Say "NO" to nuclear energy:

                        Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster:

 A personal story about the next 100 years of human history. 

What will happen when we try to stop nuclear power?

Some people are going to scream, No, no, you can’t do that, because when oil runs out we won’t be able to maintain our economy.

There are at least two problems  (pelo menos 2 problemas) with this.

Briefly, (resumidamente) nuclear power requires oil (or other fossil fuels) to for many of its operations.
Think of mining and refining uranium ores, enrichment, construction of reactors, all the transportation that involves, decommissioning  (desmantelamento)of reactors and storage or disposal of nuclear waste, (eliminação de desperdícios) and so on without oil.
Difficult, to say the least (é nome mínimo difícil de dizer).

 Secondly, in the same way that ‘we’ passed over the conventional oil peak (peak = pico da exploração de petróleo) in 2006 (finally admitted by the IEA last November) the peak of uranium extraction is now thought to be sometime before 2030 for reasonably assured resources (razoavelmente seguro) or in the early 2040s for reasonably assured resources + inferred resources below US$130/KgU, at current rate of consumption.

Roughly 30 years later (aproximadamente 30 anos depois) than peak oil. In other words, nuclear power will never provide the energy that fossil fuels have up to now, and the more we try to do that the more dangerous it will be and the sooner the resource will ‘run out.’

So, if we think of saying ‘no’ to nuclear power, we have to think about the future of energy.

That will mean that we will have to think about the future of the economy, jobs, money, how we get our food (como conseguiremos nossa comida), and just about everything else, and that leads on to what kind of society we want to live in － what kind of society we want to create for the future, the future we hope our grandchildren and great grandchildren (o futuro que esperamos para netos e bisnetos) will enjoy in the 22nd century.

As I said above, we are going to have to think about these things sometime soon anyway; (pensar nisso mais cedo ou mais tarde) think about how to step back from the brink.

The alternative to not making that choice now, or soon, is some form of general social collapse almost everywhere, but especially in the advanced industrial countries, where people have been lulled into thinking (by the present system) that the current arrangements of economic growth can go on forever (que o atual sistema econômico continuara a crescer desta forma).

What I would like to ask you, please, to do:

Let’s assume the current crisis at Fukushima No. (vamos encarar a atual crise de Fukushima) Power Station is going to be ‘solved’ － well, reasonably well.

Let’s not go back to sleep.

Let’s all, together, take the first step away from insanity and towards taking back our lives by saying ‘no’ to nuclear power, (cair fora e dizer não para esta loucura de energia nuclear) all over the world, not just in Japan.