Glad they are out on bail – I still don’t think any attempt to disrupt or even shut down an operational power station (which has happened before) is a good idea. We are so lucky in this nation that the Grid is fairly robust; but why make things worse to prove a political point?
Police release 114 held for suspected power station protest released on bail | Environment | guardian.co.uk
I can forgive people with a liberal arts or even biological science background initially not knowing the engineering issues why making power stations shut down isn’t a good idea – but I’m old enough to remember regular power cuts – in many cases caused by workers “making a stand” and taking direct action by striking
The net result was people went to the ballot box and voted in Thatcho, who privatised the power companies and ultimately made things far worse (many were working on renewable energy projects in 1986/87, all of which were eventually shelved due to the new commercial pressures on the former Electricity Boards)
I bet if a bunch of yoghurt weavers went into somewhere like Tranzmission and turned off all the electric as it was a “frivolous use of energy” and said “we should all listen to hippies with guitars and drums” they would need the Met to escort them out for their own safety!
However it doesn’t let the rest of us off the hook as we do all need to conserve power – otherwise for both commercial and environmental reasons we may reach a time where it it will be done for us.
Bear in mind that its possible to shut off the ‘leccy for 2-3 hours in all areas without risking the contents of everyones freezers from defrosting – in the medium term it would be a straightforward if unpopular measure for the authorities and the power companies to enforce rolling blackouts around 01:00 – 04:00 – which could be easily be linked in with curfews on nightlife “in the interests of public safety”.
