Bill

You say "I intend my posts to be non-emitting technologies vs coal."

"Children living near nuclear facilities face an increased risk of cancer."
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8785

Looks like nuclear energy is pretty much an "emitting technology" to me so I guess 100% renewable energy must then be the only answer.

best regards
Andrew

Bill What you again failed to say was, "Nuclear Energy really sucks."

Paul,

I read the article in the Nation that you linked. The author is a much better propagandist that Wasserman. His misspeakings are much more subtle than our rather clumsy buddy here.

For example: he speaks as if countries use commercial nuclear power reactors to make weapons grade material or that this is a secret aspect to power generation.

The truth: No country uses or has used light water power reactors (like all the power reactors in the US) to make plutonium for weaponry.

The early gas cooled Magnox reactors in the '50's were used to make weapons plutonium in England. The Chernobyl style reactor can be used for to make weapons grade plutonium (I don't know if they were ever actually used that way but they can be.) A prototype heavy water reactor from Canada was evidently used by India to make weapons material. Israel uses a heavy water reactor of their own design to make weapons material. South Africa's weapons program was, I believe, uranium based rather than plutonium. North Korea used a dedicated research reactor for its weapons program. The weapons grade plutonium in the US was made in dedicated purpose built reactors.

Our fleet of existing light water reactors and all the reactors in the planning stages make plutonium out of uranium-238 when in service. It is not, however, suitable for weapons use. (Mark Abrams in his post states that it could be made to explode. That is not the same as a satisfactory weapon.)

I never maintained that the government has not subsidized the nuclear industry. It clearly has and does. I did say that the government has not made any payment under Price-Anderson.

Bill

Andrew,

I do not intend my posts to be nuke vs coal. I intend my posts to be non-emitting technologies vs coal.

In answer to your question, I am an engineer in nuclear manufacturing. I post on my own time and, to the best of my knowledge, my employer is not aware of my posting activities.

Bill

Paul,

I was not familiar with NUREG-1738 so I did a little research on it:

Here is a quote from NRC Commissioner McGaffigan in an April 2003 presentation.

"There is a lot of bad information being spread about the alleged vulnerability of spent fuel pools, and this has been going for more than a year....The worst of these NRC staff studies was NUREG-1738, a study which the staff released in January 2001, but which the Commission never endorsed because of our deep misgivings about it. Indeed we asked for public comments on NUREG-1738, held a public meeting on it in February 2001 at which various groups asked that it be peer-reviewed becasue of its obvious flaws...our current more realistic research on spent fuel vulnerability does not support that sudy. As Chairman Diaz said yesterday in response to a question, terrorists can't violate the laws of physics, but researchers can."

Bill

Mea Culpa,

I made an arithmetic error in the area for wind to replace coal. The correct value is 17,000 square miles.

Bill

Yawn, Bill yawn.

Yes by deploying renewables we can reduce CO2 emmisions sufficiently.

What work do you do?

Andrew.

Quick not before work:

Wind power is not as compact as solar. The figure I have seen (and right now I can't remember where) is that wind cannot be placed closer than 50 acres per megawatt otherwise you can get turbulent interference from one turbine to the other. With solar, either thermal or PV, you can almost blanket an area with receivers.

China may be installing renewables but they are deploying one major coal plant per week.

Good science will not necessarily prevail. Short term economics and political interests will generally trump it.

The issue for society is not whether we deploy renewables versus nuclear. The issue for society is how can we stop emitting CO2.

Bill

China bounding ahead with renewable energy:

"China is poised to pass world solar and wind manufacturing leaders in Europe, Japan, and North America in the next three years, and it already dominates the markets for solar hot water and small hydropower."

Powering China's Development: The Role of Renewable Energy
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5496?gclid=CLyRx-f-hJMCFRqL1Qodl1SA0w

Bill

The only people who want to make it a coal vs nuke issue is the nuke and coal industries and their spin doctors.

I saw through that trick long ago.

The GM seed industry tried to claim it was a GM seed or starvation choice. 400 experts have just pointed out GM seed and industrial agriculture are part of the problem.

You can pick out little incidents to try and justify it a nuke vs coal debate. Thats what the GM seed industry did in their propaganda and they lost.

Nukes and caol will lose as well. They are both going to be phased out. Look at the overall picture not isolated incidents.

Common sense and good science will prevail.

Hi Billy, golly I thought it was you who may be agreeing with me? ___ Pop the corks.

It does for him ~Paul~ ___ LOL.

Thank you for that information ~PAUL~, can save it for the next nuker thread. And I don't know where Bill got his figures on wind power either, someone may have published that, but there are those who could surely dispute it with mathamatical certanty. Besides, we need all types of clean energy, not just wind and solar power.

Billy...you said, "To replace the generating capacity of the coal plants would require about 62,000 square miles of wind turbines (at 100% of rated capacity). That is not going to happen in 10 years either."

I'm curious about where you got this figure because I've seen an article stating a ten mile square (100 square mile) plot of either wind mills or solar panels, placed somewhere in the southwest US, would provide all the US power needs.

Kendpotter, just because people might disagree with you doesn't necessitate being rude, now does it?

Billy, I don't think you will like this link:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/parenti

It refutes your claim nuclear plants have ever cost the taxpayer funds, and there are also some statements about how dangerous nuclear plants are...particularly the Vermont Yankee:

"...a shockingly blunt NRC document called "Report on Spent Fuel Pool Accident Risk," or NUREG-1738. The report found that containment structures, such as that at Vermont Yankee, "present no substantial obstacle to aircraft penetration." According to the NRC, a fire in the spent fuel pool at a reactor like Vermont Yankee (which stores 488 metric tons of spent fuel) would cause 25,000 fatalities over a distance of 500 miles if evacuation was 95 percent effective. But that evacuation rate would be almost impossible to achieve. The NRC claims to have the threat of terrorism under control, but for reasons of national security it can't explain how."

Paul.Magill@Rockitz.net

Andrew,

The issue very much is coal vs nuke.

According to the NYTimes, there are about 50 new coal (or conversions to coal) plants in the pipeline for western Europe; Germany, Italy, Belgium, England and others.

Germany is expanding its coal burning capacity to shutdown its nukes. Germany has asked to expand its CO2 emission credits to permit the increased coal generation.

According to current statistics published by NEI, in the US there are 18GW of coal generation (61 plants) under construction in the US; there is 6GW of renewable capacity under construction. (Their statistics are based on nameplate capacity. Most of the renewables were wind which typically produces about 30% of nameplate.)

To say that coal is 'out' is clearly whistling in the dark.

Your article from New Scientist, which I am still digesting, is concerned with apparent traces of radioactivity emitted from nuclear power plants and fuel processing facilities. The radiation released by a coal plant is an order of magnitude greater than a nuclear plant. Coal contains traces of both uranium and thorium as well as the daughter products. Some of this inevitably goes up the stack.

As evidence of the radionuclide content of coal, China has started processing the ash, both cinder and fly ash, from several of its coal fired plants as uranium ore. Other countries are considering adopting the practice.

Bill

Kem,

You agree with me except on timing? Did you read the post carefully? (This may be a champaigne night!)

Regards,

Bill

BTW, if you followed kendpotter's direction, I hope it was fun for you.

HI ~Andy~I don't care that much if I won a silly argument with Kendpotter. I mean, who couldn't?

His last post is really funny though.

He writes with a manner of superority, as he is highly educated, but his posts are usually filled with egosim and are effluvial.

Don't worry KEM.

Thats what people say when they don't have an intelligent answer.

You obviously won the argument.

Wonder what the nuke engineers are going to spin against the New Scientist article, second above?

Sorry,

I forgot - Kem, Go fuck yourself.

Bill

The debate is not between coal and nukes. They are both out. The debate is how do we phase out nukes and dramatically reduse coal and go 90 to 100 % renewables.

Have you seen this New Scientist article?:

New Scientist, Apr. 24, 2008

REASONABLE DOUBT

By Ian Fairlie

Among the many environmental concerns surrounding nuclear power plants, there is one that provokes public anxiety like no other: the fear that children living near nuclear facilities face an increased risk of cancer. Though a link has long been suspected, it has never been proven. Now that seems likely to change.

Studies in the 1980s revealed increased incidences of childhood leukaemia near nuclear installations at Windscale (now Sellafield), Burghfield and Dounreay in the UK. Later studies near German nuclear facilities found a similar effect. The official response was that the
radiation doses from the nearby plants were too low to explain the increased leukaemia. The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment, which is responsible for advising the UK government,
finally concluded that the explanation remained unknown but was not likely to be radiation.

There the issue rested, until a recent flurry of epidemiological studies appeared. Last year, researchers at the Medical University ofSouth Carolina in Charleston carried out a meta-analysis of 17 research papers covering 136 nuclear sites in the UK, Canada, France,
the US, Germany, Japan and Spain. The incidence of leukaemia in children under 9 living close to the sites showed an increase of 14 to 21 per cent, while death rates from the disease were raised by 5 to 24
per cent, depending on their proximity to the nuclear facilities (European Journal of Cancer Care, vol 16, p 355).

This was followed by a German study which found 14 cases of leukaemia compared to an expected four cases between 1990 and 2005 in children living within 5 kilometres of the Krummel nuclear plant near Hamburg, making it the largest leukaemia cluster near a nuclear power plant
anywhere in the world (Environmental Health Perspectives, vol 115, p 941).

This was upstaged by the yet more surprising KiKK studies (a German acronym for Childhood Cancer in the Vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants), whose results were published this year in the International Journal of Cancer (vol 122, p 721) and the European Journal of Cancer (vol
44, p 275). These found higher incidences of cancers and a stronger association with nuclear installations than all previous reports. The main findings were a 60 per cent increase in solid cancers and a 117 per cent increase in leukaemia among young children living near all 16
large German nuclear facilities between 1980 and 2003.

The most striking finding was that those who developed cancer lived closer to nuclear power plants than randomly selected controls. Children living within 5 kilometres of the plants were more than twice as likely to
contract cancer as those living further away, a finding that has been accepted by the German government.

Though the KiKK studies received scant attention elsewhere, there was a public outcry and vocal media debate in Germany. No one is sure of the cause (or causes) of the extra cancers. Coincidence has been ruled
out, as has the "Kinlen hypothesis", which theorises that childhood leukaemia is caused by an unknown infectious agent introduced as a result of an influx of new people to the area concerned. Surprisingly, the most obvious explanation for this increased risk -- radioactive
discharges from the nearby nuclear installations -- was also ruled out by the KiKK researchers, who asserted that the radiation doses from such sources were too low, although the evidence they base this on is
not clear.

Anyone who followed the argument in the 1980s and 1990s concerning the UK leukaemia clusters will have a sense of deja vu. A report in 2004 by the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (2
Mbyte PDF), set up by the UK government (and for which I was a member of the secretariat) points out that the models used to estimate radiation doses from sources emitted from nuclear facilities are riddled with uncertainty. For example, assumptions about how radioactive material is transported through the environment or taken
up and retained by local residents may be faulty.

If radiation is indeed the cause of the cancers, how might local residents have been exposed? Most of the reactors in the KiKK study were pressurised water designs notable for their high emissions of tritium, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen. Last year, the UK government published a report on tritium which concluded that its hazard risk should be doubled. Tritium is most commonly found incorporated into water molecules, a factor not fully taken into
account in the report, so this could make it even more hazardous.

As we begin to pin down the likely causes, the new evidence of an association between increased cancers and proximity to nuclear facilities raises difficult questions. Should pregnant women and young children be advised to move away from them? Should local residents eat vegetables from their gardens? And, crucially, shouldn't those governments around the world who are planning to build more reactors
think again?

Ian Fairlie is a London-based consultant on radiation in the
environment

I agree wth you Billy. ___ Except my idea of a Massive progam is probably much more Massive than you picture. I want to see it completed in four years and it could be done.

Hi Billy, I know naval ship's nuclear reactors are much smaller and therefore wondered why some of the discussion here was about how safe they have been, etc, etc. That's a Red Herring argument which has no bearing on the issue of using nuclear energy for commerial and residential use.

On the argument of nuclear power cannot solve global warming, nothing can solve it if someone is speaking in terms of "decades". We have to start speaking in terms of four to eight years.

Germany closing down its coal mines:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,463172,00.html

Bill

By the way, if nukes could not stop climate change in 2004, they are even less likey to now.

There are absolutely no grounds to justify nuclear energy, renewables are far superior.

Bill the trend is to renewables. No coal, no nukes.

I know that is hard for you to swallow, but as German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said - there are three stages to a new idea, at first, it is ignored. Second, there is strong opposition against it. And finally, those who once opposed it set about introducing the initiatives themselves as if they'd been theirs all along.

I like to see your opposition to renewables, its an excellent sign.

Andrew

Andrew,

There have been a series of news reports recently that Germany, Italy and Scotland are reinvigorating there coal burning to support their anti-nuclear agenda. They may talk about renewables (and they are installing them) but they are building more coal plants.

Italy and Germany are building new coal plants. Scotland is taking an older coal plant out of mothballs and reopening a coal mine.

Personally, I don't think coal is a good substitute for nuclear electricity.

Bill

Kem,

The US navy does not publish the power of its nuclear reactors. The available figures from the Russian and the French navies would indicate that they are a good bit smaller.

It has been publically stated that the US navy uses highly enriched uranium. If this is so, then they would have very little long lived waste. They would have a lot of fission fragments which are (relatively speaking) rather short lived in the used fuel. Fission fragments need to be safely stored away from society for 400 or 500 years.

Most of the long lived waste comes from uranium-238 in the fuel. That is where the plutonium, americium and cerium start from in a commercial power reactor. These are most of the transuranic elements which are a problem 100,000 years down the road. There is very little uranium-238 in highly enriched uranium.

Using highly enriched uranium in a commercial reactor would be cost prohibitive unless it were a breeder reactor.

Bill

Andrew,

I did not go back 4 years in my review of IAEA publications. I will try to do so. Here is a quote from the 4 year old CD article:

....Alan McDonald, an IAEA nuclear energy analyst, told The Independent on Sunday last night: "Saying that nuclear power can solve global warming by itself is way over the top."....

He is quite correct. Nuclear power by itself cannot solve global warming.

Bill

"The European public is still strongly opposed to the use of nuclear power; those who are worried about climate change are even more fiercely opposed."
Gallup, Attitudes on issues related to EU Energy Policy, European Commission, DG TREN, April 2007

Great recent article on renewable energy in Germany
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/16/renewableenergy.windpower

Hi Bill

The reference you asked for is at "Nuclear Power 'Can't Stop Climate Change'" by Geoffrey Lean

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0626-05.htm

I still cannot understand why anyone would promote nuclear energy when renewables can do a better job so much quicker, and you don't have the exorbitant cost of decomissioning old nuclear power plants, no terrorist threat of radioactive clouds from blowing up a wind farm, no long term radioactive waste problems, and renewables are getting cheaper by the day, and they provide many more jobs than nukes.

Promoting nuclear energy is plain crazy. We need to phase out nuclear plants altogether and dramatically reduce coal fired power stations.

Progressive countries are converting to 90-100% renewable energy in the next few decades. Its the only sensible future.

~Andrew Taynton~ is probably correct if the IAEA is speaking in terms of DECADES.

We don't have the luxury of DECADES. We have to have a MASSIVE program to develop clean energy, ___ Solar, wind, geo, tidal and wave. It can be accomplished with a world wide effort and have it operational within four years and STOP burning coal. We either do it, or we kill the planet's atmosphere and life on Earth. ____ That's it, ___ the bottom line. There is nothing to argue about in that regard.

Hi Bily Are the Navy ship reactors as large as a commercial plant's reactors and do they produce as much atomic waste per year?

There are four major sources producing carbon emissiions.

Electrical generation 42%

Transportation 24%

Industrial 20%

Residentila/commercial 14%

So elemnating burning coal, oil or gas for electrical use is the largest and burning coal is the most serious problem.

Don't have a link TRU ORANGE, it was on the Science channel. There is a like article today though on the headlines articles, the picture of the Earth over on the left side.

kendpotter,

FYI, I recently heard a talk by Skip Bowman, head of Nuclear Engineering Institute who was head of the Naval Reactors program before he retired from the navy. He stated that, by coincidence, the navy operates the same number of reactors as the civilian power fleet: 104. That would include aircraft carriers, submarines and training reactors.

Bill

Andrew,

Do you have a reference for your claim on the IAEA?

I did a signficant search of their website today and could find nothing that indicated that nuclear expansion would not slow global warming. It seems like it either an erroneous quotation or out of context. Any electric power generation source that does not have significant CO2 emissions contributes to mitigation of global warming.

Thanks,

Bill

Hey KEM - got a link for your information on the Russian scientists who found their once frozen lakes now boiling? I believe you, but I want to read the entire story.

Thanks.

I've never seen the Three Mile Island plant or any of the other 103 plants sail out to sea. How many TONS of nuclear waste is produced by a nuclear sub, waste to be "SAFELY" stored forever? Has the Navy ever had a nuclear accident? Google atomic accidents.

"m__b April 27th, 2008 12:24 pm
Sigurdur11, you are so right on. "Mr. Wasserman seems to forget how many reactors there are on US Navy ships, and have been running for years and years without a major glitch." Yes, the loss in 1963 of the nuclear submarine Thresher with 129 crew on board was only a minor glitch."

Thresher (and Scopion as well) was lost for reasons independent of and unrelated to the reactor. Yes, it really is possible to lose a ship at sea, including a submarine.

Navy vessels are proof that you can take a teenager and run a reactor. Admittedly the teenager has to be sent to school so long, likely he isn't a teenager when he is done. The operating procedures are strict, the inspections rigorous, and the reactors built to a common design.

The Navy has an operating philosophy - When you are dealing with something inherently and exceedingly dangerous, you either do it whole hog, practice it extensively, train more than adequately, operate that way all the time, and make it as near fool-proof as you can. Or, don't do it. Most of the nations of the world don't operate planes from carriers or nuclear subs, because these are two of the best examples. You do them proficiently or not at all.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which exists to spread the peaceful use of the atom, reveals in a new report that nuclear power generation could not grow fast enough over the next decades to slow climate change - even under the most favorable circumstances.

My insurance policy categorically states I am not insured against a nuclear accident. Have you checked yours?

Obama gave a speech in Indiana Tuesday and said we need nuclear power for clean energy.

Hi Jim. I've noticed that some of the TROLL types have their names in blue lettering, which means a website. If we click on that name they have our E-mail address. ___ I think??

Sen Obama, Nuclear Power, Illinois.... there is a connection.

Old Hippy,

Wasserman is associated with Greenpeace. Greenpeace probably doesn't knowingly take money from coal interests (Don't know, just a guess on my part). Much anti-nuclear activity, however, is quietly funded by coal companies. Generally the money is washed through foundations which appear independent. Much of the "What Global Warming-Its Not Real" crowd is also quietly supported by coal money.

Nuclear power generation is a direct threat to coal. The two technologies compete for base load generation.

Most of the renewables, because of their intermittent nature, displace natural gas generation. Natural gas is used intermittently to supply the peak load and will not be run if renewables are available. Renewables are not really a threat to coal baseload generation.

Bill

Kem, if his name links to MSN,

He ain't old and he ain't a Hippy.

So you believe nuclear waste and nuclear power plants are safe enough huh ~Old Hippy~?
Just for fun, Google nuclear accidents. Or simpler yet, just read BOB Ks comments posted here at 1:44 pm. Maybe you could find reason to argue that common sense filled post.

Mr. Wassermans article was posted in The Smirking Chimp also. I just had to comment on his myth of Chernobyl and the
supposed danger. It's plain and simple scare tactics perpetrated by corporate amerika. I HAD a great deal of respect for Mr. Wasserman til this article. I fear Mr. Wasserman has sold out to the highest bidder. BTW, I said much the same thing in SC.

The greatest and enduring engineering structures of all time are the pyramids. They have stood for a mere 4,000 years and they failed in their purpose of keeping out intruders.

Nuclear waste will need structures and containers that will have to last in excess of 100,000 years.

But don't worry. Enron will select the lowest bidder to construct them so they are sure to be more than 25 times more enduring than the pyramids. And with their "mark to market" price structures, all of the costs for the next 100,000 years will be paid in advance.

Anybody want to buy a bridge?

End tax payer subsidies of all business, especially energy. You can't pick and choose what to subsidize just because somebody thinks it's good and noble. This is where we end up. As the author points out, there's plenty of private capital going to alternatives.

If we end all energy subsidies and tax pollution of all kinds, alternatives will win hands down.

And Geo-thermal is even better, if and whenever they get the money to develop it.

That's Okay Jim. We'll see what happens. Obama will most likely be the nominee and I fear McCain will take it. McCain leads by 20 in the electorial votes against Obama, he trails Hillary by 40.

With either McCain or Obama, we'll go with nuclear power. GE has been supporting Obama from the get go and insuring powerful people endorse him and of course GE controls much of the media. Hillary is not pro nuke.

Mark,
That was my point, nuclear waste is material for a dirty bomb, anybody with a torch could cut into a cannister and a dirty bomb would be worse than 9/11.

Also the expense of trying to store it safley when this stuff will be dangerous for thousands of years.... that means with the cost of inflation and our falling dollar we will have money to store it and have money for nothing else if our future generations are lucky to be around in a hundred or so years to deal with this time bomb...
alternatives have none of these endless problems of nukes.

Kem, sorry if I thought you did not like Obama... my mistake. But I don't thik he is for building new Nuke plants when he is confronted with the cost now and the future endless and growing costs.

Dubs,

The renewables, particularly wind, are in fact viable. The production tax credit makes them an attractive investment for a utility if they have an appropriate site.

The production tax credit is a year-to-year program by the federal government. If it stops, domestic orders for wind power grind to a halt. If the federal government would make it a 10 or 20 year program, the wind turbine industry in the US would increase capacity and wind would be installed at a faster rate.

Right now, wind is the 2nd fastest growing generating technology in the US, behind only natural gas.

Bill

Gotta eat.

I enjoy my career but one of the downsides is that there are very few locations for a nuclear materials metallurgist.

Bill

And you stay there?

Paul,

I think it would be fun for a f2f. I have been thinking of chasing you down at one of your gigs. If I had to hang out only with people with whom I agree, I would be lonely indeed. I am in Falwell territory.

Bill

The fact is indisputable, that mankind has caused global warming, which is actually excess C02 in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and coal. That in turn has created the "Green House" effect on our water world and heat cannot escape from our upper atmosphere as it should. That excess Co2 does not just evaporate in a few years time, we can be breathing C02 which was emmitted from the Civil War Merrick and Monitor ships and Henry Ford's first model T.

We must attempt to stop the insanity of burning coal and fossil fuels and do it now, time is running out for mankind and all other life. ___ Last month, Russian scientists were not only shocked at what they had seen with their own eyes in the Arctic, it scared the crap out of them. There are large, now unfrozen lakes which are literally boiling from escaping methane gas. Those lakes had been frozen over for more than five million years.

Why is that so frightening? Here is a link with an article which was penned in 2004, few paid any heed. The author is a world renouned geologst and has spent his entire adult life in that field of expertise. It takes about two minutes to read his article, and if any have any doubts of what global warming is doing, they should read it. If any are unawre of the real life dangers of methane gas escaping into our atmosphere, they should read it.

Perhaps the most interesting sentence is the one where he states,__"Once it starts, there is NO turning back, __ NO do-overs, once the methane starts to "burp" out into the atmosphere, it will likely play itself out."

We don't have the time to argue, we have to have clean energy and have it world wide, that's it, ___ that's the bottom line. __ Deny and die.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html

As interesting as this thread has been to read, and as much as I've learned about about nuclear power, I still can't help saying (with respect) blah, blah, blah. We wouldn't be having this debate if mankind could only learn that the real solution is to breed less and buy less. Face it, we all were screwed when we got out from behind our ox and started shoveling coal into a steam engine, without the slightest thought to where we might be headed. And,let's not forget that we've largely ignored solutions to an "energy crisis" because they weren't profitable.

We're strapped to the tracks of the future we've chosen, and consequences are less than 1/4 turn of the locomotive's wheel away from our heads. Mankind's history on the planet is brief, in real time, to say nothing of the insignificant blip that "modern" industrial society has been. In health care, it's shown that 90% of expense goes to keeping one alive in the last 2% of one's life.

Civilization, particularly Western, has squandered its chances. I think we greatly overestimate our own importance.

>> Jim Glover April 27th, 2008 10:33 am

Mark,
Your "statistical fluctuations" argument about caner around TMI which you say can be made about living near flowers is the same kind of arguments used against Global Warming. Of course statistics fluctuate, that is why they are statistics… It is the degree of fluctuation that is important and the way the government most always dismisses any scientific fact that tells them they must change. <<

Jim,

If the only evidence of global warming were articles by political activists listing incidents of hot or extreme weather, I would not believe in global warming. However, decades of work by hundreds of careful scientists has established beyond doubt that global warming is real and is caused primarily by CO2 emissions. This is the result of careful data analysis and modeling, not a compilation of anecdotes.

The difference between professional industrial handling of nuclear waste and any plausible terrorist operation is the large scale of facilities and time available for industrial operations. It is barely plausible that terrorists could hijack a waste shipment truck, but these shipments are and will be so carefully guarded and monitored that if I were a terrorist I'd bet on another type of operation. If spent fuel did get into the hands of terrorists, the worst they could do with it is make a dirty bomb, which would cause great panic and economic loss but probably not kill anybody.

The waste disposal problem is mostly a matter of NIMBY politics. For the time being, waste storage in ponds or dry casks gives us as much more time as we need to study long-term geological storage issues and come up with a plan that can be implemented politically

Sigurdur11, you are so right on. "Mr. Wasserman seems to forget how many reactors there are on US Navy ships, and have been running for years and years without a major glitch." Yes, the loss in 1963 of the nuclear submarine Thresher with 129 crew on board was only a minor glitch.

I don't understand why you keep saying I dislike Obama ~Jim~. I don't dislike him, I just don't believe he will do the best as president. Do you think every person who didn't vote for him dislikes him? Clinton has voted more progressive than Obama, far more. That's a fact and she is not in line with Lieberman. I'm sorry to see a nice person like you so messed up on facts. But whatever makes you happy, have fun. If Obama is the nominee, I'll send him a big check and support him and vote for him.

Dubs,
you make great points I would like Mark to address and also we can openly find out the truth with all alternate fuel but it is because of the threat of endless war that the government and Nuclear Corporations who get their money from the citizens that we will never be told the truth about what they are doing...it is against the law to tell the truth about "Natioanl Security" matters and whatever they do will be kept secret.

Mark,
Your "statistical fluctuations" argument about caner around TMI which you say can be made about living near flowers is the same kind of arguments used against Global Warming. Of course statistics fluctuate, that is why they are statistics... It is the degree of fluctuation that is important and the way the government most always dismisses any scientific fact that tells them they must change. You say waste is too dangerous for terrorists to handle... but for nuclear waste haulers it is safe right? Nobody in the government we are told thought terrorists could handle a jet airline too...until it happens.. and why would suicide bombers care about the safety anyway? They could hijack a truck and put on some protective gear and cut into some canisters, load some bombs-in or around it and crash it anywhere lots of people go...If I can think of a way around your "Waste is too dangerous for terrorists but is fine for us" then I think they could figure a way around your assurances of the safety of highly radioactive waste. What to do about the waste? you are dodging that by implying it is safe for everyone but some suicidal terrorists... nice job, you should work for the government.

Kem, I agree with everything you said but your claim of knowing what Obama would do about Nuclear energy is just speculation from your dislike of Obama.... I guess the Clintons and Lieberman are more in line with your concerns, eh?

Three Words - Con Ser Vation.

We generate way more than we need already. Building retrofits across the board could save enough to not have to build new generating capacity for years, maybe decades now that it's getting economically unviable to build more monster homes and big box stores.

No-one mentions waste heat capture. This is where some clever monkey hooks up power generators to industrial stacks that are already in operation. If this were fully exploited, supply would outstrip demand for a long, long, long time.

The article states - "Every dollar invested in increased efficiency saves seven times the energy a dollar invested in nukes can produce." This is true of all your other forms of generation as well, with perhaps a different number in tow. And the savings (and the "extra" power you get) last forever. Much like nuclear waste.

It saddens me to see people fight over how they want their power generated. Use less! Waste Less! Don't put solar panels on your roof until you've weather sealed and replaced all your light bulbs.

Of course, if demand for power goes down, the power companies will not be able to honour the future pay-outs they've promised, the governments and central banks will slide them a "liquidity injection" and the powercos will invest it where it is sure to grow - food futures. Then only people who can get liquidity injections will be able to afford food. Seems fair.

nukes are viable for the same reason solar/other ecologically sane energy sources are not --

energy providers can exploit people with it whether there's a disaster or not --

anyone can make a solar panel -- and once it's done, there's no endless set of calculations regards cost to a ratepayer --

with nukes, you control the source, you control the output, you control the ability to extract payment for the energy

disasters are incidental --

aside from all this, one issue no one really touches is the 'opportunity costs' -- of course, you would invest in geo-solar-wind --- ...but the nukes come first and they have a tendency to eat money, so the rest will have to limp along on scattered tidbits of finance regardless of viability --

if the pentagon could build houses or water purification systems for a billion dollars each, they might do it, but people would wonder what's up --

no one can challenge the invisible costs of a bomber or hi-tech weapon-- after all, who knows what they're supposed to cost? (and they're so important to have around) so the opportunity to invest in humanity and humane solutions to the world's problems just goes by the wayside ----
which of course is just another opportunity for some 'more suitable' solution, as in gm crops for the hungry --

--- when the planet's population finally gets decimated --
the logical conclusion to the confluence of events regardless of whether we're projecting ten years or a hundred into the future, the remaining population will find wonderful accommodations in empty missile silos and equally useless federal office buildings

Kem,

I am with you on the urgency of deploying non-emitting electrical generation. I agree with you that all reasonable renewables should be pursued. I, of course, would also include nuclear power as an essentially non-emitting electricity source.

I am appalled that Scotland and Germany are expanding their coal burning to facilitate a nuclear phase out.

Bill

Chuck,

Nice to have an English major join in.

The term "nuclear (or atomic) power reactor" is an historical nomenclature. It includes the purpose of the reactor and distinguishes it from other reactor types.

You have:

Power reactors for making electricity
Production reactors for making weapons grade plutonium
Isotope production reactors for making medical and industrial isotopes
Research reactors which are self evident but also occasionally an euphemism for a production reactor
Naval propulsion reactors which are self evident

Bill

For my money, Arvy's post @ 4:30 pm was the most telling. What happens--paraphrasing the implicit question--if legally empowered terrorists like Bush/Cheney take control of a nation's nuclear power industry? Safety measures are all but irrelevant.

It would be premature to get overly excited about nuclear power plants having private insurance before reading the "fine print".

Hurricane Katrina victims of insurance companies are just one example of how simple it is for insurers to take your money in the form of protection premiums and then tell you to take a hike when you ask for compensation from loss.

And Kem is right on target. This is about people - not money.

Kem,

The reason I posted on insurance is that the original Wasserman article stated: "Not one of the 104 US reactors now licensed to operate, and not one of the new ones being hyped, can get insurance from private sources".

He is dead wrong. All of the 104 reactors has private insurance.

Bill

siouxrose,

I have signed the impeachment petition. I am no fan of the Bush administration.

I am also not a fan of the PUREX process that was used to reprocess the fuel for the weapons program (i.e. plutonium production). It is also the process that the French, English and Japanese use to reprocess their commercial power fuel. Most of the major nuclear environmental messes in the western world have been related to this process; Hanford being the best known. It is this process or the closely related processes that is being considered for reprocessing in this country.

The point of my post was, if you do reprocess the fuel, you really do redefine the waste issues. I believe reprocessing will carry over into the next administration.

PUREX (and its derivatives) is a wet process. The used fuel is dissolved in acid and then processed to separate out the uranium, plutonium, fission fragments and so forth. The environmental messes have been related to this wet process.

There are dry processes that are in development but are not quite ready for full commercial deployment. One of these is called the DUPIC process and is being developed jointly by the Koreans and Canadians. This reprocessing is most applicable to the Canadian style reactor rather than the US style reactor but could be extended to the US light water reactors. Another is being developed by US national laboratories and is called a pyrometallurgical process.

My personal preference would be to continue our current policy of using the fuel once and storing it. I would favor continuing this until a more environmentally benign reprocessing technique can be developed.

Bill

My two-bits is that "atomic power" is a misnomer. It's just a heat source to heat the water to turn the turbines.

If the heat source is coal, it's a "coal-fired" power plant - "not coal-" or "oil power".

"Water-" and "wind-power" is correct, because the wind and water kinetic energy is directly used to turn a turbine to make power. Likewise with "solar energy", when applied to the silicon wafers or, for that mattter, grass and trees --

Hey KEM, Billy, Siouxrose, et al, and thanks all for having a dicussion on such an emotionally laden subject in a civil manner. Hey Billy, I'm in Richmond, and it would be interesting perhaps to meet F2F sometime. Just because I don't agree with you on some points doesn't mean I don't respect you & your knowledge. I know KEM & I have learned a lot from you, and I hope you feel the same about research we've come up with. KEM is correct, though, we need to make some sort of mutually satisfactory move on the power issue because time is running short. We also can't allow such important decisions to be made based on politics or corporate greed. The people need more of a voice in such a matter that will affect us all, and could prove detremental or even fatal to many. Unfortunately, some of the sanest most rational people seem to be always excluded from formulating the most important policies. Regardless of position on this issue everyone should be included in the debate, and any propaganda or 'spin' must be excluded. A difficult task indeed given the current polarized political climate we live in.

Yeah and if Obama is our next president those safety concerns he mentions will be addressed to his satisfaction. He'll make a terrific speech and he and we will have nuclear energy. General electric is supporting Obama and they want nuclear power. Money still talks.

Why is anyone seriously discussing insurance?
The real problem is nuclear power plants and the possibility of an accident that could permanently wipe out a land area for safe use the size of New york and New Jersey combined and kill millions of people.

Is that likely? __ NO, is it possible?__ Yes. There has never in history been a man made object that either didn't or couldn't eventully fail. Why take the risk when it is not necessary, even if we had insurance that fully covered any losses. How much is a child worth in dollars anyway?

We've already had the Three mile accident that very luckily wasn't a major disaster. There have been several other close calls. Lets say we add twenty or more nuclear power plants to the 104 now in operation and some day there is a major disaster, caused by an earthquake, a human error, sabatoge, equipnent failure, or a tornado. Impossible? Nope, not at all. When that accident happens, what do we say? __ "Oops, I just hate it when that happens."

We have a choice, either totally clean energy, which is affordabe, feasable, totally clean, no atomic waste to worry about, no major accidents to worry about, and no mineing of uranium to be concerned about.

Or, we can go with atomic power and have all of the above problems to worry about and when the major accident does arrive, then we'll go with the other option. __ Bet on it. So why not just take the better option now and forget about nuclear power?

And Billy, nice a man as you are, your bean counting arguments just don't wash. NO sensible person can honestly deny the possibility of a major nuclear disaster is always present at every single one of the 104 plants now in operation. And the accidents documented with nuclear waste are too numerous to list here, not counting the use of DU for weaponry. ___ Google nuclear accidents.

Finally, we need fast action, we don't just need it we must have it. A massive effort to develop enough clean energy to enable us to shut down every one of the coal fired plants and then start phasing out the nukers. We don't have time to argue and then build more nuclear plants. Put that money into Geo, wave, tidal, wind and solar and do it now.

The article by John LaForge which Rene referenced is simply a compilation of statistical fluctuations. Particularly for rare diseases, sometimes the rates will increase, sometimes decrease, and sometimes "clusters" will appear to be correlated with the locations of power plants, but they could just as well be correlated with Spring flowers. If you select from an unrestricted record of fluctuating statistics, you can "prove" any correlation you want. No competent epidemiologist would do this, but an "activist" like Mr. Laforge is free to do so.

Billy_y4 is right about many things, but wrong to assert that the plutonium in spent light water reactor fuel can't be used to make nuclear weapons. The US would not use it, for the reasons he states, and it would be hard for a proliferating state or terrorist group to make an effective weapon using it, but experts such as nuclear weapons designer Theodore Taylor and others have stated unequivocally that "reactor grade" plutonium can be used to make nuclear weapons and that with modern technology those weapons can be reliable and have high yield.

I don't think this is terribly significant, though. Spent reactor fuel is extremely radioactive and cannot be handled by terrorists, sold on the black market, etc. States today that want nuclear weapons capability can get it, independently of nuclear power programs, as seen by the cases of North Korea, Iran and now Syria. There are many states which have nuclear power plants and could make nuclear weapons but have chosen not to do so. I think the link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons is not really any closer than that between metalworking and cannon forging. Just because a nation has advanced industrial capabilities does not mean it will necessarily build a big army and launch an aggressive war.

Thanks rene for posting the article on the Cancers from 3 mile island that was "safely contained" as Mark assures us.
It amazes me how these government apologists talk like they were a gallon of cooling water...no emotion .. Are they logical? Only if they talk the propaganda and run when the questions come pouring in. Is that why they show no emotion? They never talk about what to do with the waste. What would you say to a store that sells toilets that can't flush? (I know they already do)

What about the waste? Yucca mountain...Yeah, and today there was an earthquake in Nevada...
That excuse that TMI was sabotaged is a beaut. What about sabotage? If 3 mile was sabotaged when times were better in the 70's then Now and the economy is getting worse, what about it? I don't think Cheney cares.

Let China and Iran learn and deal with those problems...we are in Debt like they will never see.

Desalination can be done much safer with wind wave and solar power.

Mark. your the expert...got the solution?
The USA is in a position from economic necessity (certainly not from moral values since the falling dollar rules) to lead the industrial world to a new energy solution. The Politicians are always talking about America leading the world ... now we can.

If they can't answer these questions about cost, sabotage, waste storage and the risk of catastrophic accidents, Cancer and Dirty bomb material in trucking it all over the world maybe it would be a good idea to have Israel bomb the new plants before they are completed.

It is true nuclear war ships have much stronger and safer power plants...thats because they are designed to take most of whatever an enemy can throw at them They are designed to survive intense Warfare!

Oh and those who say Obama supports new nuke plants are making it up.

He said there are many safety concerns to address first... You gotta read his total statement.

When it comes to technology, there's a chance humans will make mistakes with design or operations.
However, I haven't worked in a nuclear facility, so maybe their maturity level is more advanced than less mission critical systems.

Our energy corporations manipulate the government institutions to dominate world energy policies.
Obviously energy is the main reason the U.S. government attacked and occupy Iraq.

I want improvements in cheaper solar energy options for my home, combined with a new conservation movement.
I want new energy options for individuals to leverage, in hopes for a dramatic change, similar to the personal computer revolution that took off in the 80's.

The corporations and government institutions cannot and will not solve this issue in time.
The best thing that could happen is to limit our dependence on them.

It's likely this innovation will occur outside of the U.S. due to issues with corruption, politics, and fear in the American society.
It does not matter where these options comes from, we just need the options available at the individual level.

CBWIM: Interesting posting.

BILLY: I am in no position to argue the chemistry of nuclear power, BUT anything Bush does has to be suspect given the entire legacy of his egregious false presidency. So to your comment, "The Bush administration is considering reprocessing used nuclear fuel." I would fully expect these bastards to send the spent fuel in shipments disguised as something else, leave it on the shores of some 3rd world place like Haiti and let the populace be damned quite literally. How different is this from the judicial outrage the people exposed to Dow Chemical's explosion in Bhopal was? How different from the deplete uranium being designed INTO weapons currently under use? This playing with the fire of the gods on the part of highly wounded and thus dangerous egos has no rationale given all that CAN and often does go wrongly.

Waste is a problem. Primarily waste is a political problem.

The way the nuclear industry is structured in the US is part of the definition of the problem. The nuclear utilities pay a fee ($0.001/kwh) to the federal government for the government to take posession of the used nuclear fuel. The utilities can reprocess the fuel if they wish, however this fee is lower than the cost of reprocessing. The utilities, therefore, do not have a vested interest in the disposal location, method or cost of used fuel (i.e. from a fiscal point of view, they don't own the problem)

At issue then, is what is the government to do with the used fuel.

The current official approach is to bury it in Yucca Mountain. The federal government has executed this approach very badly. It has underfunded the science. It jammed the repository down the throats of the Nevadians and the Indian governments in Nevada. The Nevadians have fought back tooth and nail.

The Bush administration is considering reprocessing used nuclear fuel. This decision is likely to carry over to the next administration, regardless of who wins the election. This would reverse the moritorium on domestic reprocessing which has been in place 30 years. Reprocessing redefines the waste problem because now the government needs to figure out what to do with the individual material streams coming out of the recycle process. Reprocessing does not eliminate the need for a repository of some sort, be it Yucca mountain or another such place.

One of the streams coming out of reprocessing is the fission fragments. This is intensely radioactive material and is the most dangerous of the outflows of reprocessing. It needs to be safely isolated from society for several hundred years. It does not need the 10,000 years of protection currently envisioned for Yucca Mountain.

One of the advantages of recycling is that the plutonium and other transuranic elements which tend to be the very long lived ones, can be repackaged and used as fuel in a fast reactor.

Fast reactors are feasible and practical but more expensive than light water reactors. The utilities have no interest in fast reactors because of their somewhat greater expense to build and operate. We are thus back to depending on the government to construct and operate the necessary fast reactors.

One alternative to the government participation in this essentially industrial activity is to restructure the used fuel fee in some manner that makes reprocessing and fast reactors economically attractive to the utilities.

These problems are primarily political. There are technical challenges but the biggest hurdles are political.

Bill

There is something of a misunderstanding in a couple of the posts:

Weapons grade material is not made in the light water type of reactor we have in the US.

Natural uranium, coming out of the ground has less than 1% of the U-235 isotope in it. To be used in a light water reactor the uranium must be processed to raise this to 3 or 4%. To use the uranium in a weapon the isotope must be raised to over 20% (This is the official point where the government gets worried about it. Actual weapons use about 95% U-235).

The uranium going into a US power reactor has, as stated above, about 3 or 4% U-235 in it. The rest of the uranium is the U-238 isotope. When the fuel is brought back out of the reactor after 2 or 3 years, it is still mostly uranium but most of the U-235 has been "burned" or fissioned. The uranium coming out of the reactor is down to maybe 1% U-235.

The uranium isotope that is desirable for weaponry, U-235 has been reduced in the reactor, not increased.

As mentioned above, most of the uranium going into the reactor is U-238. It does not just sit like a bump on a log in the reactor. For the most part, U-238 will not fission but it will absorb some of the neutrons bouncing around inside the reactor.

When U-238 absorbs neutrons, it usually becomes plutonium-239. This is the isotope of plutonium that is very desireable for making nuclear weapons. If you want to make this isotope in the purity needed for weapons, what you need to do is turn your reactor off after about 2 weeks and take out the fuel for reprocessing.

If you run your reactor for 2 weeks, take it off line and refuel (which normally takes about 4 weeks) and turn it on for another 2 weeks, someone will notice that you are using your reactor in a very peculiar manner and big brother is going to pay you a visit (actually big brother has a resident office at every operating reactor so he is already there).

If you don't take your fuel out after 2 weeks and leave it in for 2 to 4 years, which is normal, the Plutonium-239 will probably either fission or absorb another neutron and become Plutonium-240.

After 2 years about 4% of your uranium -238 will have been converted to plutonium-239. Most of it will fission. About 1% of the fuel that comes out of a US reactor will be plutonium. About 60 to 70% of that plutonium will be Pu-239. Most of the rest will be plutonium-240.

Plutonium-240 will cause a weapons designer to pull his hair out. It gives off a flood of neutrons and will make it impossible to make a predictable weapon. If you try to use plutonium with more than a trace of Pu-240 in a typical weapon design, you can be pretty sure that you will get a premature detonation.

Plutonium for weaponry, essentially pure Pu-239, is made in special reactors designed for the purpose such as the North Korean reactor or that the US used to operate at Hanford, Oak Ridge and Savannah River.

Bill

Mark Abram: but newer generations of reactors will be inherently safer or completely immune to any possibility of a meltdown or other catastrophic operating accident.

The capitalists said the same kind of thing at the start of the nuke age. They say the same kind of thing when they push all their opiates. We've been burned, burned again and again. It's insanity to expect a different result each time we hear the same tired old capitalist sales pitch - and listen - we all want to give the capitalists a chance - and we gave the capitalists chance after chance, you know? It's only gotten worst. Sure, we've made regulatory progress in the 1970s, even the 1980s, even the 1990s. But now it's regression time with the White House criminals declaring an eight year free for all, collapse of political opposition, all reason down the drain in Washington, ehh? And you want to give the capitalists yet another chance? You know why they like nuke power? Because it is a fantastic lever of economic/political control, oppression over the people. Screw that! We're going solar, wind, biofuels - things that your local small farmer and craftsman can produce without "capital finance", without "intellectual property". Splendid future to look forward to - a capital-less future - wow! Problem solved - now we have something REAL to celebrate - heh heh - what a novelty.

Just as an interesting aside concerning nuclear insurance:

Wasserman mentions the incident at Davis-Besse. He is correct that this was a near miss. It was due to sloppy maintenance and the corporate bean counters getting the upper hand over the techies.

The reactor was offline for about 2 years for repairs but also for the utility to do "retraining", a form of penance. As part of that "retraining", the utility wrote an extensive explanation of their judgement errors to the NRC.

Having the reactor offline for 2 years was, of course, enormously expensive because, in addition to the actual cost of the repairs, the utility had to buy replacement power for its customers. The utility filed an insurance claim for their costs. They described the damage to the reactor as a suprise and unforseen. The NRC got a copy of the insurance claim and told the utility that, if they did not withdraw the claim, the utility vice president who signed the claim would be charged with fraud. The utility withdrew the claim and had to eat the costs (justice!).

Bill

No doubt engineering can make Nukes safe, or safe enough for the sheeple who aren't paying attention or who have been bought, such as Stewart Brand. The Nuclear Power Scientists just can't do anything to shorten the half lives of the resulting radionucleides produced. And there is not the political willingness nor the engineering ability to safely exclude these poisons from our environment for the time required, irregardless of how long several administrations have promised a solution is around the corner. This sounds just like the promises we are being told of Victory in Iraq, just around the corner.

For instance, the half life of Technicium is equivalent to the span of time between Peking Man and the present day. 40,000 years ago we were living in caves and were perhaps just beginning to understand the concept of clothing. 10,000 years ago Seattle was covered by two miles of glacier. The time spans required to isolate Plutonium from the environment are much longer than this.

We were promised energy too cheap to meter and instead we have Hanford where the compositions in several waste tanks built in the 40s and 50s and meant to last only 20 years and are now leaking are unknown. One waste plume underneath has required the drilling and emplacement of large refrigeration coils several hundred feet into the ground to turn this inverted cone of crust into permafrost. One tank developed a large hydrogen bubble and they were worried it could blow up chemically, releasing a toxic mess. Another leaking tank and its plume had to be excavated and contained - all by remote control. Look at Hanford with Google Maps and one might begin to understand the geographic scope of the problem. Sure these were for nuclear weapons production but the half-lives remain the same. And many of the people responsible are the same.

We had the nuclear power industry try to locate a reactor on Bodega Head north of San Francisco despite the fact that the San Andreas ran right through the site, which they failed to note until Dr. Hedgpeth pointed it out to them and then they tried to minimize its significance. We had the Trojan Nuclear Plant in Oregon along a possible fault that pushes the Columbia northward for 60 miles and later analysis revealed it was built on a thrust fault slice. The Sumatran Sized earthquakes we figured out that we could get here finally shut it down but the spent fuel remains, like at every other commercial reactor on the planet. The utilities tried to downplay the risks. Fortunately the Cascade Subduction Zone will keep any nukes from being built near here - we hope.

There is then the issue of where the fuel is coming from. Most of what is being used now is not being mined out of the ground. Instead it is coming from decommissioned Nuclear Weapons. Like oil, gas and most other minerals Uranium has peaked. All the large deposits were mined in the Cold War. We have passed Peak Uranium. Eventually they will run out of this nuclear stockpile. Many of the miners died from cancer, after breathing in tailings.

The State of Oregon voted several times to shut down the Trojan Plant yet they were always able to fight it in the courts using loopholes the Feds provided. PGE, the former owner was bought out by Enron. In Washington State we had WPPSS - well known as "Whoops!" and the largest municipal bond default in history. The plumbing in one of their reactors which never got finished was installed backwards. Do we really want these geniuses of finance and engineering playing with our future and radionucleides? They are more interested in making stockholders wealthy as soon as possible, which is their only mandate - at minimal cost. They are not interested in saving the planet. They are just trying to greenwash their way to riches. They could care less about global warming - but are just using this as a marketing tactic.

Mr. Wasserman is certainly passionate. It is a shame that his accuracy does not match his passion.

All of the 104 operating reactors in the US have insurance. The owners would not be able to maintain their operating licenses without it. The insurance they have is capped. No insurance company writes a liabilty policy without a cap. (My state, Virginia, requires that my automobile have at least $50,000 liability insurance. I pay an additional premium to raise that to $500,000. My insurance is capped at $500,000 to protect the insurance company.)

In the event of an accident that exceeds the insurance cap, their is a common pool of all the nuclear utilities to provide additional funds. In the event that the common pool is exceeded, only then would the federal government step in accordance with Price-Anderson.

In the funding for the cleanup of the Three Mile Island accident, the utility insurance was exhausted and the common pool provided the balance of the necessary funds. No federal money was used.

Price-Anderson has never paid a claim. Price-Anderson has never cost the taxpayers a dime.

Bill

No doubt engineering can make Nukes safe, or safe enough for the sheeple who aren't paying attention or who have been bought, such as Stewart Brand. The Nuclear Power Scientists just can't do anything to shorten the half lives of the resulting radionucleides produced. And there is not the political willingness nor the engineering ability to safely exclude these poisons from our environment for the time required, irregardless of how long several administrations have promised a solution is around the corner - sounding just like the promises of Victory in Iraq.

For instance, the half life of Technicium is equivalent to the span of time between Peking Man and the present day. 40,000 years ago we were living in caves and were just beginning to understand the concept of clothing. 10,000 years ago Seattle was covered by two miles of glacier. The time spans required to isolate Plutonium from the environment are much longer than this.

We were promised energy too cheap to meter and instead we have Hanford where the compositions in several waste tanks built un the 40s and 50s and meant to last only 20 years and are now leaking are unknown. One waste plume underneath has required the drilling and emplacement of large refrigeration coils several hundred feet into the ground to turn this inverted cone of crust into permafrost. One tank developed a large hydrogen bubble and they were worried it could blow up chemically, releasing a toxic mess. Another leaking tank and its plume had to be excavated and contained - all by remote control. Look at Hanford with Google Maps and one might understand the geographic scope of the problem.

We had the nuclear power industry try to locate a reactor on Bodega Head north of San Francisco despite the fact that the San Andreas ran right through the site, which they failed to note until Joel Hedgpeth pointed it out to them and then they tried to minimize its significance. We had the Trojan Nuclear Plant in Oregon along a possible fault that pushes the Columbia northward for 60 miles and later analysis revealed it was built on a thrust fault slice. The Sumatran Sized earthquakes we could get here finally shut it down but the spent fuel remains, like at every other commercial reactor on the planet. The utilities tried to downplay the risks.

There is then the issue of where the fuel is coming from. Most of what is being used now is not being mined out of the ground. Instead it is coming from decommissioned Nuclear Weapons. Like oil, gas and most other minerals Uranium has peaked. All the large deposits were mined in the Cold War. We have passed Peak Uranium. Many of the miners died from cancer, after breathing in tailings.

The State of Oregon voted several times to shut down the Trojan Plant yet they were always able to fight it in the courts using loopholes the Feds provided. PGE, the former owner was bought out by Enron. In Washington State we had WPPSS - well known as "Whoops!" and the largest municipal bond default in history. The plumbing in one of their reactors which never got finished was installed backwards. Do we really want these geniuses of finance playing with our future and radionucleides? They are more interested in making stockholders wealthy as soon as possible, which is their mandate - at minimal cost. They are not interested in saving the planet. They are just trying to greenwash their way to riches.

Mark A; has the answer on what to do with the waste come tell us MA what do you do with stuff that will be unsafe for longer than man has been on the planet so far?

Mr. Wasserman,

Have you taken a single course in nuclear physics or nuclear engineering?

I am getting very tired of your shrill, emotional arguments on nuclear power based on zero expertise. The Chernobyl graphite moderated reactor is about a different from a light water reactor as a oak-log fire is to a keg of gunpowder.

Shouldn't you be worrying more about the micro-black holes the CERN large hadron collier might produce when it starts up next month? These black holes have the potential to end the world - literally collapse the entire earth to a black hole with an event horizon 0.9 mm in diameter. The foremost physicists - Higgs, Hawking and others assure us that such a scenario is science fiction. But do you trust them?

Now that we control over 80% of the uranium supplies, we will be bringing nuclear power back online since we can control who gets it. We will in effect be the OPEC of Uranium, and by keeping the price high, we will limit who gets it to those who keep their markets open for us to plunder.

Nuclear power is the solution to water shortages (nobody talks about how 50% of the water we get for consumption is from the ground and is being depleted and not being replensihed by rainfall). Nuclear desalination plants is the solution.

A 4th generation pebble reactor is a solution to farming woes, as it can help provide water in drier lands not readily able to be irrigated.

Chernobyl was either bad accident due to faulty Soviet technolgy, or it was sabotage, as was TMI, to discredit nuclear power and keep nations dependent on oil. The fact that it happened in the Ukraine, an area Stalin intentionally starved, killing 7-12 million people in his war on Christians, makes me wonder. Gorbachev had been in power for 1 year and he was our man, whose mission was to break up the Soviet Union. Chernobyl helped to this end.

Nuclear power could lead us to the promised land, if the elite monsters who prefer genocide could be eliminated. Technology and innovation could allow this planet to easily feed 2-3 times the current population. Thats why it is being suppressed, in order to justify population reduction, and those who are going to be reduced, seem to be the most gullible in accepting this myth.

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2007/3405_nuclear_myths.html