Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Zion Lights, who featured in WUWT last October when BBC Andrew Neil shredded her defence of Extinction Rebellion on national TV, has quit Extinction Rebellion and defected to the pro-nuclear Environmental Progress group.
Extinction Rebellion spokeswoman Zion Lights quits green movement to become lobbyist for nuclear power saying: ‘I changed my mind’
- Zion, 36, dramatically quit the group to join pro-nuclear Environmental Progress
- Miss Lights said she felt she had been duped by anti-nuke activists around her
- Now she believes the energy source is the future to save the planet
- She became worried about the environment after seeing an advert as a child
PUBLISHED: 01:11 AEST, 26 June 2020 | UPDATED: 01:23 AEST, 26 June 2020
Extinction Rebellion’s spokeswoman has quit the protest group to become a nuclear power campaigner.
Zion Lights, 36, has left the climate change cause, which brought London to a standstill last year, to join pro-nuke outfit Environmental Progress.
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Mother-of-two Zion said: ‘The facts didn’t really change, but once I understood them I did change my mind.’
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I’m really impressed at Zion’s courage. It takes a lot of guts to admit you made a mistake, after working hard for the wrong team.
Environmental Progress was founded by Michael Shellenberger, a high profile pro-nuclear environmental campaigner whose no nonsense pragmatic views are frequently praised by WUWT.
Michael Shellenberger wrote the following about Zion leaving XR;
Why Climate Activists Will Go Nuclear—Or Go Extinct
Published on June 25, 2020…
Lights told me she changed her mind after a scientist told her nuclear energy was, in fact, safer than other energy sources. “I said, ‘That’s not what I’ve been told.’ And he said, ‘Don’t just listen to what people tell you.’ And so I looked it up and he was right. The data shows it is safe. And I realized solar panels and batteries are not going to meet demand. The more I read the more I realized, ‘Oh no! These things I believed aren’t true!’”
“I then—perhaps somewhat naively—went to people thinking they’d want to know the truth, and then realizing that they don’t. And that’s always difficult. I really struggled to get Greenpeace to listen to the evidence. At times, they have made things up, disingenuously, and they don’t care! It was like dealing with anti-vaxxers,” she said with a rueful laugh. “I couldn’t deal with it. It was like identity politics. I got fed up.”
Lights said she pushed back against other Extinction Rebellion activists who wanted to promote renewables and criticize nuclear. “When they’re pushing solar, or battery storage, and I say to them ‘I heard that 10 years ago! We have nuclear! We have an option! And what we’ve done is descale all of that and shut it down and look at Germany when they did that! Their emissions went up!’”
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Read more: https://quillette.com/2020/06/25/why-climate-activists-will-go-nuclear-or-go-extinct/
Zion Lights has appealed to other environmentalists to embrace nuclear power;
A message from a former Extinction Rebellion activist: Fellow environmentalists, join me in embracing nuclear power
Zion Lights
Thursday 25 June 2020 6:04 am
Zion Lights is director of Environmental Progress UK. She was formerly the editor of The Hourglass newspaperAs the lockdown measures we have become so familiar with over the past three months are slowly eased, discussions are turning to how to move forward with recovering from the economic hit of Covid-19 in a way that also addresses climate change.
I have a long history of campaigning on environmental issues, most recently as a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion UK and the founder of its climate reporting newspaper The Hourglass.
Now, I have quit the organisation to take up a position as a campaigner for nuclear power.
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For many years I was skeptical of nuclear power. Surrounded by anti-nuclear activists, I had allowed fear of radiation, nuclear waste and weapons of mass destruction to creep into my subconscious. When a friend sent me a scientific paper on the actual impacts, including the (very small number of) total deaths from radiation at Chernobyl and Fukushima, I realised I had been duped into anti-science sentiment all this time.
Reading up on safety, I found that the nuclear accidents that have occurred in my lifetime were due to unusual and extreme circumstances, or human errors. Chernobyl, for example, occurred due to the use of a flawed reactor design which caused a power surge and explosion at one of the reactors, and Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi disaster was triggered by the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
However, even when including these disastrous events, scientific research has found that nuclear power is still safer than fossil fuels, once air pollution, accidents (from energy extraction) and greenhouse gas emissions are taken into account.
What of renewable alternatives? Alongside my fellow activists, I had been singing the praises of renewable energy for years. But while renewables can and should be part of the mix in supplying energy to the UK, the technology simply doesn’t stretch to powering our country 24/7.
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Read more: https://www.cityam.com/a-message-from-a-former-extinction-rebellion-activist-fellow-environmentalists-join-me-in-embracing-nuclear-power/
For every courageous green like Zion Lights, no doubt there are thousands of greens who choose to stay silent. But if you are a green, and you truly believe CO2 is a major threat to the planet, the time for silence has passed.
I’m not saying every climate skeptic is pro-nuclear, but many of us are. If you really want to end decades of pointless policy paralysis, deadlock and stalemate, please consider following Zion Lights and Michael Shellenberger’s lead.
Glad she’s figured out that renewables can’t meet global energy demand… Maybe next she’ll look a little deeper into her belief that anthropogenic CO2 is destroying the planet? Nothing against nuclear energy but we’ve already got plenty of cheap energy sources.
I hope those designing the next generation NPPs are taking a serious look at the metallurgical aspects of the design. I started my career in Nuclear Power in 1965. As part of my initial NPP training I learned about a form of metal corrosion not taught at the university I graduated from. Every few year after that there were NRC bulletins and the need for design changes, operational changes refits, re-designs etc. to correct and prevent a new form of metal corrosion in the Nuclear Steam Supply System – Primary and or Secondary systems. Those corrections are expensive – VERY expensive some costing about 25% of the initial cost of the plant. Operating at different plant temperatures, pressures and configuration and with different cooling mediums is going to revel a completely new family of chemical and stress corrosion. The plants had the ten year history of the Shippingport Nuclear Power Station and the US NAvy reactors to give them a head start on these problems.
I was on one team that had to come up with a method to reseal the Steam Generator tubes to the tube plate through an inspection port that was not large enough for a person to stick their head through. This then required testing on a Test Steam generator to both prove that it could be done then to prove to the NRC that it would meet ASME Pressure Vessel requirements. And there are over 10,000 tubes to be sealed – both ends. Normally this is done long before the end-bells are attached to the SG.
“… Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi disaster was triggered by the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. ”
Let us ignore the discussion about the design of Fukushima for a moment and concentrate on the other words here:
“Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.”
Our Ms Lights make her statement in a manner that suggests she never made the connection before. It suggests that this massive natural disaster that killed thousands no longer registers on their mental radar but Fukushima – which DIDN’T kill thousands – remains prominent.
Nuclear Bad clearly trumps thousands swept out to sea in these people’s eyes.
Zion Lights still supports renewables thus has a lot more learning to do.
Wind turbines do not produce 50/60Hz energy. They are useless. A massive scam.
PV solar is not scalable and cannot power industry. Next to useless. OK to heat a water cylinder.
Don’t even mention batteries.
“Zion Lights still supports renewables thus has a lot more learning to do.”
No there’s a place for solar and wind if you can store the energy easily and cheaply. Desalinating water and pumping bores obviously but for the average household it’s using solar power to heat water. Use it with a solar diverter controller for an electric storage HWS and then use any surplus to RC aircon the home for comfort at night. No dumping on the communal grid and your neighbours of course.
While I don’t agree with her climate views, at least this move makes her credible. If CAGW is real, nuclear is the only solution. All the other ‘solutions’ being pushed have no chance of success. But I guess that is the point. It creates a never ending battle. They can always push for “More, More” knowing that nothing will ever be enough as long as nuclear is not considered.