Blair made no commitment to embark on a course of plant construction,
and he outlined the problems that would be encountered. He also made
special note that nuclear power would do nothing to curb fossil fuel
use by vehicles. Of course, such a statement is easily observed to be
a political hedge. Blair did acknowledge that a large grid could be
constructed to fuel electric vehicles, but he stated that,
nevertheless, he would likely not be the leader to bring the UK into a
resurgence of nuclear power generation.
The above-linked BBC article
contains an excellent and appropriate reference to Saint Augustine:
“Lord, give me chastity – but not yet.”
…apart from letting technology do it for us; we should hook some people up to a couple of bicycles and let them power the globe. How about a 1000, …10,000, …100,000, hey, I know, what about China! They aren’t to busy are they? LOL. Just kiddin’. But seriously…
People DO NOT take bicycles seriously enough. One friend I used to work with is a vegetarian, politically-aware environmentalist type. I own a Tacoma, and he was always giving me crap for it. But I only drive it for it’s usefullness, I get a whole month or more on one tank. He was always driving every day, every where. I ride my bike to work, he always drove … and he only lived a couple of kilometres from work. Not enough people ride bicycles.
Not only is riding a bike good for the atmosphere it is good for the body as well. You could ride a bike for half an hour(or more) every day and it probably… Well I think I’ll change to, it definitely ain’t gonna hurt you one bit. I have to give you mad props for going a whole month or more on only one tank of gas. That’s pretty impressive, especially in a Tacoma. You must be in pretty good shape. Probably, even better shape than myself who only plays soccer every couple of days. Also, I seem to have noticed that I have been going to the gym less and less. So once again, mad props for riding the bike. And even though I was kidding about powering the globe with bicycles, it does have a pretty good ring to it doesn’t it? It really could solve a lot of problems but it probably won’t ever happen. Oh well.
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…an old sci-fi story about inhabitants who had to spend part of their day plugged into a system that could take their “brain power” and run their city — sort of the cooperative power source alluded to.
Here are a couple of links to some bicycle power generators that y’all might find interesting.
Looks like it’s practical for small uses, but providing power for the world is impractical.
jon