Global Warming bulletins

[Helen Thomas]

If all Britain made sure they didn't drive with flat tyres, 35 million litres of petrol would be saved everyday.

Getting rid of rubber tyres might help but a large part of the world's livelihood depends on making rubber products of which the tyre is king.

Make sure those tyres don't get flat.
[ January 13, 2005: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Eric Pascarello]

If we did not use rubber tires, what would me use? I do not think those tires on the Model Ts were great nor those wagon wheels!

[Helen Thomas]

If you think about it a lot of money is spent tarmacing roads - apart from making for a smooth ride it does have the advantage of not raising too much dust. Brick roads were first introduced by the Romans for armies to move around faster.

With engines due to be made to last for life how long will the tyre have anyway ?

Roads on a roll sounds good to me. Gravity might help if it's made with some dense material that's fimly attracted to the earth's core. Perhaps an upper layer of water to help adjust water tables, at a constant flow and cars could skim on a layer on top of that...

Water may yet become the most expensive commodity around... Enjoy it while you can.

It could also be the most dividing issue.
[ January 06, 2005: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Helen Thomas]

The bicycle would have to be re-invented , great for those 2 mile journeys.

[Thomas Paul]

We are having freezing rain. May I have a bit of global warming, please?

[Axel Janssen]

... and they could alter the position of the axis of the earth in winter a bit for europeans.
The big light is switched out between 17:00 and 8:30.
There is a theory that gulf strom would stop with melting of ice in Greenland caused by global warming. For Europe climatic result of global would be canadian clima.
[ January 06, 2005: Message edited by: Axel Janssen ]

[Thomas Paul]

Some say the earth will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I'll side with those that favour fire.
But if the earth should perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great,
And would suffice

[Nick George]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
If all Britain made sure they didn't drive with flat tyres, 35 million litres of petrol would be saved everyday.

That's a pretty bad tyre/litre petrol ratio. You brit.

[Frank Silbermann]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
If all Britain made sure they didn't drive with flat tyres, 35 million litres of petrol would be saved everyday. Getting rid of rubber tyres might help but a large part of the world's livelihood depends on making rubber products of which the tyre is king. Make sure those tyres don't get flat.

What would you use instead of rubber?

I wonder how much petrol they'd save if they allowed people with diesel cars to burn old fry grease from MacDonalds. (A year or two ago I read about a couple of Brits who'd been arrested for doing that. They were caught because their car's exhaust smelled too good. They were charged with evading petrol taxes.)
[ January 06, 2005: Message edited by: Frank Silbermann ]

[peter wooster]

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
What would you use instead of rubber?

I wonder how much petrol they'd save if they allowed people with diesel cars to burn old fry grease from MacDonalds. (A year or two ago I read about a couple of Brits who'd been arrested for doing that. They were caught because their car's exhaust smelled too good. They were charged with evading petrol taxes.)

[ January 06, 2005: Message edited by: Frank Silbermann ]

You could make the tires out of thier burgers.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Completely bogus arguments...
I've also heard arguments stating that football matches should be outlawed because all those people in that stadium produce massive amounts of carbon dioxide which causes (cough cough) global warming.

Then just after the tsunamis hit Sri Lanka and India (talking hours here, not days) Greenpeace released a statement that the thing had been caused by global warming...

Sure underinflated tyres mean you may use a bit more fuel but the numbers mentioned are extremely inflated.
They probably took a sampling of a few dozen cars and extrapolated that to the entire population of millions of vehicles without regard to any scientific methods.

As to "a large part of the world's livelihood" depending on the production of rubber, that's an allout lie.
If there's 100.000 people worldwide working rubber plantations it's a lot, more likely the number is closer to 10.000.
Then there's another 100.000 at most working in the tyre industry, most of whom would find employment in whatever would replace it.
Thus the argument that Big Business is stiffling innovation in replacement products for rubber because of their Corporate Greed are completely bogus and typical of the socialist greens who spout such BS constantly.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:

Water may yet become the most expensive commodity around... Enjoy it while you can.

It could also be the most dividing issue.

It already is... What do you think the entire middle east conflict is about?
It's about control of the river Jordan and the water that flows through it.
Turkey now sides with Israel which makes Syria (which sits in between) extremely nervous as Israel can afford to loose the water (they have desalination plants, Syria does not) and Turkey has the capability (dams) to turn off the river if they want to...

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
We are having freezing rain. May I have a bit of global warming, please?

Without global warming (which is a completely natural phenomenon that has been going on for millions of years) the average surface temperature of the earth would be -25 Celcius or below.
As it is it's roughly +15 degrees.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution there has been a change in average surface temperature of about -0.6 degrees +/- 1.5 degrees, in other words nothing at all
The global warming activists and their Kyoto suicide pact all take only a very short term seeming rise in temperature which is only significant if no datapoints are plotted from before the mid 1970s (well past the largest emissions of their so-called greenhouse gasses).
The effect of CO2 (the main target they mention) to the entire effect (which as I pointed out is completely natural and humans have no measurable influence on it) is only a few percent.
The total increase in global CO2 atmospheric levels since the start of the industrial revolution would have an effect of at most a few tenths of a degree on average global temperatures. This is both well within natural flux as well as being well within the margin of error for longterm temperature measurements.
So even IF there were an effect it would be so marginal as to have no influence on global climate.

[Thomas Paul]

Gravity might help if it's made with some dense material that's fimly attracted to the earth's core.

"Attraction to the earth's core" is something that we call "weight". The more "weight" you have, the more firmly attracted to the earth's core you are. You can test this yourself. Jump a high as you can. Measure the height of your jump. Add 300 pounds (or kilograms or stones or whatever system of measurement you prefer) of weights to your body. This can be done by holding your projection TV or by visiting McDonald's frequently. Now jump. Notice that the increased "weight" makes the earth's core want to keep you nearer. And not only has the earth's core become more attractive to you, but you have become more attractive because gravitational force is related to mass. The more mass you have, the more attractive you are! (At least in a gravitational sense.)

Water may yet become the most expensive commodity around... Enjoy it while you can.

Water, as always, is cheap where it is and expensive where it isn't. My household water bill is less than $50 per year.

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:


It already is... What do you think the entire middle east conflict is about?
It's about control of the river Jordan and the water that flows through it.
Turkey now sides with Israel which makes Syria (which sits in between) extremely nervous as Israel can afford to loose the water (they have desalination plants, Syria does not) and Turkey has the capability (dams) to turn off the river if they want to...

Great so they can all be friendly.... Of the three countries who has the oil ?

That's why I think the "road canals" are a great re-invention ... Kind of distributes the water evenly, too, where it's most needed.
[ January 07, 2005: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
Water, as always, is cheap where it is and expensive where it isn't. My household water bill is less than $50 per year.

Canals on your island instead of roads could cut travel costs to the same amount.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:


Great so they can all be friendly.... Of the three countries who has the oil ?

That's why I think the "road canals" are a great re-invention ... Kind of distributes the water evenly, too, where it's most needed.

[ January 07, 2005: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

None of them has oil. Turkey has coal, Syria has sand
[ January 07, 2005: Message edited by: Max Habibi ]

[Helen Thomas]

The effect of the SE Asia earthquake was so great that the Earth's axis has tilted by 2.5 cms. I think Axel mentioned this.

The whole of Sumatra has shifted 36 metres to the south west. The pent-up energy generated by the colliding Indian-Australian plate and Burma plate ,was reportedly equivalent to 10,000 Hiroshima bombs, which sent the tsunami water speeding across teh ocean at the rate of a commercial jet.

Hardly anyone in Kenya died because they had ample warning to flee inland.

[Frank Silbermann]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution there has been a change in average surface temperature of about -0.6 degrees +/- 1.5 degrees, in other words nothing at all
The global warming activists and their Kyoto suicide pact all take only a very short term seeming rise in temperature which is only significant if no datapoints are plotted from before the mid 1970s (well past the largest emissions of their so-called greenhouse gasses).
The effect of CO2 (the main target they mention) to the entire effect (which as I pointed out is completely natural and humans have no measurable influence on it) is only a few percent.
The total increase in global CO2 atmospheric levels since the start of the industrial revolution would have an effect of at most a few tenths of a degree on average global temperatures. This is both well within natural flux as well as being well within the margin of error for longterm temperature measurements.
So even IF there were an effect it would be so marginal as to have no influence on global climate.

If the imact of industrialization on climate is so weak, then how do you explain it's ability to cause such a massive earth quake?

:roll:

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
If the imact of industrialization on climate is so weak, then how do you explain it's ability to cause such a massive earth quake?

It's because everyone in China jumped up and down at the same time.

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
If the imact of industrialization on climate is so weak, then how do you explain it's ability to cause such a massive earth quake?

:roll:

It could have been The Devil blowing chowder All angles must be considered. Not that the tragedy is any laughing matter.

I'd say most of the developing world uses re-cycled tyres. I'd also
say it's very Dutch not to give up on rubber tyres , it's the only notion of empire they have left.
Tyreless cars on canals conjures up such tranquility , like escalators.

[Gerald Davis]

Not using SUV would help a little, with their gas consumption it is hard to believe that most of them are diesel. I have no problems with showing off in a big car and feeling like a big-shot, but part of being a professional is helping those less fortunately then yourself: through your taxes , your profession and through caring about this planet.

Come Euro2005 don't put those blimin flag on you car because they create too much drag.

[Steven Bell]

Originally posted by Gerald Davis:
Not using SUV would help a little, with their gas consumption it is hard to believe that most of them are diesel. I have no problems with showing off in a big car and feeling like a big-shot, but part of being a professional is helping those less fortunately then yourself: through your taxes , your profession and through caring about this planet.

Come Euro2005 don't put those blimin flag on you car because they create too much drag.

Do you actually think that paying more money in taxes is better for 'those less fortuantely then yourself' over keeping and spending the money?

Rather than the government wasting large portions of it through inefficiency and accounting practices that would put private companies out of business and those that run them in jail, how about letting people spend their money in the private sector which will grow the economy and produce better living an opportunities for everybody.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Gerald Davis:
Not using SUV would help a little, with their gas consumption it is hard to believe that most of them are diesel. I have no problems with
showing off in a big car and feeling like a big-shot, but part of being a professional is helping those less fortunately then yourself: through your taxes , your profession and through caring about this planet.

hmm, you're not socialist enough...
In the Netherlands the socialists tried to ban SUVs (and all other cars over a certain size) only a few months ago because they're supposedly anti-social bourgeois and only for showing off your wealth to the working classes.
Of course their stated reasons were that they're implicitly unsafe for pedestrians and take up too much parking space.

Governments are not accountable to their citizens, therefore they have no incling at all to reduce spending.
In fact, as already said, if a company were to survive running like a government the entire board and financial department would be thrown in jail for illegal practices (but then they would not survive because the massive mismanagement would get them bankrupt within a year).

The argument of "fair distribution of resources" is also a typical socialist propaganda line, coming from the idea that for some reason having a higher income than the lowest one is caused by you exploiting the worker class and stealing their hard earned income by doing nothing.

If everyone were to have the same income (this has in fact been proposed in several countries) there would be no incentive at all to do anything at all, let alone take a job with responsibility.
After all, why exert yourself doing hard (physical or mental) work if you get paid the exact same amount at the end of the month as the secretary who only takes notes at the weekly meeting and the rest of the time just sits there being pretty for the visitors and smiling into the telephone?

[Warren Dew]

Jeroen Wenting:

Sure underinflated tyres mean you may use a bit more fuel but the numbers mentioned are extremely inflated.

Are you sure? I've found that properly inflating my tires after ignoring them for a while gives me close to a 10% improvement in gas mileage, and it seems to me that Helen's figures are the right order of magnitude for that.

[Warren Dew]

Jeroen Wenting:

After all, why exert yourself doing hard (physical or mental) work if you get paid the exact same amount at the end of the month as the secretary who only takes notes at the weekly meeting and the rest of the time just sits there being pretty for the visitors and smiling into the telephone?

Because you enjoy and take pride in your work and want to do it well? Of course then, you might prefer to move to someplace that values people who take pride in their work and want to do it well....

Because you appreciate the fact that the secretary does such a good job at being pretty?

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Warren Dew:
Jeroen Wenting:

Sure underinflated tyres mean you may use a bit more fuel but the numbers mentioned are extremely inflated.

Are you sure? I've found that properly inflating my tires after ignoring them for a while gives me close to a 10% improvement in gas mileage, and it seems to me that Helen's figures are the right order of magnitude for that.

true, but that would mean that cars with underinflated tyres in the UK uses 350 million liters of petrol a day.
At an average fuel consumption (remember European cars use less fuel than US ones) of 1 liter in 15 kilometers (and that's conservative, the real number is closer to 20), that means that just the cars with underinflated tyres (which are a minority of all cars) drive 5.25 billion kilometers a year in the UK alone.
I find that rather hard to believe, especially if you consider that the UK has maybe 6 million cars. If 10% of those constitute the cars driving with underinflated tyres (the actual percentage is likely lower) that means 600.000 cars drive a total of 5.25 billion kilometers a day for an average of about 8000km a day each. Given that cars with underinflated tyres are usually cars that don't get proper maintenance which is mainly older cars used mainly for shopping and weekend outings and further given that most of those cars drive less than 10.00km a year I think you see the impossibility in these numbers.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Warren Dew:
Jeroen Wenting:

After all, why exert yourself doing hard (physical or mental) work if you get paid the exact same amount at the end of the month as the secretary who only takes notes at the weekly meeting and the rest of the time just sits there being pretty for the visitors and smiling into the telephone?

Because you enjoy and take pride in your work and want to do it well? Of course then, you might prefer to move to someplace that values people who take pride in their work and want to do it well....

Because you appreciate the fact that the secretary does such a good job at being pretty?

Most people don't take pride in their work, they do it only because they get paid to do it...
If you look at jobs where payment is not related to performance you see even now that there's no incentive to do much of anything.
Take for an example many government jobs (at least here, might be different in the US).
The career path (and paygrades) are fully automated and controlled purely by the number of years you have been working for the government (and by your age to a lesser degree).
There is no incentive (in fact, your colleagues will actively discourage you) in many departments to do much of anything. I know several people working in government functions who indeed do nothing at all really. In the morning they sign off a few memos and the rest of the day they drink coffee and read their newspapers.
These are not isolated cases. Were their departments as a whole to be more productive these people would either have to work or find themselves in a situation where their colleagues turn against them.
Instead people who DO want to do something get stalled at every point. This I encountered myself when on a shortterm consultancy project with the government (in another agency in another part of the country). At one point we needed new computers for 20 new people we were bringing in. Our requests went unanswered for weeks and then we got an answer that there were no machines to be had. After some digging we found a warehouse with hundreds of machines in storage, which "belonged" to the person handling our request. Took us several weeks (and the intervention of a political appointee, one of the top people in the entire department) more to get them to release those machines to us and even then we only got them if we would come and get them ourselves (instead of having the internal movers and installation group bring them over to the other side of the street).
In this project this was the worst but hardly the only way in which productivity was actively discouraged (we'd had 20 programmers sitting around doing nothing for weeks for lack of equipment) if not made impossible.

No, I've no illusions whatsoever that the majority of the population will be motivated by professional pride or joy in their work to do more than the absolute minimum work if there's no financial incentive.

[Gerald Davis]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:


If everyone were to have the same income (this has in fact been proposed in several countries) there would be no incentive at all to do anything at all, let alone take a job with responsibility.
After all, why exert yourself doing hard (physical or mental) work if you get paid the exact same amount at the end of the month as the secretary who only takes notes at the weekly meeting and the rest of the time just sits there being pretty for the visitors and smiling into the telephone?

I am quite aware of the weaknesses of communism/socialism. �unregulated laissez faire free market is the best system because it most closely mimics the natural struggle for survival of the fittest. Communities are flawed because they perpetuate the unfit�

Financial incentive is very important. To some it can even bring meaning to the job they are doing. You must also understand that money is a resource , money equals power and influence and as human beings that is what drives the majority of use forwards. To change this would require changing either by breading or genetically engineer people to appreciate different values.

Those with higher status can have their milk and apples or any luxury they can afford. In the case of SUV whether am left-wing or right, these vehicle create more grime on historic buildings, take up too much space; hence, creating inefficiencies in the road that equals more traffic jam equals more stress equals more lower productivity. And I forgot SUV contribute to green-house gases.

I personally would not ban SUV, never dream of it. I would tax the hell out of them and use the money to build a more efficient transport infrastructure.

So people say environmental changes are man-made others say it isn't. So the best thing we can do is not to waste money on reducing green house gases but to build more efficient environmental machine, hydro-electric ,solar , and wind-farms.

[Gerald Davis]

Originally posted by Steven Bell:


Do you actually think that paying more money in taxes is better for 'those less fortuantely then yourself' over keeping and spending the money?

Rather than the government wasting large portions of it through inefficiency and accounting practices that would put private companies out of business and those that run them in jail, how about letting people spend their money in the private sector which will grow the economy and produce better living an opportunities for everybody.

Some misunderstanding about my message. I was merely talking about the pride of being a professional, one of course is to paying taxes. Whether the tax are high or low, someone in a better job is going to pay more taxes. That tax goes toward schooling, street lighting, defence bla bla bla. Isn't that something to be proud of?

If you have a professional job that helps your community like doctor, social worker, police, defence and a limited extent Object Oriented Developer that is also a thing to be proud off.

If you blatantly waste the planets resources, it is shame that you should have for doing so. More towards the rich of course because they tend to consume more resources then the poor. But even the poor can do their part too.

While we an the subject of taxes mostly believe that a low tax economy is good, it attracts business from overseas and help private companies plus the other-stuff that you probably more aware of then myself. But sometimes it is worth having higher taxes to spend on better environment. What I mean by better environment, better more efficient transport system, nicer roads and no graphiti, better school buildings and generally spending on anything towards infrastructures that would remain in place long time even during a low tax economy.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Gerald Davis:

Those with higher status can have their milk and apples or any luxury they can afford. In the case of SUV whether am left-wing or right, these vehicle create more grime on historic buildings, take up too much space; hence, creating inefficiencies in the road that equals more traffic jam equals more stress equals more lower productivity. And I forgot SUV contribute to green-house gases.

Bicycling produces greenhouse gasses too. You breath more rapidly, causing higher emissions of CO2

Originally posted by Gerald Davis:

I personally would not ban SUV, never dream of it. I would tax the hell out of them and use the money to build a more efficient transport infrastructure.

you mean more trains? Those have been proven to not work (except for trams and metros).

Originally posted by Gerald Davis:


So people say environmental changes are man-made others say it isn't. So the best thing we can do is not to waste money on reducing green house gases but to build more efficient environmental machine, hydro-electric ,solar , and wind-farms.

solar and wind are completely ineffective. The production and running of these kind of powerstations costs more energy in total than the energy produced during their lifetimes (this was researched by a group I was a graduate student at, the conclusions were banned from publication so as not to upset the environmentalists who were major sponsors of the research institute).

I agree no money should be wasted on reducing CO2 emissions where such is not econmically viable.
Instead money should be invested heavily in nuclear power, especially nuclear fusion.
Once those reach large scale adaptation CO2 emissions will go down automatically and the dependency on fossil fuels will reduce and over time maybe disappear.

[Bert Bates]

If you don't like the taste of chlorine (like me), you must either filter your water or buy bottled... For me, drinking water is more expensive than gas!

What do you guys know about using vegetable oil as fuel... (in diesel engines?) ?

[Guy Allard]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:

...
Instead money should be invested heavily in nuclear power, especially nuclear fusion.
Once those reach large scale adaptation CO2 emissions will go down automatically and the dependency on fossil fuels will reduce and over time maybe disappear.

I agree.

We will be the minority in most forums, including this one I suspect.

Guy

[Gerald Davis]

Originally posted by Guy Allard:


I agree.

We will be the minority in most forums, including this one I suspect.

Guy

Strange enough, nuclear power was mentioned in the an environmental documentary called Environmental: War On Terror. With the risk of green house gasses and current alternatives not being sufficient enough and nuclear power being the only temporary solution.
The next documentary is on now so got to go.

[Gerald Davis]

This links might interst you, and crap free also.

http://www.channel4.com/science/

Tomorrow don't forget to watch part3 What Would Jesus Drive 8 o'clock on 4.

PS wouldn't he drive one of those hippy wv

[Warren Dew]

Jeroen Wenting:

I find that rather hard to believe, especially if you consider that the UK has maybe 6 million cars.

This linkGives a British population figure of 59.8 million, and says there are 476 motor vehicles per 1000 people, so wouldn't that be more like 26 million vehicles, mostly cars?

I was also assuming that more like 90% of cars had tires underinflated by 10% or so, which is likely true in the U.S. where people rarely check their tire pressure but perhaps not true in Europe. I admit to using U.S. fuel efficiency numbers - I knew Europe was better, but not that it was that much better (looks like more than a factor of two).
[ January 09, 2005: Message edited by: Warren Dew ]

[Alan Wanwierd]

Originally posted by Gerald Davis:
the best thing we can do is not to waste money on reducing green house gases but to build more efficient environmental machine, hydro-electric ,solar , and wind-farms.

Wind farms? - I think there have been a few experiments with wind farms and environmentalists have tended to HATE them!. Ignoring the engineering issues of whether or not they can produce cost effective energy, they without question cause apalling damage to the enironment. Have you seen a hillside covered with windmills? Wind farms work best when put in barren open spaces (for obvious reasons) - and the visual destruction that occurs by errecting a whole stack of windmills is terrible!

Hydro electric power is not without its ecological problems either - the process of damning rivers to build HE damns means flooding valleys and drastically altering the flow of water down the rivers existing course. In Australia the "Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric project" took decades to build and was considered a success at first. However, the reduction in water flowing down the rivers has led to all sorts of problems lower down on the valleys where farmers no longer have enough water in the river to irrigate their land.

Solar energy - At least this can be seen as truly a clean source of power, however, it is somewhat dependant on location! Here in Queensland we have more than enough sun and I could easily generate enough power for my needs by putting a couple of solar panels on my roof and contributing to the national grid when I have excess so that I can draw from the grid when I have need. The only thing that stops me from doing this is economics! Currently such a setup would cost me about $20,000 (after receiving considerable governmment grants that exist to try and encourage this) and would give me a net gain of around $100 a month. Thats a very long 200 month (17 yr) return on investment, longer possibly than I am likely to remain in my house - so I cant justify doing it. If we assume that the technology goes on improving and getting cheaper then eventually this should be the way to go - I should think that once the ROI time gets closer to 5yrs it'd become staggeringly popular..
You might have a few more problems trying to implement this kind of technology in grey sky'd Europe though!!

[Joe King]

Originally posted by Guy Allard:

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
...
Instead money should be invested heavily in nuclear power, especially nuclear fusion.
Once those reach large scale adaptation CO2 emissions will go down automatically and the dependency on fossil fuels will reduce and over time maybe disappear.

We will be the minority in most forums, including this one I suspect.

Guy

I totally agree that more should be invested in nuclear power. I saw a TV programme recently about the power supply in the UK. Apparently even if the power needs over a year of the entire country were to be supplied by nuclear power stations, the total amount of waste would still fit in a small room. The current fossil fuel power stations, on the other hand, produce so much CO2 waste in a single year that if it were taken out of the atmosphere it would cover the whole country to a depth of several metres.

Part of the reason why we don't have more nuclear power stations is that the private companies who run the power stations aren't willing to spend that large amounts needed to build them, even though it would be more profitable in the long term.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Adrian Wallace:
Wind farms? - I think there have been a few experiments with wind farms and environmentalists have tended to HATE them!.

http://unref.blogspot.com/2004/11/fall-and-wind.html

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Joe King:
Part of the reason why we don't have more nuclear power stations is that the private companies who run the power stations aren't willing to spend that large amounts needed to build them, even though it would be more profitable in the long term.

One word, "Chernobyl". Three words, "Three Mile Island".