Nukes Are Back and So Are We

RE: Billy_y4 October 20th, 2007 8:35 am
Billy, here is the link and some of what is contained

http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Media/PR_NucPwr_05vi20.pdf

"While nuclear power dies of an incurable attack of market forces, its derided smaller-scale competitors are already a bigger global power source and are growing very rapidly, while nuclear power continues to fade away."

The cover story in RMI's summer 2005 newsletter, published today, documents the global
growth of two kinds of decentralized electricity generation: cogeneration (producing electricity and useful heat together) and renewable sources (wind, biomass power, geothermal, small hydro, and solar, but excluding big hydro dams—any over 10 megawatts). In 2004 alone, these smallscale, low- or no-carbon sources added 5.9 times as much net generating capacity and 2.9 times as much electricity production as nuclear power did. By the end of 2004, the decentralized competitors' global installed capacity totaled roughly 411 gigawatts—12 percent more than global nuclear plants' 366 gigawatts—and produced about 92 percent as much electricity. (The difference is because some kinds of renewable sources run fewer hours per year.)

Thus, the article notes, these so-called "minor" alternative sources—often claimed to be unimportant, uncompetitive, and far in the future—actually overtook nuclear's global capacity in 2003, rivaled its 2004 and will match its 2005 electricity output, and should exceed its 2010 output by 43 percent. Official and industry forecasts indicate that in 2010, they'll add 177 times as much capacity as dwindling nuclear power will—the ultimate test of energy technology in the free market. Not, of course, that the market is actually free: nuclear power is far more heavily subsidized (http://earthtrack.net/earthtrack/index.asp?page_id=177&catid=66) than its
competitors. That makes their market victory even more remarkable. with manufacturers earning about ten times as much 2004 revenue selling renewable power equipment as nuclear plants—and the latter all selling to centrally planned power systems, not those disciplined by markets."

Yes, Billy, I believe some natural gas burning is included in their 'low emmission' category, but the main point made is not disputable, namely, there is no sense in continuing to heavily subsidize nuclear power when funds could be better spent elsewhere.

RE: Vierotchka October 20th, 2007 7:21 am

"Basically, like oil, uranium has peaked - as it is, with the existing nuclear plants, uranium will last only a few decades. Should the number of plants triple, the world's remaining uranium would last for only a dozen more years."

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/industri...

Interesting article, and almost matches the figure I saw of 85 years (instead of 72). There is a bit of controversy about figures & claims, but no one disputes that the amount of available uranium resources are a finite quantity. It WILL run out, so why even consider nuclear except to utilize existing power plants as a transitional energy source until we really can ramp up production of power from 'green' renewables.

RE: pacplyer October 20th, 2007 5:49 am
"Readers are wrong who suggest that a deliberate 911 aircraft attack would some how "bounce off" the containment building or the more vulnerable control building of a nuke power plant...For example, my old flame, the B747-200F series weighed 820,000 lbs at takeoff and carried a transatlantic fuel load of 250,000 lbs of fuel...There is no way any containment building built to those specs, even with a 30% over engineering structural factor thrown in, could sustain function after a direct hit from this aircraft."

I have to agree with you here, pacplyer, and disagree with whomever claimed that because the walls of the containment building were 9 feet of concrete the reactor would be safe. Need I remind this poster that the plane(?) that the government said hit the Pentagon on 911 went through 9 feet of concrete?

"Forget geothermal too."

We are in complete disagreement here, pacflyer. Geothermal is diverse (in many states, especially western, but not limited to them), with a binary cycle system virtually emmissionless, an unlimited supply source, and even produces other useful byproducts (such as 99.9% pure silica, which can be used for computer chip manufacturing and other applications). Transmission & storage of electrical output has been the major problem we confront with geothermal & other large centralized power productions. If the power source is unlimited & 'green' (and geothermal is very very green, creating little heat in the atmosphere when done properly, and miniscule greenhouse gas emissions) who cares about some loss in transmission?

Most of the problems with geothermal are political & financial rather than technological, however. We must get hydrocarbons & nuclear off our financial backs for renewables to have an opportunity. The key word in that last sentence is MUST. A perpetual state of war, diminished standard of living, and detrimental runaway global climate change are the consequences of having a few individuals or corporations hold us hostage through a greedy ill-conceived energy policy. It's time for us all to stand up to these interests or we will surely & inevitably all fall down.

PS Thanks for your compliment, pacflyer, on my previous post on this thread.

Keeping on the nuclear power plant safety issue, I saw another poster claim the plants would be safe because they were encased in a dome that was 9 feet of concrete. Need I remind the poster that the plane (?) that hit the Pentagon penetrated through 9 feet of re-enforced concrete? (some claim it was a missile, which much evidence points toward, and a new investigation is a necessity if only to completely resolve the question for good)). At any rate, if this could happen to what is claimed as 'the most heavily protected building in the world' what chance would a less heavily defended facility, such as a nuclear power plant, have?

Terrorist attack, or even the possibility of a conspiracy by rogue elements within our own government aside, the unwavering indisputable fact still remains that EVERY invention/machine mankind has ever come up with has eventually broken down. The catastrophic consequences of a failure of nuclear machinery is just too great to travel down this path. To quote the heroic sage, Forrest Gump, "And that's all I have to say about that."

We cannot leave economics out of these discussions!

An economic system that the world has, that requires constant growth (stocks MUST rise - the purpose for which corporations are created) also requires constant growth in energy.

Also the economic system requires perpetual more and more debt to be created to sustain itself.

This further requires more and more growth. And more energy use.

This suggests that the economic system must completely change first before we can get a handle on our energy consumption on this planet.

"unless you change the way money works, you change nothing". (to paraphrase Catherine Austin Fitts.)

Lobo Gris,

"If you don't want to be called full of it then don't write posts that are."

I answered you correctly about Harry Reid above. I've answered you correctly about Democrats compared to Republicans--or compared to voting for the mirages of the recent "third parties" that ensured the election of Republicans. The rest of your "full of it" allegations are pretty empty except for the obvious compulsion you have to pick arguments on others' posts.

Even you have now decided you "would vote Democratic but not in the lesser of two evils scenario." That's a hairsplit to far for me, and neither you nor anyone else could possibly know what it means really. I still believe that being busy attacking others does tend to distract from the substance of what you might otherwise think up to say, and probably caused that very lapse of substance.

Daniel David

Paul,

Thanks for the reference. I read the release and I think I understand the discrepancy.

RMI in their 2005 calculation is including co-generation from natural gas as part of their "low and no greenhouse gas sources". They don't breakdown their 2005 accounting between the various power sources.

Most others do not include gas fired electricity, including DOE, in with renewables.

Pacflyer,

I, for one, do not think a nuclear power plant would survive a strike from a large aircraft unscathed. I personally believe that, if the plane were well aimed, it would economically destroy the plant. I also believe there would not be a serious release of radiation.

It is a little bit of comparing apples and oranges, but the nuclear powered submarine NSS San Francisco collided with an undersea mountain while at full speed (40mph?) a couple of years ago. Over half the crew was injured and one was killed. The nuclear power plant was undamaged and brought the boat to port without assistance.

The uranium price spike appears to have passed. It is now back well under $100 per pound. This was mostly a speculative bubble based on short term mismatch between supply and demand.

Yes, Wyoming has major reserves of uranium. There is very little domestic production at this time. As I understand it, and I am not a geologist, the Wyoming uranium is very good for exploitation by ISL (in situ leaching) the only primary uranium mining technique used in the USA today. Compared to underground and pit mining, ISL is very environmentally benign.

Bill

There is a growing shortage of Uranium, so building more nuclear plants will be a total waste of money. Basically, like oil, uranium has peaked - as it is, with the existing nuclear plants, uranium will last only a few decades. Should the number of plants triple, the world's remaining uranium would last for only a dozen more years.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/industri...

My feeling is to ask myself who has the most to benefit if we build hundreds of N-reactor plants in the U.S.

So in keeping with my theory that "deepthroat" knew what he was talking about when he told the watergate reporters to "follow the money" I just asked ask.com "who are the biggest owners of uranium?" and this conversation popped up:

"She then goes into saying that the Queen of England personally owns almost all the uranium mines in the world and she is 'the head of the snake' -with the Rockefellers as the second biggest owners of uranium mines andthe Rothschilds are the business managers of the Queen and so on (not sure how much of that is true, but she goes into that for a while - all the intermarried global, warcrime, syndicate people)."

Uranium has skyrocketed in the last six months I've also read. Isn't Old "Shotgun Dick's" state of Wyoming a big Uranium mine operator....?

Jesus, the NeoCon Mafia just never gives up!

Goodnight,

pac

Brilliant post by PaulMagillSmith by the way, as well as others here.

Right now, the dollar is "pegged" to oil. Economists have talked about taking the dollar off oil and pegging it to Uranium as a solution to it's falling value. I always wondered why...

..... could it be that the dollar must always be pegged to a scarce element to retain it's value.... could it be that when we took it off the gold standard that all the talk about the world just having confidence in our paper play money from now on was disingenuous? It really would be expected by the "masters of the universe" to link to oil. This then, is why they sabotaged alternatives like solar...... Because they knew that to keep the dollar floating on a mountain of rising debt would require an inefficient economy that drinks oil... Now stay with me on this for a minute, O.K.?

I submit that in order to save the dollar, the big plan here is to force us into nuke power no matter how dangerous or costly it is and peg the value of the greenback to Uranium since it is so rare.

DieBold-abolical

What do you think?

paaaaac (mutating)

Readers are wrong who suggest that a deliberate 911 aircraft attack would some how "bounce off" the containment building or the more vulnerable control building of a nuke power plant. The B-707 crash cited in the study, weighed a mere 300,000lbs- 320,000 lbs at max gross takeoff weight, whereas bigger jets are over double the mass and far exceed the fuel load. For example, my old flame, the B747-200F series weighed 820,000 lbs at takeoff and carried a transatlantic fuel load of 250,000 lbs of fuel.

There is no way any containment building built to those specs, even with a 30% over engineering structural factor thrown in, could sustain function after a direct hit from this aircraft. In all likelihood, reactor control rods would be bent, causing a runaway "China Syndrome" which would negate all perceived environmental savings from selecting nuke power as a so-called "green" alternative.

The insanity of putting this kind of menace within a hundred miles of living beings is beyond my comprehension. And it produces massive heat up through the cooling towers and holding ponds. It is a thermal and contamination nightmare. I wouldn't trust anybody in this crooked government to regulate it properly.

We have to spend these billions on solar, wind, hydroelectric and tidal generators. Forget geothermal too. The name of this game is to reduce the carbon and thermal footprint.

Otherwise the new real estate market craze will be property over 10,000ft high elevation.

pac

Billy,
That info came from a RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) press release dated June 2005. We've been over all this before on threads about other articles. You cast doubt on figures from my sources, and I question yours. Thanks for finally agreeing that uranium is a finite resource. I've seen where you got the figure you use when you state, "It is agreed: uranium is a finite resource. Combining uranium and thorium in a breeder program, we may not have enough for more than 1000 years.", but I have also seen an article stating that with 2,000 reactors engaged there is enough fuel for only 85 years or so.

This is the problem we have seemed to have in our many disputes on this subject in the past. You are embedded with the nuclear industry, while I am not. I am a skeptic concerning what information they feed the public, while you are not.

The biggest problem is getting rid of the waste. Even moreso, perhaps, is the complete lack of credibility of the nuclear power industry (and their consorts in the government), because they are profit motivated in the short run (their lifetimes), failing to consider the long term implications, because they don't really give a tinkers damn after they are gone. Greed clouds their vision. They will do anything, say anything, and tell any lie to control power access in this country. If we can't trust them to tell us the truth (and they have a propensity to lie or cover-up---do you deny this? Be careful because there is ample evidence) how can we trust them with something as important as control of nuclear facilities?

I live about 20 miles from a nuclear power plant (North Anna). My geology professor, one time president of the National Science Foundation, went before the NRC and testified that the proposed location was directly over a geological fault, and he recommended they seek another location. Do you think they paid him heed? Hell no! They ignored him because they had dollar signs in their eyes. True, the area is not very geologically active, but it doesn't take but one mishap to have ruinous consequences. Why take the risk when, with equitable funding, there are safer & better alternatives? If we get off this jag about throwing humongous sums of money at dangerous non-sustainable centralized power sources, and opt for safe de-centralized renewable methods instead, we will all have better lives in the future...if we have a future after the criminal usage of DU (depleted uranium) has its way with us. But that's another subject entirely.

"To say "No Nukes" means "Go Coal" today"

...and "You're either with us, or you're against us."...and "A vote for Nader was a vote for Bush."...and...well, ad nauseum.

Lot's of stark black and white thinking around these days.

Here's some stark black and white thinking: The world is finite. If we keep consuming at the rate we're consuming, we will consume all the resources. That's after many bloody wars have been waged for resources.

We either consume less and do it with renewable energy, or we die. Now, do you think this is a big enough mother of invention?

Put that in your two-toned pipe and smoke it!

Daniel David October 19th, 2007 12:47 pm

"Your posts are generally better when you don't resort to calling other people "full of it." (Tends to diminish the points you might otherwise be capable of making.)"

If you don't want to be called full of it then don't write posts that are.

"If you don't like Harry Reid, how about a Republican?
Is there some dandy argument for that?"

Nope, don't like the Republicans. But then you knew that already. I've posted enough times about voting for third party candidates that everyone knows where I stand. In fact I would vote Democratic but not in the lesser of two evils scenario. The Dems are going to have to grow a spine and start using it if they want my vote in 2008.

Lobo Gris

Paul,

I would be interested in knowing your source for renewable w/o hydro>nuclear in June 2005.

According to EIA.DOE.gov, for all of 2005 worldwide:

Nuclear: 2626 billion kwh
Hydro: 2900 billion kwh
Other Ren: 370 billion kwh

It is agreed: uranium is a finite resource. Combining uranium and thorium in a breeder program, we may not have enough for more than 1000 years.

There is no problem finding uranium. Since uranium spiked over $100/pound, there has been renewed interest in exploration and there have been several new finds. Prior to the spike, there had been no serious exploration (except in Kazikstan) for over 20 years. Uranium is not a particularly rare metal. It has approximately the same occurance in nature as zinc.

Bill

Nuclear reactors breed plutonium. The real product of nuclear reactors is deadly radioactive isotopes that remain incredibly dangerous for hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. A byproduct of the creation of these hellish chemicals is heat. The heat is used to boil water and the steam spins turbines that create electricity. Electricity that cannot be stored and vanishes at the speed of light. It is instantly gone. So we create unimaginably dangerous immutable substances in the hundreds of tons to spin turbines.

The planet is a closed system, and anyone who claims to be able to guarantee that they can isolate the radioactive material for as long as is necessary is lying or delusional.

Spinning turbines with wind power makes infinitely more sense.

From the perspective of one who has worked in the US electric power generation and transmission industry for over 30 years:

The current paradigm of large centralized generation plants pushing power through hundreds of miles of transmission lines (better known as "the grid") is history.

Adding large generation plants (hydro, nuclear, coal, gas, 180,000 squirrels on treadmills, or you name it)is the easy component of increasing power supply. Transmission (grid) capacity is being maxed out and new transmission routes are difficult, expensive and in many locations impossible to add. The grid is far more vulnerable to terrorists than generation plants. Even if Congress spends the last taxpayer dollar building new nuke plants, the power will not be transmitted to the customers. It is unlikely that many people will support building nuclear plants in the middle of urban areas to eliminate the need for long distance transmission.

The new paradigm is to utilize economically feasible existing large plants and the grid, with most new generation sources being decentralized. Wind, solar, biomass, methane and microhydro are some examples of power sources that fit the new paradigm. Until you see backyard nuke plants on display at your local Home Depot, nukes will not be part of the new paradigm.

Nuke power safe? Two comments...

Three Mile Island.

Chernobyl.

I only have a couple more items to add to this conversation, but they are important.

First, as of a report dated June 2005 renewables now generate more power worldwide than ALL the nuclear reactors worldwide (and this is excluding large hydro-elactric power generation). The point I would like to make here is that if we threw the same tens of billions of dollars at renewables as we have (and are about to) at the nuclear industry then even discussing the merits of nuclear power generation would be a moot issue. If we had invested in the technology for renewables years decades ago, instead of throwing all that funding down the nuclear sinkhole, it is very likely we wouldn't be in the middle east fighting to steal & control their oil resources.

Second, and this is a point many who favor building and/or using nuclear power generation systems miss (and most people in general don't fully realize).

Just like oil...uranium used to power nuclear power plants is a FINITE resource. What this means is that just like oil there is a limited supply, and it will eventually be exhausted.

At the moment there are 438 nuclear power plants in the world. This is not to say there are that many currently providing power because a goodly number of them are often off-line for costly repairs, safety violations, etc., and it is not uncommon for it to take as much as two years to get them up & operating again. That's right I said TWO YEARS! Information on this and what I will say next can be attained by Googling.

More importantly, it has been estimated that 2,000 nuclear power plants would be necessary to meet the world's CURRENT energy needs. (That's CURRENT not FUTURE). Even with only 438 there is a problem finding necessary fuel, and numerous scientists in the know admit there isn't presently enough fuel worldwide to power 2,000.

The over-riding point here is: Why should we invest hundreds of billions/trillions in currency on a technology that isn't sustainable, and trades oil shortages for uranium shortages...peak oil for peak uranium?

The wind, tide, solar, & geo-thermal energy at our disposal is virtually limitless & never-ending, so why are we even considering nuclear plants (or more coal fired power plants as well), except as an already partially built transitional energy supplier until we can move on to already known "Green" systems that will be cheaper in the long run, sustainable, and better for the environmental problems we face as well?

Lobo Gris,

Your posts are generally better when you don't resort to calling other people "full of it." (Tends to diminish the points you might otherwise be capable of making.)

I'm well aware Harry Reid has worked for years to keep Yucca Mountain nuclear waste out of Nevada's back yard.
That's why we're lucky enough to still have him as a Democratic senator from an otherwise "red" state.

I also know that if Nevada won't have it, no other state will either. And, if Nevada won't have it, the other states through which it would all be transported on the way to Nevada can all relax a little too.

If you don't like Harry Reid, how about a Republican?
Is there some dandy argument for that?

shakker (10/18) made a good point that nobody in the investment world touches nuclear energy without subsidy (and protection) from government.

We should realize that the goal of "conservatives" is to get all us taxpayers on the hook for funding nuclear energy and also funding the consequences. Private money knows the whole thing is too risky, so why shouldn't we?

The only reason that the energy industry is pushing nuclear is that they think that they can use it to keep the monthly electricity bills flooding into their coffers.

The reason they fear solar PV and wind turbines is pretty simple - unless they themselves own the means of generation, they'll lose all their profits.

Let's say we set up a financial system where homeowners can go to a bank and get the equivalent of a car loan for the purchase of a new solar PV system (the costs are similar). Then, instead of sending an electric bill to whatever corporate utility exists in their area, they can pay a similar amount every month to the bank until their PV system is paid off - that's affordable. For a few thousand dollars downpayment and a loan agreement, they can have a solar PV system installed overnight.

It's all about trying to keep the global public in thrall to the fossil fuel energy and corporate electric utility interests, in other words. Pushing nuclear is just part of that strategy.

Why is nuclear a dead end? The hot radioactive waste problem, the limited supplies of uranium, the incredible costs of building and operating nuclear power plants, the even higher costs of closing down old reactors, the proliferation of nuclear weapons material (i.e. reprocessed plutonium from fuel rods), and on and on, the need for massive amounts of cooling water (you can't run a nuclear power plant in the desert, but solar panels work great), and on and on.

In one hour, the amount of sunlight that falls on the Earth is similar to the global human energy consumption. All we have to do is tap and store a small fraction of that energy, and the need for fossil fuels (of which uranium is actually an example) will be eliminated.

That's what the future will look like - and we could have been there already, except that Reagan and Bush and their fossil fuel interests that finance them managed to seize power in the U.S. in 1980 - and now they're very entrenched, as the Iraq oil invasion demonstrates.

RE: SteveMick October 18th, 2007 2:49 pm
"Renewables ARE able to meet all of our needs quite easily particularly photovoltaics and wind. If these sources were given even a small fraction of the subsidy nukes get from their federal indemnification via the Price Anderson Act their development would proceed at blinding speed."

Exactly, SteveMick. The real travesty is that some of the massive subsidies the nuclear power industry has gotten since its birth has been used to mis-lead & propagandize the public about nuclear safety, cost effectiveness, and 'green-ness'...AND to gain power & dominance over congress through intense lobbying efforts.

That Wall Street & the insurance industry has visibly backed away from supporting & funding nuclear energy speaks volumes by itself. Like them or not these are groups of people who are intelligent in the ways of doing cost/benefit analysis, and their rejection of nuclear power generation speaks for itself. They are also aware that the nuclear plants of today are much better designed, constructed, & operated than those that gave us Three Mile Island & Chernobyl, yet they still balk.

pdf, you need to pay attention to my last paragraph. I do, however, agree with you that coal/hydrocarbons are one of our biggest threats at the moment. Excluding the countless people (millions even) who have been outright murdered over the quest for hydrocarbon resource control & dominance, hydrocarbons have caused the pre-mature death & genetically transferrable illnesses of more world citizens than nuclear.

This could change drastically since the advent & usage of the byproduct of nuclear power generation falsely 'framed' as DU (Depleted Uranium)has the potential to kill ALL life forms on this planet, from man to microbe.

The continued use of this internationally recognized radiological WMD (weapon of mass destruction) by the US military puts global warming/climate change in second place in significance as far as the most dangerous foe mankind now faces. Unlike global warming, however, which is a long term problem requiring long range solutions, the usage of DU is a longer problem with an immediate solution to lessening its impact on humanity. It's like the old joke about the guy who walks into the doctor's office and complains, "Hey Doc, it hurts when I do this (while moving his arm a certain way); what should I do?" The doctor wisely replies, "Well...STOP DOING THAT!"

Since the formulation, creation, invention, seeding, evolution, (or whatever) of the first single cell life form on this planet life forms have faced extinction. Until the advent of humans there never has been a life form intelligent enough to extinguish permanently themselves and ALL other species on our world.

Let's put that intelligence to work now before it's too late. With the advent of nuclear weaponry (nuclear devices including DU), worldwide man-caused pollution (from primarily burning coal, oil, & gas), and an ever increasing 'greenhouse' effect (from man's out of control CO2 'footprint') we stand on an event horizon, and are precipitously sliding into a black hole toward extinction. The choice is ours...do we live or die?

To me, the arguments against nuclear energy are overwhelming. It is a good energy source if we want to believe people are perfect and that we are able to operate nuclear power plants with no errors and safely get rid of the waste. Nuclear plants are for extreme optimists. It has nothing to do with the technology in use; the problem is with human errors and behavior, including our leaders.

Chances are, our atomic discoveries, sooner or later, are going to end up killing all life on this planet.
I don't want to put my trust in anyone, as far as nuclear energy. The plants should all be dismantled and shutdown, with the waste properly dealt with. Then there is the problem of the weapons.

"Renewables are fine, but they simply are not going to be enough. Nuclear power needs to be solidly on the table."
--------

It basically boils down to reducing our consumption. Nuclear power isn't some sort of a magic stick which can get rid of all our energy problems. Alternative power sources need to be researched by spending money on those projects. Subsidizing clean alternative fuels is where the taxpayer money should go to. Along with all these solutions and many more we need to REDUCE our consumption by a helluva lot!!!

The rate at which we're consuming energy no technology on earth or beyond will be able to keep up with our demands.

Mark A.

Thank you for actually getting my point, so few actually did in this case that I was questioning my ability to communicate!

I agree with the sentiment that PV, wind & renewable are a wonderful thing and all things being equal ~ would be the way to go, BUT it does not meet current (pun intended) electrical needs. Unless you happen to have $75K laying around to re-roof your home with photovoltaic cells, and unless you happen to live in a consistantly high-wind region where you can stick up a fan and generator and live your life off the grid.

Failing that, I think we as a society need to look at all options, and personally I think those options should include nuclear ~ particularly fusion reaction as opposed to fission because long-term it would be a paradigm shift in human society if we could come up with a contained reactor that feeds itself so no waste, and provides abundant energy for now and for the future. We're not there yet, so don't flame me excessively, but unless we keep the option open and invest the time and effort to research the concept ~ we're stuck with coal, oil or living like the Amish.

Daniel David October 18th, 2007 1:15 pm

"I'll place my bets with Harry Reid (Senator from Nevada who has spent years trying to get sound science into the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository debate), and any other Democrats we can elect to make the safest choices about nuclear energy."

Yet once again you're full of it Daniel. Harry Reid is no more a champion of safe nuclear storage than any other politician. What he has really fought for is "not in my back yard" the same as many others that have been faced with the Feds wanting to store nuclear waste in their state.

From Harry Reid's website;

My highest priority is to ensure the health and safety of Nevadans, and this includes keeping the most toxic substance known to man out of our state and off our roads.

Lobo Gris

My few cents... primarily to Billy_y4 and WTF

http://www.nci.org/01nci/09/aircrashab.htm

The currently operating reactors were built to withstand much smaller aircraft than what were used as weapons on 9-11.

So - I would like to see the studies you refer to ... or ask the NEI's PR team at Hill and Knowlton to supply them for you... or Entergy's at Burston Marsteller.

No US uranium makes it from the mine through the enrichment process without quantities of cfc-114 being released at United States Enrichment corporation in Paducah Ky. CFC 114 is a far greater heat trapper and ozone destroyer than Co2.

Nuclear in the seventies didn't die because of TMI etc. It died in the marketplace.

Here is why nuclear is a bad investment- current costs to build a reactor are about 3 or 4 billion USD. I forget how much TMI cost. And a few months later - the huge ly capitalized investment can become a multi billion dollar liability as it damages the entire industry.

A nuclear accident is an inevitability. Even though nuclear is the most heavily regulated industry in the US/ world.

I am amazed no one has yet litigated the issue as put forth in the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation report number VII - - written by the National Academy of Science in 2005. They found that even minute amounts of ionizing radiation had been found to cause cancers ... yet the nuclear industry as a matter of course is permitted to release minute amounts of radiation as part of its normal operations.

Here are some current blocks to the latest nuclear concept,
not enough N rated shops to make the parts needed for new reactors ( expensive to buy them from overseas - particularly given the weakening dollar)
not enough nuclear workers -
public opinion is opposed to it... ( except for the PR campaign to end all)
public policy is oppose to it (ditto)
and of course as already stated - the disposal of the waste issue.
It is not domestic energy- the uranium will not come from the US.

I enjoy talking to folks in the industry. All your ideas come from the same
"how to save our industry and jobs" handbook.

And as much as I do not like the industry - it is the workers who are the true first responders and I am grateful there have not been more serious accidents yet.

When I read Wasserman I think of how I would amend what he writes not to shoot him down but to clarify pieces he may not have in his knowledge base.

Not to mention the "Mini-Reactors" like the one at Penn State University that accidently spilled a couple hundred gallons of waste water last week. I don't guess it was picked up on the NCAA coverage. I was told they let the public in on it a couple days later in the CDT (local paper).

I guess all the fish will be bright,bright ,florescent green in Spring Creek .Or of course dead.

1) A terrorist attack on a nuke plant will hardly scratch the surface. The containment vessels are many stronger than the U-boat pens in Europe that cannot be broken and removed. Yes, a plane will bounce off. There is a great video of a 707 that was deliberately crashed. The 707 hit a concrete barrier and was pulverized. The concrete barrier remained uncompromised.

2) People miss the point of the Energy Bill and the drive away from sustainable energy sources like wind and solar. Nuke AND coal-fired plants centralize energy production, which means it is corporatized energy. Wind and solar decentralizes energy production removing a key energy base of the elites.

3) We can produce clean, safe energy to meet our needs, but it does not meet the monetary needs of the elites.

Whose child will we disfigure with all that Depleted Uranium these things produce? The Neo Cons Evilgelical Supporters will need to select a few more undefended nations to obliterate.

"I'd like to repeat jakenewton's comments - "Wind and solar are being built now with little or no subsidy because they SUCCEED in the marketplace. ""

That was SteveMick, I was mentioning that those methods are subsidized.

It's encouraging to see the number of posters here, presumably from a left perspective, who take a more balanced view of the nuclear power question. It's a good thing if the old anti-nuke left orthodoxy is breaking down.

I think the opposition to nuclear power back in the 1970s, although later validated by TMI and Chernobyl, was mostly fueled by a displaced fear of nuclear weapons, by people who could not bring themselves to confront that existential threat head-on.

As TMI, Chernobyl and other accidents have shown, and as we know from the problems of proliferation and waste disposal, nuclear power poses serious dangers. But so do other technologies, and we have learned to manage many dangerous things. The threat of nuclear war does not arise from nuclear power, despite the insistence of antinuclear ideologues that the two are inseparable. Today, many nations can obtain nuclear weapons if they want them, and shutting down nuclear power plants in the US is not going to do anything to stop them.

It's easy for American environmentalists to say we don't need nukes, we can just conserve and build windmills, shoot for a revolution in solar tech, etc.

However, India, China, and other developing nations are hungry for power and nothing is going to stop them from getting it.

Today, if you are a utility planner anywhere in the world and you need another gigawatt of baseload electrical generating capacity, you have three basic choices: Coal, gas, or nuclear. The amount of gas that is available is limited and prices are rising fast. It comes down to coal vs. nukes, until we get that technological breakthrough that makes solar or other renewable power cheap enough and storable.

To say "No Nukes" means "Go Coal" today, and until that changes, the fixed ideology of the Harvey Wassermans ("WE'RE BAAACK!!!") is just irresponsible.

Nobody with any brains in the investment world will touch nuclear energy without government subsidy. NOBODY

Conservation, solar, wind, and geothermal are all better investments. These are being used even though energy corporations and the government have been subsidizing all their competitors and actively discouraging these better choices.

Conservation should be heavily subsidized as it is the very best of all alternatives. The billions requested for nuclear energy would produce much greater energy if invested in conservation.

I used to work for an electric company that was part owner of a local nuke plant. The plant was finally shut down well after its slated decomissioning date. After it was shut down and the decomissioning ended (after costing many times more than projected), it was determined that the energy provided by the plant was comparable to other types of energy as far as cost. In short, it was not too cheap to be metered (remember that one?).

This is the fact: When you take into account all the costs, including construction, waste disposal, the potential for accidents, and decomissioning, nuclear power is not cheap.

As others have pointed out, there have been massive subsidies given to nuclear power generation and virtually none to alternative energies like solar and wind. Why? Because large energy plants can be owned and money made off of them. Alternatives? Only the producers of the hardware make money, then, no one. As with everything these days, just follow the money (or lack of potential thereof).

A while ago I came out and said that nuclear energy may need to be on the table. The one thing that led me to say that was that we are seeing wars for energy, and that will only increase. However, I believe that following the same failed route is patently insane. We must all change. We must change how we live and relate to the world around us. We must stop consuming so much power and resources. Easy for me to say as I sit here on my computer (albeit, an energy-saving Mac), but it's the truth, as I see it.

We must have the courage to live as if this party is ending, because it is. We must also have the courage to demand (as futile as it may seem) that those who are supposed to be representing us start investing in the future, which is alternative, clean energies.

As with so much else, it's really up to us.

This may sound silly, but what if we were to launch rockets with the nuclear waste to the moon. Any terrorist that can go to the moon and get it back has my vote!

Would a bomb dropped on a nuclear reactor really cause nuclear problems? I thought the material had to be close to each other to generate heat. An explosion would just spread the material far apart so there is no reactivity right?

Ireneus,

The energy act of 2005 does provide subsidies for new nuclear. The two biggest ones are:

1. Matching funds for the costs of filing the requisite nuclear liscensing (for the first couple of plants). The liscensing approach being used is new and untried. It the build of the '60's and '70's much of the cost overruns experienced by the utilities was a result of getting wrapped around the axle by liscensing haggles and associated delays.

2. Liscensing delay insurance. It is only to the tune of a couple of hundred million for the first couple of plants but the government is putting cash on the barrel head betting that they will not cause delays in liscensing without cause. See item #1.

Much is made by antinuclear activists about Price-Anderson backup insurance. The backing provided by P-A insurance has never been tapped for a public nickel. All the costs associated with TMI-2 were borne by private insurance and the private industrial pool.

There is also a production subsidy for the first couple of plants under the 2005 act. The subsidy is the same as wind receives except that nuclear is capped and wind is not. This actually is unnecessary since, once on line, a nuclear reactor is a huge cash cow for a utility.

The cash value of the subsidies in the 2005 act are actually quite modest, given the generating capacity of the typical nuclear plant. The biggest thing in the act is the demonstration of government goodwill towards nuclear generation.

Bill

There has been very good arguments against nuclear power for environmental and health reasons posted here, but we seem to be missing the primary fault with nuclear power the article set out. It is economically ludicrous.
Take all the taxpayer grants, "stranded" costs subsidies, and matching investments the government makes for connected nuke builders, and put it directly into solar, wind, and geothermal. Imagine how far each of those alternative technologies would be.

Thanks Harvey Wasserman for another article full of hyperbole, scare tactics and yet another reference to Chernobyl. Chernobyl, as other people have noted is irrelevant
to the American nuclear industry. Why do you, Ralph Nader and others insist on bringing up the nuclear accident from an archaic and mismanaged plant built from World War II technology. And bringing up TMI that "horrible" tragedy where NOBODY died.

Equally ridiculous is his statement (already adressed by Billy_y4) that the hijacked planes flew over a nuclear power plant.

I have a suggestion for Mr. Wasserman. Why don't you write about coal plants, instead of nuclear? Then you could scare people with ACTUAL deaths (30,000 per year) instead of doomsday scenarios. The current tragic state of the environment is a result of the fossil fuels industry and indirectly contributed to by the anti-nuclear movement. Nuclear power is far from perfect but it is far superior to energy from coal. Yet, nuclear gets all of the scrutiny, all of the Harvey's.

I liked Harvey's line about the rivers being too warm to cool the reactor. The rivers are too warm because of global warming. Global warming is mainly from fossil fuels, not from nuclear power.

France is nuclear, but France is also democratic, so French nuclear energy is of, by and for the people. The costs are thereby minimal, e.g. the best reactor design was chosen and replicated. The French practice energy conservation, so the number of reactors are kept to a minimum.

In contrast, US capitalists develop their nuke proposals with a deliberate intent to impose the maximum economic cost the American people can bear, a policy founded on "free market" economics, where management is legally obligated to maximize shareholder profits. Never mind that the public interest has been destroyed in the process. Just never mind the public interests, ok?

The citizen's policy is easy to formulate - resist all capitalist proposals until capital voluntarily submits to the authority of the people.

The citizen's sustainable energy policy: Energy conservation and local energy exchange based on renewable sources and sustainable methods.

Renewable sources: solar, wind, tide, geothermal, biofuel...

Sustainable methods: passenger & freight rail, series hybrid diesel-electric motive power, polyculture bio-production, wind turbines, solar-thermal, cogeneration, what else?

PJD said:

"Ordinary pollutants and plain old CO2 can be eliminated…"

"No they cant. POP's, mercury, and many other pollutants persist in the food chain esentially forever. methods to remove CO2 from the atmosphere are still largely in the speculation stage."

POP's, mercury and many other pollutants can be chemically, biologically and physically bound, altered in composition and detoxified to a great extent. We can stop producing CO2 in unnatural quantities and the earth will heal itself. But long lived radioactive wastes cannot be made safe by any method known. A radioactive waste dump will have to be monitored for seepage and groundwater contamination forever, a monumental task. Radioactive poisons in the environment persist for tens of thousands of years and cannot be cleaned up.

"Something akin to religious fervor makes nuke advocates believe a solution to all of the countless serious problems with nukes will magically appear…"

"What "serious probelms"? These "serious" problems are, frankly, just so much mythology, misinformation, and pure speculation. The worker safety, public safety, and environmental record of commercial nuclear power generation worldwide is far, far better than the fossil fuel power industry. Only hydropower has a better safety record."

Karen Silkwood tried to challenge the nuclear industry's safety record and was murdered for it.

Since radioactivity induced cancers and diseases are very difficult to prove, we'll never know just how many deaths and disease the nuclear industry has caused. But besides those in Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, we do know of 140,000 deaths in Hiroshima and 90,000 more in Nagasaki by the nuclear bombs a reactor provides. Who knows how many will die because of spent uranium shelling in the Middle East?

"Engineers design N-plants, and every other type of building for all the above natural events routinely. On the N-plant construction site I worked on, the containment building is heavily reinforced concrete 9 feet thick, so I suspect mortar shells or RPG's would just bounce off."

Would an airliner just bounce off?

The author of this piece is obviously uninformed.

He states: "...the first jet to hit the World Trade Center flew directily over the Indian Point reactor complex, 45 miles north. Had those reactors been hit, the death toll could have been in the tens of thousands by now. The property damage from irradiating southern New York, Long Island, and all of downwind New Jersey and New England would be beyond calculation."

If the plane that hit the first tower were to have hit the power plant instead, about 1500 lives would have been saved. The people on the plane would obviously still have perished and so would anyone within the blast/fire zone of the impact. Several analyses have shown that the reactor itself would not have been breached.

The reactor would certainly have been automatically scrammed, shutting it down. The containment building would probably have been seriously damaged. The power station might well have been damaged beyond economic repair. I'd trade that for 1500 lives.

There would not have been a serious release of radioactivity. If the storage pool were hit rather than the reactor, there probably would have been a release similar to the release in Japan's earthquake when the equivalent of 3 smoke detectors were spilled into the Sea of Japan.

Wasserman might someday make a valuable contribution to intelligent discourse if he were to check his facts instead of spouting ill informed passion. A half truth would indicate a .500 batting average; I would give Wasserman about a .150 on his intentionally misleading piece.

Anyone who believes that nuclear power represents clean energy (or that corporations promoting it have the public interest at heart) must also believe in the following myths:

1. Iraq is responsible for 9-11.

2. Spying on innocent Americans protects National Security.

3. There is no such thing as global warming.

4. The U.S. is the best country in the world.

5. War is Peace

6. Freedom is Slavery

Also on waste saftey- IMO, chances are if you see a train, it is loaded with waste (maybe even nuclear waste, if it's not dumped in a river)

I'd like to repeat jakenewton's comments - "Wind and solar are being built now with little or no subsidy because they SUCCEED in the marketplace. "

nuclear power is not safe or clean or cheap.

Imagine a new paradigm: solar panels on ever rooftop in the country. Not only would you produce enough power for your home (and car) but could SELL excess power back to the Utility Co.

This is even better then wind, wave, thermal and biomass (don't even give me that ethanol crap) because it is decentralized- which is what the utility corporations FEAR MOST OF ALL!

You want to solve things? BECOME AN OWNER

To PaulK: How did people prove the harm was caused by TMI? My uncle, who stayed behind to work nearby, assured that there was no danger, developed and died of cancer in about a year or so. He was in his fifties.

"How could the government protect the nuke plants from a suicide plane or just a mortar shell or hand held rocket launcher? or Flood or Earthquake or Tornado?"

They do it through these things called building codes - on in the case of N-plants, NRC Regulations.

Engineers design N-plants, and every other type of building for all the above natural events routinely. On the N-plant construction site I worked on, the containment building is heavily reinforced concrete 9 feet thick, so I suspect mortar shells or RPG's would just bounce off.

"Who keeps the safety records of the nuclear industry?"

At the plants, OSHA. At the mines MSHA.

Aside from the fact that the nuclear power industry is where we get the material for the Bombs and DU weapons which keep growing, does anybody have any figures on the amount of energy and pollution caused by the mining and it must be a hard process that pollutes to extract the Uranium from the ore and then make it suitable for the power plants...

How could the government protect the nuke plants from a suicide plane or just a mortar shell or hand held rocket launcher? or Flood or Earthquake or Tornado?

Where is the National Security in that and who is gonna guarantee the safety of trucking the waste around the country? and who is gonna store it and pay for it being safely stored and constantly guard that and guard the whole process from start to DU weapons and atomic bombs? if the tax payers pay for this, is this a social program?

Or are these dumb questions?

If it ain't good for Iran, why is it good for Us?
If we want to stop weapons proliferating, how is this gonna help?

Nuclear power is plain not clean, and it is dangerous. Uranium has to be mined, lots of water has to be used, and it gives off radiation into our water, air, ground, food, and creates waste which we don't know how to handle. We still have the first ounce of nuclear waste ever created. What's good is definitely not apparent to me. Solar... now there's an answer. It has been given us energy since the begining of time. All we have to do is capture it more efficently which we are working towards every day. We don't have to mine it, it doesn't pollute, and it produces no waste. NEED I SAY MORE. Wake up people! Nuclear is dirty, dangerous, and expensive - the wrong way to go. As nukefree.org says,...do something.

"Wind and solar are being built now with little or no subsidy because they SUCCEED in the marketplace. "

Subsidized.

There are a few nuclear related points of pollution that the author of the article forgot to mention:
1) The mining of uranium requires fossil fuels to run the machines, and the trains and trucks to transport the uranium, as well.
2) The amount of material that has to be dug up and processed to get the uranium and then purified into usable amounts of U-235 produces large toxic spoils of heavy metals, rock and other radioactive elements. Plus, all of the leftover U-238 has to go somewhere, usually into Depleted Uranium armor and bullets.
3) The waste heat of the reactors also makes more water vapor, and water vapor is a greenhouse gas.
4) Not only does the nuclear waste from the reactor have to be disposed of, but every twenty-five to thirty years the entire reactor core has to be replaced. Which means tons of radioactive metal has to go somewhere.

Who keeps the safety records of the nuclear industry?

Ordinary pollutants and plain old CO2 can be eliminated...

No they cant. POP's, mercury, and many other pollutants persist in the food chain esentially forever. methods to remove CO2 from the atmosphere are still largely in the speculation stage.

"Something akin to religious fervor makes nuke advocates believe a solution to all of the countless serious problems with nukes will magically appear..."

What "serious probelms"? These "serious" problems are, frankly, just so much mythology, misinformation, and pure speculation. The worker safety, public safety, and environmental record of commercial nuclear power generation worldwide is far, far better than the fossil fuel power industry. Only hydropower has a better safety record.

Nuclear energy is the worst concept man ever came up with.

If you're a Kucinich supporter I urge you to go to http://democracyforamerica.com/pulsepoll and vote for DFA to support Kucinich for president. Sorry for the cross posting.

In any case, nuclear power is either a net consumer of carbon over its life cycle, or nearly so.

What do you mean by this, by "net consumer of carbon"? I would assume you would mean it emits more carbon than the alternates (coal/oil/gas) it replaces. This is obviously untrue. Even if the carbon emissions used for fuel mining and processing, construction and operating an N-plant was several times that of a coal plant, the carbon emissions of generating the Nuclear power itself is zero.

You need to cite a reputable source or provide a calculation to back such claims.

Why is rejecting NP seen as "going backwards"?

I would like to reframe: rejecting NP is the act of attempting to fix the broken and inefficient energy supply/consumption system.

PJD said:

"While I wouldn't be as cynical as laddy. But, it should be pointed out that the ecological and planetary health effects of radioisotopes pale when compared to ordinary pollutants - even and especially plain old CO2, due to the sheer quantities being emitted."

Ordinary pollutants and plain old CO2 can be eliminated. We cannot eliminate long lived radioisotopes once they get into the environment. They last forever bio-concentrating in living tissues and causing the incidence of malignant neoplastic disease to soar geometrically into the future.

Something akin to religious fervor makes nuke advocates believe a solution to all of the countless serious problems with nukes will magically appear so we should press on regardless, spending billions in the process, when real solutions in clean alternatives are here and now.

Our children and their children's children could never forgive us for a legacy of pain, cancer and premature death. If any humans could evolve to survive the onslaught of such as plutonium, a molecule of which if inhaled will cause lung cancer, we would become something Kafkaesque.

"The nuclear power industry is back to where it always goes when it wants to build new reactors—the taxpayer trough."

It seems to me it's time for a little welfare reform -- corporate welfare, that is.

Also, coal burning power plants also emit about 50 tons of mercury into the air every year. This is enough to give a dosage at the lower limit of potential harm to about 43 billion people. Most of it ends up concentrated in acquatic food chain.

www.nescaum.org/documents/rpt031104mercury.pdf/

Nuclear power doesn't yet pass the honesty test.

Sometimes it helps to look impartially at another country's struggles with telling the truth. The Russian government admits to about 50 deaths due to Chernobyl. However, to be on the safe side, they evacuated whole cities forever. The government never cared that much about its own citizens before. Activists estimate about 50,000 deaths, mostly due to thyroid cancer. The Russian government tends to have a history of not telling the truth, and a lie here would fit their modus operendai.

Back in the states, the industry says that no one at all died in the Three Mile Island meltdown. Nevertheless, they have been settling for large sums with some victims. Activists estimate about 1,000 deaths.

Until nuclear power makes the first baby steps toward coming clean, I don't see how the industry is worth trusting.

In any case, nuclear power is either a net consumer of carbon over its life cycle, or nearly so. Translation, it's nothing but a feed trough, the government's equivalent of a Ponzi scheme where more energy keeps going in than out.

I believe that radionucleides are one of the smaller contributors to cancer. Ramdom mutation, chemical contaminants (including many common household products), viral and genetic factors probably precipitate most cancers.

pdf,

Specifically, about 37 tons a second, which yields about 136 tons per second of CO2.

http://www.nma.org/pdf/c_most_requested.pdf

Nuclear pollution is cancer forever increasing. Most of it's advocates have never had a loved one die from cancer or are blissfully ignorant about the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear accidents, nuclear detonations and their consequences.

If the insurance companies won't touch it, why should We the People foot it's billionaire liability bill?

Like the man said, safe alternatives are booming and rising gas prices will demand the energy conservation some of us are unwilling to undertake. Energy conservation is the answer to the wasteful consumption rising populations are tricked into.

Renewables ARE able to meet all of our needs quite easily particularly photovoltaics and wind. If these sources were given even a small fraction of the subsidy nukes get from their federal indemnification via the Price Anderson Act their development would proceed at blinding speed.
The critical fact in the article is that nukes are unable to compete without govt. subsidy. Another way to put this is that this form of electricity production has FAILED UTTERLY. Wind and solar are being built now with little or no subsidy because they SUCCEED in the marketplace. Duh!
Steve

While I wouldn't be as cynical as laddy. But, it should be pointed out that the ecological and planetary health effects of radioisotopes pale when compared to ordinary pollutants - even and especially plain old CO2, due to the sheer quantities being emitted.

PDF -
What makes you think the current political realities you so blithely pass over are not relevant?

To achieve the proper energy environment is contingent on having fair and open discussion of all alternatives. Note the words fair and open which means an unbiased assessment of facts - not some coporate purchase of electees and media to enhance their profits at public and environmental expense.

What makes you think we have that ability in today's political reality?

Curmudgeon ~

OK, we know your political stance, but what's your position on a viable energy policy that will move us forward and not backwards?

Right now, this very second, TONS of coal are being burned for energy across the country, and whether you like it or not coal is WAY more radioactive than any nuclear plant:

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

Ban coal, and you're headed in the right direction!

Corporations Rule.

In a fascist state all welfare is for corporate well-being.

The existing ruling corporate oligarchy is only reaping the benefits from funding US Congressional lackey lickspits to do their bidding.

How many issues that you thought you voted in 2006 to have resolved have been addressed successfully?

We are exposed to one of the most honest Congresses in history - Once bought and paid for, it has stayed bought and paid for.

what is the big deal? I wouldn't care if we built a thousand more of them. You say "Yeah" but what about the nuclear waste that a reactor generates. What do we do with the waste. It will damage the eco system if it gets into the underground wells. Well the waste is already leaking underground where it's stored in Oregon and within a few miles from polluting the Columbia River and will destroy all underground water wells in 4 western states. Cal. has already shut down more than fifty wells in more than twenty cities, but that was due to the MPTB's that are in the water molocules leaking from underground gas tanks, not from nuclear waste. Why do you think the big companies are trying to make water a commodity to sell to these cities that are polluted. People pay more for store bought water than for gas and most of the water, especially the most expensive, is nothing but tap water. So the damage has been done and more nuclear reactors won't destroy our eco system. it's done been destroyed already. So again i say: What's the big deal?

"Some of the very worst degradation perpetrated on the earth thus far have been the result of technical failings of nuclear technology."

Please consider hiring a small plane and take tour across southern, West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, and then across parts of central Wyoming, and Montana, and Alberta.

Then, take a trip to the arctic lands and look at the dying forest, wildlife, and native peoples way of life. Then to Africa and see those dying of heat and famine. Then to places like Bangladesh, and many island and coastal nations which will pretty much disspaear under water or extreme storms over the next century. Then go home and contemplate some of the possible longer term, very poorly understood, runaway warming doomsday scenarios.

Then, reconsider how environmentally destructive the N-fuel cycle is.

Renewables are fine, but they simply are not going to be enough. Nuclear power needs to be solidly on the table.