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Helen Caldicott’s comments were so good I had to write them down so I could remember them.

Dr Helen Caldicott: is a world leading spokesperson for the antinuclear movement and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. A medical doctor, she has devoted the past thirty-five years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age. Dr Caldicott is a bestselling author and divides her time between the central coast of New South Wales and Washington, DC, where she is President of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute.

•  http://www.helencaldicott.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Caldicott

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ABC TV program:  Difference Of Opinion
“Power To The People” – Jeff McMullen and an expert panel
19-Mar-2007 (rebroadcast 23-Dec-2007)
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/differenceofopinion/episodes/episode_06.htm

This was a good discussion. I’ve noted down what caught my attention.  See the URL above for the full transcript and video.

The Panel

• Alan Pears (Focus on stainability & consumer changers)
• Dr Ziggy Switkowski (Nuclear knowledge)
• Dr Nikki Williams (Coal knowledge)
• Dr Mark Diesendorf (Focus on stainability)

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The video “The Story of Stuff” is a short video worth watching.
It reminds us that as consumers we must make good choices.
Why? Watch the video

part2 | part3 | part4 | part5 | part6 | part7

UK has around 150 operational wind farms (~1900 wind turbines). What’s interesting is, that according to BWEA data  6 of these are offshore wind farms (~147 turbines) in the shallows of the sea. Energy secretary John Hutton announced plans to build 7,000 more offshore wind turbines around Britain’s coastline by 2020.  This would raise UK offshore power to 33GW. Britain’s current range of coal, gas, nuclear and other power stations are capable of generating 75GW. For a tyical winters day UK uses 30-40GW, peaking at around 50GW for 4hrs in the evening (see Wind Power in the UK).

According to the BWEA site a typical turbine meets the average annual electricity needs of 1,000 homes. I love these images of UK offshore wind turbines. Maybe something we will never see here in Australia.

• Map of wind farms in the UK
• Wind power statistics on Wikipedia put Germany at producing a massive 21.3GW from wind power, USA (13.9GW), Spain (12.8GW), India (7.2GW), Denmark (3.1GW), China (3GW), UK 2.2GW … Australia (< 1GW).

Kentish Flats project
30 wind turbines (90MW total)
8.5 km offshore from Whitstable | started generating Oct 2005

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