Well, at least in Sweden we have a Pirate Party, inspired by the Pirate Bay ppl. Free speech and less government control.
Working in the "safety" industry there are a lot of parallel between railway signalling (what I do) and nuclear power plants.
1) If shit hits the fan, you should fail to a "safe" state
2) Shit is not supposed to hit the fan in 100 years or more for a 30 year life span...
3) Availability is supposed to be "high". At least better than Vodafone...
4) If shit hits the fan, the prospect of multiple deaths are very high.
5) If one system fails another, backup, system takes control seamlessly
What I feel most people (those saying stupid stuff on TV) forget is that even if the probability of "shit hitting the fan" is incredibly low, the effect of it is incredibly high.
In Sweden nuclear power and the radioactive waste was very much on the Agenda in the 70s when I grew up.
In the referendum in 1980
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Sweden the people wanted to phase out Nuclear power and the parliament decided to listen to the people and planed to phase out nuclear power to 2010. At the time we had a strong Social Democratic movement and people actually cared for each other and the world around them.
Today the Social Democratic movement have tried and failed populism and is currently rebooting. The more "right wing" influenced parties (they are quite less right wing compared to the rest of the world) who put an emphasis on "you to decide on your life" and not giving a "toss" about others or the world around you, led by the Conservatives, they have been in power now for more than 5 years and they have opened up the discussion of building new nuclear power plants.
I am all for phasing out the nuclear power and simply reducing the energy consumption of the country and also continue investing in wind and wave electricity production.
We are all to comfortable in Sweden and we increase the use of electrical power every year instead of reducing it. Sure we get low burn light bulbs but then a new computer using 20% more power in the same time. We are such hypocrites.
On the good side, last winter and this winter has pushed the price of electricity up a lot and people, like me, have started replacing the worst pieces of equipment wasting energy (old freezers for instance).
Oh, by the way, our nuclear power was not phased out last year.
Good luck with the elections in BW!
