27.7.10

PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER, itty-bitty living planet

On our recent trip to Britain, we hired a car to drive from London to York and on into Scotland.  Along the drive, we all ended up with our own favorite sights.  Whenever we'd see our favorite we'd announce it to the entire car. 

"Graveyard!" was mine.  What can you expect from a genealogist?

"Motorcycle!" was Mr. Gaelic's.  Natch.  Even going so far as talking to a group of riders at one of the rest areas while the girls went to the toilet.  (Don't call it a bathroom.  It's called the toilet.)

"Would you look at that shot!" exclaimed artistic Finola.

Deirdre's was "SHEEP!"

Maeve mooched off everyone else's favorites.

Another thing that we saw a lot of during our trip was alternative energy sources.  In the Midlands, you could pass numerous nuclear plants within an hour's drive.  Nearing Scotland, wind farms dotted the ridges of mountains.  Seeing the juxtaposition of nuclear plants and wind farms on one side of the valley and the ruins of a castle or abbey on the other side didn't seem to bother the Brits.  Were there ever calls for maintaining the vistas as there are in America?

Folks in Massachusetts cry foul when their view of the Atlantic may look like a picket fence with the addition of windmills placed eight miles from shore on barges.  The administration looks to be ready to scrap Yucca Mountain plans.  States express concerns for having spent rods transported through their borders on the way out West. 

From what I've read, all forms of energy have both pros and cons.  Coal, oil, hydro, solar, wind, nuclear, you name it.  But according to a report on NPR this morning, there is a clean energy source that doesn't produce any carbon dioxide.  Does the future lie in nuclear fusion?

3 comments:

  1. Sadly a practical fusion solution has been elusive and may not be found in our lifetimes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "The joke about fusion is that it is 30 years away and always will be," says Steve Cowley, head of the U.K.'s Atomic Energy Authority.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr. Gaelic reminded me that he recalled a letter to the editor of the Scottish Daily taking Duke of Argyll Colin Campbell to task for opposing windmills in sight of his estate. So perhaps there is some opposition after all.

    ReplyDelete