Too hot for nuclear!

Nuclear power plants need water. Lots of water to cool down their reactors. But when it is very warm weather for long the waters in the rivers feeding inland nuclear plants also gets warm. Too warm to cool down their reactors. During the heat wave in France 2003 some nuclear actually were shut down because of the warm river water. Read more here.

So much for water cooled nuclear power plants to help fend off global warming...

The USA government will not subsidise the construction of nuclear power plants. Xlnt news!

Too hot for nuclear power

Nuclear power needs water. Lots of water to cool down their reactors. When it gets warm like during global warming it is too warm to be able to cool. So during a heat wave do not rely on nuclear power. Like in France 2003 heat wave 17 reactors were shut down. Read more here.

The UK government will not subsidise the construction of nuclear power plants. Would be great if all other governments would do the same. Including not subsidising the insurance the nuclear melt down and the tearing down of the nuclear plants. Read more here.

It is urgent to act upon global warming

Or so it is the finding in Eurobarometer 67 pages 48-51. Even so 57% say it is very urgent for the European Union to have policies in place to reduce greenhouse gas emission by 20% until 2020. Not a very high target so should be fairly easy to met. Greece and Cyprus are in top with 86% totally agreeing that this is urgent. Sweden third place with 81%. Poland in the bottom with 40%.

Lets hope that the European Commission, Council and Parliament act on this! And lets not forget the national governments and parliaments!

Climate Prediction

Today I installed the software for the Climate Prediction.net and joined the Portuguse team.

So now my laptop helps out to calculate predictions of the climate in the near future.

Gore frenzy in Lissabon

Two days ago Al Gore was i Lissabon to show his movie and give a talk. Going for the talk was something like 500€!

The day after (ie yesterday) Jornal de Negocios was full with articles about climate chaneg and related issues. The editorial said that it is bit too convenient to only put the blame on Bush. In stead we all contribute to the global warming so we all should contribute to get on the green wagon.

Also, RPT1 had a long interview with plenty of slides with some Portuguese scientists from various field describing what is happening, what is the cause and what we can do about it.

In short Gore frenzy!
Hope it will last, not just because of Gore.

Freesheet project

Do you have any pics of freesheet (ie the one you do not pay for) newspapers littering streets, parks, lakes you name it? Post them on Project Freesheet.

'Paper comprises a third of the waste sent to municipal landfills, where along with other impacts, it breaks down and produces methane, a greenhouse gas with 21 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide' - the Alliance for Environmental Innovation

Help them to obtain 1.5 million of your freesheet newspaper images to highlight the effect of freesheets on our streets and our environment.