Digital Cleavage!

Strange how it has taken a humungous financial crisis to get world leaders to realise that the order based upon the hangover of 19th century colonial power had failed.

These G8 international despots also realised that crisis meant that as they had screwed up so badly that their only way out was to adapt to the new realities of the 21stcentury; more pertinent they realised that by creating the G20 they could hide behind the new others and preserve their own skins! Blame shedding.The bursting of the over inflated economic mammary has impacted the multilateral world aided by Obama’s acceptance that the US cannot (and will not) remain the whipping boy of the world when difficult decisions are made; that the ‘new others’ must assume their rightful place at the decision table with the associated responsibility. A hard road ahead but the UN Security Council must progressively remove the veto powers of the ‘old school’. Diplomacy, that art of defrauding the truth in the interest of national (and personal) gain has to change.Matters of energy and security (and thus environment) are one trigger to this change. The confirmation of intent to eliminate the 26 000 nuclear weapons on this planet is both good and an indicator of the stupidity of mankind. After all the 15 kiloton atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed 70 000 people immediately and probably 300 000 in total from injury and radiation. That was when where only one nation had the bomb; no retaliation.Espionage, human creativity and political will means many nations in the bomb business! 26 000 war heads, each probably 100 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, are more than enough to eliminate the 3 billion city dwellers of this world and make the rest of us glow in the dark. The stupidity of man’s desire for power.But this stupidity offers the opportunity. Nuclear power, having been the pariah of power generation world, has at last risen to prominence such that several tens of new stations are planned or in process. The nuclear option will reduce both the pollution from combusting fossil fuels, put off the day when such fuels become scarce and, most important, through diversification, redistribute global power imbalances due to addiction to the petrol driven motor car!I can hear the renewable brigade loading their crossbows but then I am one of them. Renewables have their place in an energy hungryworld; but nuclear energy technology has progressed to make it safer but not without risk. The sort of decision the rebooted world power structure has to take within their new remit of global responsibility. The ‘new kids on the block’ may have to accept that many regimes continue in power through demonisation others as motivation, sometimes justifiably but never-the-less, blocking progress through the intransigence of many parties.. Solutions have to be found and actioned.Namibia can be part of the solution. The problems of nuclear revolve around the upgrading of low level concentrates to useable isotopic strengths, to avoiding the less nice people of this world making weapons grade product and handling, recycling and storing used and waste products. An obvious solution is to focus the processing and storage facilities in a few, IAEA supervised international zone operated sites, where adequate power and cooling water is available and geological, population and access factors are favourable; plus reasonable political factors!Is this not where Namibia, especially with its newly empowered friends and as a major Uranium producer could take its place on the world stage? Fewer bombs, more power? The digital world of technology beckons.csmith@mweb.com.na