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So swampy and his chums are still at it.
In my not-so-humble opinion, trying to shut down a power station is bordering on evil. I can imagine that anyone with friends or family in a hospital local to that station, would be of the attitude that any protesters there deserve whatever beating they get.
These protesters, rather than showing up for a peaceful protest against something they disagree with – something I don't mind- are there to "stop power production", which is vandalism on private property, with knock-on effects to the larger community- something I do mind. So my sympathy for any injured protesters is tempered by the fact that these people turned up into order to deliberately cause an act of criminal sabotage.
Practically all the they can hope to achieve –aside from causing a violent scene and attracting media attention- is a short term cessation of operation, which I doubt would abate much in the way of CO2 production, compared with what they produced in getting there en masse.
Furthermore, the UK's overall power needs haven’t and won’t likely fall in the near future. If we intend to keep functioning as a country, the grid needs to be maintained somehow, and the likes of wind farms are not up to the task – they are inconsistent and require something in backup which can be ramped up and down quickly (like gas-powered plants) to maintain production. Which in terms of reducing CO2, would probably only break even –especially when you take into account the manufacturing and maintenance requirements of wind turbines. Also, as greater demand is placed on the existing stations, they will become less-efficient and produce more and more CO2.
Further again (whilst these planned protests can be allowed for, as I’ve been reminded in the comments) the disruption of power stations can have unforeseen consequences; concurrent unplanned anomalies within elsewhere on the network can compromise the integrity of the entire grid. These events are unlikely, but become decidedly less so when people take to purposefully disrupting the network.
To attack a power station shows criminal contempt for wider society and for human life; or it would if these idiots had thought that far ahead, which I suspect they didn't. Or worse they did, but didn’t care.
So, unlike some of the disproportionate use of force we’ve seen before now at peaceful protests, I’m with the plod on this one. If these hairy idiots wish to force their brainless politics on the rest of us in this violent fashion; I have no problem with the police using more efficient violence to meet it. Hard.
Sunday, 18 October 2009
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17 comments:
If someone tried to fuck with the water supply they'd soon send the police in, and more likely the troops.
This isn't really any different in that, as you say, an uninterrupted power supply is something that many mechanisms and processes rely on. I see no reason to tolerate disruption to essential services.
Plus I bet we're probably paying them all to be there in the form of benefits.
Your understanding of the way power is generated and distributed seem somewhat lacking. Those people in local hospitals would have nothing more to fear than anyone else elsewhere around the country. Contrary to Eon PR spin, ratcliffe-on-soar does not supply local houses and business etc any more than any other power station since they are all simply feeding into the national grid. The operators of the grid has years of experience dealing with maintaining a bit of headroom above expected demand and since the protests were announced weeks ago they'd have been ready to deal with the unlikely event of protesters shutting the station down. More likely is that Eon had already switched to idling operations like they did at Kingsnorth for the protests last year.
You numbskulls need to get out more. Are you paranoid you'll suddenly have no electricity for your limited blob-arse tv, dvd, internet porn life? No doubt you'd find it difficult to cope offline, having to get up and go outside and communicate with real people on real issues.
The power plant - as with all powerplants - gets turned off every now and then, and the entire country still has electricity thanks to what's called 'the national grid' - do your homework.
You've missed the point completely, but that's not surprising...
@Terry Ganning. Fair enough, that was me indulging in a bit of hyperbole WRT the local hospitals. As it happens, I do have a pretty good understanding of how the grid works -I worked on stations before my present job- but I concede the point.
What I should've said was that we all have something to worry about if -going into winter- a gang of clueless misanthropes take it upon themselves to disable/disrupt any part of what's left of our power-generating infrastructure.
Bearing in mind that it is probable that the only thing which saved us from shortages last winter was the reduction in industrial demand in the wake of the credit crunch.
And we happen to have a bit of headroom on the grid? Hardly an excuse for vandalism, is it?
You contradict yourself, first raising the specter of the power going off for local hospitals and then pointing out that the protesters could not have disrupted supply anyway.
While you might not thing the protesters have any excuse for 'vandalism' a jury in the high court has already ruled that the greater crime is burning the coal, not any criminal damage you might commit while attempting to prevent the damage caused by the power station.
No Jill, I agreed that the local hospital thing was hyperbolic - it isn't a local thing; everywhere should be concerned by a threat to the grid as stations elsewhere are decommissioned with no obvious replacements.
And I don't think either Terry or me argued that that they couldn't disrupt the grid, merely that it could be allowed for. And I'm arguing that it shouldn't have to be allowed for in the first place.
And on your second point: Juries can be just as full of idiots as the rest of the population.
Not sure I understand the courts point. Surely no court has actually ruled that burning coal is illegal??
Look here
Don't look at me, I just work here.
Gift, thanks for rewriting the entire post when I pointed out you'd just plagarised it from other people's comments on badscience forums. It's poor form not to at least acknowledge you've edited work some time after posting, particularly as some of the comments (including my deleted one) refer to the 'original' piece.
The rest of your opinions that carefully thought-through, too?
- duck
Do you think 'Anonymous' - the first one - appreciates the irony of his first paragraph?
Nah...me neither...
"Hardly an excuse for vandalism, is it?"
Quite...and ultimately I'm sure it'll be consumers who have to foot the policing and criminal damage bill through increased charges.
I bet I'm also paying for a lot of these activists to go 'full time' through the benefits system.
Blimey. And they've used the same defence before. Another bunch of modern day Luddites.
Well Duck, you got me.
It was Sunday morning and I was being lazy. You brung it up and I rewrote the post in order to retain some karma. The points, I think, are the same anyroad. And I deleted your post in a moment of guilt, like a naughty schoolboy.
Sorry about that. I need an embarrassed looking slug avatar round about now.
But stop checking the page you psycho; what's it been, 25 times?
You're scaring me a bit.
And I'm not Gift, honest.
Release the hounds Smithers
Thanks for acknowledgement.
Mwahahaha, do not mess with obsessive spods.
- duck
Innit.
Lesson learned.
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