AWARD NIGHTS SHOW OFF SURREY'S TALENT - University of ...

Sci/Tech Editor: Nathanael Roome | Copy Editor: Louisa White
For the first time in 40 years
there will be no nuclear
power being pumped into
Japan’s grid, having once
supplied the country with 30%
of its electricity, as the last of
its 54 reactors is switched off
for maintenance. But what
does the future hold for such a
stigmatised source of energy?
Governments across the
world have listened to the
protesting voices of anxious
citizens and taken heed of events
at Fukushima-Daiichi with a
push for ‘greener’, renewable
energy forms.
In France (the civilian
nuclear powerhouse of the
world), where nuclear generates
78.8% of all national electricity,
the situation is bleak for the
once embraced carbon-free
energy form, with newly elected
socialist President Francois
Hollande having pledged to
cut national nuclear energy
production down by a third by
2025.
And in neighbouring
Germany (the country where
nuclear fission was first
understood and explored), The
Chancellor, Angela Merkel,
due to the uneasy relationship
with nuclear safety and
the public, has decided to
completely abandon nuclear
within a decade in an attempt
to gain popularity for her now
unfavoured administration -
despite not having experienced
a nuclear disaster since before
the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Under pressure from the
German government, electricity
The Stag | 22 nd May 2012
Science & Technology
Nathanael
Roome
Science & Tech Editor
i’ve met with my writers
on a regular basis, I find
this is the best way to
keep us all in the loop
and ensure that enough
articles are ready for the
regular deadlines. i keep
an eye on Sci/Tech news
around the world and
when i see something
significant I keep a record
for the writers to mull
over. The articles selected
sometime follow a theme,
e.g. feminism or industry,
but more often than not
it is just a case of finding
interesting news.
Are you suffering from social jet lag?
By Melissa Raske, Science & Tech Team
If you require an alarm clock to wake
up during the week and then sleep
in during the weekend you could
be suffering social jet lag, reports a
study published online in the journal
Current Biology.
For the past 10 years scientists
from the University of Munich have
been compiling data on sleep and wake
patterns and have recently published
their findings thus far while the study
continues.
According to the study a person’s
biological clock and social clock,
which are based on their employment
and other activities, do not match up.
Our biological clocks are regulated by
daylight and darkness and cannot be
reset to match the timings required
for our day to day lives.
The use of an alarm clock means
that you are essentially not getting
enough sleep and the difference in
sleep timings between the week and
weekend is similar to changing time
zones every week.
According to a statement made
by Professor Roenneberg; “Waking
up with an alarm clock is a relatively
new facet of our lives. It simply means
that we haven’t slept enough and this
is the reason why we are chronically
tired.”
The report focussed on the effects
of sleep deprivation on health and in
particular obesity.
After surveying 65,000 adults’
sleeping habits, researchers found that
those whose weekend and weekday
sleep schedules were different were
three times as likely to be overweight.
The study didn’t show that obesity
was directly caused by lack of sleep
but rather by the habits associated
with it, including eating at times
when the body isn’t supposed to eat,
eating unhealthy foods, drinking
more alcohol and doing less exercise.
Although it may be difficult to
alter social schedules, people are
encouraged to try and go to bed at the
same time each night and rise at the
same time each day in order to get the
recommended 7-9 hours of sleep per
night.
©Jess J
suppliers E.ON and RWE npower
are seeking new owners for their
joint UK venture: Horizon; with
5 international players in the
industry showing an interest
in the nuclear power company,
formed in 2009.
Europe’s appetite for atomic
energy may have waned;
however in the newly emerging
and less developed economies
the demand for more and more
domestic power still needs to be
met.
China is currently
constructing 26 new reactors
(with another 51 planned), 10
are going to be built in Russia,
India is forging ahead with 3
nuclear plants, and South Korea
is looking to double its domestic
supply to 60% of national energy
as well as aspiring to become
the world’s third biggest nuclear
power exporter.
Even the Gulf States: Saudi
Arabia, UAE and Qatar, are seeing
nuclear as the ‘way forward’ as
it’s more economically viable
to export their oil at current
high prices than burn it as a fuel
while demand soars elsewhere.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera, the
University of Surrey’s Professor
Paddy Regan said: “In a situation
where the world population is
increasing and the resources
are becoming more and more
scarce, I personally think that
nuclear power continues to have
a major role to play in energy
production worldwide.
“The number of people
who actually died as a result
of nuclear accidents is actually
miniscule compared to the
number of, for example, Chinese
coal miners who die every year.”
However the public
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 13
The end of the nuclear renaissance?
By Alex Smith, Science & Tech Team
perception of nuclear is typically
a hostile one with memories of
Chernobyl, and now, Fukushima
ingrained in their minds; yet
other, traditional forms of
energy are only associated with
words such as ‘emissions’ and
‘climate’ despite catastrophes
like the BP/Deepwater Horizon
oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in
2010.
In response to the
Fukushima disaster Greenpeace
issued a statement further
condemning the nuclear
industry: “Nuclear power is
inadequate, unnecessary as well
as dangerous. It’s also a hugely
expensive distraction from work
to limit the impacts of climate
change.”
Despite this and the public
anxiety, for the first time since
the Three-Mile Island disaster
of 1979, the US has approved
2 reactors to be constructed
in South Carolina and has
extended the licenses on half of
its nuclear power plants.
And research is still ongoing
at JET in Oxfordshire and ITER
in southern France to sustain a
nuclear fusion reaction, which
leaves no radioactive waste (that
currently spends thousands of
years buried under the ground
to ‘cool-off’) and yields far more
energy than current nuclear
fission reactors - If successful
they would effectively remove
the risks of nuclear energy and
maybe the fear that goes with it.
Whatever the future holds
the world is still in shock
from events in Japan, which is
currently expecting nights of
more and more blackouts, as a
result of what happens when
nuclear power goes wrong.
©Digi-tal