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Anti-Nuclear Renaissance: A Powerful but Partial and Tentative Victory Over Atomic Energy
As the presidential primary season heats up, an "anti-nuclear renaissance" against loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants will escalate, with the future of American energy policy and global warming hanging in the balance.
In the last days of 2007, grassroots activism ran up a stunning and improbably victory. But the triumph is both partial and tentative, and will be fiercely contested throughout 2008, with the basic direction of US energy policy hanging in the balance.
This latest chapter in the half-century saga of atomic energy began last summer, with an industry attempt to grab a blank taxpayer check for underwriting new reactor construction. The charge was been led by six-term Senator Pete Domenici (D-NM), atomic power's prime Congressional pusher.
Domenici inserted into the Senate version of the national Energy Bill a complex provision meant to allow the Department of Energy to underwrite up to 80% of new reactor construction costs. The nuclear industry envisioned $25 billion in loan guarantees for 2008, $25 billion more in 2009, and what would amount to a blank check into the future. The guarantees would be granted at the DOE's discretion, with no on-going Congressional oversight.
Domenici slipped in the provision without open debate in Congress or the public. It took the form of a single obscure sentence referencing the Energy Bill of 2005. The move only became widely noticed thanks to a front page New York Times article on July 31.
The loan guarantees generated intense grassroots and Washington-based opposition. After the Times article appeared, musicians Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash established the www.nukefree.org website, and joined with the on-going grassroots movement against a "nuclear renaissance" meant to revive an industry whose last successful reactor order was placed in 1973. Raitt, Browne and Nash were joined by Keb Mo and Ben Harper in a music video that spread through the internet, underscoring the costs and dangers of such construction.
The video played into an on-going No Nukes movement. The industry has gone to great lengths to assert that it has widespread "green" support. But no major national ecological organization has endorsed nuclear power, and the core of the movement---including scores of national, grassroots and internet-based groups---rallied to fight the subsidies.
On October 23, nine national groups joined with nukefree.org at a Washington press conference to submit 120,000 signatures against the guarantees. Representatives Ed Markey (D-MA), Shelley Berkeley (D-NV) and John Hall (D-NY) spoke along with representatives from the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Greenpeace USA, Environmental Working Group, Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen, USPIRG/Association of State PIRGs, the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and Beyond Nuclear. (Speeches from the press conference can be found at www.nukefree.org, and accessed directly at www.nukefree.freevolt.org).
The petitions were also circulated by MoveOn.org, True Majority and other internet groups, and signed by, among others, Robert Redford, Ozamatli, Patti Smith, System of a Down, Sheryl Crowe, Herbie Hancock, Susan Sarandon, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the council of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network. The Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS) submitted endorsements from several hundred local and regional grassroots organizations.
The Union of Concerned Scientists circulated a parallel petition opposing the guarantees. Free market advocates joined in from Forbes Magazine and the Cato Institute, which objects to billions in taxpayer funds going to support what Forbes has called "the largest managerial disaster in business history."
Amidst intense public and private pressure, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the loan guarantees out of the Energy Bill. It was an historic victory for grassroots activism.
In the midst of the campaign, Domenici admitted to suffering from frontotemporal lobar degeneration, a form of dementia. First elected to the Senate in 1972, he announced he would retire at the end of his sixth term, in January, 2008.
Domenici then tried to stick the loan guarantees into the Farm Bill, prompting critics to term them "Domenici's radioactive retirement package." That move failed.
The nuclear industry then attempted to add to a global warming bill, co-authored by Senators Lieberman (D-CT) and McCain (R-AZ), a laundry list of reactor subsidies and regulatory easements. These were removed by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Energy and Public Works Committee.
Domenici then moved to attach the guarantees to the Appropriations Bill used to fund the government's operations. By late December, bickering over this $500 billion bill deteriorated into intense partisan warfare. Domenici's back-door move angered House Appropriations Chair David Obey (D-WI) and the battle intensified, with opposition signatures continuing to pour in.
The Appropriations Bill finally passed both houses of Congress in late December. But the legislative standing and ultimate outcome for the loan guarantees is murky at best, with legal and procedural experts still debating over what exactly has been done.
Ostensibly, the DOE has been authorized to grant $18.5 billion in reactor loan guarantees over the next two years, plus another $2 billion for uranium enrichment. There is also some $10 billion for renewable energy projects (though the definition of exactly what "renewable" means in the eyes of the Bush DOE remains to be seen). And there is apparently money for coal liquification and gasification. The DOE is also required to submit the specific guarantees to Congress for review 45 days before they can be authorized.
But there agreement ends. Based on the 2005 Energy Act, the $18.5 billion can be seen as just a benchmark number, with the DOE technically capable of issuing all the guarantees it wants. Long-standing Congressional procedures may also be used to interpret the submission requirement as merely informational, granting Congress no power to stop the DOE from issuing the guarantees once they're reviewed.
But Robert Alvarez, a former long-time employee of the Energy Department, now Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, says the nature of the provision leaves the legal standing of the guarantees in limbo and could "paralyze (some say strangle) the loan program."
Among the problems Alvarez cites are unresolved disputes over the previous Energy Policy Act of 2005, "scoring" procedures required by the 1990 Federal Credit Reform Act to determine the true cost of a spending package, the authorization of a two-year guarantee program in a one-year Appropriations Bill, disputes surrounding Congressional approval processes, and more. "Instead of clearing up the growing mess" over the loan guarantees, says Alvarez, this legislation "has magnified the major hurdles."
Further muddying the waters is the fact that no proposed American reactor project is likely to obtain an actual construction license within at least the next two years. Michael Mariotte of NIRS questions whether loans can "really be obtained for projects with no official approval to proceed."
Critics also point out that while the industry claims new reactors can be built for $4-5 billion each, independent observers put the likely real costs far higher. A "new generation" reactor in Finland is some $2 billion over budget and two years behind schedule after just two years of construction. The US industry continues to submit a steady stream of significant modifications to its so-call "standard" construction blueprints. Thus what actually constitutes 80% of what it would cost to build a new reactor is very much a moving target.
But nobody doubts that as Congress reconvenes, Pete Domenici will be resuming his efforts to get as much more money as possible for new reactors. His time in office will be limited. And the political, legal, procedural, technical and financial disputes surrounding the actual nature of the guarantee program are certain to stretch through Congress and the courts for years to come.
Meanwhile, Wall Street has made it clear that it will not fund new reactors without these guarantees. This sharp vote of financial no confidence means that fifty years after the 1957 opening of the first commercial reactor at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, atomic energy still cannot pay for itself. Nor can it compete with the booming revolution in renewable technologies.
Thus what's at stake could not be more critical. With the guarantees, reactor builders will be insulated from all that, and could simply build as many plants as the Congress is willing to underwrite. That the Congressional Budget Office has predicted a 50% default rate on these proposed loans, may be of no consequence to them. They could simply suck as much available capital into new reactors as the DOE will underwrite.
But without those guarantees, the pro-nuclear renaissance will die in a puff of radioactive hype. As fossil fuels diminish in supply, and are curtailed due to global warming, no new reactors will be built here. All available capital for new energy supply must flow instead to renewables and efficiency.
According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, some $6 billion in new wind farms are currently under construction in this country. Billions more are pouring in solar, bio-fuels, ocean thermal, wave, tidal and other forms of green power.
Indeed, if this tuneful victory over Pete Domenici's single-sentence insertion into the Energy Bill of 2007 holds through the end of 2008, it may someday be remembered as a landmark step toward a green-powered Earth. Harvey Wasserman edits the nukefree.org web site and helped co-found Musicians United for Safe Energy. His SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org.
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41 Comments so far
Show AllSo would solar, wind, geo-thermal, and tidal be less expensive in the long term to bring on line Billy.
If we don't do it and soon, that methane gas in the Arctic, which will release into our atmosphere is gonna make these discussions moot issues.
Ever wonder abut nuclear power? ___ Read this article, it takes the wonder out.
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/inet.Series/ejs1192.html
There is a period there that don't belong in that link. Sorry.
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/ejs1192.html
Funding nuclear is building another big oil-like monopoly, which will forever hold the world in its grasp. On the other hand, developing and implementing solar, hydrogen, geothermal and other technologies will help ensure local supplies of energy, which will enhance world-wide competition and invention. Even better, it will help remove someof the big money whores out of politics.
It's worthwhile to note that the organizations listed in this article above don't always agree 100% on issues, tactics, priorities, etc. The reasons to be opposed to it from from many perspectives:
* Ethical: Causing future generations centuries of headaches. Further support to the nuclear weapons industries. Poisoning the planet, the mess it left parts of Colorado. The uranium mining industry in general.
* "Free Market": Of all forms of energy, nuclear must (by nature of potential catastrophe and sensitivity of nuclear materials) be centrally/autocratically administered, regulated, subsidized, etc. It is neither democratic (small-d) nor subject to libertarian (small-l) market expectations and pressures.
* Freedom/democracy: Cannot be locally or privately owned/administered. Probably the most autocratic technology outside of the armed forces.
* Economics: Since it needs to be subsidized, insured, secured and stored for centuries, the TCO of nuclear creates the most expensive form of energy yet devised.
And so on and so on and so on. Some of these reasons don't even come from camps that ordinarily agree with one another ("free market" people often clash with environmentalists, scientists sometimes clash with ethicists, economists often clash with everyone, etc.) Many legitimate reasons to be against it, each one alone is probably sufficient to reject nuclear.
Score one for Big Coal and CO2 skies.
Sorry about the polar bears, Florida, and Bangladesh.
What a huge amount of corporate welfare {your tax dollars and mine, folks) are wrapped up in these words from Harvey's article: "... fifty years after the 1957 opening of the first commercial reactor ... atomic energy still cannot pay for itself."
Let's not forget that John Edwards has pledged to allow no more loan guarantees for nuclear power, which effectively ends the program. Period. What's more, it prevents companies from building even MORE terrorist targets than we already have.
"no one suspected that airplanes could or would be used as weapons.What of nuclear power plants ?"
hi billy ,thank you for your reply on the previous 'nuclear' thread. i am glad this seems to be a field of research and expertise for you..keep up your curiousity and your homework ,the perilous times we all face ,need interested learners , such as yourself . i must go to work now , the bills never stop. you all ,have a nice day ! mom
Speaking of Robert Redford, we watched his 1975 movie last night, "Three Days of the Condor". How appropriate for the times we live in!
Paul Bramscher said:
"* Ethical: Causing future generations centuries of headaches."
Great post Paul.
To your sentence, I would add "Causing increasing cancers, leukemias and neoplastic disease pandemics forever as radioisotopes with half-lives of 10,000 years bioconcentrate in the food chain eventually wiping out the entire human race and higher and lower forms of life on the planet, leaving a world inhabited by cockroaches and other hardy insects, providing any life at all can survive the increasing load of ionizing radiation".
Nuclear power is the greater evil.
All available capital for new energy supply must flow instead to renewables and efficiency.
Very little conventional capital is needed. Conventional capital means "letting someone else worry about it", so elites end up controlling the society, leading to mass enslavement, global catastrophes and so on.
The only sustainable way is through "individual capital", that is, the ability of the individual to think, plan, and accomplish. We don't need those far-flung deposits of fossil/nuclear fuels. So we don't need elites, conventional capital, or tax and spend.
All we need is to take individual responsibility, halt the consumption gluttony, and shift our individual exchange/association toward our local communities where the renewable energy may be supplied by and for the people.
Thank you Harvey for this excellent piece- for a refresher course or a detailed advanced course read Dr. Helen Caldicott's Nuclear Power is Not the Answer 2007- she is the goddess of all antinuke writers- it's fresh concise and updating her previous work and only 221 pages- conspiracy fans can read the radioactive critcisims on amazon- telling but don't pay too much attention to that- courage
What will our government do with the radioactive waste? Sure they will drop the depleted uranium on other peoples children in America's war on humanity but what about all the other glow in the dark toxic parts? Perhaps our FDA will classify that as a food additive.
Coming from a physics background, it is amazing how proud physicists are of their little creation (nuclear power, that is). And for people who use pure logic all day, they didn't seem to apply it to nuclear power. I absence of evidence of the safety of nuclear power, they would just assert it was safe and ignore the difficult questions. They sort of had me sucked in until I had the chance to work for a little while at the Central Research Institute of Electrical Power Industry in Komae, Japan.
There I had an ESL student whose job it was to solve the not so minor issue of nuclear waste. I asked him what proposed methods there were for dealing with the waste and he rattled off the familiar list. But when I asked him what disposal methods there are that can get rid of the stuff and ensure safety at the same time, he just smiled and said that he hadn't though of any.
There is no way to make the radioactive waste safe, other than restoring the material to it's original state previous to taking the energy out of it. And that would require adding all of the energy extracted plus an enormous amount of energy, greater than that which was originally extracted, required to put it back together, plus a level of technology that far exceeds current knowledge. All stable energy is naturally in it's most stable state because it obeys the law of the conservation of energy. When you destroy that stable state then you see the results which are displayed in nuclear radiation. Energy can change in form but it can never be destroyed, so thinking that the radioactive residue can be all used up in a further utilization is the pipedream of the simple minded or the diversionists.
deathtotyrants said:
"Funding nuclear is building another big oil-like monopoly, which will forever hold the world in its grasp. On the other hand, developing and implementing solar, hydrogen, geothermal and other technologies will help ensure local supplies of energy, which will enhance world-wide competition and invention. Even better, it will help remove someof the big money whores out of politics."
Exactly. And that, in a nutshell, is the "technical problem" that holds up renewable energy.
On the other hand, rtdrury says we just need to take care of energy production ourselves, as individuals--that is hardly realistic. We need mass transit infrastructure, for example, and we need the technical breakthroughs that mass investment by government in solar and tidal power could hasten.
The reason all of this matters so much is that we have so little time left, according to many climate scientists--and oil geologists--before we risk runaway climate change, and before oil skyrockets in price. We are already past the peak of production. So we don't have time for false solution, being pushed by financially interested parties and their dupes. It will be very difficult to make the enormous transition we must make, in time--we must begin on the necessary path, NOT waste time on dead ends with too many destructive consequences: not only nukes but also coal liquefaction and ethanol. Billy suggested that we must choose between immersing ourselves in liguid coal, which produces enormous amounts of CO2 among other problems, or nukes. Bull. I live in WV and am active in the fight against coal, but that doesn't mean I would endorse nukes as long as they're in someone else's backyard...there ain't no such thing, you know. It's all one world and if we don't get this right we'll all suffer the consequences.
Ditto the DITO...the US military does exactly the same-thing (they even use Lake Superior, which ain't NEAR 'so-Deep'!).
Look, 92% of all worldwide Uranium-mining/profits goes to Rothschilds'-fronts, by-Law the only Developers even allowed to bid on reactor-construction are neck-deep in the Defense-industry Cabals, and the only outfits actually-allowed to profit from scant Nuke-outputs in the US are all 'Big-Oil' & 'privatized'-Utilities.
So, three-Bands plus only-1/2 of the remaining 'sane' Sierra-Club members aided by maybe-6 of-500+ Legislators are going to stop-this-crap from happening "near You, soon"?
[Good-luck with that!]
Nuclear alert: PM's bribe boosts dumping of waste
Secret deal will be followed by £1bn move to find long-term disposal facility for the most dangerous radioactive waste, so securing the future of nuclear power plants. By Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean
(independent.co.uk)
news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3312836.ece
There is no such thing as a "long term disposal facility" for nuclear waste. Anyone who proposes such is an idiot or a stooge.
ezeflyer,
Good point -- that's probably the biggest one of all, and overlaps all the other reasons. What makes nuclear waste expensive to store for the centuries, sensitive in terms of national security, ethically problematic (uranium mining, nuclear power, and waste storage), etc. is precisely that issue: it is inherrently inimical to good health (humans, food, livestock, etc.).
France doesn't have a big problem with storing nuclear waste, they just dump it into the oceans. That's called DITO there. Dump In The Ocean, natural 'long term' disposal.
Actually Kem, France sends a lot of its nuclear waste to Russia and a few other countries. Details on this practice are unavailable to the public. However, recently a train carrying nuclear waste to Germany was halted by protests.
But the problem remains the same whether it's the ocean or any other place on this planet. The only thing to do would be to send it off into space on a course towards the Sun. But we all know how crazy that idea is also.
All part of the War on Terra.
From their perspective, the only sensible policies, whether energy, scientific or economic, are those which send as much money and power as possible to big banking cartels, the m.i.c. and various other neocon interests.
Government by the banking dynasties -- for the banking dynasties. It's possible that things could be retooled. The plutocrats like Rothschilds, etc. might find a way to sell people solar power, IF -- and ONLY IF -- their autocrats were successful in denying sunlight to people. Once sunlight was denied (like real estate equity, wilderness, the commons, etc.) then it could be another racket/controlled commodity. Uranium and reactor technology is inherrently denied to people. So it may just be that we need to write our autocrats and ask them if their plutocrats have considered this possibilty. Put up a big shade over the earth, deny sunlight, and then you can make a lot of money -- consumers held hostage is their usual preference.
"So it may just be that we need to write our autocrats and ask them if their plutocrats have considered this possibilty."
No need...BushCo&Pentagon-pals already have solid-plans for such on-the-table (unlike Impeachment, so "be careful what you wish for").
There is a fully-planned 'contingency'-Plan for orbiting masses of Mylar [Trademark!] shards, at a cost of over 1.2-Trillion, to "block excessive sunlight", and the Pentagon has 'studied' cost-analysis for the expense of shattering-Mercury with enough-nukes to produce a similar 'sun-block'/"Saturnal-ring" around ol' Sol.
Didn't you get the Memo? These folks are 'Deciderers'...
I'm sure I'll get lambasted, but is there no technological way to make nuclear energy safe enough? A hundred years ago I'm sure there was plenty of debate about the horrible emissions of gas burning cars, the consequences for safety when you mix gasoline with little sparks, and so on. But over time these concerns were addressed. I'm just wondering how many of the arguments against nuclear, and I admit they are very persuasive, are arguments against issues Other Than nuclear energy itself.
Safe or not, it still suffers from the other points I mentioned elsewhere. In conceptual terms, nuclear is merely a mid-20th century twist on steam power.
I've heard of no arguments against steam power, in the general sense. You can heat water with focused solar methods (mirrors/lenses), obtain heat directly via geothermal, burn hydrogen (creating water as a byproduct), etc. to turn a turbine and generate electricity. Probably many other methods that creative and well-funded scientists would devise in a nation under rule of law, high regard for science and innovation, and looking forward -- rather than in our present period of decline.
Crooks instead of visionaries, and so we must have crime instead of advancement.
Of course nuclear-energy can be 'safe'. It would just have to be fusion, rather than fission (exactly why Federal-research monies are typically 99.2% dedicated to fission, with 'some' of remainder going into fusion-research).
There are AMPLE and technologically 'easy' ways to produce/use massive free/cheap Energy...which is exactly 'why' you'll never see any instituted...(at-least until the '3rd-World' is massively depopulated).
Please, just "consider the source" whenever discussing what 'America might do/not-do' [or Click-my-Name]...
What you WILL see (such as in Michigan, where it will be Mandatory, shortly) is farcical-nonsense like "Ethanol-additives" -- which, due to lowered-mpg and the fashion in which we'll be 'producing' that alcohol/'Octane-booster', will guarantee more oil-imports, more CO2-production, higher food-pricing -- everywhere, and all small-motor and pre-2006-vehicles breaking-down rather 'quickly' (insuring more outsourced & heavy-Manufacturing).
Enjoy...!
John Edwards opposes nuclear power. The future.
Hillary and Barack are in favor. The past.
(These two are also "free" traders; again the past. New boss is the same as the old boss.)
Kem mentioned: "If we don't do it and soon, that methane gas in the Arctic, which will release into our atmosphere is gonna make these discussions moot issues."
---------------
He was talking about "methane hydrates", or "clathrates" - methane molecules bound in water-ice crystals. When the methane-saturated ice melts, the gas is released which contributes to global warming. Potentially causing the "runaway effect"... Google methane hydrates and read for 20 minutes, please.
More about this substance that we should all know about in another Common Dreams (Dec. 2004)article: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1215-24.htm
Regards to all...
I have been doing a lot of homework on this issue, because clean nuclear energy would be the "A" answer to global warming. Simply replace every coal and oil fired plant with a nuke, also use the nukes to crack water into hydrogen to replace gasoline, and make even more CO2 free electricity to replace fossil fuel home heating. Then there is the promise of a new generation of fast neutron reactors that would burn now unusable U-238 and not leave actinide waste. Sounds so simple, and even the best predictions find no more than 10% of our energy produced by renewables in 30 years.
But it isn't so simple. The NRC (formerly AEC) has rightly been accused of inadequately enforcing regulations and hushing information about accidents and other problems at nuclear plants, and a case can be made that we have been lucky that incidents so far have resulted in minimal damage. The industry also stalls NRC safety decisions with some success (example: possible debris plugging sump water pumping in an emergency). Utilities owning reactors have had cost cutting measures backfire. License renewal of a 40 year old reactor needs to include increased inspection and verification of safety measures.
Another question is why does strontium 90 seem to accumulate in baby teeth and/or statistically significant increases in childhood leukemia occur near apparently perfectly running nukes? The statistical significance is debated. Counter is the fact that burning coal releases uranium(which breaks down to radon), toxic heavy metals and mercury that accumulates in the food chain.
Then there are issues of disposal, reprocessing and terrorism.
The industry isn't sitting still on safety. Each generation is safer. There are designs for melt-down proof reactors. American companies participate in construction of reactors all over the world. It should be possible to make nuclear safe, but only the best designs should be allowed, regulations must be enforced and information about health and safety problems must be shared and used for improvement.
The debate isn't just between alarmists and nuclear proponents. Two guys with great credentials from U Pitt(Sternglass and Cohen) are on opposite sides of the debate, and both have been dismissed as one or the other.
I would like to see nuclear perfected and put in place to maintain today's economy, but it isn't going to happen in time (unless the government declares an emergency and makes it happen). Neither is renewables. The EIA predicts electriciy demand will rapidly increase until 2030, and the increase will be fueled by coal. Temperatures are supposed to be in the sixities in Philly this week. We're screwed. No place to go. We don't even need KP's methane burps.
NOBODY in the investment game will put their own money on nuclear power unless the government takes all the risk and jails the protesters and puts the plant in someone else's back yard.
Mr. Wasserman describes a victory for grassroots anti-nuclear organizations that he considers precarious, and fragile. However, in a cruel twist of fate, the anti-nuke arena has been the one area where environmentalists have prevailed; no new nuclear power plant has been built in decades.
While Wasserman applauds the emergence of clean fuels, this enthusiasm is not based in reality. The reality is that 130 new COAL plants are being built. Utilities love to showcase their token windfarms, although the bulk of energy needs (and wants) are met by burning the filthiest and most carbon intensive of all fuels--coal. It is coal which has pushed the planet to a crisis which is escalating so rapidly no political process is likely to reverse it. The complaints against nuclear energy, while valid, pale in comparison to the complaints against coal--complaints like rendering the Earth uninhabitable within a few decades.
How can the threat posed by some radioactive substance buried deep underground compare to the threat of CO-2 levels which have risen upwards of 37% ???
Loan guarantees? Not that big of a deal. Don't you know that billions of dollars in subsidies are poured into the fossil fuels industries all the time? A list of celebrities who are anti-nuke?
A little perspective here, MR. Wasserman. Please.
If you are one of the 30 million people who gets your water from the Colorado River, do some googling on the 90 ft high mountain of uranium tailings that forms the western bank of the river one mile outside of Moab, Utah. It is in the hundred year flood plain. Then take a look at what happened to the Rio Puerco when it had a uranium tailings mudslide. A bigger disaster than Three Mile Island but under reported because it was in a rural area of the Navajo reservation. Thank you Jesus for the 10 year drought, because right now all we are getting from this is the uranium and arsenic that blow and seep into the river. If it ever floods we'll be drinking our own urine for 100 generations, or until they welcome us all into Mexico to pick winter fruit.
RE: jstevens January 6th, 2008 8:53 pm
You are absolutely correct that the burning of coal presently is more of a threat to ALL of us, but I magine the tune will change if the 2,000 nuclear power plants are built that scientists estimate we will need to meet our CURRENT power needs.
I just read an article that stated in the past 50 years nuclear subsidies total $145 billion while those for renewables are a piddling $5 billion total. Imagine if the people's money were distributed equitably, and this could have begun years or decades ago if those dipping into the nuclear trough could be stymied. Reports indicate a ten square mile wind farm could power the whole US. Storage & transmission are the key issues to be solved with a consolidated source of power generation, but they become non-issues with dispersal of the wind, solar & geothermal production.
We need to kick the nuclear advocate (and hydrocarbon) bosses to the curb and start building NOW!
Excellent points Paul. We have two choices. We can stay the course, over time build nuclear power plants, continue to burn coal for additional power plants, burn coal to refine uranium for nuclear power plants use and continue to pollute the atmosphere, acidify the oceans and stockpile more tons of deadly atomic waste.
Or, we can put the money we are going to give to the nuclear gangs into a massive effort to develop truly clean energy sources, solar, wind, geo-thermal and tidal power. A combination of any three of those would give us far enough electrical power for our needs and the pollution from the nuke and coal fired plants would cease.
In addition, a masive effort could be initiated and much of it it could be completed within from five to seven years and provide millions of good paying jobs. We can use the same electriclal power grids already in place. Just build the power plants and plug them in.
The problem is, don't even waste your time thinking about it. They who have the gold make the rules. ___ They who own the uranium and coal mines, have the gold. They won't allow John Edwards to be our next president, they also own the media and the Diebold voting machines. They own everythig of importnace. When corporations control the government it is known as fascism. __ We is now that. __ "Heil George, long live the king and ___ shit."
Absent corruption, we wouldn't be facing climate catastrophe. Clean, sustainable technologies have existed for a long time. The problem is, we are in the grip of corrupt and powerful industries, whose executives know that they can't make a huge profit on things such as the wind and the sun.
Industries are also leary of biofuels because anyone can produce ethanol and soy diesel. It's a very simple process that has the potential to bypass big industries. Whenever I see a piece of news about how bad these things are for the environment, I believe it has been put out by the likes of Exxon Mobile, and environmentalists have picked up on it inadvertently. Of course there are real problems and inefficiencies with biofuels, but they are still much better than oil, which releases million-year old carbon into the air instead of last year's carbon, and which usually travels an incredible distance to US gas stations.
Right now, we are making a few people incredibly wealthy for giving us the absolute worst, cheapest, products. It would be better if we could just pay exorbitant prices for clean energy, but the game isn't played that way.
It is simply tragic to me to see that an environmental movement can be tremendously succesful, yet it is applied to the wrong industry--nuclear instead of coal. We should be able to choose neither, but "neither" is up against huge obstacles. These obstacles are not likely to go away in the short time constraints we are under, before we have rendered the planet uninhabitable. No one knows when this will occur, and it is impossible to predict, but it is certainly looming.
It is so easy to get people riled up about nuclear power. Meanwhile, the coal based utilities are having a good laugh.
Might as well get used to nukes, guys. At least abroad. Once upon a time every "developing" country just had to have a steel mill. Apparently having a nuke is becoming the membership card.
The Iranians are going nuclear (really scary), and tiny Romania has two! They don't even need one whole one. They plan on exporting power for foreign exchange.
They won't be laughing when the methane gas in the Arctic releases into the atmosphere. Neither will we. It really isn't funny. It's serious and as real as the sun rising every day. We are running out of time.