jstevens

Nuclear energy is not clean, it emits radiation which kills kids close to power stations, and no long term solution to storing nuclear waste has yet been found, in addition "Renewables Becoming Cost-Competitive With Fossil Fuels in the U.S-

From: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4526

Yes Billy, the MIT report said 15 years with one billion, but they were not thinking (war time efforts,) or having 50 billion to work with.

It could be done in five years if we had a massive effort and a well financed program.

I was involved in a grassroots attempt to stop construction of a new coal fired power plant in the area I live. I became somewhat acquainted with the executives of the utility in the process. I wondered why they were so dense. The new wind farms going up around the country were completed ahead of schedule and on budget. A new coal plant seemed to be not only environmentally disastrous but financially disastrous. Looking ahead, one has to imagine that there will be more penalties and difficulties for huge carbon producers. Yet, they said things like, "wind is okay, but the wind isn't always blowing. This is true, but is only relevant when the maximum amount of energy needs are being met by wind, which is far from the case.

Of course, I think the answer is that they have their corrupt networks and arrangements in place so that a few executives make money all along the way with coal. It is much harder with free, abundant energy sources to skim money and keep the public from energy independence.

Forget politicians, corporations really control the country, and individuals are somewhat powerless against them.

We are decades away from loosening this grip that corporations have on us. There isn't much time for reform. I would prefer for a corp. to get filthy rich providing us with a cleaner energy source (this includes nuclear) than to keep letting them get filthy rich giving us the absolute worst product (energy from coal)

Kem,

I am not sure whether $1 Billion or $50 Billion is the appropriate level of investment but MIT says we need 15 years of R&D in geo-thermal. Don't forget that no matter how much money you give them, 9 women cannot make a baby in a month.

I would very much suport geo-thermal R&D but, in the meantime, keep all the alternatives to fossil fuel progressing (including nuclear).

Bill

Hi ~SOLARTOPIA~ I just googled geothermal energy and opened the first link. Here is the link address. It also stated geothermal was from stored heat from our oceans and atmosphere and deep within the Earth's core it is "believed" geothermal heat is caused from decaying minerals. Billy cleared that up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/geothermal_energy

A 2006 MIT report stated one billion US dollars, would be suffecient for the research and development to provide 100 gigawatts of electrical energy (GWe).

Let's put fifty billion into it and have all we'll ever need within five to ten years and shut down the damn coal plants and phase out the nukers. There is talk of putting "half a trillion" into nuclear energy. ___ That's stupid neo-con crap.

I'm very certain we can find enough construction workers and engineers to do anything we need to do. We have thousands out of work now from closed auto plants, auto parts machine shops, factories to China and steel mills, etc. Hell, we have street walkers out of work applying for jobs at Wal-Mart and running for public office.

hey KEM---can you send me the cite on this:

A recent MIT report states there is enough geothermal energy beneath the United States alone which could supply ALL of the world's energy needs for the next 30,000 years.

of course, there is also the geothermal energy that comes from the constant 55 degrees a few feet down in the earth's crust. but that's too cheap for King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes & Gas).

keep up!!! no nukes...harveyw

Some geothermal is the result of diastrophism -- tectonic plates rubbing against other, for instance.

Harvey,

The geothermal 'a few feet down' is the same that I was referring to when I mentioned the ground coupled heat pumps. You are correct that it would not particularly interest electrical generators.

It should be of major interest to anyone installing a heat or cooling system. The upfront cost of a ground coupled heat pump is pretty high but, in the long run, it will save a good amount of energy.

From the standpoint of a utility, it is a conservation activity, like installing CFL lights or turning down the thermostat.

Bill

KEM,

I think I know why the heat source confusion:

Geothermal energy as a source of electricity is based on radioactive decay or proximity to a thermal hot spot of magma.

Geothermal heatpumps are used for domestic or commercial heating and cooling and indeed are related to the air temperature. These units operate on the same principle as a window airconditioner but are more efficient.

The confusion comes from the unfortunate use of "geothermal" by both technologies. It would be far better if the heatpumps were referred to as "groundloop" or "earthcoupled" rather than geothermal.

Bill

KEM,

Ther is a heck of a lot of misinformation on the internet. So just think about - use common sense - how is the heat from the atmosphere or oceans wahtever going to produce enough heat to melt rock? A thing cannot heat another thing hotter than the thing itself.

And I wasn't trying to throw pro-industry red harrings out there or say there is some equivalence to a granite with some U and Th in it and a nuclear reactor full of enriched uranium going critical. Of course not. I was just throwing out some science that back in the Camelot days every kid knew, from their teachers and science shows on TV.

But amazingly enough, there is an ancient 2 BY old uranium bearing granite in Oklo, Gabon, which (with water in fractures acting as the moderator), actually did go critical - a natural ocurring nuclear reactor! this was possible because 2 billion years ago, there was still enough of the faster-decaying U235 in natural-ocurring Uranium (3%) to allow natural ocurring reactors to exist. Such natural reactors are no longer possible nowadays.

Neat.

Well ~Bill~, the articles on Geothermal available on the internet, say the heat is not from decay of mineral elements but is 'primarily' caused by obsorbed heat from the atmosphere and oceans.

It also in no way poses danger like the atomic energy we use.

KEM,

So you are saying that a volcano or geyser is getting it's heat from the atmosphere or oceans???

While there is ongoing debate, the most common concesus is that heat in the earth's mantle - which is the energy that drives plate tectonics, ergo volcanism - ergo the heat sources for high temperature steam, is radioactive decay of elements in the mantle. The certainly the heat source in the hot granite bodies taht could be lower temperature sources in non-geologically active, non-volcanic areas.

Kem,

USAn is technically correct. Geothermal energy is tapping into the heat generated by the radioactive decay of subterranian uranium, thorium, their daughter products and other radioactive elements.

That is the source of the heat but it in no way detracts from it as a renewable energy source.

Bill

Geo-thermal are base load power plants and non polluting. It is true that it costs millions to bore deep holes, but Exxon has bored deep holes for OIL, some over eleven KM deep. The cost factor depends upon who's ox is being gored or "Bored".

A recent MIT report states there is enough geothermal energy beneath the United States alone which could supply ALL of the world's energy needs for the next 30,000 years.

So I'm satisfied we could supply the United states, Canada and Mexico's needs for the next 100 years with geothermal, or far long enough to have advances in technology where our future generations could rely entirely upon solar and wind perhaps and shut down ALL coal fired plants and the damn nukers.

And ~USAn~, I'm a bit amused that you criticize bloggers here for their lack of "scientific" knowledge and then explain how geothermal heat is developed. Actually it is primarily a collection of absorbed heat from the atmosphere and oceans.

And why attempt to toss a Red Herring, by saying Geo is like nuclear energy? There is no true comparrison. Geothermal energy will NOT pollute the air or waters with deadly radioactivity. What you implied, intentional or not was, if you don't like nuclear, you also won't like geothermal.

Finally, geothermal is not our only clean energy alternative and as said before, if we funded clean energy, we'd have it. If we don't, we are gonna get it when the atmosphere is so totally fouled up we are all gone.

I do bellieve some of you have children.

Connecticut
what on earth is wrong with those people? They keep voting in that little shit lieberman. This is the first step in VOTE PRO AMERICAN. His pro (JUST ANOTHER PUPPET) MCCain program is not in the best interest for the rest of America.

Nuclear Reactors and Free Market stupidity will only increase our National Security risks.

WHO is going to own these newly constructed nuclear power plants? China, India, United Arab Emirates? As we speak, our Secretary of Treasury, Henry Paulson, is out there begging for Sovereign Funds to invest in America.

Does it make any sense to place our nuclear power plants in the hands of foreigners while we spend billions of dollars every year on National Security? It sounds like more of the same twisted logic we see every day coming out of Capitol Hill.

For every ten BTUs consumed by US power plants seven BTUs are completely wasted, dissipated into the environment unutilized. Of the remaining three BTUs two are either wasted in high voltage power lines, wasted in incandescent light bulbs, wasted in street, office, and commercial lights burning all hours of the night, wasted in electric water heaters when gas is four times more economical, etc, etc. Only one of the ten original BTUs are put to functional use, and Lieberman wants to expand capacity. God Bless the United States of America!

KEM PATRICK

loved the link you provided about 'cherry noble'. see what can happen due to human error/faulty technical designs???????????? yeah, let's build more nuclear plants.....................

Promoting nukes kills kids:

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

There is another option: A Nuclear Free World
http://ncrcafe.org/node/854

The crazier it is, the more likey we will see it. Nuclear energy is crazy by itself.

I was happily reading an article on electricity production using hot rocks

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/renewable-energy-just-got-hotter/2008/05/29/1211654221566.html

when I got to this paragraph and had to shake my head to make sense of it.

"Petratherm plans a 7.5 megawatt power plant by 2010, supplying electricity to the nearby Beverley uranium mine".

Make clean electricity so that we can mine a fuel to make electricity that leaves waste for thousands of years. Crazy.

~JSTEVENS ~ is absolutely correct about burning coal, which is far, far worse than nuclear for atmospheric pollution and we must stop using it and do so soon and nucler could replace a great number of coal fired plants.

However, nuclear is limited by uranium supplies, which may have less than a fifty year max supply, it most certainly is finite and sun, wind, geo-thrermal, wave and tidal power are not.

Why go the potentially deadly dangerous nuclear route in the first place, when clean re-nuable energy is viable, affordable and the technology to develop it on a massive scale is already well proven and will only get better over time.

~Billy~, thank you for the reply to my questions concerning insurance. I do believe a massive nuclear accident would easily clean out their insurance pool and we'd be stuck with increased taxes for the rest of the damage amounts, if the government ever did pay up. Which they would not and we'd still be stuck with the increased taxes. Anyone here ever attempt to get a fair settlement with Fema?

Another thing is, if we ever do have a serious nuclear accident, you can bet your kid's left eye that clean energy would be developed and the nukers phased out ASAP. So why wait for the inevitable, it will happen someday, it is only a matter of time. You could of course bet your own left eye and not fear losing it.

As far back as 1973 major oil companies were buying up solar companies, and as Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota said, " The oil companies will thwart solar energy development and eleminate interfuel competition." He sure hit some nails on the head there.

"If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago."

~Sir George Porter~___ Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.

jstevens June 2nd, 2008 5:48 pm
Nuclear energy is a critical part of reducing dependence on fossil fuels. If we didn't feel like we needed/deserved/owned Middle East oil, we would not pursue the disastrous foreign policies that invoke the hatred of terrorists. Currently we send our oil money to countries which in turn use some of that money to fund terrorist camps.

Yeah, but oil doesn't cause nuclear winter which dooms the entire planet. Neither does wind, solar, used grease, corn, electricity and all other CLEAN energy sources. There is a movie documentary called "Who killed the electric car". It's from the 70's-80's whatever. It's old. SO
We already have the answer but big oil or auto mfgs buy up the patents and bury the science. Greed and power know no bounds.
Everyone concerned with this subject should read the books & teachings of Dr. Helen Caldecott.
She is an expert on the subject of the dangers of nuclear use and DU contamination. She has truthiness and scientific knowledge and she's a woman. She's BAD!

culicomorpha, regarding: " Nuclear power is not even relevant for reducing fossil fuel usage, because the vast majority of our electrical power generation - the only thing nuclear is good for - comes primarily from coal."

You lost me here. Coal is a fossil fuel of the worst variety. Nuclear energy could indeed reduce reliance on coal.

Of the 20 million barrels of oil consumed each day, 40 percent is used by passenger vehicles, 12 percent by commercial and freight trucks. The U.S. passenger vehicle fleet alone accounts for one-tenth of world petroleum consumption.

Here again, these needs could be met by electricity, and that electricity doesn't have to come from our filthiest sources--coal and oil.

I agree with you about the central problem, but that has proven quite resistant to change, even now, as the consequences of our folly are staring us right in the face.

curmudgeon99 June 2nd, 2008 10:44 pm
Watch Pelosi become a co-sponsor - right up her alley.

Right! Fearless leader fighting the good fight for Corporate owne.....oops, citizens!!

Watch Pelosi become a co-sponsor - right up her alley.

Did you know this about Richardson, Obama's likely running mate? (From Wikipedia):

"Richardson also joined Kissinger McLarty Associates, a "strategic advisory firm" headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty, as Senior Managing Director.[11] He also served on the corporate boards of several energy companies, including Valero Energy Corporation and Diamond Offshore Drilling."

On the other hand, he legalized medical marijuana in NM.

Culico,

If Joe 6 pack worries you working next to Homer Simpson, how about the teenagers that are running the reactors for the navy?

Bill

Kem,

Good question. I had to go look it up on the NRC web site.

Each nuclear reactor is required to carry a minimum of $300 Million in offsite liability insurance. (If a utility has more than one reactor on a site, it has that coverage for each reactor.)

After that money is exhausted, the industry pool kicks in. The size of the pool depends on the number of nuclear reactors in service. With 104 reactors in operation, the pool is $8.6 Billion.

The industry pool has never been exceeded. Three Mile Island did exceed the individual utility insurance and tap into the industry pool. If the pool is exceeded, the government is on the hook.

The typical insurance premium is $400,000 per year for a reactor. You, the rate payer, are paying that premium in your electric bill. Since a 1Gigawatt reactor provides the power for about 300,000 homes, about $1.35 of the consumer's annual electric bill goes to cover the insurance. If your utility has a smaller reactor, it would be a little higher.

Bill

How about a quick back of the envelope calculation:
How many $50.000 residential solar installations would half a trillion dollars buy? 10000000?

I think a lot of folks here have taken the blue pill. The reason the insurance industry will not underwrite insurance for the nuclear industry is because the costs of a major accident, however remote, are so high that it exposes the insurance company to effectively unlimited liability. I would suggest that people read up on the Price-Anderson Act before they profess to be experts on things they know nothing about. See, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price-Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

Briefly, in 1957 Congress had to step in to provide cover for the liability to the investors, not to allay the perception of the public, as jstevens has claimed. Instead, Congress claimed that they would "take whatever action is deemed necessary and appropriate to protect the public from the consequences of such a disaster." Does anybody remember Katrina? Right.

The central problem here is that many people are unwilling to reduce energy consumption. Just like a garden-variety junkie, we are addicted to abundant energy and the power it provides. Instead of looking for ways to reduce consumption - despite enormous waste - we instead look for ways to increase supply. Nuclear power is not even relevant for reducing fossil fuel usage, because the vast majority of our electrical power generation - the only thing nuclear is good for - comes primarily from coal. According to the Energy Information Administration, only 1.6 percent of electricity production comes from petroleum. See: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html. So any arguments that nuclear will reduce dependence on foreign oil are just plain false.

Nuclear energy cannot be managed by the government, and it cannot be left to the market, with most known market failure mechanisms at work: privatizing of profits while externalizing costs, intertemporal failures (shifting the costs to future generations while benefiting current generations), the anticompetitive (monopoly) nature of nuclear reactors, and unlimited liability that nobody will privately insure.

The whole censorship business with Lieberman just shows how stupid he is, or rather how stupid he thinks the American public is. The most effective method to incite terrorism is to use a military with overwhelming force to decimate a country that has never harmed us. The videos he banned would have only had the effect of demonstrating Lieberman's guilt in placing all the American people at risk by his warmongering, and if anything should happen, the pre-emptive war neocons should be the first to be blamed.

Lastly, the supposed engineering capabilities of humans are so limited that an accident is all but assured. The formal name for this outcome is "normal accidents." See, for example: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codeq/accident/accident.pdf. Whether it is a Chernobyl type meltdown, or decades of leaking tanks (Hanford), I am very unimpressed with the arguments here that profess long-term safety. There is a word for this, and it is called Hubris. And the remedy (or natural consequence) is Nemesis. I'm not worried about terrorists smashing a plane into any building. I'm worried about Joe six-pack with his finger on the control rods of a nuclear reactor. I don't consent to any of this... just want to make that abundantly clear.

A terrorist attack or a aircraft strike is the least of my worries ~MiMiCcS~. There have already been numerous nuclear power plant accidents and none were caused by terrorists that I know of. Some were very close to being major disasters. I would tend to believe, IF a terrorist attck were ever conducted at a nulcear site, it would come from within.

Is a nuclear plant disaster likely? ___No. ___ Is it possible? ____ Indeed it is, "Cherry Noble" is a prime example and the Three Mile Island accident was too close for comfort. We don't have any Chernobyl type sites here, but any nuclear power plant is always prone for a major accident.

And as for tornadoes, we have had 800 already this year. Earthquakes are another serious issue. There are several nuclear plants located near major fault lines. Those are almost always unexpected. The biggest concerns should be human error and equipment failure.

We could someday have a massive area of land steralized, a DEAD ZONE, for 600 or more years and kill millions of people. Why even take the gamble? There are far better alternatives, clean, safe and less expensive to construct and no cost for fuel, that if funded as we have funded nuclear energy, could be online in less than five years.

How much insurance do they carry ~Billy~, enough to cover wiping out an area of land the size of Pennsylvania or New York, or larger and the possible deaths of several million people? And who is paying for the insurance they do carry?

And as for the comment that insurance companies do not insure many things. That's because they don't buck the odds ~USAn~. Even Lloyds of London won't insure everything, they don't insure against a nuclear war for instance, but they did insure Betty Grable's legs and Elvis's prize guitar collection. They made a profit, ___ that's the bottom line.

This link is awsome BTW.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

Again, all we are trying to do here is boil water, turn it into steam, run a turbine, generate electricity. Why do we need to do it in such a way with inherent environmental risks, NIMBY zoning difficulties, waste that has to be isolated for longer than the timespan of the human species, etc.? The old saying of cutting butter with a chainsaw is still an apt description.

Wouldn't it be better to set up solar somewhere in the desert or on the millions of acres of rooftops?

The WPPSS fiasco in Washington State pointed out that investors aren't too thrilled with the nuclear option as something profitable when they all backed out and my guess is that they are just as or more conservative now, despite the efforts of mental dinosaurs such as Dick and Joe to give this dinosaur of an industry a huge subsidy. Per KW solar and wind are now on par or cheaper than nukes and have fewer risks and are much more marketable as Green. That they are backing these nukes means that there is something else going on. Or somebody in high places is getting a personal subsidy from someone in Big Energy. Hopefully the so called Free Market will provide more of a cautionary check and balance than our spineless congress.

Only 6 months left of this term and its looking lousy for McCain, especially after Scott's New Book. Thus the Oilyglopoly needs to get all they can get before Obama ends the Big Party for them, unless they pull off their planned 11th hour Coup de etat - probably some horror involving War with Iran. Thus the record gas prices are used as a tool to convince us politically to open up ANWR and our coastlines. Why stop there? Big subsidies for Nukes! Who knows what else we can do? Lets build more Cold War Era Submarines in New Haven! These work really well against boxcutter wielding terrorists! And don't forget the $500 titanium toilet seat bolts, Joe! (By the way Joe, you know where you can stick one of these.) In the unlikely event that Bush's Supremes rule in favor of the Exxon Valdez victims later this month, I suspect Bush will give Exxon a Presidential Pardon before he leaves office.

Remember, they worked this all out in that secret meeting between Cheney and the big energy companies years ago.

Harvey,

You are correct that electrical generation does not directly reduce our dependence on imported oil. Very little oil is used for power generation in this country and when it is, it generally is of a much smaller scale than the typical nuclear plant.

Electrical generation (nuclear or otherwise) will become important for reducing oil consumption in the future as the country adopts grid connected automobiles. This is not, however, a short term issue.

I sincerely hope your cost projections for renewables are correct but I am highly doubtful. It would be nice to see renewables stand on their own without state mandates or federal production credits but I don't expect it. When congress has failed to extend the PTC in the past, wind generator sales have fallen on their face.

So far, the companies that have announced new nuclear projects have not been punished by Wall Street. They have generally outperformed non-nuclear utilitiies.

OBTW the first 'new' nuclear plant projected to come on line is in 2013, five years thence. It is not, however, one of the gen III units. It is a unit that was halted back in the 1980's.

Bill

Why is Mr. Wasserman so lacking in objectivity?
Surely he knows that nuclear power could be used to power electric vehicles, and that would drastically reduce our consumption of oil, imported or otherwise.

Simpling amazing. The big objection to nuclear being it might be subject to a terrorist attack. Of course, I agree with the objection of using public money to build nuclear power plants. Our government should create the money for this out of thin air, and loan it at low interest rates to those who want to build nuclear power plants, and actually make money.

The censorship issue didnt really touch many nerves, except among a few.
Truth terrorizes the real terrorists in Washington. Unfortunately, they do not have much to worry about. People seem incapable or unwilling to find and accept it. Instead they pick and chose which lie to adopt as their truth. Left or Right, Dem or Republican, etc.

Many on this site, not all, embrace the self-loathing of the human race, that there are too many people, that we are running out of oil, food and water, that the carbon footprint of man is causing global warming, and ignore the fact that these ideas were adopted as strategies for controlling the global population thirty years ago for the purpose of political control leading to One World Government.

They don't question these issues, perhaps because they are too lazy, too busy, or simply intellectually incapable of research due to a lack knowledge in science, physics and engineering, or perhaps lacking in brain cells, to be able to do anything but adopt whatever idea that floats out there that fits their ideology.

It seems something like having faith in the Global Bunny God, or Mother Earth Goddess, where man is an evil sinner on the planet who must be punished for his consumption and do penance for their sins against Mother Earth and her creatures. Kind of like a cult religion, but without the church. Some congregate on sites like CD who feed them the gospel of world shortages and mans overpopulation and over consumption, and chant as if in prayer "No Nukes", "Reduce Population", "Reduce Consumption" "Go Solar" "Peak Oil", "Save our Planet".

I bought into a lot of this stuff myself pre-2001, but that event woke me up. Seems it was not enough to wake many people up. I hate to imagine what that will take.

bill---that's exactly what much of the environmental community will do. poison pill is a perfect term to describe nuclear power.

nuclear power can do nothing to lower our dependence on imported oil. only a small quantity of the oil we consume is used to generate electricity, and that's all nukes generate.

among the myriad problems with nukes is their long lead time. even with no public opposition, no new reactor could come on line for a decade. by then renewables & efficiency will be so far beyond the nuke cost curve as to be ludicrous.

in the interim, tbe money committed to these absurd reactor projects will be withdrawn from the pool needed to get us converted to renewables and efficiency.

no wonder wall street wants no part of this failed technology....for solartopia...harveyw

glenn,

The used fuel pools do not need containment. The fuel is covered by at least 30 feet of water. That provides protection from aircraft or other projectile attack.

Bill

funky,

All of the nuclear operators have insurance. They would not be able to maintain their license without it.

Bill

As usual, Wasserman is accuracy challenged:

A quote from the Washington Post last week: "In a press conference late Wednesday afternoon, McCain said he did not support the bill sponsored by two of his closest allies, Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) because it doesn't offer enough aid to the nuclear industry, and he would not come to the floor to vote on it."

The most important provision of the Lieberman-Warner bill is the establishment of a cap and trade system for CO2. It is odd that a self described environmentalist like Wasserman would not even mention this.

Lieberman-Warner, Senate bill 2191, does have a provision of production tax credits which can be bid upon by newly built low CO2 emitting generating facilities. As written, both nuclear and true renewable generators would be eligible to bid. I guess the fear is that nuclear would be more efficient and thus able to outbid true renewables.

I believe that this legislation is incredibly important for the planet because of the cap and trade aspect.

I personally have no problem with nuclear power but if you believe that nuclear power is a poison pill for this legislation, you could ask your senator to support the bill but change the legislation to inhibit nuclear generators from participating in the section 4402 auctions.

Bill

Blah blah blah. Safe or not safe?

Lets not take the chance when, as others stated, the answers are shining down on us and blowing in the wind.

And if we are to take the chance, let the people who are going to be by this power plant vote to let it in. And do not let it be built with public dollars for private income. I think we all can agree on the last point. I am probably wrong, of course.

The real threat of the Internet is exposing zionist Israel as a terrorist state committing war crimes, and the US as being complicit with that, which is undoubtedly upsetting to Lieberman. The censorship which really matters to this fascist government is political censorship (as has been the case with censorship in all authoritarian powers). Israel is fully active in programs to censor the internet of material critical of it and zionism.

USAn, Your facts about containment structures are pure fiction, and ignore the fact that plenty of spent fuel, which is extremely radioactive, is on site cooling in pools. There is no containment vessel over it.

Now think for a moment. You are reading all this BS propaganda that says all the science we were taught is wrong. Could there be any reason to doubt it?

There are 544 trillion reasons to doubt it. If you stacked that much money in one hundred dollar bills, the stack would be more then 300 miles high. Do you suppose such a fraudulent redistribution of wealth might cause people to lie? YES! But you don't need to believe it.

If we suggested redistributing a fraction of that much money for health care or food for the poor, it would be called socialist welfare. In this case it's called fighting a problem that the lucky recipients normally deny the existence of. Yet they got your mind firmly in tow. Use your capacity to think, and resist this massive corporate welfare scheme.

Must watch McCain/Lieberman video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c

...

"Why is it that insurance companies WILL NOT issue insurance policies for nuclear plants?"

Insurance companies don't issue insurance policies for a lot of things.

Nuclear energy is a critical part of reducing dependence on fossil fuels. If we didn't feel like we needed/deserved/owned Middle East oil, we would not pursue the disastrous foreign policies that invoke the hatred of terrorists. Currently we send our oil money to countries which in turn use some of that money to fund terrorist camps.

On a separate note, the insurance costs are so high mainly because of the perception of the public. It is really easy to scare people about nuclear power because of its complexity. Think if coal plants were ever to be responsible for all of the damage they REALLY do. What is the price tag for global warming? The value of the one inhabitable planet we have access to. Who would want to insure them under those terms?

"The point was, no one knows if a jet aircraft flying at high speed could cause serious damage to any buiilding or a nuclear power plant."

I regret to inform you that PLENTY of poeple who know how to evaluate a building for the event you describe! Just look for "P.E." after their name. The necessary theory dates back to these guys named Newton, plus Boyle, Rankine, and others. Nowadays, with fast computers numerical modeling such an event can be modeled quite precisely.

Buildings usually fail when hit deliberately by large aircraft, or F5 tornados, not because the engineers don't know what they are doing, but because it would be crazy to design a building for such an highly unlikely or speculative event.

Large airliner impact were not specifically analyzed in a reactor building design - but certainly are be now. All reactor buildings include solid, heavily reinforced concrete walls (almost as much #18 rebar as concrete) and are at least 6 feet thick, plus a thick steel pressure lining inside of that. Believe me, I worked at a nuclear plant construction site. A test at Sandia labs in 1988 involved flying an F-4 Phantom at about 490 mph into a concrete block of the containment building wall thickness. The plane left a 2.5 inch include deep gouge in the concrete (from the engine shafts). Other later studies indicate that airliner impact is not a concern.

twin towers
harvey wassermann promulgates the 9/11 COMMISIONS REPORT AS FACTUAL.

and now wants to hijack that TERRIBLE DAY
FOR SOME OTHER STORY

MAN HE IS ONE SAD DUDE.

This reminds me of the one possibly positive outcome of the stolen election of 2000--Joe Lieberman did not become Veep. He's by far the worst of the Democrats.

I just have one question for the pro-nukers: Why is it that insurance companies WILL NOT issue insurance policies for nuclear plants?
The government has to take on the liability in order for these plants to get approval. They, meaning us, are the ones who will pay, in taxpayer dollars and lives, when something goes wrong.
When insurance companies agree to insure nuclear plants, I will consider supporting their existence.

What will they do with the nuclear waste? Besides make mutant children with D.U.

After Lieberman and McCain I can understand why Chertoff isn't worried about nuclear terrorist attacks - it would be chump change.

Hi~USAn~. All commercial steel beams, concrete, metals, etc, are tested for total full scale destruction by independent labs. The point was, no one knows if a jet aircraft flying at high speed could cause serious damage to any buiilding or a nuclear power plant.

On another note, in the early 50s, a tornado struck Flint Michigan and totally destroyed steel reinforced concrete buildings and tossed huge railroad locomotives for half a mile. Nuclear power is just unsafe for many reasons.

In addition, the steel we now purchase for construction is made in China and fifty new high school buildings now have to be torn down or reinforced, because that Chinese steel is no damn good. The same type steel beams from China have also been used in several new bridges here. ___ "Fasten your seat belts, it's the law".

I do believe that Osama bin Laden flew out of his "bat cave" on 9-11 ~USAn~. He is still hanging out someplace and unlike Saddam.

Harvey,

When is ANY kind of building or bridge subjected to full-scale destructive testing? That is what the science of engineering is for.

Since this is an engineering issue, unless you can show me the necessary analyses and calculations to prove you points, your are engaging in wild fantasy.

And, spare me the James Bondesque, Bin Laden in his bat-cave nonsense.

There are ample reasons for a major nuclear power plant disaster other than a potential terrorist attack. A serious accicent at a nuck plant can be caused by human error, equipment failure, a class five tornado, an earthquake, there are many issues.

In addition, during the past 60 years, humanity has well proven we cannot safely store deadly, man made nuclear by-products. How does any sensible person believe for a second that we can safely store it for thousands of years?

And finally, all aircraft are not commercial jet liners, there are several ways terrorists could manage to attack a nuclear power plant or a nuclear waste storage facility with an aircraft, or aircrafts, loaded with high explosives. With the many thousands of illegals who now live in the United States, It would not surprise me at all if some have jobs at nuclear power plants, or at commercial or private flight facilities.

The Lieberman-Warner Bill nuke industry welfare is just one more step in fullfilling the mission of Dick Cheney's 2001 clandestined energy policy for the 21st century.

as usual, the pro-nukers are totally misinformed---apparently deliberately so. there has NEVER been a test crash of a jetliner into a containment dome. if that sounds absurd, it's because the idea of building them in the first place is so ridiculous.

but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does NOT require testing of containment domes under these circumstances. so the contention that one could withstand a jet crash is totally untested and theoretical.

as for safeguards on jetliners, are you telling us that no terrorist organization has enough money to buy an aircraft of their own? have you checked bin laden's bank account lately?

any reassurance that "robust" safeguards can protect a reactor from a hundred different attack routes is absurd. ask your local insurance agent. and check your home-owners' policy.

no nukes! harveyw

As usual, Wasserman, makes greatly exxagerated, unsourced claims regarding commercial nuclear. His work is so bad that I am having to reconsider his earlier work on electoral fraud in Ohio.

In this article and his earlier articles (most disturbingly in FAIR's monthly media criticism magazine a few months back), Wasserman continues to show that he knows nothing about nuclear power.

A reactor containment building is made of a heavily reinforced concrete outer structure, with an inner steel vessel capable of resisting pressures of at least 60 psi. It is specifically designed, by law, to withstanding the impact of an airliner or even short-range missile warheads.

The operating power and controls are redundant, and physically separated, so it would take simultaneous airliners coming from different directions to create even a chance of significant release of radioactive materials.

And, at any rate, airliners now have physical and procedural measures in place to make hostile entry into the cockpit very unlikely. And, surely Wasserman knows that the risk of such hijackings could be reduced to near zero if the US would just start minding it's own business and stop meddling in other peoples affairs. To see someone on the left to engaging in terrorism-scaremongering, leaves me groaning out loud.

Lieberman is a piece of work eh? A total opportunist, greedy and racist. How pathetic, and dangerous.

And for you other ditto-heads who are about to chime in that well maybe Harvey Wasserman knows what he's talkin about regarding nuclear terrorism but he's way out of line and showing his anti-nuclear bias when he says "nuke power can do exactly as much to solve global warming as censoring the Internet can do to safeguard our democracy — which is to say, nothing." -- check out today's Salon.com:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/02/nuclear_power_price/

Why do so many worry about nuclear power plants? Here is an excellent link that gives us a good look at what a nuclear plant is capable of doing for us. It is well illustrated.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

Don Quixote may tilt at windwills, but terrorists do not. The answer is blowing in the wind. How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see?

in case you ditto-heads missed it, "no terrorist can threaten our cities with an attack on its solar panels. And there's nothing about windpower that even hints at a need to shut down the Internet"

And as far as absolute deference to democratic processes. I very much want to believe in it, but we should remember that the Salem witch hunts the election of Ronald Reagan, and the decision to attack Iraq were quite democratic too, with overwhelming popular groundswells behind them.

Billy_y4,

Yes we must explain technical issues coherently, and you do this job well - but when you do, you are going to get painted as an industry shill, because the public has come to regard science itself as an "ism".

And thanks for pointing out the limitations of geothermal energy. Suitable sites, even the dry, heat producing granites that Petratherm is developing are limited - and expensive. Multiple 3 mile-deep holes are are costly.

It should be noted that geothermal energy is nuclear energy of sorts. The granites produce heat because of radioactive decay of U, Th and K in the granites, in conjunction with low thermal condictivity of the granite and overlying sediment.

what I don't understand is that, with the exception of Billy_Y4, no one here, including Mr. Wasserman, have any technical credentials to back their criticisms of nuclear power. And if they do, it is important tht they state them if they are to have any credibility.

The hostility to science and engineering, and this anti-enlightnment painting of science as a political "ism" on both the left and right in the US is amazing.

I own and frequenstly use electric motor scooters for transportation. but aside from a couple Carnegie-Mellon students, no one is even capable of recognizing the vehicle is electric - thay cannot even distinguish the sound (or lack of) an electric motor-vehicle from an internal-combustion engine. So, I put big stickers that say "ELECTRIC" all over it - but still, everyone who see's it still say "you must get good gas mileage on that thing".

So, why should I want to have such technically illiterate people deciding issues of planetary importance?

USAn, P.E.

Good: shut us up and irradiate us! We will be the perfect "citizens" for their empire.

so many people are playing the terrorist stance. Wake up America, it was an inside job and there isn't a terrorist behind every tree waiting to jump out and take your children and eat them.
Stop acting like some school girl who saw a spider and VOTE THESE BASTARDS OUT. DID Americas all have their spines removed? Suck it up and show democracy is not completely dead. One question for Obama , will you remove Diebold machines if you win?

GraemeF,

Exploitable geothermal energy for electrical power generation is not widely available. Petratherm has identified a geologically suitable location near the Austalian south coast. One of the local electricity power consumers happens to be the Beverly mine

I believe the Beverly mine is an in-situ mine. This is the most environmentally benign method of uranium mining. There is almost no disruption of the surface. There is no tailings pile.

By using the power from Petratherm, the Beverly mine will avoid buying power from coal fired generation. Australia is more dependent on coal fired generation than the US.

Bill

Hi ~USAn~ I don't believe anyone with an average IQ needs to have a doctorate in Nuclear Energy, or even have just passed a college home study course to understand that nuclear energy and the deadly by-porducts of it are dangerous and several much better alternatives are available, have been tested and put into use and are affordable, viable and the technology is proven. That's just common sense.

Therefore, I believe it is appropriate for concerned citizens who may possess common sense, to post comments here on the subject. So sorry, I disagree with you on that point.

We don't really have an "energy" problem -- we can get all we need from waves, wind, solar, and so forth; the problem is storage and distribution of energy -- and the accounting and economic changes needed, including the investment needed for a new generation-storage-transmission system. And, of course, fighting with those who already control and profit from the current system...

USAn,

It is very important for the general populace to decide issues of planetary importance. That is what citizens do. It is their earth as well as mine.

The responsibility of technically trained people is to address issues coherently so that they may be understood by those citizens. I have a technical bullshit generator but try my best not to use it.

Bill

"For every ten BTUs consumed by US power plants seven BTUs are completely wasted, dissipated into the environment unutilized. Of the remaining three BTUs two are either wasted in high voltage power lines, wasted in incandescent light bulbs, wasted in street, office, and commercial lights burning all hours of the night, wasted in electric water heaters when gas is four times more economical, etc, etc. Only one of the ten original BTUs are put to functional use, and Lieberman wants to expand capacity..."

THIS IS RIGHT ON TARGET and one of the key reasons for the shift to renewables, especially solar. photovoltaics may go in the desert, but their prime location will be at the site of consumption, hugely reducing waste. this is one reason why cost estimates for PV are deceptively high---in terms of delivered energy, they are actually much cheaper than currently estimated.

the only major liability insurance carried by generators is from the US federal government and YOU, the private citizen, who will absorb all major costs from a radioactive catastrophe.

it is time to move definitively away from this failed technology and into what really works and can save our planet and our economy....NO NUKES....harveyw

Vote pro America June 3rd, 2008 8:38 am
so many people are playing the terrorist stance. Wake up America, it was an inside job and there isn't a terrorist
behind every tree waiting to jump out and take your children and eat them.

Thank you for saying that! I'm not sure which was more appalling, the nationalism and war fever that gripped this country or the people who spewed this crap. Talk about Bambi in the headlights...