I come before you to cite the case of the total berk!
I recently had a discussion with our local councilman regarding energy production. (I've extolled his lack of virtue elsewhere in the past)
He is the ultimate NIMBYist.
His stance on nuclear: 'Stupid idea! All that nuclear waste you can't do anything with!'
In common with most people who know little or nothing about nuclear waste management, he overlooks the fact that you can quite easily cast the stuff into glass blocks and bury it under a concrete and lead dome out in the desert somewhere. I've heard figures (from a friend's father who designs nuclear safety systems) that suggest that ALL the nuclear waste created from the beginning of use to the year 2100 would actually require a storage building somewhat less than the size of a soccer stadium, allowing for proper separation to prevent dangerously critical masses from forming. Naturally, like any normal person I feel that nuclear is far from the best option, due to the potential for accidents at the power plants, in transport and through theft from terrorists for 'dirty bomb' construction.
Despite that, until we have a real alternative (which fossil fuels definitely aren't) we NEED nuclear power. There are probably better uses for areas of pretty desert land, though.
His stance on Solar: 'It looks stupid! Daft looking things on your roof. Besides the electric company would never let everyone do that!'
Don't get me started on that! Are there people who actually think that the utility companies can FORCE us to buy their polluting, overpriced, unreliable energy? You KNOW they'd LOVE it in an orgasmal way if we all had grid-tied PV on our roofs. They could charge us the same amount per unit for the electricity we DO buy without the expense of a lot of the power plants they currently have to use to generate it. If the grid is national, as it is in the UK, they'd be making a fair chunk of their profits just moving around energy generated by someone else.
I also happen to think that a properly installed combined PV and Solar heat array looks pretty cool. The tendency here is to do them in stripes. Just for aesthetics I think.
Finally, his stance on Wind Turbines: 'Blot on the landscape. You can't go putting big windmills all over the place. Spoiling the view.... etc'
I did try to expain that you could have small scale turbines for (rural, you'd never get planning consent in a town) domestic use. I even explained that they could feed surplus power onto the grid. I don't think he got it.
I won't even detail his comments when I explained deep-ocean geo-thermal, the constant cuts in funding for fusion power, the uses of bio-energy, etc.
And this man is an ELECTED official!
