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Coming June 3: The Twin Towers of Internet Censorship and Atomic Reactor Terror
US Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman are linking Internet censorship with atomic power in a way that should terrify us all.
McCain is the real power behind Lieberman-Warner global warming bill on which the Senate could vote as early as Tuesday, June 3. As a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, McCain is pushing hard for massive subsidies to build new atomic reactors. Despite his "free market" ideology, this bill may hand a half-trillion taxpayer dollars to an industry that cannot get private backing for a failed, terror-target technology.
Now its official co-sponsor, Connecticut's Lieberman, has taken the issue into the realm of Internet censorship. In a recent floor speech, he demanded that YouTube remove numerous postings that he claims promote terrorism. Yet the very bill he and McCain are pushing would force taxpayers to fund atomic reactors that are easily accessible to terrorists as machines of radioactive mass destruction.
Calling it a "ludicrous" attack on free speech, The New York Times scoffs at the claim that the Internet is "one of the primary drivers" of terrorism. The charge comes in Lieberman's report on "Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat."
The Times found it "profoundly disturbing that an influential senator would even consider telling a media company to shut down constitutionally protected speech." The ACLU has warned that similar efforts "could be a precursor to proposals to censor and regulate speech on the Internet."
In a dangerous capitulation, YouTube then did pull down some 80 videos.
What makes this attack on free speech doubly disturbing is that it accompanies the promotion of the very the technology that gives potential terrorists the easiest route to creating a nuclear holocaust -- commercial atomic power plants.
It has long been clear that no atomic reactor could withstand the crash of a jet the size of the ones hijacked on 9/11/01. Even without penetrating the containment dome, the force of impact and ensuing fuel fires would be virtually certain to cause massive radioactive releases, render plant operations impossible, disrupt critical cooling systems, destroy off-site power and communications lifelines, threaten spent fuel pools -- most of which are seriously overloaded -- as well as highly vulnerable dry casks, and much more.
America's 104 licensed atomic reactors are every bit as vulnerable to such an attack today as they were on 9/10/2001. There is no guarantee a new generation of reactors, projected to come on line in a decade or two, would be any safer.
A long string of government and private studies over the past half-century have warned that by error or terror, a major reactor disaster would kill tens of thousands of people in the short-term, and many many more in the years to come. The property damage and ultimate impact on what's left of the American economy would be incalculable.
But while attacking our constitutional rights in the name of fighting terrorism, McCain and Lieberman advocate using public money to build still more of these pre-deployed weapons of radioactive mass destruction, giving terrorists access to the ultimate threat.
Despite the industry's well-financed hype, not a single major national environmental group supports this atomic expansion. A unified effort to strip the pro-nuke provisions out of the Lieberman-Warner bill is underway, with further information at websites such as www.nirs.org, www.beyondnuclear.org, www.NukeFree.org, and many more. All urge safe energy proponents to call their U.S. Senators to stop this pork-laden railroad to radioactive terror.
In fact, 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.
So it will take another massive grassroots effort to beat this latest travesty of an energy bill -- as well as to save what's left of our democracy from those who would use vague threats of terrorism as an excuse to destroy it.
After all, 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.
Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at http://solartopia.org. This article first appeared at http://freepress.org.
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76 Comments so far
Show AllConnecticut
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Some geothermal is the result of diastrophism -- tectonic plates rubbing against other, for instance.
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
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.
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)
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.
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