"> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</a> </blockquote></div> -- Please note:  Personal  messages  should be sent to [garlpublic] followed by the [at] sign with isp of  [comcast], then [dot] and then an  extension of net