Can I Just Sit Back in Retirement?

(Written in December 2021)

One of the joys of retirement is being able to surf the Internet for hours at a time without guilt or criticism. Having been kept at home for long periods during the Covid 19 epidemic, I needed to keep my mind busy. I discovered MOOCs: university courses on the Internet posted for free if you don’t wish a certificate of proficiency. During December, I discovered there were a wealth of courses about energy production, batteries, nuclear proliferation fears, nuclear power, the minerals needed for green energy, electric cars, carbon capture and storage and so on. The courses were posted by universities in the United States, Holland, Russia, and Australia. My image of decarbonisation has changed.

About 10 years ago, my husband David and I visited Sweden. David was an invited speaker about uranium mining in Australia. He was the Director of the Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist at the time. We took the opportunity to learn as much as we could about Swedish nuclear power, community attitudes and nuclear waste disposal. We visited nuclear power stations, CLAB interim waste facilities, research centres and tunnels dug deep into the earth designed for safe waste disposal. Sweden was a great example of the successful use of nuclear power.

The more I read, the more sceptical I became of the directions the EU seemed to be taking. The EU denotes itself as being green, but it seemed to have so many unresolved issues. France and Germany seemed to disagree on the use of nuclear power. As I understood it, if they didn’t use nuclear power, either gas or coal was needed for baseload power to support renewables. Gas came from Russia at the time of writing and was in short supply and expensive. Germany uses “dirty” brown coal. I also learnt about a shortage of critical materials needed to manufacture solar panels, batteries, electric cars, and wind turbines just in the EU. What about the needs of the rest of the world? I decided to do a series of Power Point presentations for our local University of the Third Age and maybe even start a blog. Why are we so afraid of nuclear power? Can wind and solar power provide all the electricity we need?