Not necessarily. It greatly depends where you live. For example, in Germany where the green lunatics have a very significant lobby, you can expect an explosion of energy costs in the near future. The reason being that now that there has been a nuclear incident in a country at the opposite side of the planet after the 5th largest earthquake in history, this necessarily means that every nuclear power plant in Germany will explode within the next 2 weeks, so we must shut them all down immediately, before it is too late. Electricity magically comes out of the plug in the wall, so no worries.
Sure, the whole topic is highly emotionally charged. I don't think that we will have a nuclear meltdown in germany in the next 2 weeks but there is always a "remaining risk". The probability of an event like this is tiny but when it happens the outcome can be disastrous! Then there still is the unsolved problem of finding a place to store the radioactive waste, safely, for centuries. And let's not forget that the trigger for the Fukushima incident was NOT the earthquake but rather the simultanious failure of the multiple redundant power aggregates that were hit by the tsunami. In germany there are several nuclear reactors in seismic active zones. It is highly unlikely that a massive earthquake will hit those reactors but I'm not sure they are built to withstand even a smaller one.
We've had a similar situation a decade ago when the nutters managed to get the government to shutdown some power plants over night (the next government had that undone, another typical German thing). The net result was just that instead of producing our own, we bought nuclear energy from our neighbours who built new power plants close to the border to fill the gap. So, we traded German standard for Polish and Czech standard (which, admittedly I know nothing about, this standard might be none worse or possibly even better. But in the case of nuclear powerplants, "I don't know" bears the disadvantage of doubt). The net effect of that was that electricity got about 4 cents more expensive to private customers, which is about 25%.
Well currently we are exporting more power from our country than we are importing... and wait... didn't I just read that the 4 big players in german electricity are making record breaking sales, yet they keep pushing the prices higher and higher? Call me a tinfoil-hat nutter but the real reason energy prices are going through the roof in germany is the quasi-monopoly of those big four. Sure it did sound like a good idea to allow more competition in the energy market, but only when you have enough competitors. At the moment they have way too much power (no pun intended) and influence on politics.
Energy is the driving force for our markets but investing in new technologies would mean more decentralization and competition. So everything possible is done to keep the status quo. I can't see how so much people are even buying all that crap, there is so much potential in new technologies. Potential for vast energy production, potential for economic growth, for energy independence, for employment and taking a "role model position"
Okay enough ranting. Go rate me down.
- MadHed a.k.a Green Hippie
