The nuclear industry PR machine has succeeded in convincing many people that nuclear power generation doesn't create greenhouse gas. Hillary even said so in a recent speech.

On-going uranium mining, processing, transportation and disposal are necessary to activate and sustain nuclear power generation and all of them CREATE A LOT OF GREENHOUSE GAS. Easy to mine, high quality uranium will soon be depleted and the more difficult to mine, lower grade uranium will entail mining and processing operations that create additional greenhouse gas per pound of uranium.

Nuclear power will worsen climate change and the nuclear industry is a problem child that deserves no corporate welfare.

It all comes down to:

1) Nature of building/ownership/control. Nuclear is a top-down autocratic thing, run by the m.i.c. It can never be community-owned, under local management, part of a democratically (small-d) run energy co-op (like wind/solar/etc.).

2) Measuring the TCO. Cost to store, monitor, lease land, security, etc. on waste for centuries. Nuclear is the most expensive, and potentially catastrophic, form of energy yet conceived.

One can argue greenhouse gas emissions until the cows come home. But #1 is demonstrably contrary to a democratic society and #2 is basic economics, ROI, and a curse on future generations.

Raitt and Wassermann are right on!

This controversy pits clear thinkers versus profit mongers. We already know who wins these contests in this facsist country.

Nuclear Power Plants were wrong yesterday, are wrong today and will be wrong tomorrow

The nuclear industry was wrong yesterday, is wrong today and shall be wrong tomorrow.

Nukes mean cancer forever.

If nuclear power is so safe, then put a nuclear power plant on 10th Avenue.

" >On-going uranium mining, processing, transportation and disposal are necessary to activate and sustain nuclear power generation and all of them CREATE A LOT OF GREENHOUSE GAS. Easy to mine, high quality uranium will soon be depleted and the more difficult to mine, lower grade uranium will entail mining and processing operations that create additional greenhouse gas per pound of uranium."

I can just as well claim that hybrid small cars still burn a lot of gasoline and most solar houses still consume a lot of fossil fuel energy. The fact is that nuclear power (yes, the full nuclear fuel cycle) emits only a trivial amount of greenhouse gas compared with coal, oil, or even natural gas-fueled power plants.

> "Nuclear is the most expensive, and potentially catastrophic, form of energy yet conceived."

Solar, for example, is vastly more expensive (today). Wind is competitive but is not a continuous, baseload power source.

Nuclear has the possibility for creating the largest single catastrophes, but the likelihood of that occurring (again) can be reduced with better technology.

It is unfortunate that everybody seems to be pursuing fantasy land "solutions" that simply do not work. Nuclear as it exists is one of these. The cold hard calculation of energy out - energy in = net seems entirely neglected in many cases. Nuclear simply has never penciled...... it simply moves visible pollution and stink to another location. The generating plant produces "clean" energy ONLY if one looks at the generating site and time and not at the other sites associated with the plant including mining & processing sites, waste disposal sites, and ultimately the decommissioning energy costs. There can be little doubt that to date the total energy costs that have gone into nuclear power exceed the output. It is a futile exercise to pump fosssil fuels into a process like this when ultimately the net is negative.
I was horrified to see so called "biofuels" being listed as "sustainable"..... they are anything but sustainable and environmentally friendly... they are in fact an unmitigated disaster in which not only is the "net" very close to negative if not actually negative, but the economic and environmental consequences are immense. Nobody who knows anything about agriculture and economics, and is capable of even the most rudimentary math...... and willing to do it...... could possibly consider "bio fuels" as either environmentally friendly or sustainable. The only reasonable nich for biofuels is where so called "waste" products can be used, and this is but a tiny nich in the scheme of things.
The hydrogen fantasy is equally outlandish when one runs the numbers and looks at the logistics........

There may be ways to become independent of fossil fuels, but these three technologies are NOT worthwhile paths to take..... they are dead ends. The very first priorities must be conservation with a capital C, and population reduction to a level that can be sustained without depleting the resources we depend on and destroying the environment we live in at an unconscionable rate.

H.W.

The United States is currently experiencing a monumental crisis. The people's confidence in the federal government is almost completely shattered.

Recognizing this, the capitalists are feverishly trying to consolidate their control over our society with such predictable strategies as this attempted expansion of nuclear energy - a particularly effective instrument of control.

Paul summed it up nicely - nuclear energy fails both politically and economically.

People are today under the most relentless assault by the beast capital. Individuals may do their civic duty to help reign in the beast by shifting their individual exchange/association away from the power centers and toward their local economies.

Renewable energy produced by local small independent farmers, craftsmen and merchants is the responsible and sustainable way.

Good try Mark Abram.

If during the past 65 years the same amount of US taxpayers' money that was used to subsidize the nuclear industry was invested in developing non-petroleum burning cars and developing solar technology, 100% solar houses and non-petroleum burning cars would have been prolific, cost effective and affordable ten years ago.

these people's ancestors probably tried to outlaw the use of fire.

Has nuclear power ever been outlawed? No

Is anybody suggesting that it be outlawed? No

Opposition is limited to the nuclear industry's demand for taxpayer subsidies, corporate welfare, call it what you will.

As originally drafted in 2002 this legislation would not only subsidize the construction of nuke plants. It would also subsidize (taxpayer money again) the difference between the cost of producing the power and the market value of the power. This would allow the nuclear industry to cook the books to prove they were losing money and further extort taxpayers' money. It would also encourage inefficient plant design. Hopefully this section of the legislation has been deleted.

Let's look at two power plants, neighbors to each other, in Shippingport, PA...

Open this URL in a separate window:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=k&om=0&ll=40.631347,-80.419922&spn=0.021756,0.051327&z=15

The plant on the upper right is the 2025MW capacity Bruce Mansfield coal burning plant. It produced about 18 million tons of CO2 per year. Even with advanced scrubbers and electrostatic precipitators, it also produces thousands of tons of S02 and NO2, and particulates, about a half-ton of mercury, and hundreds to thousands of pounds of vearious highly toxic and carcinogenic substances including dioxins.

Oh yes, I forgot about all the thousands of tons of bottom ash, seen on the far upper right ofteh picture that leaches nasty stuff into the groundwater and Ohio River.

Of course there is also all the pollution involved in mining, processing and shipping the 6 million tons of coal this plant burns per year - the total production of two large longwall mines further up river.

The plant on the lower left is the Beaver Valley Nuclear power plant. it produces a bit less electricity, about 1750 MW. The pollution released into the air or water from this plant is....nothing.

This plant does produce spent fuel assemblies - which are very radioactive of course, but are of such small volume that the entire amount of waste produced over the life of the plant will easily fit in secure deep storage pools on site - which you notice is much smaller than the ugly coal power plant up river. In fact the entire volume of spent fuel from nuclear power plants so far would fit on a single football field about 20 feet deep. Ultimtately, perrmanent repositories will be needed for this high-level waste, but there is no particular rush due to the safe onsite storage of the small volumes involved.

There is however a considerable urgency to halting the huge volumes of waste spewing from the plant on the upper right, and it's sister facilities spread all over the US.

I think a lot of the perceptions regarding nuclear power come from a misconception of the volumes of material involved.

A few pounds of uranium in the plant in the lower left produces as much energy as the several bargeloads of coal seen in the upper right.

But I agree; direct giveways to an industry using a mature technology like nuclear power generation is not a good idea. Instead there should be stong incentives to reduce the carbon output of a companies power generating portfolio - that way wind and solar development would be encouraged as well.

A thousand fission nucler power plants world wide, will produce 400,000 pounds of plutonium every year. That plutonium, arguably the most poisonous substance known to exist in the entire universe, will have to be safeguarded for thousands of years, or we may as well say, ___ forever. It is well established, that safeguarding nuclear waste is impossible to accomplish, to say nothing about NOT safeguarding the spent fuel rods, which are given to munitions factories to make depleted uranium weapons, which of course are "perfectly safe" to use.

MARK ABRAM. I'm not surprised to see your comments, which are wrong, ___ as usual. Wind/solar energy is viable and the means to produce all of the electrical power we will ever need by those methods has been proven to be both feasible and affordable. The money wasted on the unjust and unnecessary Iraq war and occupation, would have been far enough to convert to wind/solar energy for most of the world's populations.

I do agree that coal fired plants are worse, at least as far as polluting our atmosphere goes. The nuclear power plants are perhaps the stupidest thing mankind has ever done. Some day there will be another serious accident at a nuclear power plant and one could easily steralize a land area larger than the size of Texas and do so forever. Just one example. Don't touch the water downstream of the nuke plants in Tennessee, or eat any fish which you may find to be alive. There are hundreds of examples, many worse than that.

Kem,

Geothermal is also often overlooked. I'm not aware of any theoretical problems in drilling into hotspots, areas where the crust is thin, the Pacific Rim, etc. and tapping into the natural heat down below.

It would seem to be a bonanza of energy, for all practical purposes an unlimited source of heat.

Well, you'd better tell Hillary and Barack.

Edwards is already on your side.

That's right Paul and let's not forget tidal. There are so many decent totally clean alternatives and the oil and insurance companies have the money to initiate it, develop it, and keep their stock holders happy.

I'm on Edwards side also, but he won't win.

anyone read James Lovelocks interview in the Rolling Stone, current issue, startleing, in most ways 'cept for those that have known about these facts for some time, also statleing was his insistance that it was to late to stop the massive human dieoff, and massive global change, head North, was his statment,,,,also then strangley, Nuclear power odd he must have stock.

I challenge ANY pro-nuclear shill to add up the cost of real estate on acreage (adjusted for increasingly expensive valuation in future centuries), security, monitoring, etc. for thousands of years -- and explain how it's better TCO than other alternatives to coal. Explain, also, the ethics of leaving such a burden to future generations.

Past generations left us the great wonders of the world. We'll be leaving them a bona fide pharaonic curse with nuclear waste. Indeed! This is not hyperbole on my part. The DoE has hired anthropologists to create obelisks lasting centuries to warn of buried poisons 10,000 years hence: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/07/0711_020711_yuccaspikes.html

But as I mentioned, in addition to cost there is the political management. Nuclear requires federal decision-making, where/when to build, how to (mis)manage waste, and of course sends more money into the coffers of those who bring good things to nuclear war...er...light.

HI there Billy, knew you would arrive for this one, how ya doin? See you are still stupid. Sorry about that too, because you really are a swell guy.

Tell you what Bill, if you had the option of having an ounce of plutonium in your shorts for a week, or an ounce of arsenic, which one would you stuff in there? Now please don't tell us there wouldn't be room for another ounce. Of course if one swallowed an ounce of arsenic, they'd likely die quick. If one had a microscopic speck of plutonium in their body, it would take awhile to kill them. Why is it we don't carefully attempt to store away arsenic in heavily shielded containers for millions of years?

Aother reason is they don't make as much profit by using uranium for fuel. There is still the nuclear waste to store forever and to date that has not been a success story. Then there is always the danger of a meltdown, or an earthquake, or a zillion other reasons nuclear power is a danger for everyne. There is no such danger from wind, solar, geo-thermal, tide, hydro-electric.

Hey Bill, do you get a bonus from your nuke company to post your comments and reply to half-wits like me?

"if we took the money spent on x, we could now have y"

False dichotomy. It could be that *both* x and y are desirable, or it could be demonstrated that y is undesireable regardless of the desirability of x. Arguements that take this form without making a fair assessment of both x and y are bad reasoning.

Really JAKE. That sounds like double speak to me. If I spend a hundred bucks for something I personally may like to have, but it is unarguablly wasteful, such as a truckload of sheep shit to pour on my neighbors lawn in the middle of the night. Or instead, I spend that hundred bucks on something I'd like and also need, such as a brake job on my car, how could your equation possibly be correct?

Even worse, if I borrowed the hundred bucks at a high interest rate to buy the sheep shit and my kids had to pay the interest for years after, it would be doubly wasteful and hurtful also. Then suppose I didn't have the money for the necessary brake job. Your math is silly Jake, ___ try again.

Hey, thanks so much Bonnie for reminding us of all the Anti-Nuclear movement has gone through. I remember seeing you on the mall in DC in 1979 BEFORE Three Mile Island. I think you were there to draw a crowd for filming the movie of Hair, and you used your time to educate the crowd on the huge problems that come with the Nukes. Later that year we got the big surprise, and the Anti-Nuclear movement went into high gear. I saw Micho Kaku and Helen Caldicott speaking to small crowds at the Ellipse, and there was the HUGE May 6th coalition march and rally; a half million people, maybe more.

These reactors are a terribly inefficient way to boil water, and they give us problems for many many generations to come.

Yes, spend a fraction as much to save the energy in conservation, renewables, and efficiency.

Nuclear power takes oil to build and to decommission. It may well take more energy to operate, through its life cycle, than it gives back in energy. It's an energy Ponzi scheme. It makes no net energy, it just rips the public off and causes global warming. And thyroid cancers.

And depleted ammunition.

"Tell you what Bill, if you had the option of having an ounce of plutonium in your shorts for a week, or an ounce of arsenic, which one would you stuff in there?"

I'd rather have neither, but if I was forces to, I'd rather have the plutonium, of course.

The Plutonium is an alpha emitter. All it take is the outermost skin layer to block the alpha particles. As long as the plutonuim isn't in the form of respirable dust, it is just a heavy, metal. Even if a few respirable particles rubbed off and I inhaled them, it would still be about 20 years before the increased cancer risk showed itself, by then I'll be in my mid 70's, and lots of other old-age cancers and heart ailments will be a greater worry.

Arsenic is crumbly, highly water soluble absorbed through the skin, or easily ingested or inhaled. And it can kill in a matter of minutes. It would be impossible for plutonium to do such a thing.

Your assertations about plutonium being some kind of Pure Evil Ultra Poison clearly lie in the realm of superstition rather than fact. So, I doubt this will change your mind on the matter.

Mr. Bramsher, The storage issue is a non issue - yes it's final repository has to be secure (although the spent fuel is so rich in a source of additional fissionable isotopes, it can hardly be called waste), but the quantities are tiny! What "pharoic curse"!! We are talking about all the high level waste fitting in a underground space the area of a few football fields! Even if someone drilled into Yucca Mountain a couple thousand years from now, it would result in...nothing... except at worst, some radiation exposure to a few people around the borehole, that would be far from fatal or even particularly harmful.

At any rate, convention fisson power (along with wind and solar) only has to hold us over until Fusion technologies are perfected. Thanks to the absurd levels American technophobia and technological ignorance displayed so well on this site, (Jack Kennendy is rolling over in his grave) Fusion is being entirely developed in Europe and Russia.

In 1956, when Atoms for Peace was being considered, scientists projected that investing instead in renewable clean energy development would supply half the power in the US by 1976. The concern about the disposal of nuclear waste was answered by the corporations determined to build nuclear power plants. They assured us that in ten years, that problem would be resolved. Later they would assure us that by 1980 they would have the disposal problem licked. Of course, after both Chernobyl followed by TMI Americans became leary. But the promise of a solution by 2000 was proffered anyway. Meanwhile, those storage pools around the aging plants are just about filled to capacity with no place to go. Now, shall we believe them again or shall we do what the scientists advised in 1956? Wind power; solar power, both passive and active in communities, collectors on roofs, in back yards. Remember when Reagan took down the solar collector panels on the White House roof as soon as he took office? You don't? Well he did?Mandate better insulation in new construction and renovations. Geo-thermal includes stable underground temperatures that make a far superior efficiency heat pump. I attended a local rally supporting a viable off-shore wind farm. The Powers That Be want to cut back the size so that the local coal power plant, notoriously polluting, can continue. A smaller wind farm makes the kilowatt hours more costly. So now they say it won't be viable which is hogwash. Build the original plan. Meanwhile, eighty miles north, there's a nuclear power plant that is known for it's chronically poor management. If it becomes another Chernobyl, what almost happened to TMI but for Carter, we'll be gone.

"Really JAKE. That sounds like double speak to me."

Not really, it's straight out of any number of basic online guides to logical fallacies.

"If I spend a hundred bucks for something I personally may like to have, but it is unarguablly wasteful, such as a truckload of sheep shit to pour on my neighbors lawn in the middle of the night. Or instead, I spend that hundred bucks on something I'd like and also need, such as a brake job on my car, how could your equation possibly be correct? "

First off, there was no "equation". Second, your example above presumably involves much more than simply stating things in the generic form I outlined, but instead were demonstrated through arguement to be desireable or not so.

The problem arises not with silly examples such as you presented that didn't really need the arguement to begin with, but instead with things that are widely disagreed on, such as how the so called war on terror should be fought, or whether it's appropriate the government should subsidize nuclear plants or hybrid cars.

"It may well take more energy to operate, through its life cycle, than it gives back in energy. It's an energy Ponzi scheme. It makes no net energy,"

Are you guessing or not?

PJD is correct about the relative toxicity of arsenic and plutonium-239 (other Pu isotopes are more dangerous).

I don't agree that fusion is the solution, though. It isn't true that the US is out of the running and others are ahead of us in fusion. It is a global effort and, after 50 years, the promise is that in another 50 years, maybe, we'll have a pilot plant, but nobody can guarantee it. Basically, fusion looks like a boondoggle, going nowhere.

I believe solar is the ultimate solution. But, contrary to what some people claim, solar is not ready to do the job today. Neither is wind. Wind energy is cost-competitive per kWh, but it is only available when the wind blows; without a cheap storage technology, the cost to make wind a baseload (always available) supply is prohibitive.

No one can say where solar, wind, and other "renewables" would be today if the investment had gone into them 30 or 50 years ago. But the fact is that today we don't have the technology that can satisfy the demand for more energy, particularly in the developing world. For India, China, and any new electric capacity anywhere on the planet, the basic choice is coal vs. nuclear. I don't think that leaves us with any choice.

The US and maybe Europe can still go for "negawatts" of conservation, but the world as a whole needs more juice (and so do some still growing urban areas of the US). Over the the next 20 years at least, the only way to supply that power and avoid climate disaster, oil wars escalating to global holocaust, or both, is almost certainly a huge expansion of nuclear fission power.

At the same time, we should, of course, invest heavily in solar technology, wind, energy storage and conservation. No question. But the "NO NUKES!" position is environmentally irresponsible, because if you consider what is inevitably going to happen in most of the world, it basically means "GO COAL!"

Yea Bonnie! Let's give 'em somethin' to talk about!

You don't know what you are talking about MARK, neither does PJD.

There are several isotopoes in plutonium, one is AM-241, the result of the beta minus decay of Pu-241. AM-241 is an external dose hazard, since it's decay mode is to emit a 59.5 KeV photon. The other plutonium isotopes are alpha particle emitters and not particularly dangerous unless inhaled or swallowed. The same as ionized DU is deadly if inhaled or eaten.

Therefore PJD, I would not wish to stuff an ounce of plutonium in my shorts, there wouldn't be room for another ounce anyway.

I never knew that all of those radiation deaths in Japan were caused by arsenic poison. And I still wonder why it is so vitally necessary to take extreme caution when storing plutonium. I can purchase arsenic at a drugstore and it's used in rat poison. Sure it's poisonous. But as Billy, noted it isn't radioactive. SoPJD, careful when stuffing your shorts boy, ya might glow in the dark, or have the gals say you were a real hot-rod.

HI Billy, you know I was just pulling your chain a little. How you been? Don't know where Paul M Smith is lately, guess he's tied up with his music and concert tours. Wish he were here to debate you. Glad t see you back also.

Well pardon me for being a dunce Jake. I thought you were replying to my prior post, where I stated the trillion dollars we wasted on an unjust war in Iraq would have been better spent on developing clean energy for everone in the world. If your argument was not geared to that comment, I apologize for assuming. If it was in reply to that, then your argument does not make any sense to me.

Perhaps your's is the type of reasoning of why our country is now bankrupt and the price of oil rose from $20 a barrel to $97 a barrel in seven years and we now owe our asses to China.

Darn I tried to edit that last post three times and correct the spelling. It won't edit.

> "You don't know what you are talking about MARK, neither does PJD."

Well, I would think if you were going to launch an attack on someone for lack of knowledge, you would at least get your facts straight.

> "There are several isotopoes in plutonium, one is AM-241, the result of the beta minus decay of Pu-241. AM-241 is an external dose hazard, since it's decay mode is to emit a 59.5 KeV photon. The other plutonium isotopes are alpha particle emitters and not particularly dangerous unless inhaled or swallowed. The same as ionized DU is deadly if inhaled or eaten."

First, recall that I said PJD was right about the relative toxicity of arsenic and Pu-239. There is only one isotope in Pu-239 by definition. But of course, pure Pu-239 does not exist. Whether you'd be willing to stuff a plutonium ball next to your balls might depend on whether it is weapons-grade or reactor-grade plutonium.

Yes, Pu-241 beta decays to Am-241 which is usually the major source of gamma radiation from a plutonium sample. All other plutonium isotopes are both alpha emitters and weak gamma emitters, and all also undergo spontaneous fission, especially Pu-240, which is thus a significant neutron source. Neutrons are another thing I don't want radiating the family jewels.

> "I never knew that all of those radiation deaths in Japan were caused by arsenic poison. And I still wonder why it is so vitally necessary to take extreme caution when storing plutonium."

If by "all those radiation deaths in Japan" you mean the A-bomb victims, most of that radiation dose was not due to plutonium but short-lived, highly radioactive fission fragments. Extreme caution is used in storing plutonium mainly because people tend to be very concerned about even minor radioactive hazards and correspondingly strict laws and regulations are enforced; or if the amount of plutonium is sufficient to be of use in making a nuclear weapon, the need for security is obvious.

www.communitysolution.org

Hello everyone (Kem, Paul B., Dr.Zim, Billy, andersdl, ezeflyer, and even you Jake),

I see we're at it again on a new thread with few opinions changed. I've been doing quite a bit of research on the underlying causes of world problems, who is pushing us into various wars, media control & propaganda, false flag operations, government corruption globally, who is pressing for nuclear & hydrocarbons over renewables, and WHY. After countless hours of seeking (and finding) it's pretty much boiled down to a single family, instigators of the Zionist movement, and who at one time reputedly controlled the world because they owned half of its assets. Although claimig to be Jewish they are actually Khazars from the Georgia area of Russia. Through a philosophy of merciless financial conquest by any means they have had(and still maintain) control over more land, people, governments, & minds than any conquerors in history.

The Rothschilds control 80% of the world's uranium. Given the criminal immoral anti-social history of this family spanning hundreds of years does this make you feel safe? They have funded both sides in numerous wars THEY caused, killed presidents, czars, & kings, been responsible for the deaths of literally hundreds of millions of world citizens, manipulated the world economy into financial depressions (including 1907 & 1929), and could care less about anyone but themselves. Naturally, since they control the uranium & the media, they are pushing us toward nuclear (large centralized power production they will profit immensely from), rather than renewables, which will be more benefitial for the people, because they seek control & domination of the world, control of energy production being a prime factor.

Here is a link to their nasty history. It's on a time line stretching hundreds of years, but you can scroll to years or events you are curious about. Many of you might be famiiar with what these historical events were about, but this is an explanation of HOW they came to happen and WHO caused them:

http://iamthewitness.com/doc/RothschildsTimeline-filer/frame.htm

"Well pardon me for being a dunce Jake. I thought you were replying to my prior post, where I stated the trillion dollars we wasted on an unjust war in Iraq would have been better spent on developing clean energy for everone in the world. "

There was your comments and a few others similar. You took two issues and arbitrarily compared them. You could have paired somethiong else like "repair our infrastructure" instead of "develop clean energy" or "subsidies to farmers" instead of "costs of Iraq war". Far better to discuss the issues on merits than point to opportunity cost which is often merely a given.

"Perhaps your's is the type of reasoning of why our country is now bankrupt and the price of oil rose from $20 a barrel to $97 a barrel in seven years and we now owe our asses to China."

I'll remind you again that I simply stated a well established fallacy of logic in generic terms. My intent was to remind the participants. Oil prices are best explained by supply and demand and the situations that effect those two factors. Foreign debt should not be considered in a vacumn, but should be *compared* to other things such as GDP. Regarding these two examples, there are numerous *nuances* worthy of discussion around each. These examples have nothing to do with "my" reasoning about the fallacy of binary thinking which I pointed out, which really isn't reasoning but more like an algebraic rule.

Absolutely! I saw a piece on the news the other day showing energy being generated by buoys bobbing in the ocean's waves. That was new to me. I suspect there are hundreds of methods for capturing high-quality energy sources with very little environmental impact. Winona LaDuke said that windmills operating in the Great Plains could power America. If we have the will to resist the corporate warlords, we could secure our energy and environmental needs indefinitely.

JohnR & others,

Those energy sources which hold the most promise, IMHO, are those which:

* Have as little carbon relative to hydrogen (the case for a hydrogen economy).
* Interfere with living biomes as little as possible (geothermal, solar, etc.)

What shows the most promise for a future, more democratic/individualistic/empowered society, IMHO, are those energy sources which can be community (and even individually) owned and maintained, leave little or no emissions or poisonous waste for future generations to contend with, the whole thing is managed at the community level, etc.

I would say this about everything, not just energy. Whether law enforcement (Posse Comitatus), education, bioregional thinking (see Gary Snyder), economics (like Ithaca Hours), etc. It's a key tenet in the Green Ten Key Values: community-based economics.

Indeed, I view self- and community-determination/freedom/democracy to be the most critical factors in energy adoption, far more important than claims to efficiency.

Indeed, it may be "efficient" to do away with freedom whatsoever, and obey 100% whatever some unnamed people at the nucular regulatory commission, GE, Westinghouse and their government contract managers claim. But it wouldn't be democratic (small-d) in the least, would it?

Mark knows what he is talking about. Wishful thinking is not a solution to our energy problems. The idea that nuclear power can not be a solution to our dependence on foreign oil is a rather large leap considering what the French have already done in this regard. A shift to Nuclear power has helped France at least keep a seat at the table of world powers. If they had not gone nuclear the collapse of their empire would have been far more dramatic. India and China are not building new nuclear plants because they do not provide a good source of energy. Our government isn't funding a mulit-billion dollar nuclear test facility at INEL to look at the most effecient means of producing hydrogen from nuclear power for no good reason!!! Sorry folks...We will be building nuclear plants again. Like it or not. As our gas prices continue to climb...and they will continue to climb...the naysayer crowd will get smaller and smaller.

Whatever danger comes from Nuclear power it is far more noble to put ourselves in danger than continuing our morally bankrupt policies in the middle east. Sorry guys...I'm against you on this one.

Any candidate willing to allow any advance at all in nuclear energy is unacceptable.

In Love All Ways

dboylon,

The "like it or not" dynamic is always there with nuclear, isn't it. Strange that such a series of anti-democratic situations follow around that form of energy wherever it goes.

Idaho is a poster-child for what not to do with energy. INEL should spend a little money cleaning up the Snake River basin and acquifer. I've been out that way a couple times. They dumped contaminated water into the acquifer as late as the 1980's: http://www.snakeriveralliance.org/.

Good try, though.

Funny that you mention France. Bush's new friend in the war on terra...I mean terror.

They certainly feel strongly about nuclear. Strong enough to sink a Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, eh?

JAKE, do you have any idea of how dumb you sound? Apparently not. To your way of thinking, it's alright to use our decaying infastructure as an example, but not say to use clean energy alternatives as an example. Your're playing games with words.

Then your economic math is not sensible at all, it's as goofy as the bean counters in the Pentagon and that of Greenspan. When Bush took office, the price of sweet crude was near $20 bucks a barrel, it's now $97 and going up. Supply and demand? Nope, it the unstable political and economic situation of the countries in the mid-east, a situatin the Bush administration primarly created and a potential attack on Iran which is causing the problems in that regard.

Again, my point was and is, we have wasted more than a trillion borowed dollars on the unjust war in Iraq, the money wasted could have been better spent on many other things rather than on an unjust, uncecessary war. Among those things, development of clean energy, your arguments are nothing other than arguments with no helpful comments or opinions.

" To your way of thinking, it's alright to use our decaying infastructure as an example, but not say to use clean energy alternatives as an example"

I said no such thing. In fact, as I already told you, I merely stated a standard logical fallacy in generic terms. For the last time:

""if we took the money spent on x, we could now have y""

You, and others here, made posts where we can simply substitute for x and y above. I did the same to show additional examples of the same substitution. The *point* is that you should avoid the fallacy. Who sounds dumb?

"When Bush took office, the price of sweet crude was near $20 bucks a barrel, it's now $97 and going up. Supply and demand? Nope, it the unstable political and economic situation of the countries in the mid-east, a situatin the Bush administration primarly created and a potential attack on Iran which is causing the problems in that regard. "

It was not my intention to discuss this, but I will indulge you. The undeniable instability in the mid east, regardless of it's causes, effects people's perceptions regarding future supply. Supply and Demand applies.

Yet I must point out your failure to mention the continued demand here in the US and in places like China for oil and products derived from oil. Supply and Demand applies. Why did you neglect to acknowledge this additional undeniable factor regarding high oil prices?

Because the demand didn't rise 500% in six years.