After seeing the 'solution' Clinton, Obama, and Pelosi have come up with for our energy needs I am very thankful I have two brothers who were smart enough to invent the NukAlert (www.nukalert.com). With the looming inevitable radioactive disaster(s) on the horizon you can best believe I will clutch mine ever closer to me as time goes by.

I recently saw a program that said the residents of Iceland (or maybe it was Greenland) get 90% of their home electricity needs met through geo-thermal. My geology professor 35 years ago stated there is enough geo-thermal energy in using just one southwestern state for a source to power the whole US. My brother assures me transmission from source to the end user is the problem, so directing funding into transmission issues seems more prudent, to me, than funding nuclear power options.

Either last year, or the year before even, an article came out that said renewables were now providing more electricity worldwide than all the nuclear power plants (and this didn't even include massive power generating dam projects). Why waste funding on long term dangerous nuclear projects when a more viable option like this is proven & available...and safe...and green?

For all of those who posted the question about the need for an Apollo like project for our energy needs I can answer there IS such a project, and has been for several years (Google Apollo Alliance for info).

More info gathered/seen/read was a statement that a ten square mile wind farm would power the whole US. The same source stated a ten square mile solar location would do the same, and locations were proposed for both. Why aren't one or both currently under construction? Big oil wants the status quo unchanged, Big Agri wants money from ethanol production, nuclear also has their greedy hands out, and our representatives are 'bought off' by all.

"Money talks and BS walks", but it looks as if we all will be walking unless we collectively stand up shouting, "We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore!"

Unfortunately, I agree with the previous post (nuclear power ok). I think we are at a point where it is a necessary evil. It would be nice if people would deal with the waste issue though. My understanding is that the place in Nevada that was proposed to store waste is the safest place in the country to store it.

Aside from the rather critical global warming issue, we are peaking as far as world oil supplies go and natural gas supplies are right around the corner. It's all downhill from here. We don't have a lot of choice. I think it would be courageous for one of these candidates to openly discuss this issue though -- although it would probably be political suicide.

There is no way around this issue. Until we have truly clean renewable safe energy, nuclear will have to be part of the equation.

Producing plutonium is not worth it. There is no safe place for it and it will pose a great health risk for many thousands of years.

Nietzsche:
1. French are reprocessing "spent" fuel rods, not hauling them over country as we are planning to do.
2. Planning and worrying about what to do in 100 years from now, not to say 100,000 is utterly ridiculous. It is like worrying about your hairdo while falling from the Empire State Building. 100 years ago the most unsurpassable problem with the spent fuel in the City of New York was, What to do with the horse manure, while 100,000 years ago the most unsurpassable problem where to get around after peak of mammoth meat production.

The real danger of climate change is now. So, let us concentrate on it. As a byproduct, we can get away with the archaic delusion that few individuals are entitled to lord over many.

We have got to stop passing our problems on to future generations.

These people must think that what with global warming killing off our grandchildren in a mere hundred years, why worry about a hundred thousand years from now when everybody will have forgotten where the nuclear waste is buried?

If we could spend the money we are spending on murder in Iraq to develop wind, solar, geothermal, electric cars...there would be neither a global warming nor an energy nor a terrorist problem.

Know what I think? I think the dickster would rather see the world end than see a decrease in next quarter's profits.

"Switching from coal to nukes," said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming program, "is like giving up smoking and taking up crack."

Thinking by analogy is like eating by picture on the package. Air over France is the clearest air in Europe. There is no way out nuclear energy. Repeat, PERIOD. Save for return to stone age and reducing human population to original 500 millions.

Biofuel is hoax for illiterates. Efficiency of biofuel, that is energy put in (plowing, harvesting and processing) vs energy output is low and may be even negative. Just compare what Sun is delivering per sq. meter, area to be put under energy production and everybody can see for himself.

Fussion reaction of course is the way to go and American Big Oil lobby is to thank for delay of that project and moving it away to Europe. But meanwhile, fission plants are safe enough, especially if you compare potential risk with certainty of cost of
1. Moving 500 million people into inland.
2. Moving whole scale international port facility, refinery etcetera.
3. 100% loss of Venice, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, 50% of London and Wall Street area. The last loss is the most acceptable, I am sure.

So, think twice and calculate my fellow environmentalists before crying wolf.

There are know safe ways of producing enough electricity to run our nation. One way includes generators in the Gulf of Mexico that use the difference between surface and deep water temeratures to heat and cool gas that runs generators. Wave energy as well as hydroelectric and wind can also be used. The support for nuclear energy by these candidates, given the knowledge of its dangers and the alternatives is due to the corporate interests to which they are beholden for support. The main issue in power production is weather it should be publicly owned and run for public good or privately run for profit. In our technological society, electricity has become a necessity as opposed to a luxury commodity. As such, it can be better run and managed publicly and the reality of global warming makes this a national security issue as well. We can't afford to leave it to the profiteers.

I watched the nuclear power report on 60 minutes last night.

They started by showing how the French are using nuclear power in large amounts. They also export excess power to other European countries.

Instead of burying their nuclear waste, the French reprocess it by putting the spent fuel rods in cold water for five years. The problem is that reprocessing the fuel rods produces weapons grade plutonium.

The report went on to present a Bush Administration official who said there were efforts underway to figure out how to reprocess the nuclear waste without having such a security threat as a byproduct.

There also was a segment with a scientist who was working on using small balls instead of fuel rods as a way to reduce or eliminate the waste created in the process.

Personally, I'm open to the idea of nuclear power.

I see nuclear power as a tool similar to a hammer. I think it was Chomsky who said we can choose to build a house or we can choose to hit someone in the head with the hammer. The same can be said about nuclear power, but that is one big hammer so the choices are magnified.

Other dangers include accidents and attacks on nuclear plants.

If our scientists can create nuclear power that does not produce toxic waste or high grade plutonium, then we could have a source of energy we can create ourselves that produces no carbon emissions. We could drive electric cars and power our homes without adding more carbon to the air and without needing to buy oil from the Mideast.

Countries all over the world are learning how to create and use nuclear power.

We need to lead by example. I hope the citizens of the United States will elect people who will fund research into clean technologies so we have a wide range of options to choose from. If nuclear power is being used to power human life on Earth, I hope it will be done in ways that don't produce toxic waste or dangerous weapons.

We should be investing more in clean energy technologies.

I dont see anyone talking about powering down. Perhaps the conversation should be more about living a sustainable lifestyle, and not about choosing the lesser of two evils.

We need conservation measures, a Apollo project like focus on solar/wind etc, but most of all we need to use less energy.

I likewise part with my fellow greens on this issue.

I believe we cannot eliminate nuclear form the mix of solutions based on mostly visceral, unscientific reactions to nuclear power. Commercial light-water nuclear power generation (which Chernobyl wasn't) has by the best occupational health and safety record of any major industry in history. You cannot even compare it to the coal mine accidents, black lung deaths, coal-waste dam failure disasters, and not infrequent plant accidents in coal-power gneration. By virtue of the very small quantities involved, and much greater ease in their detection, hazards from nuclear waste from commercial nuclear power are quite small to the persistent chemical hazards we pouring into the environment.

The biggest obstacle is the long lead time it takes to add nuclear generating cpacity. Wind and solar capacity can be added much more quickly. But these sources are prone to the fickleness of the weather unless we build pumped storage hydroelectric dams all over our wild mountain areas. So, I think central, steam-power electric genration plants will still need to be part of the mix, and light-water fission is the only relatively carbon-free form of this type of power generation curently available until we can develop fusion.

But, not all types of fusion energy are clean either - the easist form of fusion requires tritium, which is highly radioactive and must be produced using a nuclear reactor. Only deuterium-deuterium fusion, deuterium being stable and abundant in seawater would be relatively "clean".

Not sure if many of the posters here are aware of the waters they are wading into. About a year ago I followed up on an article in Scientific American extoling the promise of fusion reactors and before I knew it physicists and proponents and opponents came down on me like a plague. Following the many links provided by both sides I am no closer to forming a definite conclusion than I was then. There is much hyperbole and exaggeration on both sides of the issue. From fission, to fusion, to waste, to weapons, there is no concensus anywhere. I expect this piece will produce one of the longest threads in CD experience, as proponents on both sides are vigilant, aggresive, and pre-emptive. Hope you all have your pencils and notebooks out because you're about to get a course in nuclear physics.

Clinton, Obama and the others (Kucinich being an exception) don't get it.

We need to draft Gore.

http://www.draftgore.com/

After slogging through much technical info (much of it over my head) my take is that these are the hot unresolved issues:

Relative scarcity of uranium ore and the industry's dismal record of mining activites;
Technical difficulties surrounding a containment field enclosing the fusion reaction (think Spider Man 2);
The expense and inadequacy of permanent waste storage facilites; the extant volume exceeds all present and future facility plans;
The susceptibilty of the waste stream of "breeder reactors" to corruption, terrorism, secret programs;
Current population/energy needs versus limited effectiveness of renewables wrt;

"Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night."

Why am I not surprised that CBS (Westinghouse) has done a piece on nuclear power that accentuates the positive? Government incentives should be focusing on clean energy. Nuclear has too many liabilities, and there are reasonable alternatives. Wind farms (off-shore, too), geothermal, solar, and hydro-electric power are clean. Until real efforts have been made to solve our emissions problems, it's difficult to see this enthusiasm for nuclear power as anything but opportunism on the part of corporations that stand to profit from enormous expenditures on constructing plants, processing, transporting, and "disposing" of nuclear materials.

I really thought this argument was over with. Its insane the lead democratic presidential candidates are thinking nuclear is a viable option.

Problem #1 with nuclear: production of the source. Where does nuclear come from: uranium mining. Where are the main sources of uranium in this country, or for that matter abroad? The Navajo Nation stopped their uranium mining after so much dispute about how it was killing those mining it, and polluting the areas around the mines. uranium tailings anyone? North dakota, site of some of the largest uranium deposits in the country. Another Indian Reservation. Maybe we can get uranium from Iran after Bush finally decides to bomb them into submission. That will be great right?

Problem 2: the idea that nuclear plants dont produce any pollution is false. In fact the cold water process creates thermal pollution in pools that are used for storage of the waste water material. For that matter, lets look at the cancer rates in areas surrounding nuclear facilities. not healthy...

problem 3: storage of waste. Again, we continue to not just leave the problem for future generations, but affect those communities now by storing fuel near them. The National Academy of Sciences decided several years ago the water table under Yucca mountain would generate unsafe leaching. Bush, in response, claims National academy is just an advisorial group, and that he knows better than the scientists. Above ground storage has many security issues and dissaffects communities where the nation deems to place its waste. Who will be the first to take a few tons of nuclear waste into their backyards? Now, we can continue to do what we already are doing with much of the spent fuel rods, which is to make depleted uranium weapons and shoot them into the desert in the middle east. and the cities. oh ya, and weapons that cause birth defects also have affected our own soldiers through friendly fire, and particularly in the first gulf war those simply walking near the aerosolized material. we can, and do, sell those same weapons to places like israel, russia, and all of europe. Who cares that we are using radioactive weapons over there right? nuclear, therefore, is great if we dont mind using the waste as a source for more weapons of mass destruction. Clinton didnt mind using them in Kosovo.

a diversified energy economy is important. without a doubt. But also important are the issues of conservation and the immediate and long term impacts of what these sources will be. Off-water small scale hydroelectic is a viable option. as is a mega-project in increasing the efficiency of solar technology. Still, it is a much safer form of fuel, particularly if we examine the life cycle of the technologies, than nuclear. Biofuels are important, yet exchanging the food supply for fuel for developed nations causes its own set of problems.

again, increasing efficiency at the domestic, personnal level is a necessity and we must as a society begin to think of our consumption patterns. Without doing so, we continue to unravel our civilization, destroying ourselves and the planet that sustains us.

To VitalyPorto

Just compare what Sun is delivering per sq. meter, area to be put under energy production and everybody can see for himself.

Since you so curtly dismiss solar power and probably its other poor cousin wind power in deference to the infinite , non-negotiable efficacy of nuclear power, compare singularly for me , what energy the sun is delivering per sq.m because everybody else can see it for himself.

Additional data requested is indeed quite sparse using Diablo Canyonès power-output capability as a benchmark :

Size,cost,life-span and net CO2 emissions for Diablo Canyon

Ditto for solar and wind farm.

As Sherlock Holmes admonished Dr.Watson , I admonish you ,Just the facts , my dear Watson ,just the facts , nevermind the guesses and the generalities .

Vince Lawrence:
Do not even try to find answers to the does and don'ts of fusion technology, there are not here yet. But there is a trend.
Everybody is familiar with Moore Law - doubling of gate density on silicon wafer for every 18 months. This law is totally phenomenological with no micro-explanations attached. Yet it worked so far and will work for some time to come before we meet single atom natural limits.
The same laws with different doubling periods are at work in many other areas, TOKOMAC technology being one of them. Instead of density and associated speed of circuitry, TOKOMAC has a very rough indicator of progress, the product of plasma density and time of free drift between collisions of ions. 50 years ago, when that technology was proposed by D. Sakharov, this product was one divided into 10E-20. When Princeton Plasma Lab was disbanded around 10 years ago by the US Congress in its divine wisdom for the want of paltry $10 Billion for the next 10 years, that is up to now, that product was close to 1, which constituted break even point, when energy input equal to energy output. That is difference in 20 orders of magnitude for last half a century. That is doubling in value every 12 months on average.

As in climatology, one cannot predict when in January a temperature will be equal to average January temperature 10 years from now. But it will most definitely will. And it will most definitely differ from that of July.

Fusion technology is on the same stage to-day as PCs were in late seventies. With regard to tritium and other 'impediments' to fusion technology, it ridiculous to discuss to-day hazards, associated with something that may not be even part of future development.

Use a chainsawn to cut butter, that's what we do when we match high quality electrical energy with low requirement energy jobs. What a waste to use electric to do the low quality work of heating the home, bath water, dishwater and drying clothes. Let electricity run the electronics, lighting, and motors that require it. Instead of looking for more and more energy let's match the tool with the work to be done and perhaps we won't need to go nuclear.

The vested interests ,including the subject politicians are presenting nuclear power as though it was not a contributor to greenhouse gases.

Reality check: Uranium mining, processing, transport, the construction of massive concrete structures needed for nuke plants and for waste containment all emit lots of greenhouse gas.

To Ronald White:
I dismissed neither solar, no wind energy, I just did not mention them. Besides, wind energy IS solar energy by definition. I presume that by solar you meant photovoltaic cells, not green leaves. If that is true, than major handicap for photovoltaic cells that they are not pollution free: Their life time is limited and, therefore, the material for their production should be constantly mined. I am not aware of any real cost analysis, which would include all externals.

Continuing in the same method of general observation, of which I am not ashamed, I think that fusion will be the way to go before we hit limit of direct thermal pollution, the natural limit to human population on this planet under whatever may be its standard of life. Then, of course, there is human dimension to the external energy saturation of American life style, emulated by imbeciles of the world. To teach people to use rake rather than leaf-blower instead of driving a guzzler of the S.U.V to the most expensive gym, is a prolong story. We just do not have time for that, save for weeding out over-pampered generation.

This is truly a Faustian bargain we've set up.

On the one hand, we have global warming and a depleted oil supply. On the other hand, we have a growing population with energy needs. Between the devil and the deep blue sea about sums up our position here.

Friends, I'd love nothing more than to see alternative energy used to supply ALL our energy needs. The fact is, it's not nearly up to speed. Never mind that we've had morons who've plowed money into polluting sources rather than into research of clean alternatives - we are where we are and that's what we must deal with.

I don't like nuclear power. While it may not lead to climate pollution, it creates a different kind of pollution which we haven't managed to figure out how to store. Having said that...I think it may be the only solution for now. God, I hate admitting this. I hate the cowardly assholes who've put us in this position due to greed and stupidity, but this is where we find ourselves.

People will demand energy to live. Without energy, poverty increases, then conflicts increase. It is a true conundrum, but one we must face realistically. Nuclear power provides a lot of energy without increasing co2, which is the poison du jour. If we don't curb co2 we're all fucked a lot sooner than the half-life of nuclear reactor waste.

Having said that (and almost choked on the bitter taste), I have to add that we must keep our leaders' feet to the alternative energy fire. Also, and most importantly, we must live much more sustainably as individuals. It's all well and good to spout off about the lack of leadership, but unless we're each doing our part, we're just hypocrites with too much time (and energy) on our hands.

It's time to really start swimming.

Vitaly Purto: I did not intend to make a judgement on the current state of technology concerning TOKOMAC or the other approches being pursued, other that to say that, as of today, the reality doesn't match the expectation - just the point you were making. Your historical references to funding/defunding matches the reporting I have read. Nuclear has been and will continue to be a political football.

Anyone interested in the political/historical background of this issue should read "Energy Politics" by David Howard Davis. The Spider Man 2 reference was careless (sorry!)as fusion reactors currently concieved seem to be, as far as the elemental physical reactions, safer. Nothing like Doc Oc's fictional apparatus.

Kind of a different topic, but a big buzz among the neocons plus some extreme "libertarian" types few years ago was mining He3 from lunar soil as an "inexhaustable" energy supply.

It all seemed kind of nutty to me, since He3 fusion is by far the hardest and we are still a ways from H3-H2 fusion. I still wonder what their motives really were?

"It all seemed kind of nutty to me, since He3 fusion is by far the hardest and we are still a ways from H3-H2 fusion. I still wonder what their motives really were?"

One view:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6533169.stm

I recall when Al Gore joked that we did have a solution to the nuclear waste problem. "We're magically transporting this problem to the future, for our children to solve," he said. And it's true. Nuke power is the devil's bargain, because all the benefits come up front, and all the unique environmental costs come later. None of civilization's needs are more fleeting than electricity. It's hard to store for even a few hours or weeks in a battery. We use it and lose it- but nothing's more lasting than the hazards of reactor waste.

Imagine, if you can, that ancient Egypt had been powerd by fission reactors, rather than the muscles of slaves. Now, over 6,000 years later, we'd only be one-quarter through the half-life of the plutonium in their spent fuel. Just how well would that fuel have been protected through all the conflicts and cataclysms we've seen in those years, including the Crusades, the World Wars, revolutions and other unpleasantnesses-- tough times when an invisible, persistent poison would have been an appealing weapon. Even if their waste had been coimpletely safeguarded, how grateful would we be to those long-dead Pharoes for saddling us with this never-ending responsibility?

Before I'd turn to nuclear power, I'd endure more global climate change. At least the price would be paid by those who cause the problem. At least CO2 can be converted from the atmosphere in a hundred years or so. Before going nuclear, I'd pay $5 a gallon. I'd endure rolling blackouts. I'd cover every square foot of my roof with solar collectors (heck, I'd like to do that now). But I wouldn't put another ounce of fissionable material into the world to pay for my TV watching, for heating my bathwater, or even to place my high-minded opinion on this blog.

More nuclear plants? Insane. Even though Bushco's "War on Terror" is reconfiguring America into a country that looks more and more like a police state, that doesn't mean Al Qaida has decided to leave us alone. The Indian Point nuclear station north of Manhattan was part of the original 9/11 plot, and schematics of U.S. nuclear plants were found in caves in Afghanistan. Why in the world would we want to build even MORE targets for terrorists? Why would we want to exacerbate the proliferation of nuclear materials? Why we would put our homes and other assets at risk for pennies on the dollar? (The Price-Anderson Act is still in effect, shielding the nuclear industry from most of the financial liability -- which would be staggering -- in case of an accident or attack.)

I follow energy issues in the environment section of Truthout.org, and there's already a surge of capital flowing into companies that are developing renewable energy sources. What we need is a Manhattan Project for solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, hydrogen and more -- not another gaggle of radioactive dinosaurs whose waste must be stored for over 100,000 years (and yes, despite government geologists swearing up and down that there would never be water intrusion in Yucca Mountain, it's already been discovered). If such a project requires by law that everything be made in America, we'll have a chance to revive domestic manufacturing that may never come again.

Alfred Hitchcock published a short story in a volume of his collected works in which a husband and wife purchase travel tickets to escape the nuclear bomb-obsessed world they live in. The travel tickets bring them back to the nineteenth century but provide for their return to the nuclear world. Their attempt to escape return to the nuclear world is futile. They are sentenced to a lifetime of manufacturing bombs.

I see Pelosi's endorsement of the revival of nuclear plants as a recipe for disaster -- an Alfred Hitchcock made manifest. Pelosi herself is a disaster. From Syria to nuclear plants, she avoids her moral obligation and Constitutional duty to impeach Bush and Cheney. Clearly Pelosi lacks the intelligence and character to be an effective leader. Pelosi is no doubt in favor of nuclear revival in order to "provide incentives to power companies to build more nuclear plants". She is misguided, once again.

>>The true economies of the nuclear industry are never fully accounted for. The cost of uranium enrichment is subsidised by the US government. The true cost of the industry's liability in the case of an accident in the US is estimated to be $US560billion ($726billion), but the industry pays only $US9.1billion - 98per cent of the insurance liability is covered by the US federal government. The cost of decommissioning all the existing US nuclear reactors is estimated to be $US33billion. These costs - plus the enormous expense involved in the storage of radioactive waste for a quarter of a million years - are not now included in the economic assessments of nuclear electricity.

(continued)

A year ago Common Dreams published an aritcle by Dr. Helen Caldicott titled "Nuclear Power is the Problem, Not a Solution.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0415-23.htm

Caldicott makes a more than convincing argument against nuclear power plants. Pelosi simply has not argument other than providing power companies with incentives. This is hegemony of the worst kind.

nooooooooooo. obama, you hack! what are you doing? i'm so thankful to be represented by barbara boxer, and so mortified that feinstein's a californian.

we need to CONSUME LESS ENERGY, folks. nuclear power's the pits, i really hope we can avoid it. think 3 mile island. think of the toxic sludge with a half-life of thousands of years in the hands of a country that's barely 200 years old. we do not have any business splitting atoms.

Speaking as an Engineer, a former power plant manger, and a Certified Energy Manager with the AEE, I feel I have to weigh in on this story.

First, let's put first things first! If we poison our air and continue heating the planet in so doing, the methane under the oceans may well become liberated, and then it's all over but the baking, as there would be an uncontrollable rise in the earth's temperature. We're facing that to a greater degree every day. So I have come to the conclusion that we must do something to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases first and foremost. If this means nuclear, then I'm for it. If it is done as right as is now humanly possible. Same goes for the other energy sources: king CONG (Coal Oil Nuclear and Gas).

People like Bob Murray, a coal company CEO, are just plain greedy and people should pay them no heed when they hear him say that clean coal would hurt this economy. That is a lie. What he is really saying is that it would hurt his firm's profitability, and his fat CEO paycheck, and he doesn't like that one bit. Hence his attack on Al Gore.

Clean coal is possible, and that would actually mean more jobs manufacturing and maintaining the components for scrubbing the smoke stacks whose emissions have increased under the Bush administration. (This since they repealed the new source review allowing existing old dirty powerplants to expand both their capacity and their emissions under the guise of "maintenance".) Sorry to you who don't like Ralph Nader on this site, but damn-it! he told us so!

What I see that we need to do to help get on the road to recovery is to use our military here at home to help make the nuclear energy as safe as possible. Which would you rather have bombs or lights?

If my senator, Mr. McCain, can: "walk safely down a street in Baghdad," then we can use the same trick, I mean technology (i.e. the helicopters and troops that guarded him to ensure the safe delivery of nuclear fuel to the power plants and their waste to Yucca mountain, or even better to Norad's mountain lair! (Wasn't that closed a while back?) Certainly gets my vote for a better use of the military than making more enemies the world over.

Think of the security afforded by that granite mountain and those huge blast doors that can withstand a direct nuclear strike! It seems to me to be a safe place to store some hot waste for as long as it takes until something else can be done with it. And the fact is that plutonium is also potentially fuel. I like that use of it far better than nuclear bombs. Like I was saying, first things first.

There is a portion of France's nuclear power model that makes sense, and that is to standardize on ONE stinking design of a plant. After you have the bugs worked out, stop monkeying with it! A single configuration improves safety and reliability as it makes spare parts easier (and fewer are needed) to keep on hand, and the military can then be responsible for guarding everything. This means immediate transporting of spare parts where needed, and even performing the maintenance and training new engineers. The basic principles they would learn will be useful when we can turn their attention to other engineering activities. From cradle to grave, ...the military's responsibility.

After all, our energy streams are our national security. Think long and hard about that!

Now let's cover one last thing: Once the fossil fuel runs out, it will be too late to start trying to develop new energy technologies. We can't build solar generators without energy, so at some point when everyone sees the decline in available energy sources as inevitable, they better have the alternative well into production. Or we'll all have to learn to live in the dark once the sun goes down. Maybe even sooner: how many skylights and windows do you have in your house?

And for the sake of the future of our space ship Earth, please develop the capacity to do the minimal math necessary to determine your impact. How far do you drive? What does that energy cost the world in resources? Not just your wallet tonight at the pump. Then take this one step further (please stay with me here) and look at the energy content of everything we have and take so much from granted. How much energy does it take to make our powerplants, our food, our stuff? If the net emergy (for an energy source, that is the energy output over the life cycle minus the energy needed to make it) is negative, then follow the adage of what to do when you find yourself in a hole:

FIRST STOP DIGGING!!!!

Personally, I am spending every minute of my spare time developing a new solar powerplant design, and it would be great to get interest and help from my fellow citizens once the gravity of our present situation sinks in. I expect this will happen in the next few years. Until then we need energy, but I want it to not emit greenhouse gases.

These new technologies necessarily are not cheap, as new technology must be engineered, developed and proven. And in the meantime we still need the power to keep the computers (my computers :) ) running, the lights on at my office and your child's school, and to produce the steel and other materials that will go into making it. Where will this come from? The answer is: from king CONG We don't have to like it, but we do have to make it cleaner.

Push your representative at the state and federal level for an Apollo program for energy independance and do it today. The sooner we get working on better technologies, the less of that necessary evil: king CONG we will have to put up with.

Everyone, PLEASE READ THIS. This is a different perspective and what I think is of utmost importance.

I'm like most of you - very concerned about ecological damage, poverty, human health, and dependence on oil.

But nuclear fission is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS and is POISONING the entire planet as we speak. The so-called Chernobyl "experts" thought everything was going to be fine.

Still our so-called "experts" think they're crude little Geiger counter instruments adequately measure everything they need to know. This is absolutely WRONG.

If I told you standing in a closed garage with a car running is safe because I don't "see" anything dangerous, you would say I'm stupid, right? CO is deadly, but invisible.

What scientists don't realize is there are four higher planes of matter, other than solid, liquid and gaseous - the four etheric (physical) planes. There are enormous amounts of nuclear radiation leaking out into the atmosphere from dilapidated fission plants. Nobody is protected from this, as diseases like Alzheimers have been skyrocketing lately.

WE MUST END the construction of all nuclear fission plants immediately. Fusion is the ideal of course, as it has the opposite effect - 100% safe and emits no radiation. We're almost there technologically, and I think Billions of $$$ should go into this research, not the continued outright poisoning of our race.

How do I know this is true? Fair question.

The articles presented in Share International magazine have proven to be quite insightful on highly important world trends and forecasts. Here are just a few other examples that have proven to be remarkably accurate and were predicted at the most unlikely moments, when many journalists laughed at the probability.

• The re-unification of East and West Germany
• The release of Nelson Mandela (predicted in September 1988)
• The British Poll Tax riots
• The demise of Margaret Thatcher (predicted while still in her prime)
• The fall of Michael Gorbachev from power
• Major earthquakes and disasters (predicted within weeks or months of occurrence)
• The statement, "The door marked EXIT looms large for these destructive usurpers of power" was written at the end of August, 2006. Shortly after, we saw UN Ambassador John Bolton, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, I. "Scooter" Lewis Libby and others key officials make an exit from the public spotlight.
• It was declared over a decade ago, "The environment will become the number one issue throughout the world." It is now impossible to ignore global warming concerns and the threat of severe degradation of our soil, water, land, and air through pollution and misuse.
• It was prediction in 1988, "There will be a world stock-exchange crash which will begin in Japan." The Nikkei Average soon plummeted throughout the early 1990's.

http://www.WakeUpDallas.org (see the "Invisible Peril" article)

No to nuclear power. If they haven't solved the waste problem after 70 years then it would be prudent not to make any more waste until they do.
More funding for cold fusion is a good idea.

It's disappointing to hear this. Then again, it is not surprising because when you take off the horseblinders Pelosi, Clinton and Obama are all corporatists.

It's sad but in this country all you get is a choice between two corrupt monopoly parties neither of which really gives a damn about the common taxpayer.

What we really need in the US is a energy orientated Manhattan project focused on clean, renewable fuel sources and fuel efficiency systems.

We should be growing hemp for ethanol production.

It's disappointing to hear this. Yet, it is not surprising because when you take off the horseblinders Pelosi, Clinton and Obama are all corporatists.

It's sad but in this country all you get is a choice between two corrupt monopoly parties neither of which really gives a damn about the common taxpayer.

What we really need in the US is a energy orientated Manhattan project focused on clean, renewable fuel sources and fuel efficiency systems.

We should be growing hemp for ethanol production.

The U.S. should at least try to set an example for the rest of the world. Are we really going to bomb Iran for developing nuclear power that might, potentially, hide a weapons program and, at the same time, push for nuclear power in the U.S. in addition to our tens of thousands of nuclear warheads?

Hypocrisy sucks.

Are we going to advocate that the world solve global warming with nuclear power, but insist on bombing other countries' nuclear power projects?

Nuclear power is inherently a huge terrorism risk-- both in the potential to hide governments' N-weapons programs and in the potential for terrorist conventional attacks on N-plants that could release huge quantities of radioactive fallout in the vicinity of the plant.

The nuclear power path leads to a police state.

Solar, wind, tidal and biomass lead to decentralization, safety, energy security, and freedom.

Oh yeah, and greenhouse gas mitigation.

How can a warmongering nuclear power advocate like Clinton get labelled as a liberal? These are sad times...

We need Ralph Nader to get back on the airwaves and bring attention to the ridiculous idea of bringing back nuke power.
How dumb are these Democrats? Haven't they heard of conservation? Solar power? Wind power?

We do not need nuke power.

The nuclear power industry touts Yucca Mountain as a "solution" to the nuclear waste problem.  This is,in fact, not true.  Yucca Mountain is known to be geologically unsuitable and seismically unstable; it is in the highest risk category for earthquakes.  It has certainly not been proven safe for long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste. Nor has transportation of the waste to that site been established as safe. 

There are three reasons for not building nuclear power plants. First, it's unnecessary; hundreds of people who study the subject closely have been confirming that a rational combination of energy conservation and alternative renewable energy technologies can give us far more power than nuclear at far less cost and risk. Second, in purely economic terms, nukes are a horrendous investment because no reactor can be guaranteed not to melt nor can any be protected from terrorism. Third, there is a moral reason: if people in Chernobyl are still dying from the long-term effects 20 years later, why take the risk of an explosion?

Certainly the mainstream environmental conscience of the US does not consider nuclear power safe, cost-effective, or moral. 

Oh, I just can't help myself. Arthur C. Clarke said this awhile ago, on no particular subject:

"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value."

I wonder what species will be dominant next? Alas, we'll never know.

The big issue here is whether a few mega-corporations with strong government subsidies will continue to rob the American people. These companies provide energy on a centralized grid at high prices and high profits while devastating the environment. A local energy grid made up of millions of windmills and solar panels on every home is cheaper, cleaner. It is not by chance we are in Iraq. Trillions can be saved by merely avoiding war. We all need to let our politicians know dirty nuclear power, dirty coal power, dirty oil and the dirty companies that promote them must be phased out of our economy. No more subsidies for these filthy pirates.

Any more questions why you need to register democratic to vote for Kucinich in the primaries and then reregister (green

We do not need any more nuclear power plants. We do not need all of the associated expenses and risks that go with them.

We need to push hard and fast in developing alternative energy sources. This is where we should be focusing our attention and efforts. The costs of constructing even a single nuclear power plant would go a l-o-n-g ways toward funding this effort. The costs of extracting, processing, transporting and dealing with the waste products from nuclear fuels would go a l-o-n-g ways toward funding this effort. The costs of just one oil-inspired war would go a l-o-n-g ways toward funding this effort.

It's a matter of values and priorities, and our national values and priorities need some major reworking if we really want to be able to pursue life, liberty and happiness and leave a world where our children's children's children's children's children's children's children will be able to do the same. (Thinking seven generation's ahead ... and even further.)

The quickest, cheapest means of increasing the available power on the grid is conservation. Building new nuclear power plants to air condition houses built in the desert with BLACK roofs is idiocy. That's what Pelosi is proposing.

Nuclear power plants are built with large reinforced concrete domes over the reactor vessal but the nuclear waste is stored in a nearby building with a cooling pond. Those buildings aren't resistent to plane crashes and bombs.

Yucca mountain currently stores no nuclear waste and is not likely to. Just for starters it is built near a volcano and a geothermally active zone. Check a mapa and you will find that hot springs are frequent in the area around Yucca mountain. It's actually one of the prime areas for potential geothermal power.

For a nation that cannot build electric cars, hybrid vehicles that actually save gas or a working passenger rail system to contemplate building more nuclear plants is suicidal idiocy. We just aren't that competent anymore.

They say it takes 18 years to recoup the energy in the construction of a nuclear power plant and production of its fuel. Then you have to add in the engineering, construction labor, security and disposals costs. Nuclear has been a bad deal for the taxpayers. No surprise there, cuz half the motivation behind nuclear is the bomb. We have these warmongers in their armored floatillas, threatening the world over nuclear proliferation. Another 100 countries are going to try to acquire nukes, so we get to have 100 more nuclear crises, delaying our society's progress again and again. And they want to build more nuclear plants. Naa. We have plenty of nice efficient clean options available.

add to that the energy it takes to mine and process the raw materials (how many centerfugies do you need?) it will probably put it in the debit column.

Well, well, well, scientists giving us equations,philosophers holding forth,and laymen like me typing away,for christ sake,turn off some lights!
Just because we are selfaware does not mean we are ultimately successful as an organism,get my point!

I'm not at all convinced that a total, detailed understanding of the technical problems nuclear energy poses is required to reject it as a viable solution to the global warming problem. I believe the economics of nuclear energy are probably enough to sink it.

What kind of government subsidies are we talking about here? Subsidies necessary to build, secure, insure nuclear power plants and then to store the nuclear waste. And how do these subsidies compare with what would be necessary to stimulate renewable energy sources, including geothermal, and/or move toward hydrogen in a big way? Or subsidies to get people to conserve energy, for that matter?

A couple of facts worth keeping in mind:
1) In the US, we emit twice the CO2 per person as Western Europe while enjoying a standard of living no better than theirs.
2) There is enough wind in West Texas alone to provide electrical power for the entire US. And farmers who lease their lands to power companies realize a higher return per acre than cattlemen.

Well, it seems my post way up there was prescient. The most insidious idea promelgated by ALL the energy industries and repeated by moderate Americans is that our excessive current and projected future energy consumption is an undisputed law of nature, like gravity. As I pointed out in another energy related piece/forum, our distribution grid is a dinosaur that delivers electricty to us at about a 20% efficiency rate. Our houselhold appliances operate at 110-220v, 60hz, 5-60a because that is the standard that arrives at our outlets. Now think of all of the niceties that you can get for your vehicle that perform the same tasks but operate on 12-24v dc. Get it? No, not all tasks can be accomplished at this low potential, but you get the idea.

When I was a kid some - well, never mind - I realized that environmental issues were going to be THE issue of this age. "Common Wisdom" just laughed at us. "Hey look at chicken little! look out, the sky might fall on you!" Well, all the chickens are coming home to roost.

Now think of all of the niceties that you can get for your vehicle that perform the same tasks but operate on 12-24v dc. Get it?

Unles you are talking about home solar power, higher voltage is more efficient, if anything we should go to 230 volts for everything like Europe.

And except for some very-high-voltage long distance transmission scemes, power distribution requires AC, since power transformers are required.

If the insanely greedy corporations weren't controlling our pathetic top politicians, we wouldn't need more power plants. We'd be conserving and cutting back. They're all insane - far below the American people in terms of ethics.

By the way, in europe and latin america the major auto makers have a whole generation of wonderful, small fuel efficient cars that get around 60 mpg, and have 1 litre engines. They're not hybirds and sell for about half the cost of the toyota prius or honda civic.

Nuclear Power's Sick Legacy
Helen Caldicott MD

The noted American writer Mary McCarthy once famously observed of the equally noted but politically discredited playwright Lillian Hellman: "every word she utters is a lie, including 'and' and 'but' ". As we have seen over the past 10 years, the same can be said of the Howard Government from the children-overboard scandal to "there will never be a GST" to "yes, there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq". Now - joined by misguided and misinformed members of the ALP and a few scientists who should know better - the Government is embarked on another mendacious, ill-advised, and downright dangerous enterprise: transforming Australia into a nuclear-powered, uranium-exporting nation, deploying as a rhetorical fig leaf the spurious message that nuclear power is emissions-free, green, and safe and will save Australia - and indeed the world - from the effects of global warming. Let's pull away that tattered fig leaf and look at the facts.

The global warming carbon dioxide (CO2) gas is released at every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle - from uranium mining and milling, from uranium enrichment, from construction of huge concrete reactors, and from the transport and long-term storage of intensely radioactive waste. Nuclear power plants generate only one-third as much CO2 as a similar-sized gas-fired plant. But because the supply of highly concentrated uranium ore, which is relatively easy to mine and enrich, is limited, the energy eventually required to mine and enrich uranium will greatly increase. If today's global electricity production was converted to nuclear power, there would only be three years' supply of accessible uranium to fuel the reactors. Uranium is therefore a finite commodity.

CO2 is not the only global warming gas emitted by nuclear power. The Pacudah enrichment plant in Kentucky, which processes uranium from many countries, including Australia, annually leaks 93 per cent of the CFC-114 gas released by the US. Banned under the Montreal protocol, CFC is a prodigious destroyer of the ozone layer and it also is a potent global warming agent.

Furthermore, nuclear reactors routinely emit large amounts of radioactive materials, including the fat-soluble noble gases xenon, krypton and argon. Deemed "inert" by the nuclear industry, they are readily inhaled by populations near reactors and absorbed into the bloodstream where they concentrate in the fat pads of the abdomen and upper thighs, exposing ovaries and testicles to mutagenic gamma radiation (like X-rays).

Tritium, radioactive hydrogen, is also regularly discharged from reactors. Combining with oxygen, it forms tritiated water, which passes readily through skin, lungs and gut. Contrary to industry propaganda, tritium is a dangerous carcinogenic element producing cancers, congenital malformations and genetic deformities in low doses in animals, and by extrapolation in humans.

In the age of terrorism, nuclear reactors are inviting targets. It is relatively easy to induce a reactor meltdown by either severing the external electricity supply, by disrupting the 3 million litres a minute intake of cooling water, by infiltrating the control room, or by a well co-ordinated terrorist attack. Surprisingly, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has failed to upgrade security at the 103 nuclear reactors since the September 11 attack. A meltdown at the Indian Point nuclear power plant 56 kilometres from Manhattan could render that city uninhabitable for thousands of years if prevailing winds blew in the right direction.

Above all, nuclear waste is the industry's Achilles heel. The US has no viable solution for radioactive waste storage. A total of 60,000 tonnes are temporarily stored in so-called swimming pools beside nuclear reactors, awaiting final disposal. Yucca Mountain in Nevada, transected by 32 earthquake faults, has been identified as the final geological repository. Made of permeable pumice, it is unsuitable as a radioactive geological waste receptacle and recent fraudulent projections of the mountain's ability to retard leakage by the United States Geological Survey have rendered this project to be almost untenable.

Already, radioactive elements in many nuclear-powered countries are leaking into underground water systems, rivers, and oceans, progressively concentrating at each level of the food chain. Strontium 90, which causes bone cancer and leukaemia, and cesium 137, which induces rare muscle and brain cancers, are radioactive for 600 years. Food and human breast milk will become increasingly radioactive near numerous waste sites. Cancers will inevitably increase in frequency in exposed populations, as will genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis in their descendants.

Each typical 1000-megawatt reactor makes 200 kilograms of plutonium a year. Less than one-millionth of a gram is carcinogenic. Handled like iron by the body, it causes liver, lung and bone cancer and leukaemia. Crossing the placenta to induce congential deformities, it has a predilection for the testicle, where inevitably it will cause genetic abnormalities. With a radiological life of 240,000 years, released in the ecosphere it will affect biological systems forever.

Because only five kilograms of plutonium is critical mass, countries importing our uranium to fuel their nuclear reactors could, theoretically, manufacture plutonium for many nuclear bombs each year. The under-resourced International Atomic Energy Agency admits that it is physically impossible to prevent a determined country, whether a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or not, from using imported uranium or its byproduct, plutonium, to make nuclear weapons.

A truly informed national debate about the production, export, and use of Australian uranium is imperative as China, Taiwan and India line up to receive our yellowcake.

Time is short. Once the waste is produced, its legacy will affect all future generations.

Helen Caldicott is president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute.