holiday, page-2

The fall appears to be an overreaction, particularly for O & G companies operating in an energy hungry country that is less hysterical about 'green targets' and has been dubious about atomic fission plants since three mile island.

Frankly, I'm astonished that the Japanese plants were built where they could be flooded by a 10 metre tsunami - it is inconsistent with the level of caution paid to building construction design.

This is going to impact significantly on public opinion towards fission generation plants and there are some large renewal programmes being considered. Inevitably, it will be positive for gas generation - sorry to be so callous about it but fission plants are safe until they are unsafe, and then they are a mega-problem as has been proved by experience.

In the longer term, only atomic fusion generation can service our exponential hunger for energy but that is decades away. The difference between the two is that a fission plant is a controlled atomic bomb using material that has kept our planet's core liquid for billions of years whereas fusion uses a reaction that, in weaponry terms, required an A bomb to trigger it. Any breakdown and it will shut down of its own accord.

Until then, we need to focus on carbon capture techniques and global population growth control - the planet cannot service the current geometrical growth - any major natural incident, such as a super volcano blowing, will wipe out hundreds of millions - there's just no buffer between supply and demand or food that could shield us from that kind of consequence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

Remember Eyjafjallajokull last year - Laki is not that far away:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki#1783_eruption

We need to plan to deal with these events not pretend that they will not happen. Quiet periods are inevitably followed by turbulent periods.