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In Germany, Massive Nationwide Protests Call for an Immediate End to Nuclear Energy
Demonstrators across Germany are calling for an immediate end to nuclear power after an official commission recommended a decade-long phase out. Some members of the government are concerned about the economic impact.
More than 100,000 demonstrators took to the streets in 20 cities across Germany on Saturday to call for a rapid end to nuclear power, even as a government-sponsored national commission is expected to recommend that Berlin abolish nuclear energy within a decade.
A man wearing a protective suit carries a flag reading 'nuclear power? no thank you!' during a demonstration against nuclear power in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, May 28, 2011. Thousands of people have staged protests in several German cities, demanding a speedy end to the country's use of atomic energy. Words on demonstrator's hat read, ' Switch Off, Now'. (AP Photo/Gero Breloer)
The Ethics Commission is set to announce the results of its final report on Germany's energy future, calling for nuclear power to be phased out by 2021.
Chancellor Angela Merkel had tasked the commission with forging a national consensus on how to replace nuclear power with renewable energy in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in Japan last March.
The political opposition praised the commission's recommendation while expressing doubt about how Chancellor Merkel's center-right coalition would receive the report.
"I have doubts whether Merkel can successfully implement this position within her coalition," said Thomas Oppermann of the center-left Social Democrats' parliamentary group.
Nationwide protests
In Berlin, at least 20,000 protesters marched from city hall to the headquarters of Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, where they called for an immediate end to nuclear power.
Demonstration organizer Uwe Hiksch said an exit from nuclear power within a decade was not acceptable. The environmental organization Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) also called for a quicker shutdown of the country's nuclear plants.
More than 10,000 protesters took to the streets in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state.
"This is our signal to Chancellor Merkel that the energy turnaround finally has to come," said Tim Petzoldt of the Initiative Anti-Atom Bonn.
Calls for caution
Meanwhile, Economic Minister and Vice Chancellor Philipp Rösler expressed concern that completely abolishing nuclear energy too quickly could lead to electricity blackouts across Germany.
As a precautionary measure, Rösler - member of the liberal Free Democrats - called for some nuclear plants to be left functional as a "cold reserve" in the event Germany needs more energy.
"That would mean that one or two nuclear plants would be left in a cold stand-by mode for a certain period of time and would not be immediately dismantled," he said.
Rainer Brüderle, head of the Free Democrats parliamentary group, called for certain conditions to be met before nuclear energy was phased out. Brüderle said the power grid for renewable energy needed to be expanded.
"If we don't accelerate the expansion of the grid for renewable energy, then we will ultimately fail in the end," he said.
Currently, only four of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants are operational. Chancellor Merkel ordered eight to be shutdown pending review while five more were shutdown for routine maintenance.
On Sunday, Merkel's coalition government will meet to agree on a timetable for the shutdown of Germany's nuclear plants.
Author: Spencer Kimball (Reuters, epd, dapd, KNA, dpa)
Editor: Andreas Illmer
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74 Comments so far
Show AllGermany's percentage of electricity derived from nuclear power before their current shift was 29%, Japans is 28% and the US's is 19%.
Currently only 4 of 17 generating stations are online and they are coping with this level without detriment. The German people aren't as easily cowed as the Japanese and USan's and that's great news.
Japan is starting to get real about the actual high cost, as well as risk, of nuclear power in comparison to renewables.
It seems that renewables have become a business opportunity in Japan. Tepco's ossified corporate structure has had the bad habit of shutting renewables out of the electricity market by making new power generation from renewables either pay a huge premium to use transmission lines or shut them out altogether. This monopolistic practice is no longer acceptable. The cozy power monopolies in Japan are about to be ripped wide open. Not only will transmission lines be open to renewables, the power corporations like Tepco will be forced to buy an increasingly larger percentage of the total energy running on transmission lines from renewable sources. This puts the pro-nuke Tepco and others in a box. As new renewable power corporations gain market share, you can be sure they will do exactly the same thing to Tepco that Tepco had previously done to them. Tepco and other pro-nuke corporations must begin to move to renewables or die. GOOD!
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105270192.html
As far as the US is concerned, it's just a matter of time until the energy industry light goes on in the rather dim light bulbs we have in the pro-nuke advocates and they finally see that it's in their "best interests" ($$$) to deep six nuclear energy projects and shut down the plants.
Why?
Remember it was Japan that taught US car manufacturers that making crappy, stripped down cars with lousy brakes and high operating costs from mechanical breakdown was a poor marketing decision. Our car manufacturing idiots thought it was great fun ($$$) to offer planned obsolescence so people would rush back to the dealer every two years to buy another trash heap. And remember how Japan put all the bells and whistles on basic models? That gave our PR industry flaks heartburn because having different classes of comfort and convenience was part of the envy generation machine to get people to spend more and more on the "options".. Japan made decent, reliable cars and practically destroyed the US car industry. Their marketing approach was respectful of people's needs. Our marketing approach was Bernays (Freud's nephew that fathered the US PR industry) style advertising bullshit.
We did the same in the nuclear industry with the mendacious PR. The nuclear Hindenburg is going down.
I would like to see the plan. Germans have been preparing for solar and wind technology production for some time. I think the most unworkable scenario is to continue to rely on dirty energry: nuclear, coal and oil. It is not easy to change, but it is necessary for the sake of all the life on earth.
Perhaps they can use the money from their strong production economy, and their savings from not having much weaponry, to help cover the costs of energy should it become temporarily expensive during the transition.
It's not anything but sanity and justified anger, returning to those deviously manipulated for many decades about the now demonstrably unsafe and devastatingly perilous threats to our survival.
-----------------------------------
You're good at hyperbole, for sure.
The *real* "devastatingly perilous threats to our survival" are the combustion of fossil fuels, the continuing deforestation (especially of the rainforests - Earth's lungs), the forced extinction of non-human species, the acidification of the oceans, the pollution of our water supplies and of the oceans (the "dead zones" in particular), the salinification and poisoning of soil, the creation of "superbugs", and, ever out and away above all, the human overpopulation that drives the rest of it.
By comparison to just one year of that, all the nuclear-associated deaths and damage since Day One are only a drop in the bucket.
Seriously, you've joined in that meme? Do you get paid? If not, then you are missing out.
Mairead,
Well then since nuclear power plants are such a fabulous boon to humanity and will save us from acidified oceans and excessive CO2, I guess you believe it's a great idea for Iran to have one, right?
After all, nuclear reactors are harmelss as pie. They wouldn't hurt a fly.
I think you were on Fox TV the other day. I watched a clip on the internet of a guy saying anyone claiming that people would die without adequate health care was fear mongering. After all, the people that have died from lack of health care is a drop in the bucket, right?
I mean, where's the scientific proof? I'm sure Bush is still looking for it under the White House desk along with the WMDs in Iraq.
Mairead, you are on a roll today. What next, atomic bombs and radioactive isotopes from nuclear reactors don't kill people, people kill people?
Mairead, that was a courageous post :) I wouldn't quite downplay the dangers of nuclear power, but I WOULD rank it below coal - the mining and burning of this stuff. And I'd like to see phasing out both coal and nuclear, but I would much prefer starting with coal. I've just about given up pointing this out. I think if people truly understood this matter, then they would demand coal to go first, which is NOT an easy thing to shut down, given how much of the electricity comes from coal. But it needs to go and we need to live with the implications of reduced consumption - perhaps shutting down lots of wasteful consumption.
I'm sure you're correct, that people just plain don't understand.
They're being stampeded by people with agendas, whether ideological or financial, and aren't able to step back and look at it all calmly. Nuclear anything is uncanny, and the idea that invisible floating things can be swallowed and generate cancer, or that their next piece of California maki might be made with radioactive nori, is just too much for them.
The fact that such pollution is extremely infrequent, while combustion of fossil fuel, deforestation, ocean acidification, extinctions, exhaustion of water supplies, etc. are happening *all the time*, relentlessly pushing the entire planet faster and faster toward an irreversible, catastrophic change in homeostasis -- that's not even on their radar. *Personal* cancer they think they understand, and they fear it. But a slow-moving *global* disaster that will kill *everyone*? Not a hope.
All we can do is refuse to be silenced.
I agree that the dangers of unsustainable coal and oil use, MUST be addressed as soon as is possible. Like today.
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Oh? I think you've been caught out and are now trying to back-patch. If you were really concerned, it would have been *you* saying what I said, and what Alcyon's been saying.
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You appear to be entirely ignorant of the yet uncountable billions of dollars of costs, that nuclear energy proponents have attempted to externalize and thereby ignore ( e.g. health, disposal, decommissioning, … loans, future disasters ).
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That tactic won't work either. I'm well aware of the costs. But they're merely *expenses*. I don't value money on that level, especially when the figures are artificially inflated.
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Your attempt to assert the nuclear industry's advantages, which is proven to be a lie by anyone knowledgeable about the true costs, so well hidden for decades.
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You obviously still don't get it, and I wonder why.
I don't give a damn about nuclear power. I've no financial, professional, or emotional connection to it whatsoever, nor ever have had.
My position - and I honestly can't understand how much plainer I can make it - is that nuclear power doesn't *begin* to be as disasterous as the fossil-fuel combustion, overpopulation, ocean acidification, non-human extinctions, et lengthy cetera that goes on *every single day*.
Nuclear accidents happen once a decade, maybe. But the rest of it happens *every day*. There are more than 2M deaths of nameable people *every year* from fossil-fuel extraction and use alone. And that's just the people whose names we know, or could know. The statistical toll --the unnameable people whose premature deaths are hypothesised by actuaries-- is probably too great to even estimate. Don't you get that?
Harvey evidently takes the Jesuitical view, or in his case the rabbinical, that a lie in a "good cause" really isn't a lie. I'd love to know what that "good cause" is.
But the rest of us should avoid being stampeded, so that we focus our attention and will on the *real* killer problems. Things rarely if ever turn out well for stampedees.
I think if you size the problem, Katrine, you'll come to a different conclusion. Look at the real numbers.
Radiation from a nuclear accident can cause premature death from cancer, usually decades, often many decades, later. Unless the cancer is a rare one, only associated with radiation, we usually can't tell what caused it. The lung cancer in someone living downwind from Chernobyl who smokes? How could we tell?
But deaths just from fossil-fuel extraction and use? Not only does it kill more than 2M people - nameable people - per year, it's also pushing us toward global pan-extinction. It's a "tera-cancer", as it were[pi].
We don't know how much longer we have, but the best estimates are that it will cut short the lives of many people already born. I doubt it would be within my remaining lifetime - I'm 70 - but it might be. That's how near and uncertain things are.
Which means that the people who are at risk of getting cancer from Fukushima might not live that long! Unless we stop worrying about disasters that happen rarely and start focusing on the rolling disaster happening *every day*. I honestly can't understand how anyone with good sense could fail to see the importance of that.
I read it Mark and it's very credible and has bee endordse by many highly qualified bio chemist doctors. Cancer rates have soared since Chernobyl, not just there but everywhere and here in the Americas.
Last year in the US alone half a million, (500,000) people died from cancer, slightly down from 2009 and a good percentage were children. That's actually an epidemic but WHO, the World Health Organization doesn't ever say so. Many millions more are being treated for cancer.
Thousands of children are treated for cancer and the treatment often attacks their already under developed immune system and causes them to suffer other disabling diseases which often end in death. But it wasn't because of radiation poisoning,,, was it Mark? __ Of course not!
That epidemic was not so prior to the spread of nuclear power plants, Chernobyl and TMI and other radiation leaks or "precautionary" discharges of radioactive poisons from nuclear plants for "safety" reasons. Now we have Fukushima. 60 year ago childhood cancer was almost as rare a chicken lips... Not anymore.
From the dawn of time until 200 years ago, cancer was so rare that no one had words for different types of cancer such as leukemia. All types of cancer combined affected 1 in 1800 people in their lifetimes.
At least one modern culprit, tobacco with added sugar, we have trouble kicking because the chemicals created from burning the added sugar make it so addictive. Some of the others such as lawn herbicides, BPA on the inside of tin cans and PCBs, can easily be done without. I think that manslaughter through poisoning a great number of a company's customers, workers or neighbors should be enforced in the U.S. as a conspiracy to commit criminal racketeering, with light prison trips for the underlings if they turn state's evidence, and hard time for the ringleaders.
Nuclear energy is another culprit. We know that the cancers and birth defects are coming, whether by slow and steady radiation leaks or by nuclear catastrophe. Pleading insanity in court shouldn't usually hold any weight. It's a criminal act causing great harm, for the racketeers' own profit, and everybody knows this.
For our part we should shun the cancer products large and small, in every way we can.
I wonder, in the times when a loved one has died in a family, if the survivors took full blame for bringing the cancer into their family home upon themselves, would they then prevent a second cancer? In reality when someone dies of cancer everyone tells the survivors, "Don't be hard on yourself, there was nothing you could do for them", instead of, "You kill em, we chill em", which is a lot closer to the truth.
Mr Abram,
Would you please stop showing your ignorance about biology in general and cancer in particular?
Google Tyrosine Kinase Enzymes.
Learn what phosphorilation is.
Get a clue about ATP (adenosine tri phosphate) and its' role in phosphorilation.
Check out what radiation does to TKEs.
The MAIN cause of most cancers in modern society is upregulated TKEs.
You are embarrasing yourself.
Stop talking about science this and science that if you shun logic and truth in scientific discussions.
I did meet some dudes that ran around with their slide rulers in the math, physics and engineering departments that were incapable of understanding biological systems and viability but at least they admitted it. Perhaps you should be more humble about things you don't know about.
Saying that someone's argument or point is "ridiculous" requires a logical statement deliniating the grounds for deligitimizing the "ridiculous" argument somehow. You didn't provide one.
Now that's really ridiculous. And then claiming that you are the "scientific" one is hilarious!
abram functions exactly like the paid zionist trolls.. he is probably part of the similar u.s. gov't program.. his only purpose is to disrupt the thread,...like firing tear gas canisters at protesters...
guernica,
I agree. I just start denuding empty claims every now and then for the sake of others reading the thread.
People need to be reminded that these shills cannot be taken seriously.
Consensus and peer review are only some current methods for duplicating experimental results which is a requirement of scientific study, they are not requirements in and of themselves.
Not sure how "scientific" the kind of statistical analyses y'all are discussing really can be said to be. The study of cancerous cells is largely scientific in method. The study of the "rates"of cancer in a population are often less so.
Cancer rates are up, so is life expectancy, and so is pollution from novel chemicals, metals, noise, light, radioactivity, and a host of other things associated with an industrial society.
Where's the correlation?
Does it matter?
Pollution is bad all on its own. We should construct a low-as-possible pollution society whether Chernobyl is causing cancer or not.
The long-term pollution damages -and myriad other costs- from current nuclear reactor generators are not justified by the benefit in electricity we currently receive from them.
If Nukes are the alternative to coal, then why are we still using coal?
If Nukes aren't the alternative to coal and other equally-still-in-use-50-years-into-the-Atomic-Age fossil fuel generators, then what good are they?
We could shut down the Nuke plants just through conservation.
The resulting hike in electricity cost would stimulate both renewable generation AND further conservation and simplifying.
-matti.
Excellent Matti!
matti,
Well said.
Hey Mark, how's the view from the nuclear Hindenburg these days? If you are going through some fog right now and can't see the ground, don't worry. There's this real neat instrument on board called a stock-timeter. It's kind of like an altimeter for the nuclear Hindenburg. The nuclear Hindenburg stock-timeter has constant uptates on nuclear industry stock prices like ETR. There's another one I've been watching with all their eggs in the Thorium basket. It jumped a little right after March 11 and now has resumed its' swan dive.
I don't mean to be a fear mongerer, but swan dives and Hindenburgs don't mix too well. Look out below!
And btw (Mark), there have been thousands of very important papers and books or scientific journals written and published that were (not peer reviewed). Albert Einstien comes to mind, Julia Whitty's ocean life books and Racieal Carson, among many, many others.
From GEOTHERMAL Mark.
WayneWR,
Remember that Mark is one of those pro-nuke guys that cannot think about energy without some radionuclides thrown in. I suggest, since he flat refuses to acknowledge the obvious superiority in energy production (no fuel requirement) and safety (no radiation) of geothermal, you just put it in the form of a math equation.
Before I decided engineering wasn't for me, I did two years of pre-engineering so I have some idea of how these "reduce everything to an equation" types in physics think.
Geothermal Energy = Nuclear energy minus (Σ Uranium mining costs + nuclear fuel + fission products radioactivity + nuclear waste storage and security for a long ass time).
It's a bit reductionist but it might be possible to activate his long suppressed logic circuits.
But then again, he might go all "ad hominem" on you or change the subject to fossil fuel horrors. You may have to provide him another "equation" for fossil fuels too.
At any rate, you'll have some fun while telling the truth.
mkb29,
Google radioactive tracers used in Medicine. NO, you do not need nuclear reactors to make them. A cyclotron can do the job. But let's say that you DO need them to make tracers, as you claim. Utility company reactors could be all taken offline and there would still be several research reactors out there in various countries capable of supplying tracers. Radioactive tracers are not a high bulk item.
Finally, even if nuclear energy generation's considerable risks to future generations as well as this one were ignored, it just plain costs too much as compared to renewables. I know we need too get off fossil fuels. But nuclear isn't the answer.
You wrote (to mkb29):
'Google radioactive tracers used in Medicine. NO, you do not need nuclear reactors to make them. A cyclotron can do the job.'
Not always, I believe that such radiopharmaceuticals as Technetium-99m, Chromium-51, and Bismuth-213, have been produced only by nuclear reactors.
John
You call this fear of a nuclear accident hysteria? How interesting and how ill informed to say electric costs will skyrocket without it even though Germany's renew ables are starting to be phased in. I suppose from your perspective that CO2 emissions will have to soar and rolling blackouts are inevitable, unless, unless maybe your projections are the ones out of whack and your tactics are the ones based on projecting fear. It will be more than interesting if Germany leads the way to sustainability and France or the USA suffers the next meltdown. Whose going to look reasonable then?
"Some members of the government are concerned about the economic impact."
Concerned about the economic impact on THEIR Big Nuke stocks and bribes. Who else could want cancer forever increasing nukes?
A healthy ecology means a healthy economy.
The new oxford english dicionary has removed Conservation from it's volumes, as it no longer has meaning.
I believe a ten year plan is more appropriat than immediately. As they repalce the nukes with clean energy they may very well be able to inhance the time frame to eight, seven or less years.
I am very pleased to see the huge numbers of protesters in Germany, wish the same were true in America and am very surprised it has not happened to that extent in Japan.
We could have clean energy here within ten years and replace the nukes and coal fired plants and hopefully before we have our Fukushima, if our money wasn't being used for illegal and unnecessary wars.
By clean energy I don't mean "clean coal" or gas, I mean geothermal, solar, tidal and wave. I'm personally not a fan of fans, windmill farms.
The grandiose idea that problems associated with radionuclides, which were never created naturally by the forces of elemental formation from stars over billions of years, can be sucessfully overcome by reductionist engineering techniques aiming at short sighted monetary profits, will need to be discarded if our species shall engender hopes of a prosperous future for complex life forms on the Earth.
agelbert
If you are't professionally writing humor or any books, you should be,,, you are good.
WayneWR,
Thanks, friend. No, I don't write professionally any humor. It just comes out sometimes when dealing with intransigent folks who refuse to debate honorably.
When I believe that the person in the discussion is genuinely interested in truth and logic, I am certainly willing to have my positions challenged. But these "broken record" types out there activate my satire.
Did you notice the other day when I clearly laid out the scientific concensus in regard to the main cause of many types of cancer being caused by TKEs (tyrosine kinase enzymes) gone wild and how the radiation effects literature clearly states that radiation "upregulates" TKEs (causing tumors and incorrectly delayed cell death) that they just did not answer?
It's amazing how these unscientifc types always harp on how "unscientific" people are when they openly challenge pro-nuke folks to do a dollar for dollar comparison of all energy production systems along with the associated health risks. It's like playing wak-a-mole to get them to stick to one topic. These sophists are anything but scientific and their FUD (fear uncertainty doubt) MO stinks to high heaven.
At any rate, I'm glad you got some laughs today. We all need a good laugh every now and then in these dark times.
Yess, I agree agelbert
I have read all of your comments and I love to enjoy life, have fun and laughs, but sometimes it's a bit difficult.
When I see and or have discussions with younger people and see a baby who is laughing and enjoying life and realize that they don't know what we adults have done to the only planet they will grow up on,,, or die at an unfair age on due to our stupidity.
And I always wonder if the pro nukers and the professional Global Warming deniers, the very rich who control us all have children, or if they understand the meaning of what love is... I believe love is when one cares more for someone else, than they do for themselves.
WayneWR,
The pro-nukers, like most victims of game theory and equilibrium point propaganda that has permeated modern society, have been brainwashed into a type of selective morality. In game theory you are justified in using any type of low down behavior to accomplish your goal. There are no rules and no morality. Appealing to humane feelings is not efffective when dealing with these brainwash victims because they have been trained that feeling a common humanity with the current designated adversary is a path that will weaken their position. I know it sounds very "Klingon' - because it is.
However, there is an upside to dealing with these folks. They switch sides in a microsecond if the poverty (as in lack of money) in their viewpoint becomes painfully clear to them. You take any one of the pro-nukers here and offer him a PR job pushing renewables for $100,000 a year plus and he will defend renewables with his life! They define winning as making money, period. They side with the money. Ethics means nothing to them. Future generations mean even less to them.
Based on this, I expect a "road to Damascus" conversion from many of these pro-nuke folks soon. I would welcome them into the reality based group of humans.
I just hope it's not too late.
I have always said that (nothing) that ever appears on my computer screen ever angers or upsets me, but this blatherbutt comment form (Mark Abram) has raised my normal blood pressure reading from 220 to 225 over 82... Which is Okay.
By; Mark Abram in a reply to me,,, Quote > ("Wayne, your claims about cancer rates are ridiculous, but then again, so was your orange streamer.")> Unquote.
The orange streamer is something I am totally unaware of, so remind me.
Abram my comment that (half a million), 500,000 died from cancer in the US last year was not 100% accurate, because it was actually more than half a million.
Indeed cancer rates have dropped a small percentage yearly since 2000 but that is attributed to less smoking of cigarettes, and better medications developed. The bad news is at the same time childhood cancer rates and deaths have risen and my primary point is and was (cancer rates have risen dramatically since Chernobyl, TMI and the increase of atomic power plants). So take the cancer rates since 1953.
My information is primarily from (*The American Cancer Society*)... I don't mind debating you about nuclear energy Abram, in fact I enjoy debating you becauese you so often say some really stupid things and you're easy.
Here are a (few) links, if you have any problems with them I can get lots more for you to make fun of, except it is a very serious issue for reasonable and intelligent people. Be sure to open all of the screens in the links to find the current data. .
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/20/us-cancer-usa-idUSN1926392720080220
From that 2008 link:... > ("The U.S. death rate from cancer has continued a steady decline that began in the early 1990s but it will still kill a projected (565,650) Americans this year, the American Cancer Society said on Wednesday.
More current links
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-07-08-cancer-deaths_N.htm
http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/2011/ReportNation2011Releas
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/cancer.htm
And here are some fun quotes form the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko:...> (" The main threat to humans comes from (inhalation). While it is very difficult to create airborne dispersion of a heavy metal like plutonium, certain forms, including the insoluble plutonium oxide, at a particle size less than 10 microns (0.01 mm), are a hazard. (If inhaled), much of the material is immediately exhaled or is expelled by mucous flow from the bronchial system into the gastro-intestinal tract, as with any particulate matter. Some however will be trapped and readily transferred, first to the blood or lymph system and later to other parts of the body, notably the liver and bones. It is here that the deposited plutonium's alpha radiation may eventually cause cancer." ) He didnt mention cesium-137 which is more apt to become airborne.... Wheeeeee. How about that Mark, pretty neat huh?
You may stop writing nonsense at your pleasure Mark, or press on. I do appreciate your being here, makes it interesting... The Geothermal Club of America (GCA) is open for inductees if you'd like to join Mark. We don't care about your IQ. We've elected presidents who were stupider.
WayneWR,
Well said.
See my comments to Mr. Abram above about cancer. Mark doesn't know beans about cancer and its' causes beyond some pro-nuke propaganda.
Mark
Number 1..., Cancer rates have (soared), since,, nuclear,, power,, has,, been,, developed,, and,, some,, serious,, nuclear,, accidents,, have,, occurred !!
Nuclear power is not the (only) reason for cancer, however it has increased dramatically since nucler power has been used. That is especially so for children and those who live in close proximity to nuclear power plants or are "downwinders".
Number 2... You wrote.. > (" BTW, I am not aware of any serious analyst saying that geothermal energy can supply more than a tiny fraction of US needs.") .. > unquote.
Well now you can be aware Mark... Several years ago scientists from MIT conducted a long term study and they determined that there is enough (readily available) geothermal available in the continental United States to supply all of North America's electrical energy needs for the next (50,000 ) years. That study was peer reviewed and then shit canned.
It wasn't what the power gang wanted to hear Mark... No fuel to sell.
Your game theory search for an equilibrium point is not working. pal. Repeatedly using the word "serious" to legitimize your attempts to undermine accepted scientific concensus is really getting old. One thing you are not, is "serious".
I remember some months ago when you claimed NBC (nuclear biological chemical) filtration could not protect people from gaseous I-131. That was plainly wrong and I proved it with a link from the EPA. You, of course, did not answer.
Your pro-nuke shill status along with your spurious arguments have thoroughly undermined any credibility you hope to have here.
As for your request for "serious" references to cancer rates and the radiation link (from ingested radionuclides), you've been given that on several occasions. The links Wayne gave you above were quite sufficient to get you to wake the fuck up if you had a mind to. This game of requesting references is well known in the shill department. It's time to do your own research and get off your mendacious, prevaricating butt. The lives you save may be those of those two children you claim to have.
Mark Abram,,, You have been "told off",,,,, and very well done.
Your being an obtuse shill is so obvious, for example your incredibly goofy comment > (" Cancer experts will tell you that the main reason for apparent increases in overall cancer rates is that people are living longer instead of dying from other causes")
Do you have a "serious" reference to that lie Mark? How could that possibly be true for (children), or people who die from cancer at ages less than 72? We're talking about the dramatic increase in cancer rates during the past 40 years when nuclear power plants and deadly gas releases started to become numerous?
The only reason I bother to reply to yor comments Mark, is because sometimes you do write somewhat credible comments and I don't want anyone to think that you may be correct.
And I know you aren't at all interested in hearing about geothermal and I've already posted several links on the subject on threads where you were arguing against it. That long term MIT study was finished in the 60s so I doubt I could find a link for it now that was still available. Just look up references for yourself Mark, there are some available that are written by pro nukers. __ Time for you to run now isn't it Mark? .
Mark Abram, you're still hanging around I see. For what?
You wrote > ("Your claim is that a "dramatic increase in cancer rates during the past 40 years" is linked to the (construction) of nuclear power plants") ...
Will you show us where I ever claimed anything about (construction) of anything related to nuclear power? Well no,,, you won't, because that is not what I have ever written and you know it so I'll ignre the rest of your obtuse comments. You have become extremely tiresome... Bye, Mark.
WayneWR wrote:
'And here are some fun quotes form the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko:...> (" The main threat to humans comes from (inhalation). While it is very difficult to create airborne dispersion of a heavy metal like plutonium, certain forms, including the insoluble plutonium oxide, at a particle size less than 10 microns (0.01 mm), are a hazard....'
I don't know why he says that airborne dispersion of plutonium is hard to create. After a nuclear accident, the surrounding air would be loaded with Pu particles. If the particle size is 10 µm (0.01 mm), from a height of 50 feet, it would take over four minutes for them to fall to the ground in perfectly still air. In moving air with convection currents, the particles would be dispersed over a very great volume.
John
I love baby occasions and birthday occasions
Banning the building of NEW nuclear power plants and NEW coal power plants and the immediate shutdown or phasing out of ALL coal power plants seem more important from a climate change point of view. There have been news reports about Germany planning to build as many as 26 NEW coal power plants, and I only hope that these same people would be out on the streets to protest those coal power plants. A more sober approach would be to call for massive cutbacks on energy consumption. Such as what's articulated by Physicist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, head of the German Advisory Council on Global Change in an interview:
www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,752474,00.html
>>Schellnhuber: ... Precisely because of Fukushima, we believe that a new basis of our coexistence is needed.
SPIEGEL: What does that mean?
Schellnhuber: We need a social contract for the 21st century that seals the common desire to create a sustainable industrial metabolism. We must resolve, once and for all, to leave our descendants more than a legacy of nuclear hazards and climate change. This requires empathy across space and time. To promote this, the rights of future generations should be enshrined in the German constitution.
SPIEGEL: And specifically?
Schellnhuber: For example, we have to stabilize energy consumption at a reasonable level. If we would finally start exploiting the full potential for energy efficiency in Germany, we could get by with at least 30 percent less energy input -- without being materially worse off.
SPIEGEL: How do you intend to convince society of the need for an upper limit to energy consumption?
Schellnhuber: It can only be achieved with cultural change. To that end, society needs to have an entirely different discussion than before. This sort of change is one of the most difficult things I can imagine.
SPIEGEL: Belt-tightening hasn't exactly been popular in the past.
Schellnhuber: All it costs is a few percentage points of economic output to turn away from the dangerous path that would otherwise lead to more nuclear accidents and unchecked climate change. Green investments would only delay the growth of affluence between now and the year 2100 by six to nine months. Is that really too high a price to pay?<<
Alcyon___ I agree.
Kind of hard to do when media propaganda everywhere fuels overconsumption to all ages. When I say "I hate commercials", I get the "but they pay for the tv programs" answer. Sometimes I think next time I see those goddamned insurance commercials, the same one over and over thousands of times, I will put a shoe through the tv screen. Meanwhile I use the mute button. I need to get one of those tivos or something like that. No, I won't stop watching my favorite shows.
alcyon, thanks for the quote/link....i am posting it on my site...
Sean Hanrady posted some very inportant comments on the subject matter on Harvey Wasserman's latest article here at CD... Here is a paragraph from Sean's post.
("Tomio Kawata, a research fellow of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, said this week that the soil of a large area of northwest Japan - about 600 square kilometers - is contaminated with Cesium-137 at levels higher than {*prompted compulsory evacuation orders*} in the Soviet Union after Chernobyl (1.48 million becquerels per square meter). 700 square kilometers is contaminated with levels from 555,000-1.48 million becquerels per square meter.")
And it is far from over at Fukushima..
This just in the news and it is not a joke.
Right now, today, it isn't nuclear power plants the Germans are worrying about. It's "cucumbers". Yeah, cucumbers imported from Spain I understand are contaminated with E-Coli bacteria and so far nine Germans have died from it and hundreds are sick or hospitalized with bloody poop.
E-Coli in cucumbers? I always thought it was from undercooked beef, especially hamburger. Ironically the outbreak in Germany is in Hamburg, Germany. However there are also cases in other European Countries, the UK, the Netherlands and Australia, who are also recalling tomatoes and eggplant. So much for vegitarianism. It's gonna be cheesburgers, pepsi and cheeeps from now on at our home. Well done!
Seriously, what in hell is going on? E-Coli is a very serious issue. Sorry, so are nukes and coal fired power plants.
Thank you Sean, I didn't know all that.
E-Coli in cucumbers?
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I would guess that the Germans who got sick had become too Americanised and forgot to wash the cukes in dilute chlorine bleach.
That was a commonplace treatment when I lived there because so many house owners had septic tanks rather than a connection to a municipal sewage system, and would pump out the tank as fertiliser into their gardens.
It was just a fact of life: bring your veggies home from the greengrocer, make up a dilute bleach solution, and swish the veggies (and your hands) around in it for awhile before rinsing off. No problems.
If anyone has read all of the comments and has any interest in the discussions, they have noted that a few including myself have had some discussions with {Mark Abram}, who favors nuclear power.
It's perfectly alright for any person to favor nuclear power, that is their rightful perogative. Mark Abram however refuses to debate issues fairly or even honestly and is obtuse and ignores fair comments and opposing points written by those who oppose his nuclear power agenda... It won't surprise me at all to see him reply to this post of mine, or another pro-nuker may... That's alright, might be interestig.
I am one who would like to see {geothermal} energy developed NOW in a major way and instead of it being a very small portion of our energy have it be the major part of our necessary electrical energy. That is very possible and it would be far, far less expensive to do that than to develop nuclear power any further.
Almost anything in respect to human building is possible, such as going to the moon, or building the Alcon Highway in less than a year during a World War. That was an incredible feat when one considers the extereme weather conditions, the terrain and landscape. Btw, on a side note, about half of the personnel who completed that job, were African Americns who never were given their fair credit.
During the Second World War the Americans did many incredible things that seemed to some to be impossible at the time. We built (thousands) of boats and ships, from PT boats and submarines, to cargo, tamkers, lsts, hospitl ships, repair ships, destroyers, cruisers, battlehips and aircraft carriers in less than two years time and continued that for another two years. We built a huge cargo ship from start to finish in less than 24 hours,,, incredible!
We manufactured many thusands of military aricraft of many different types, tanks, cannons, vehicles, gus and landing craft. We built huge military bases and airfields that were small cities. We fed, clothed and trained millions of personnel both military and civilian... We supplied Russia, China and the UK with millions of tons of supplies and fought major wars in Europe, Africa, Italy, Asia and on the oceans and seas.
We built the Big Inch pipeline from Texas to New Jersey in record time, and the most expensive project, the B-29 aircraft project and secondly the Manhatten Project... It was war.
That was war, a ( human killing) war, a war we didn't start (that time). Well,, we have a war now and we are losing it. It's a war (we did start) with Mother Nature, by burning more coal and oil than the rest of the world's countries combined and we have to fight that war now and stop burning coal and so much oil, take a leading role and show the rest of the world that it can be done. Follow the leaders.
This is a war without bombs, cannon and guns, but (it is) a life or death war that we must fight and we must win! The life of all of humanity and even the life of the planet depends upon it. We must stop fighting Mother Nature now and help to heal our planet........... Or else!!
Is (nuclear) the answer to replace coal and oil fired power plants? Not in my opinion and I'm not alone with that opinion. Geothermal (will work), it is clean, it is safe, as safe as can be and far, far safer than nuclear, something any intelligent and reasonable person won't argue. Geothermal is also far less expensive to develop and operates at a very low cost.
In addition to geothermal, solar should also be developed and used far more than it currently is now in operation to supplement geothermal while geo is replacing the coal and nucleare power plants. The most dangerous, oldest and most troublesome nuke plants should be shut down as soon as possible and then a systematic, comprehensive plan to replace the coal fired plants, all within a ten year time frame and have all of the nuclear and coal fired plants shut down and then work on the oil and gas fired plants.
It could be done, we either do it, or we live with continuing rises of atmospheric Co2 and acidification of our oceans and the very dire results of that human stupidity. It is up to our 545 DC elected, they make the rules, or better stated, they should make the rules.
I am also aware that it is very, very unlikely that my comments will be seen by any who may agree and have the power to do anything about it.. I have nothing better to do at the present time however. Now I have to leave for awhile and and walk our pet aardvark,,, our pet rary died.