That is correct Chuck Cliff. I wonder how many are aware, that for one, the Royal Family of England makes billions a year selling uranium, they own uranium mines in Africa. That is one reason nuclear power is again being cheered on, both here and now in Germany. The price of uranium ore is soaring.
My-my. Our government subsidise coal and atomic energy and has cut funding for wind /solar research and development. Noone owns the sun or the wind. It ain't profitable for the real rulers of this world.

Unlike all other discussions, when it comes to nuclear power progressive loose their marbles. Three Mile Island catastrophe was during nuclear Ice Age and technology had never stopped its progress. Fusion reaction has not been even discussed. Level of scientific ignorance and ideological prejudice is appalling. References to U238 and radiation, which is always BAD, are beyond any critique. It seems to me that there is not topic, of which above posters did not have final judgments. What is then difference between right and left minds if they are both closed?

Please, DC participants, check your facts after you get some first hand knowledge in hard physics.

I heard Ralph Nader speak in Cambridge, MA. about 35 years ago.I distinctly recall him saying that solar power will be developed if and when corporations can figure out a way of owning the sun. I believe that the sun will burn out before Ralph does.

If interested in learning more on this subject, consider reading Dr. Helen Caldicott's book, "Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer". She lays out the real costs and dangers of nuclear power in lay terms. And it ain't pretty. One interesting insight is the SOCIALIZATION of the COSTS of nuclear power, from mining to transportation, to construction, to safety measures, to disposal, concomitant with the PRIVATIZATION of the PROFITS. Without this handy bit of financial sleight-of-hand, the power companies would not find such projects cost effective. In other words, proponents are banking on picking your pocket to get this lead balloon into the air, then, picking it again and again, thereafter, all while endangering you and your planet.

Chuck Cliff - you quote Rebecca:

'Rebecca alludes to the real kicker in this context: "nuclear" power is really "…retaining the big infrastructure of centralized power production" — that is what is all about, keeping the source of energy in the clutches of megacorps!

The megacorps dislike the real alternitives because they imply decentralization of the creation of energy.'

Exactly right. I live in a county where we have TWO windmill farms (smallish, but they work fine and clean)and also a landfill operation (also working fine and clean). These have been built with taxpayers' money from the state, the county, and the towns. Between them they supply all of the electricity for the various municipal buildings (county and towns) and have left-overs which they sell to the National Grid.

So why can't they sell the electricity directly to me and the other taxpaying consumers? Because the "law" says they can't, they must sell the extra to the big megacorp power company. Then if we want the clean energy we can buy it from the grid at MORE per KW than the old dirty power costs.

Alternative energy can and should be local, sun, wind, or landfill, but the existing laws stop that from happening.

Great article from Rebecca -

A crazy but bright acid addled friend I had years ago always wondered why we couldn't create cheap rockets and shoot nuclear waste at and into the sun. In a world growing as dangerously screwy as this one is, that idea doesn't sound all that bad to me.

Nuclear power IS the answer to EVERYTHING. If we turn to nuclear power, there will no long BE an everything to worry about! We can get on with our peaceful, radioactive, non-existence without worrying our no longer existent brains about how we'll survive the global warming disaster. We will have failed to survive the radiation meltdown/waste/bomb disaster and we'll be free!

Nice article. Nuclear has to be just about the DUMBEST idea anyone could EVER propose as a solution to ANY problem, save how to produce complete and total genocide as a by-product of energy production.

I totally agree. They haven't done a thing to clean up the mess they have already made. All I hear is talk. It's been almost 70 years.
Once the waste they have already made is cleaned up then we can have a discussion about making more waste. There is no safe level of radiation, it is all bad. The more the worse.
Our leaders have shown to be very stupid and can't be trusted. Somehow we always keep getting the worst possible people.

Earlier this year, there was an online petition running against the building of more nuclear power stations in Europe. On this site, one line in particular took my attention:

"Don't forget to tell your grandchildren to make sure they let their grandchildren know how to instruct their grandchildren to show their grandchildren how to clarify to their grandchildren in what way their grandchildren could enable their grandchildren to look after our nuclear waste."

Says it all, really.

This is a great article, it is tmely and I do hope everyone at Common Dreams reads it.

Rebecca Solnit did not go into great detail on the subject of uraniumm 238, or (depleted uranium) in this fine article. At least 28 governments now use DU in weapons. The nuclear agency people have termed it depleted, which is a very misleading term. DU 238 by itself is not suitable for use as fuel in a nuclear power plant, but it makes wonderful bullets, bombs and artillary shells. There lies the big problem. When the projectile or bomb is fired and then strikes a target, the uranium burns. The result is, smoke filled uranium isotopes and uranium dust, which is about the deadlist poison known to exist in the universe, a death sister of plutonium.

So depleted uranium is relatively safe in solid form, but after the DU burns, there is a deadly left over waste which will be deadly for at least "four million years".___ Well, a pretty long time, and it is not possible to clean it up. It might be possible if we vacumned the entire country of Iraq, after plowing ten inches into the soil. Of course while cleaning up, if any human inhales a couple of microscopic specks of it, they are going to eventully die a long, slow and painful death. One might live thirty years in pain and some die much sooner but they are all dead men or wemon walking. We have killed everyone in Iraq, all of our troops and anyone who has gone there for a visit. Rumsfeld for example is a dead man walking and he for one states that DU is perfectly safe. Ironic.

That's not all of the killing, just the start. I will write just a bit more on the subject matter which is available for all to read on the internet.

During the past thirty some years, Our military alone has fired off thousands of TONS of this posion in Iraq, Afgan, Kosovo, etc___ and on many military ranges in the United States and Australia. That is very sad and bad. What is worse, is the deadly smoke and dust is picked up by winds and travels all around the globe, the microscopic specks of deadly posion gets up into our atmosphere and some returns to Earth in snowfall or raindrops. Thousands of tons!! We are still using it daily; a tank cannon shell warhead is ten pounds of solid DU. The bullets are not coated with "safe" DU, they are mostly DU and it ain't safe.

The government, our Pentagon experts, people in the nuclear energy business all deny that DU is dangerous. They are lying and they know they are lying. They are lying the same way Bush and Cheneny lied about the reasons for invading Iraq, They lie because there is a lot of money being made by a few and they don't have a conscience. They hire "experts" to lie to the media and the media supports their lies. Have you ever heard of such a thing?___ Well yes, as a matter of fact I have,___ same old stuff, different subject.

Well, I'm no expert, I am just blogging on a subject that should be the most important issue on the planet. It's not, it just should be.

Go to Google and ask for depleted uranium and then read everything you can about it. Read what the real experts write, beware of those who deny. Why would they deny facts? See for yourself how dangerous DU is for everyone, every child, every fetus, every form of life on Earth. Our atmosphere is heavily contamined with deadly uranium isotopes and it is reaching the critical stage, where in the not too distant future, DU could kill everythng on the planet. DU alters a human's genetic code and it destroys bacteria, causes germs to mutate, mutate to what form of life? It is serious___ very serious.

Even more than "Depleted Uranium", "Nuclear Power" is a spinning misnomer -- there IS no such thing as "Nuclear Power".

There is "water", "wind" and even "sun" power -- that is, technologies which turn these energy sources directly into electricity.

Nuclear power plants are the same as coal and oil fueled power plants -- all of these use a secondary source to heat the steam which drives the turbines which produce the electricity.

Rebecca alludes to the real kicker in this context: "nuclear" power is really "...retaining the big infrastructure of centralized power production" -- that is what is all about, keeping the source of energy in the clutches of megacorps!

The megacorps dislike the real alternitives because they imply decentralization of the creation of energy.

OBSERVER, one does not require a doctorate in nuclear physics to have common sense and to understand what hundreds of highly trained doctors and scientists report on the multitudes of dangers of atomic power and atomic waste. DU use in weapons is undoubtedly the most dangerous. It is not atomic power that is so horrible. It is the deadly emissions from the plants and more deadly waste produced that is so horrible.

Three Mile Island was in the ice age of nuclear power? If so, there are 2,000 Atomic power plants world-wide operating in the ice age and every single one of them should be shut down. You say we have closed minds, what pertinent data did you furnish here, except your opinions? You have yours and I have mine. Mine are based upon the reports of expert I choose to believe. Fusion reaction would be better than what we presently have and the produced wastes would be less, my main concern is the use of DU in weapons, and how can anyone with a half open brain argue that is a good deal? Look out, much more in our atmosphere and it's over, the fat lady will sing.

Rocketing plutonium and other nuclear waste to the sun is a "swell" idea. We would exhaust Earth's natural resourses for the project before we were able to send off five percent of it. Of course there is always the problem with rockets exploding on their launch pads or spinning out of control shortly after launch.___ Oops!

We're screwed, we have to safely store the waste and that alone is a very expensive operation. And someone please tell me, how do we safely store hundreds of thousands of tons of nuclear waste for a few million years. How about just sixty years? The factual horror stories of leaking containers holding nuclear waste in the US alone, will fill a dozen large books. Just two of them are the West Valley and the Palisades nuclear storage areas. Oh my God, and the results of those disasters will last forever, from now through perpitutity. Please___don't listen to me, go to the internet and read up on depleted uranium. I would not listen to Observer either. He "may" have a stake in nuclear energy, sounds like one of those anyway.

It's this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml
OR THIS: (and it's 4 BILLION years)! V
Published on Sunday, March 11, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
America's Perpetual Nuclear War
by Robert Weitzel

On the evening of July 25, 1945, President Truman confided to his diary that the atomic bomb "seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful." Twelve days later it was "useful" in Hiroshima, and again three days later it was "useful" in Nagasaki.

In a radio speech the day Nagasaki was obliterated, Truman told his American audience, "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."

The world took note that as many as 140,000 civilians were killed instantly or later died of injuries and radiation poisoning at Hiroshima.

To prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power in the Middle East, President Bush has tasked the Pentagon with developing plans for a surgical strike on Iran's nuclear facility at Natanz, which is buried under 75 feet of earth and rock.

One option on the table is the B61-11, the smallest tactical nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal. The B61 is a variable yield bomb. It can be calibrated to yield as low as 0.3 kilotons or has high as 170 kilotons of atomic power. Its maximum yield is ten times that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

In keeping with our country's "humanitarian" effort to minimize civilian casualties in a nuclear strike, "low" yield tactical nuclear weapons, such as the B61, have been reclassified by the Pentagon as "safe for the surrounding civilian population." Because these weapons are now considered as "safe" as conventional munitions, their use is at the discretion of the theater commander. Presidential approval is no longer needed to start a nuclear war.

But the world should note that America has been waging a "low yield" nuclear war that has been killing civilians for almost two decades. Missing from this war are mushroom clouds and very loud booms. Present is nuclear fallout with its insidious long-term effects on both combatant and civilian and its perpetual contamination of land and water resources.

The United States began waging nuclear war in Kosovo in 1990 and has continued through the Persian Gulf War, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The "nuclear tipped" weapon of choice in each of these theaters of war has been depleted uranium (DU) munitions.

To build atomic bombs, and later to fuel nuclear reactors, the U.S. began enriching uranium ore mined from the earth's surface. In the process, the fissionable isotope Uranium 235, which accounts for 0.7 percent of the ore, is extracted, while the remaining 99.3 percent of the unfissionable isotope, Uranium 238, becomes "low yield" radioactive waste. By the middle of the 1950s there was approximately 600,000 tons of DU waste being stored at various facilities throughout the United States.

Depleted uranium has several properties that attracted the U.S military-industrial complex. It is cheap and plentiful and 1.7 times denser than lead, which makes it an idea metal for armor piercing bullets and tank rounds, armor plating on tanks, and ballast for cruise missiles and aircraft. Consequently, much of what has been dropped, launched, fired or destroyed during combat operations involving the U.S. and its allies in the last two decades is radioactive and will remain so for as long as the Earth exists.

When a "nuclear tipped" DU tank round, containing 10 pounds of uranium, strikes the armor plating of an enemy tank, it ignites and burns through to the interior, setting off the tank's ammunition. The resulting fire and explosion creates a radioactive dust cloud of submicroscopic insoluble uranium oxide particles, which is suspended in the air and ultimately settles on the ground to be inhaled and ingested by combatant and civilian alike.

Depleted uranium, though it sounds safe, is still one-third as radioactive as the original natural uranium, and will lose only half of its radioactivity in 4.5 billion years—the age of the solar system. Depleted uranium emits alpha and gamma radiation, which can be mutagenic and carcinogenic in the human body and result in cancers and birth defects. It is a nuclear-plated Trojan Horse that continues to kill civilians long after the fighting has moved on.

In April 1991, only one month after the end of the first Gulf War, a secret report prepared by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority was leaked to The Independent of London. The report described the hazards of the radioactive dust from expended DU munitions and destroyed DU-armored tanks getting into the food chain and water supply. The report warned that 40 tons of radioactive DU debris left on the battlefield could, in the decades ahead, cause as many as 500,000 civilian deaths.

The U.S. left behind 375 tons of DU debris in the Gulf War, 800 tons in Afghanistan, and 2,200 tons during the current invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Children are particularly susceptible to DU poisoning and the resulting cancers due to a higher absorption rate in their blood, which is instrumental in building bones and soft tissue. In March 2001, Dr. Aws Albait, a physician practicing in Baghdad from 1990 to 1999, reported a 12-fold increase in leukemia and lymphomas in Iraqi children and a six-fold increase in adults during that decade. In 2004 it was estimated that children under the age of five accounted for 56 percent of all cancer patients in Iraq, compared with 13 percent 15 years ago.

It is not only Iraqi children who are the victims of our perpetual nuclear war, but American children as well. A Veteran's Administration study of 251 Gulf War veterans in Mississippi found that 67 percent of their children born since the war had birth defects and severe illnesses. In addition, 90,000 veterans suffer from the chronic, debilitating effects of the Gulf War Syndrome, which many researchers believe may be related to exposure to DU fallout.

In 1995, a U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute report stated, "If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological." Regardless, the Pentagon steadfastly refuses to conduct studies of its effects on both military personnel and civilians exposed to DU fallout. In fact, its policy is to silence those who would sound an alarm.

Dr. Asaf Durakovic, founder of the Uranium Medical Research Centre and the former Chief of the Nuclear Sciences Division at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, was fired from his position as Chief of Nuclear Medicine at the veterans' hospital in Wilmington, Delaware when he refused to terminate his research on Gulf War veterans with symptoms of radiation exposure.

Dr. Durakovic stated, "The Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body . . . uranium does cause cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill . . . [It] is a threat to humanity."

If the Bush administration follows through with its plan to attack Iran with tactical nuclear weapons, they will, in essence, only be adding a sound track to the silent nuclear war America has been waging for decades.

But this perpetual nuclear war is not a clash of ideology or religion, nor is it to spread democracy or to fight the long war on terrorism. It is about the immoral war profiteering of the U.S. military-industrial complex, and the even more morally repugnant dumping of its radioactive waste in someone else's backyard. It is about the maiming and killing of civilians who are not yet born.

Robert Weitzel is a freelance writer whose essays appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He has been published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Skeptic Magazine, and Freethought Today. He can be contacted at: rweitz@tds.net

Evelyn Smith:
"Mine are based upon the reports of expert I choose to believe." That is exactly my point. Literalists choose to believe Divine Book written by collective of authors and translated through multitude of languages and epochs by multitude of interpreters. Non-literalists take the same text and choose that that agree with. Being antipodes, both groups have one thing in common: both despised the realm of science - skepticism and holistic approach to reality. See "Two Cultures" by Charles Snow.

The whole discussion above, yours included, albeit I agree with much you have said on other topics, would be called vulgar Marxism couple generations ago. Granted that ideology, politics at cetera are flowing from property relations first and foremost, but to imply that nuclear power in its fission and fusion flavors depends directly on ill designs of 'bad' corporations is beyond the pale.

You ask, "How do we safely store hundreds of thousands of tons of nuclear waste for a few million years?" What a question!
Are you really so optimistic to think that present homo sapiens, least of all present society will live intact for that long?

In challenging times with immediate danger of drastic climate change to day dream about consequences even in few hundred years betrays "Left Infantilism" (you may Google it to find author of that phrase). I do not have a stake in nuclear energy, but I urge everybody to think about time-space scales while approaching any problem, especially as complex as sustainable energy supply for 6.5 Billion people still growing.

Please, weigh 1 million years in a future problems with those of raising ocean levels by 25 meters in mere 50 years. I don't particularly care about Wall Street going under water, but Venice, London, part of Holland and the whole of Bangladesh? No, thank you.

Vic, my "secret" code name here is Evelyn, my real name is Kem and I'm a boy. If I was a woman I'd kiss you, thank you for your comments. And what you and I have written on this string is just the tip of a great big iceburg. Thahk you again, Kem Patrick

This article reaffirmed my fears about a resurgence in pro nuclear sentiment. If you check out the FACEBOOK group "Americans for Alternative Energy", you will find over 100,000 members and you may be saddened to read that many of them are singing the praises of nuclear energy as the best answer to global warming/climate change. These are young, educated and often liberal kids who watch the Daily Show, listen to The Eagles and support Barak Obama and Al Franken!

There is a passion in the posts on that group's "wall" that is both inspiring and troubling. I am so pleased to see young people thinking about energy issues and educating themselves. But when it comes to nuclear power, they are so badly misguided.

I don't want to take up the cause again...I didn't think I would have to...is it really deja vu all over again? I thought we put those arguments to rest in the 70s and 80s.

Thank you Rebecca Solnit. I will forward your article to whoever might listen.

Thank you for your opinions "observer". However, I also asked how can we safely store nuclear waste for even sixty years? The answer is, we haven't been able to do so in this country and we have little or no knowledge of what other countries are doing in that regard.

I didn't see where you have replied to the danagers of the use of depleted uranium in weapons.

If you knew me at all, you would not refer to me as a liberalist. I do have care for our planet, life and our childrens futures. That is neither left wing nor right, it is just having common sense, a bit of humility and a love of nature and all of humanity.

It is clearly obvious you do not understand the deadly dangers of nuclear waste; you are ignorant in that repect as I am ignorant on many subjects, ___I'm not on this one.

If you take away taxpayer subsidy nuclear power is a non-starter. There have been few or no new plants built even with massive subsidies because they are very bad investments.

A short version of all the above is set up an investment mutual fund or exchange traded fund in nuclear power with no subsidies included and see if anybody invests in it.

Good argument but,'For those who believe, no proof is necessary.'

If sunrays were adequate weapons of war, we would have had solar energy eons ago.

Thank you Habitat Vic. We tend to separate dangers of insidious nature (coal) from dangers that have a sudden and direct precipitating event. (Chernobyl--a result of mismanagement and antiquated technology)

A few deaths from an e coli outbreak has the whole country screaming for action; Thirty thousand deaths from coal plants each year is unnoticed.

Environmentalists, ( a group in which I include myself) have closed the discussion on nuclear energy. We need to keep an open mind, and look at the reality of the dangers of today's energy sources. How much damage are today's nuclear power plants actually causing compared to our coal plants? Weaponry, WMD and testing of weapons is a separate matter. As climate crisis bears down on the world we will forget about war mongering anyway.

Conservation is the real solution.

Could someone please explain to me why with every discussion of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels, the dangers of DU as a weapon are introduced. I'm not being facetious; I'm really wondering what I'm missing.

I would love to see coal held to the same kind of scrutiny to which uranium is held. Coal is going to cause mass, irreversible, destruction within the next ten years. It is already causing widespread destruction. When I was in college, I lived right by a nuclear power plant. (Less than a mile away) No problems. Now I live 30 miles away from a big coal fired power plant. The air quality suffers tremendously as a result. The toxins released into the air, as nasty as they are, are nothing really compared to the carbon emitted. It would be great if we had the luxury of wondering what the radioactive waste buried in the ground is going to do to us. We don't have that luxury. We have to deal with the carbon immediately if we are to have the slightest chance as a civilization.

YES! This is exactly what we should be talking about! Even Al Gore thinks nuclear reactors are no biggie. But I am quite sure that this is the most DANGEROUS, as underestimated it is, forms of energy we could have every invented.

Nuclear FUSION is the way forward. Why not spend billions on this form of potentially unlimited, pollution-free, form of energy?

WE MUST END FISSION PLANTS IMMEDIATELY. Alzheimers, cancer, and autism are skyrocketing lately. As I understand these are very much tied to the "invisible peril" of nuclear fission leakage into the atmosphere, still undetected by our "experts".

http://www.wakeupdallas.org/June_MA.htm

Hi Jstevens, sorry, it is because we would not have DU, if we had not gone the way of nuclear power in the first place.

Every year we add "thousand of tons" of depleted uranium to the pile of more waste to store, or use for weapons of war. Thee use of DU is going to kill all life on this planet and I do not understand why most people do not understnad the importance of it.

Sharing equal says Nuclear reactors are the way to go, and then ends with fission plants must be shut down immediately. In either fusion plants or fission, there is deadly waste that must be stored,__ forever, as long as humanity is here to store it. Why use it when the other alternatives are totally clean they do and will work at an evenutial less cost and no radiation hazards and no toxic smoke.

I agree with you totally that coal is perhaps worse than nuclear energy, the emissions from burning coal also have some uranium that does get into the atmosphere. In addition it is a primary caue of global warming. They should all be shut dowm and repaced with wind/solar, geo-thermal and the use of the tides for producing electrical power. Both coal and nuclear are only still being used because the power boys own the mines and they make fortunes from mining uranium and coal. That is the problem and it is why we don't have massive grids of electrical power produced by clean energy throughout the world.

It still matters to me if we go extinct, and the nuclear waste is left to poison the planet millions of years from now; perhaps killing the re-emergence of new life and taking the last step in permanently killing our planet. It isn't worth it, and nuclear energy isn't feasible; solar and wind ARE.

http://www.dreamingearth.net

No one who cares anything about human life would advocate for Nuclear Power. Again, the bottom line is greed and profits for the nasty corporate interests that promote and build 'Nuclear Energy'. So blinded by their sadistic craving for more 'profits', they are willing to risk the whole planet... the mentality is like a drunk teenager driving the car at top speed potential.
It's a joy ride for the rich and famous, and if they crash and burn, they take us with them. Do they care?

I'm a nuclear veteran and have seen the nuclear dragon up close and personal, quite a few times. I'm still here 51 years later, but there are not many of us left. I have exchanged e-mails with people who have been slowly dying of cancers, who have told me of their children, born with birth defects, both physical and mental, of which their family had no history.

Cheney/Bush and the rest of his looney toons have no idea what it is they so blithely advocate. They think it is just a big bang. Now the battle plans, which once reserved nuclear weapons as a last resort, to be fired to destroy the rest of the world if we got hit by a nuclear attack (Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD) allow the commander in the field to decide whether it is more efficient to use a nuclear weapon than conventional. We used to have a policy which said we would not use nuclear weapons except against a nuclear armed enemy. No restrictions now. Anybody is fair game.

As to nuclear power, one of the things known, but not talked about much is that metals, bombarded with hard radiation over a long period of time tend to transmute. This can lead to failure, in a pipe, a valve, a pump. So these old plants, some of which were built of inferior materials by the lowest bidder (sound familiar?) are perhaps even more of a death trap than we think.

Look up Downwinders, http://www.downwinders.org/ who have been dealing with this question for many years.
This article has a number of nuclear reference sites:
Nuclear Bunker Buster Bombs against Iran: This Way Lies Madness
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=OSB20060314&articleId=2093

Chernobyl wasn't a nuclear explosion, it was a stubborn fire in nuclear fuel. A huge area in Russia cannot be lived in for six hundred years! Some parts of Europe still have to have their livestock tested before sale due to residual radiation.

Get a copy of the American made for TV movie "The Day After," or the British film "Threads," which is even more realistic. Watch them and think about it. Nuclear weapons are just a more intense usage of what we are inflicting upon the world's population every day.

I really love this beautiful blue marble. I'd hate to see us go out with either a bang or a whimper. Unfortunately, as my wife says, "Man is the most endangered species." We are intelligent enough to hold back or get around each of the increasingly severe checks and balances that nature sends us, but not smart enough to heed the message. Eventually, nature will figure out one we cannot avoid.

Siemens AG in Germany was one of the first companies to experiment with Nuclear Power, in 1938, during the Third Reich, under which the company flourished. Later however, the German populace became aware of the dangers of Nuclear Power and totally banned it, or at other times put tight restrictions on plant safety not enforced in other countries. Meanwhile, Siemens went overseas on sales campaigns. US Democratic Pres Truman rejected Nuclear Power and advocated for Solar Power development instead. However, Republican Pres Eisenhower went gung ho for nuclear power. Siemens also actively and successfully sold and got lucrative contracts to build Nuclear Power plants in France while Germany refused to have them built at home... and Siemens has been actively involved in the US Nuclear Power push.... do some research on Siemens and their political conctacts, and a lot of the mysteries around Nuclear Power may unfold.
And consider the source, the political connections, and the environment in which Nuclear Power was born.... the Third Reich.

Some do not care restore democracy. Some of the world's most powerful leaders only think in terms of the next sixty to eighty years.

Greed is one of the seven deadly sins and without going into a religeous spiel, greed is not only a sin, it is a primary cause for the most serious worldy problem, when a person or persons in extreme power are posessed with a combination of power and greed.

Such an individual would also be a selfish person, egotistical, not overly bright and endowded with a great deal of unjustified pride. The serious problems America and indeed the very life of our planet faces, began many years ago, most likely at the time lobbying became so much more prevelant in DC.

Our presidents are not fully in charge when major decisions relating to "real" money are concerned. They take their orders from a much higher level, and if they don't walk the line, they're replaced,___ one way or another.

So the people who fit that unsavory catagory, perhaps a mere handful or perhaps even as few as three or four, those are the ones who insure we use fossil and atomic fuels, and they are the ones who don't care. They care only for themselves, their family and their fortunes. When ever possible, they also insure that like minded people, who are known for greed and are secretly dishonest, are placed in positins of power. That has been easier to accomplish in the United States because of our freedoms and of our slothful manner of counting votes.

I suspect the true leaders are a family affair, and the evilness is passed on to through future generations with strictly controlled upbringing and genetics. They rule us all and we don't even realize they exist.

Some really great blogs here, and I personally am pleased that jstevens brought up the issue of coal fired power plants, even though we disagree on the subject of nuclear power.

About thirty some years ago, the explorer, author, scientist and inventor, Jacques Costeau wrote a book, titled "The ocean World". He explained that one of the tiniest life forms in Earth's oceans, the pytoplankton, produces 70% of the oxygen in our atmosphere. He feared for their existance. It is a little ironic, that our lives are dependant upon a tiny and almost invisible life form.

Just imagine if the pytoplankton were to begin to die off, experience some mysterious malady and begin to disappear in large numbers, like the birds and bees are now doing. The result would not be good for all life on the planet. The astronauts orbiting in the space module would be in good shape.___for awhile.

The atomic waste we are so recklessly scattering around the planet and into our precious atmosphere does eventually drift down onto land and into the ocean's waters. Could uranium isotopes destroy pytoplankton? I'm certain they could. How much and how soon is the question?

Somethig is now killing off bird populatins in great numbers, this dramatic increase has cropped up in the past eighteen months. I know of nothing that has changed in the past two years that could explain that. Mother nature is screaming at us and mom is pissed. The clues that there is a serious problem in nature___ are clearly obvious. Has the uranium in our atmosphere reached the critical stage?___ I believe so.

It didn't edt.

OK, Evelyn, I'm back from playing some music at the bar, also a trip to talk with Wendy, and I'm ready to join in.

I'm much later than when you gave me a heads up there was a good blog conversation, but there is so much to kick around here I hope this blog thread goes on for awhile. It is a much more important subject than numerous others we have thrown our two (million) cents worth on. Where shall we start?...let's see?...

How about right here?:

Evelyn Smith July 10th, 2007 6:29 PM

OBSERVER commented about shooting nuclear waste toward the sun, and Evelyn Smith replied...

"Rocketing plutonium and other nuclear waste to the sun is a "swell" idea. We would exhaust Earth's natural resources for the project before we were able to send off five percent of it. Of course there is always the problem with rockets exploding on their launch pads or spinning out of control shortly after launch.___ Oops!"

### Factoid: 70% of the fuel burned by our troops in this conflict is used by aircraft.###

***Actually there is an economical way to send all this nasty stuff toward the sun. A mass-driver. Of course there is a risk of an accident. Can we afford it is the question? I guess this depends on your standpoint. Are you into money at any price, or are you about the long-term survivability of our species?

Ok, so if you are about massive funding (so you can get your piece, of course), and building these suspect plants all over everywhere, just so the existing energy producer can maintain their death grip on our lives, well fine. You just go ahead, but regardless of what Congress sells out to, I want you to understand this...

Except for those making money from it, the majority of the American public would rather use other means of powering their communities, vehicles, and industry than something that assures no future for themselves or their family.

Evelyn, we wouldn't need to deplete many resources to accomplish the task. In fact a nuclear power plant could probably supply all the power needed to shoot all its (and many others') waste material into space, since it runs on electricity. I don't think it could shoot all the contaminated liquid refuse away, so some sort of extraction/de-contamination process would be necessary for that.

Anyway, a mass driver is a push pull system of transport similar to that used on a number of monorails & trains. It's based on the positive/negative of a magnet. Positive pushes and negative pulls. Links along the track accelerate the projectile, if the track is sufficient length, enough to reach exit velocity. M.I.T. built a six-foot model that attained 100 MPH exit speed. I'm not sure of the angle, but I've read the slope needs to be about five miles. There are numerous mountains & ranges that meet the criteria, though.

It's workable, but considering the risk is it feasible? An accident in the upper atmosphere could spread a fine radioactive dust in the upper atmosphere. Why should we worry, though? Aren't we already spreading a fine aerosol airborne radioactive particulant all over Iraq & Afghanistan right now with DU? It's a little different when it falls in your own back yard, now isn't it? Maybe this is why there are so many strenuous objections from citizens (not the power controllers) about locating a nuclear facility just around the corner from their neighborhood. NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).

The one thing that I have thought about in relation to the disposal of spent fuel rods is to let mother nature take care of it. It is my understanding that the core of the earth is nuclear. So, why not bore down into the earth to where the techtonic plates are slipping past one another and deposit the garbage into the plate that is headed back into the core for recycleing, allowing our planet to safely absorb the contamination.
If we were to approach this in a world communal aspect, then we could gather up all the nasty bits and keep them going into the central depository to be safely disposed of and secureing the material from the ultimate threat of being used for nuclear weapons and dirty bombs.
It doesn't mean we have to build more reactors, but it would definately help to solve the problem of what to do with all that environmentally unfriendly radioactive garbage.
Just a thought...LMJ

Couple of points:

The core of the earth is not nuclear. Very likely iron-nickel at high temp and high pressure. It is not a fission core (Uranium, Plutonium) nor a fusion core (variants of hydrogen ala the sun). In Google, type in: "earth's core" composition

Nuclear reactors leave VERY nasty byproducts that are long lived. That said, it is also true that coal powered plants contribute more radiation EVERY YEAR to the atmosphere (not to mention greenhouse gases, mercury, etc) than Chernobyl and Three Mile Island combined. Those same coal-powered plants cause MORE DEATHS every year as well. Very dispersed, gradual, sort of "common" deaths from cancer, respiratory disease, and so on. but they exist and are predictable.

Nuclear (fission) power is an evil, but is a lesser evil compared to coal and fossil fuel powered plants. Yes, solar and wind are clean, but there are obstacles to QUICKLY getting entire countries to rely upon them for electric power. Definitely need more research and government support put into clean power sources.

Fusion power holds much promise. Burns hydrogen isotopes, does not create Plutonium or long-lived radioactive nasties. Burns full-tilt, so less chance of a melt down. If a melt down, shuts itself off (fusion stops once containment field broken), no Chernobyl type radiation into the air.

So what's the problem? We haven't solved how to create a stable containment field (some other technical problems). The ITER prototype in France will have the output of a small power plant (500Mw or 1/2 Gigawatt) for about 8 minutes when it works. How far are we from solving all of this? I have friends that work at national labs and their opinions are 5 years (optimist) to 10-20 (pessimist). Or maybe there's a breakthrough tomorrow, or maybe we don't solve the problems for 50 years.

BTW, the US is part of a six-country, $10B consortium on ITER. We're putting in about $1B over the next few years. That is equal to what the US spends in 3 days in Iraq. Three days. Think of how much could be done for energy conservation (best short term tactic) in the US with the $140B+ per year spent in Iraq. Rebates on fluorescent and LED lighting, personal solar panels & wind turbines, hybrid & plug-in hybrid cars, better insulation and windows (not sexy, but effective), the list goes on and on.

Final political rant: When the 2005 Congress ponied up that $1B in 2005 for ITER, it was on the condition that they CUT BACK on funding for fusion research in the USA at national labs and universities. The exception, of course, was for military uses of fusion. Increases in those.

observer 5:08 pm
"Please, DC participants, check your facts after you get some first hand knowledge in hard physics."

You haven't done anything to convince us you have "first hand knowledge in hard physics," observer, nor have you convinced us that resolving the physics issues necessarily resolves all the other questions.

To me, the main question is one of economics: what can deliver the cheapest power over the long haul with the least risk, and with the least harm to the environment?

By this yardstick, nuclear energy seems to be near the bottom of the list.

One thing I like about these blog discussions is it stimulates people to 'brain storm'. New (or different) ideas are proposed, accepted or rejected, and information is exchanged from diverse sources. Example:

RE: LMJakaMike July 11th, 2007 7:08 am

"So, why not bore down into the earth to where the techtonic plates are slipping past one another and deposit the garbage into the plate that is headed back into the core for recycleing..."

***I see a few problems here, and don't think the resources necessary for this undertaking, with a cost/benefit analysis, are as well spent as directing our energy production dollars into other areas.

Think of it like this: We are talking about spending massive amounts of money (and time) first on constructing nuclear plants THEN spending an untold amount on getting rid of the toxic waste they produce.

Why build the plants in the first place if waste disposal is such a problem? If we re-directed funds from nuclear toward a crash program for truly 'green' renewables, not only would we not have the waste disposal problem, the effort toward renewables would create more jobs, could provide more power more quickly, and be more sustainable in the long run. (keep in mind that just like oil materials necessary to fuel a nuclear power plant are a 'finite' resource, meaning eventually we will run out of this also)

Winds will blow, the sun will shine, heated magma will rise to the surface, rivers will flow, and the tides will turn virtually forever; these things are not in finite supply.

Another problem of just digging/drilling a hole near where tectonic plates meet, and shoving it down the hole, is; 1)The thickness of the plates is 15-200 Km, and; 2)where the plates meet are highly unstable regions subject to earthquakes & volcanic activity. Why bury this stuff if the earth will re-gurgitate it back at us?

Finally, the thinest places on the plates is in the the ocean which presents several problems; 1) The rock is heavier & denser there making it more difficult to drill; 2) The materials to be disposed of would have to be transported over the water, and as such would be exposed to the vagaries of ocean storms and such; 3) From the oceanic drilling platform the stuff would still have to be pumped down a pipe through the water to the bottom, giving rise to some more potentially disasterous 'accidents', and we can't afford even one 'accident'.

It doesn't seem like a feasible solution, nor is shooting it into space when the risks are considered, right? There is a way to solve the problem, however, STOP CREATING NUCLEAR WASTE ALTOGETHER, but that's too obvious for some people I guess.

It's the same old fight between the money power structure, and what is in the best interest of the people of this world. Without a resounding "NO" from an informed populace we lose, and possibly everything.***

It wouldn't surprise me if there were a few million tons of gold mixed in with the iron-nickel. It would be nice to learn our planet had a heart of gold. It would not be nice to learn humaniaty killed it.

We can write our brains out on the subjects such as how to get rid of the nuclear waste we have created, while we hope that someday we have clean energy for the needs of everyone on the plant. Meanwhile, while our brains are being depleted, we are continuing to use depleted uranium in weapons of war like there was no tomorrow. Think of it, really think of that!

What problem is the most serious for all of life on this planet? Scattering DU smoke and dust on the planet is a disaster that could and should be stopped today. The coal fired plants are also a major problem and it is not something we can stop today even though we should. But at least we can stop one of the two and do it now. If we don't there truly may be no tomorow in the near future.

This isn't the raving of a brain depleted madman, or a far left liberalist freak, calling out "tThe sky is falling"". This is something that almost everyone on the planet should be concerned aboout and demand we stop using DU for anything. We are shooting ourselves in the head.___ Einstein said that humanity was stupid___ he was pretty smart.

I hope no one in command ever seriously considers putting our nuclear waste in holes drilled deep into the Earth. There are many scientists who fear that just storing it in the manner we do now at some sites could lead to an uncontrolled chain reaction. We'd have another Chernobel, magnified a thousand times right here in the Mid West. Another thing is, we'd need a gigantic hole to store just the wste here in the United States. Maybe a hole the size of Rhode Island?

It's the old adage, out of sight, out of mind. The out of mind portion is appropriate.

I was ignorant of the mass driver method of space travel, sounds like an interesting subject. Could that system be used for space travel for our astronauts,___ or Cheney?

Hey Evelyn,
I believe the acceleration of a mass-driver would squash humans, but it could be used to shoot mass quantities of construction materials into space. This could make an inter-stellar space craft a possibility. Timed right, and with a huge net (with retro-rockets attached), the capture of the materials is theoretically possible.

Something the size of the Starship Enterprise would take many more times the 50,000 pound payload the current space shuttle could deliver. It uses up a lot of 'juice' to get those babies up there also. The mass-driver would make a space platform capable of supporting a population of 100,000 people or more possible.

To migrate to the nearest star fuel would have to be captured along the way, but that is also a possibility, since there is a molecule of hydrogen per cubic metre in even the blackest of space. A huge scoop (miles across) in front of the station captures the hydrogen while traveling. The nice thing about this is the faster you go, the more fuel you capture, and the more fuel the faster you can go. All theory, of course, but something to think about.

The biggest hinderance to the whole plan is the biological & ecological needs within the craft. They have to be self-sustaining & perpetuating, and experiments done in your state of Arizona with a bio-lab were failures on even a two year trial run of encapsulation.

The only reason I bring the whole concept up on this particular blog is to point out to people that while trashing this planet, and going elsewhere might be possible, it is rather improbable. You and I agree about shedding this nuclear 'Sword of Damacles' that is precariously dangling over all of us.

The radioactive genie must be put back in the bottle, and that means ALL of the sources, nukes, nuclear power plants, and especially DU.

There are also serious issues that must be addressed (NOW) about emmissions from coal burning power plants. Mercury caused autism, from coal fired power plants, has become a serious health & financial issue. Presently in the US we are looking at one out of 166 kids afflicted, but I saw something the other day about a country (can't remember which right now) where the incidence rate was one out of 58. Devastating, especially if you know a family with an autistic child, and the trauma it puts everyone through. Just one more reason we need to concentrate maximum resources toward going 'green', and immediately.

Hi Paul M Smith, That is most interesting. I've been a fan of space travel since 1950, when Wiley Ley and DR. Braun detailed how we could easily build a space station, which would have gravity and house a few hundred people. NASA went a different route of course and it was never done.

If the mass-drive is feasable, I believe we could have a joint project with several countries contributing and seed Mars with the necessary microbes to eventually develop a liveable atmosphere. That isn't as far fetched as it may sound, there is water locked up in ice at the poles, that's all one needs to seed a planet.

Once humaity was lving there, they could develop atomic energy and then have a nuclear war between the various races who setteled there.____ This para is a bad joke, hit me in the face.

I was not aware of the dangers of burning coal, until jstevens brought the subject up on another site this past week. I fear we all know that nothing is going to be done tocorrect anything before the axe falls.

Dr. Von Braun autographed my copy of "Across the Space frontier," many years ago when he lectured at UW.

There are a lot of good ideas for space travel, much of which has been explored in science fiction. When we are spending around a quarter trillion a month on a stupid, senseless war, there isn't much left over for space exploration, or medical care, or green energy development, or....

We have to set our priorities. Ending the war and stabilizing the planet's temperature increase are two that should be at the top of the list. The war as number one, perhaps, because that could free up money for R&D on climate stabilization, green power, etc. I say "could," because the greedy trolls that run the planet are going to try to figure out how to keep it all for themselves, anyway, just like they make their money on munitions now, so "would" is inappropriate.

I would have enjoyed meeting him Libertis. It is truly unfortunate that he didn't get his way with the space program, he was a genius in that respect and anything he would have initiated may have been continued after he died.

NASA is a bad dream in my opnion, we should have had a huge space in operation many years ago. However, you are correct. We never establish priorities. War is profitable___ for a very few, the rest of humaity suffers for them.

jstevens July 10th, 2007 11:07 pm

"Could someone please explain to me why with every discussion of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels, the dangers of DU as a weapon are introduced. I'm not being facetious; I'm really wondering what I'm missing."

***Your question is very appropriate, and I will try to explain the link between nuclear energy & DU. I am no expert on nuclear physics or history, but only speak from the standpoint of a concerned citizen, who has done some research, trying to cross-reference as much as possible.

Just as Evelyn Smith might seem to have an axe to grind on this issue, so do I, as we both recognize the threat DU poses to ALL forms of life on this planet down to even a microbial level.

The Manhattan Project in WWII, initially intended to design a weapon to defeat our foes in that war (and did...the atomic bomb), also came up with some other weaponry. One, Agent Orange, we know much about because of the devastating effects on friend and enemy alike in the Viet Nam conflict. We are still paying for our use of Agent Orange today.

Although the scientists in the Manhattan project probably deduced disposal of nuclear waste materials would likely present a future problem, I don't think they quite understood the scale, since there were no nuclear power generating facilities currently operating at that time. Now we have many (with hundreds of thousands of tons of waste material produced), and the controversy over whether we have too many, or not enough, still doesn't solve the problem of disposal of radioactive by-products & waste materials.

What do we do with all this highly lethal and long lasting 'stuff'? Well some bright person, or lamebrain depending on your viewpoint, had the now suspect idea of putting it as a core in artillery & tank shells, and other ordinance, after it was found (because it is 1.7 times more dense than lead among other things) it had unparalleled penetrating power against enemy armor compared to conventional projectiles.

Thus began the system of nuclear power generation facilities donating spent (yet still deadly radioactive) fuel rods to the military. It's a win-win situation for the nuclear industry, who eliminate costly disposal issues, and for the military, because they get the materials necessary for their weaponry at very little cost. Unfortunately, the consequences of DU's use for the rest of the earth's citizens are only now being felt & fully understood, and they are nasty & long lasting.

The logical link between DU & nuclear power generation is such; without a relatively cheap & abundant supply of spent material from the existing nuclear power plants would the military be generating enough spent materials to be shooting it wherever we are engaged in armed conflict, to the deleterious effect on friend, foe, and civilian populations alike?

It really boils down to this: Without nuclear power plants the military probably wouldn't be engaged in using a UN recognized nuclear WMD in armed conflict. Also, the US wouldn't be violating the International Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Google DU, and out of the thousands of articles & references you find see how many treat it in a positive light.

Thank you PaulMagillSmith and Evelyn Smith. I wasn't being very realistic thinking that one could use nuclear energy and prohibit the use of DU artillery. We could, but we won't.