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Published on Saturday, January 10, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Obama's Stimulus Money Must NOT Be Wasted on Nuke Reactors
A nuke power bailout must NOT be part of the hundreds of billions of
federal dollars about to pour out of Washington to revive our
Bush-whacked economy.
If the huge Obama stimulus package we all know is coming includes money to build new reactors, the whole venture could turn to radioactive dust.
This is the last gasp both for American prosperity and atomic energy. Nuke promoters are lobbying frantically to get some of that cash for a dying business in which Wall Street would not invest even before the last crash.
In 2007 a national grassroots campaign, led in part by Nukefree.org, helped get a proposed $50 billion loan guarantee boondoggle removed from the Energy Bill. In 2008 a blank check was on its way just as Wall Street tanked.
Now, with renewables booming ahead, this may be the last gasp for a desperate industry. Cut off from Wall Street, hordes of nuke lobbyists will descend like radioactive locusts on this gargantuan stimulus package. They must be stopped.
Here are some basic realities:
Recent talk of a "fourth generation" of atomic reactors is pure pie-in-the-sky speculation. There are no proven nuclear technologies that can compete with wind, solar, increased efficiencies or other Solartopian sources.
It is critical that any proposed funding for new reactor construction that might be slipped into the stimulus package be entirely eliminated.
This massive new investment about to be made in the future of our economy must not be corrupted to bail out the very worst of the 20th Century's failed technologies.
Renewables and efficiency work. If we fund them now, the payback will be exponential.
Various petitions are circulating from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR.org), the Sustainable Energy Network and others. Or just call and write the White House, Senate, Congress and local officials where reactors are proposed and demand a halt to this suicidal madness.
Let's kill this so-called nuclear revival once and for all, so we can finally win a world powered by truly green technologies that actually work.
If the huge Obama stimulus package we all know is coming includes money to build new reactors, the whole venture could turn to radioactive dust.
This is the last gasp both for American prosperity and atomic energy. Nuke promoters are lobbying frantically to get some of that cash for a dying business in which Wall Street would not invest even before the last crash.
In 2007 a national grassroots campaign, led in part by Nukefree.org, helped get a proposed $50 billion loan guarantee boondoggle removed from the Energy Bill. In 2008 a blank check was on its way just as Wall Street tanked.
Now, with renewables booming ahead, this may be the last gasp for a desperate industry. Cut off from Wall Street, hordes of nuke lobbyists will descend like radioactive locusts on this gargantuan stimulus package. They must be stopped.
Here are some basic realities:
- No reactors put into construction in the next few years could produce usable power for at least a decade, probably more;
- By contrast, large wind farms can be installed in less than a year, as can many other renewable and efficiency installations;
- Every dollar spent on efficiency can save seven times the energy one spent on an atomic reactor can produce;
- The numbers of jobs new reactor construction might create is a bare fraction of the number that could come with comparable Solartopian investments in renewables, efficiency and restored mass transit;
- Atomic energy is now fifty-two years of proven economic failure. From the 1957 opening of the first commercial reactor at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, to the hugely over-budget fiasco of a French reactor now being built in Finland, the "Peaceful Atom" has never turned the corner to true social profitability;
- The true cost of nuke-generated electricity is obscured by massive "stranded cost" write-offs provided at tax-payer and rate-payer expense during the de-regulation fiasco of the turn of the century that allowed utilities to scam away up to a $100 billion in hidden construction costs;
- The French nuclear power industry is almost entirely subsidized by the French government, and generates electricity that is expensive, unreliable, unsafe, polluting, has no radioactive waste solution, and cannot compete in the open marketplace;
- By terror or error, every atomic reactor is an unguardable, uninsurable agent of a potential apocalypse; the human and financial toll from a possible melt-down is incalculable….which is why, after a half-century, only the government is willing to insure them;
- Through the mining, milling, enrichment, transportation and waste management demands of the nuclear fuel cycle, atomic power is a significant contributor to global warming;
- Water has become a major issue in the reactor calculus, to the point that shortages and overheating threaten their continued operation. Reactors in France and Alabama, among other places, have been forced to shut when rivers used to cool them have exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit;
- Funds set aside to decommission aging plants such as Vermont Yankee and Indian Point, near New York City, have been decimated by the Wall Street crash, raising serious question about how they will be disposed of when they shut, which may be soon;
- Aging US reactors are plagued with the embrittlement of key interior metal components which threaten their continued safety;
- After a half-century, no real solution has been found for managing the high-level radioactive wastes that come from nuke reactors. The proposed Yucca Mountain dump, now approaching $100 billion, is a non-starter, with sworn opposition from the President-elect and Senate Majority Leader, and with no real alternative in sight.
- A wide range of studies dating back to the late 1960s and findings by Dr. John Gofman, former Health Director of the Atomic Energy Commission, link "routine" radioactive emissions from America's nuclear plants to serious impacts on human health.
Recent talk of a "fourth generation" of atomic reactors is pure pie-in-the-sky speculation. There are no proven nuclear technologies that can compete with wind, solar, increased efficiencies or other Solartopian sources.
It is critical that any proposed funding for new reactor construction that might be slipped into the stimulus package be entirely eliminated.
This massive new investment about to be made in the future of our economy must not be corrupted to bail out the very worst of the 20th Century's failed technologies.
Renewables and efficiency work. If we fund them now, the payback will be exponential.
Various petitions are circulating from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR.org), the Sustainable Energy Network and others. Or just call and write the White House, Senate, Congress and local officials where reactors are proposed and demand a halt to this suicidal madness.
Let's kill this so-called nuclear revival once and for all, so we can finally win a world powered by truly green technologies that actually work.
- Posted in
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83 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
I'd like to see any future energy programs configured where the logistics of their waste management protocols fit into their overall design plan. There is an interesting metaphor that can be drawn from the nuclear power industry and its never worrying about all the toxic byproducts of its enterprises. How different is this approach from big business paying off politicians to bend laws that relax EPA standards, rather than elect to do the right thing by their fellow citizens by engineering less pollution from the get-go? How different is the approach of making all profits on the front end leaving the public to clean up the mess with the way the U.S. approaches imperial acts of aggression? I compare these things in my mind and two images emerge: first, the lopped off mountains and decimation of complex ecosystems in West Va to extract coal; and second, the copper mines left like open sores abandoned once those that went in to get what they could left to move onto greener pastures.
Every industry has to account for its detritus. It's as simple as that, and if this moral precept was applied to the fundament of law, then even those who so egregiously trespass upon the systems of nature by pouring out their various and sundry toxic brews, would see themselves liable for the compromised health (all those cancers) spreading across a larger and larger population pool. Better living through chemistry, it's all in plastics, "development," "progress," even "civilization" are words that must EARN the meanings they so flagrantly misuse. Fortunately (to an extent) the trifecta of global warming, unsound leadership, and fiscal bankrupty are forcing our nation to redesign all the systems it lives by.
And Mr. Wasserman deserves recognition for his tireless work on this and other issues important to our times.
That's a great Sioux. I can see how every method of producing energy can have its set of side effects that must be given equal attention. You should check out the mess in Wyoming on all that coal mining. If there had been strong labor unions who actually cared about safety and health concerns for the workers instead of money, the unions wouldn't be dead and the workers would have been proud of their jobs as coal miners and not feeling guilty about environmental damage. I wouldn't expect any better from nuclear energy if they were to put plenty of nuke plants in the state.
Power To Save The World; The Truth About Nuclear Energy by Gwyneth Cravens; Knoft, N.Y. 2007:
To replace the electricity generated by the nuclear plant at Indian Point N.Y. (25 miles from Times Square) with wind turbines would require 300,000 acres of land. It could only function at 30% of its full capacity, because the wind does not blow all the time.
To generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity a nuclear power plant requires about a third of a square mile. Bio-alcohol would take 6,200 hundred square miles of corn fields, bio-oil 9,000 square miles of rapeseed, bio-mass in the form of wood 12,000 square miles. Wind turbines would require 94 (some say 200) square miles. Solar farms big enough to supply 1,000 megawatts per year would cover fifty square miles.
The manufacture of photovoltaic panels requires highly toxic heavy metals, gases and solvents that are carcinogenic. When solar panels are decommissioned, after twenty or thirty years of life they must be disposed of in special toxic waste dumps. If they are incinerated the heavy metals such as cadium and lead-based solder will partially vaporize into the atmosphere. Some of those substances will not decay, their life spans are essentially eternal.
Probably the best proposal for long term disposal of nuclear waste is the Subseabed one. There is a 300 foot layer of clay lying beneath approximatly 3 miles of ocean which has been stable for 30 million years, off the coast of Hawaii. Cannisters of waste could be dropped into this soft ( like peanut butter) material and they would sink into it by the force of gravity. In addition, debris filtering down from the surface would cover them further. If and when the cannisters themselves disolved the waste would bind firmly to the surrounding clay. An international working group of scientists from all fields has been studying this proposal since 1975 but, when the problematic Yucca Mountain proposal recieved Congressional approval in 1987 funds for test runs- which require several decades- were cut-off. At any rate, on site storage seems safe and reliable for the time being.
guardian.co.uk, Sunday Observer, Sunday November 9 2008 :
"Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.
The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.
The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. 'Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.'
Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. 'It's leapfrog technology,' he said.
The company plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. 'We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and we are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.'"
It is important to remember that no other single or even multiple of factors extends the life-span of human beings more than the availability of electrical energy.
The trouble is that anti-nuclear sentiment in this country is a religious affectation, it has nothing to do with science and, in many cases, is overtly anti-science.
In defense of wind power, the wind as always blowing someplace over a continent wide area, so with improvements in transmission long distance transmission technology, win turbines can provide base load power.
Assuming 1000 MW of capacity, that is 500 2 MW turbines. If they are spaced 1000 feet apart on a square grid, that is, by my figuring 22 square miles - about 4.7 miles on a side. that seem like a lot, but there is an enormous amount of land in the most reliable wind sites in the US interior. In fact theoretically, the wind resources over a quarter of the area of North Dakota equal current US peak summer power demand.
Of course the wind sites would be scattered over the US and interconnected by a smart grid and highly efficient high-voltage DC transmission lines to take advantage of sufficient capacity at the sites where the wind is blowing. there are also energy storage technologies to be developed. Pumped-storage hydropower, underground compressed air storage, even banks of cheap, low-toxic lithium iron phosphate batteries - whose cost would go way down with scale of production.
Of course, efficiency gains, mandated energy-impact statements for every new consumer product or service, and a return to reasonable lifestyle could greatly reduce demand.
I have to take exception with your statement that increased electricity usage leads to higher measures of health - certainly that is true in the poorest parts of the world, but Europeans enjoy a better living standard and higher life expectancy, while consuming using half the per-capita energy usage of the USA.
But I also agree, nuclear power is far less polluting and safer than coal and has to remain on the table of available alternatives as well.
---USAn---
Go back and read the article before you make the assertion that nukes are far less polluting and safer than coal and have to remain on the table of available alternatives.
Meanwhile, the nuke industry is covering up radioactive leaks that will only be suspected years later after the people in a nearby city or town start dying of various neoplastic diseases.
I must admit that I didn't read this article very closely, but Mr. Wasserman's previous articles here (and quite inappropriately, FAIR's magazine) have been largely scientifically incorrect, inflammatory nonsense. Mr. Wasserman is a journalist without any kind of science or engineering education, so why should I consider him credible?
I do know, as someone with an education in Geology, that the burning of coal, and other fossil fuels, has the potential to trigger the earths greatest mass extinction since the great Permian extinction event about 250 MY ago when 95% percent of the species on earth were wiped out in what increasingly appears to have been runaway global warming event. Commercial nuclear energy cannot come close to these sort of impacts.
Like the previous contributor wrote, most public opposition to nuclear energy seems to be more superstition than rational. I have even seen this opposition extended to development of fusion energy - which if the technical hurdles can be surmounted, (and they are surmounting them - in Europe) would be unprecedentedly clean, safe and abundant.
---USAn---
Nukes spread cancer and death. If you want to risk your own lives and money, that's your prerogative. You have no right to risk other people's lives and fortunes now, in the future, and to make our planet uninhabitable with permanently radioactive poisons impossible to contain forever.
Get yourself private insurance against leaks, meltdowns, terrorism, water, land and air radwaste contamination and you'll have some credibility. Then at least I may get paid damages if I lose my house and city to radioactive contamination forever like people did in Chernobyl.
If private insurors don't trust you, why should we?
I have a better idea for nuke waste disposal. Bury it in your backyard, don't dump it in my ocean.
You say, "Probably the best proposal for long term disposal of nuclear waste is the Subseabed one. There is a 300 foot layer of clay lying beneath approximatly 3 miles of ocean which has been stable for 30 million years, off the coast of Hawaii."
I'll be kind and merely say that this is a deeply questionable assertion made by someone with little knowledge of geology.
The Earth's seabed is in a constant state of renewal, particularly near (ahem) volcanic island chains. I would seriously doubt that ANYTHING on the ocean floor off the coast of Hawaii has been "stable for 30 million years."
.You beat me to it. I shudder at the thought of simply dumping nuclear waste anywhere, whether salt caves or sea floors. I wonder at the mindset of folks who seem to have such little regard for our planet or the inter-connectivity of all that resides upon it.
I do believe that, eventually, nuclear will have a place in our energy production, especially as the technology advances. Such things as pebble bed reactors seem to be a step in that direction. But I also believe that that time is not yet now.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
If nuclear continues to be blocked then coal fired power plants will continue to be built. It is that simple. Take your choice: nuclear or coal. Wind power will not serve the east coast of the U.S.A. and neither will solar.
Read this:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/09-2
then read this:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/09-7
kayaker: There are single wind turbines in the North Sea that can power 40,000 homes each in Denmark. Furthermore, if solar power makes sense in countries like Japan, Germany, Spain, Italy and Greece, it can sure make sense on the U.S. East Coast. The truth is the solar industry is making progress that require less and less space while lowering the cost of producing a kilowatt hour of electricity. It's your type of smug ignorance that hampers progress while other industrialized countries get the manufacturing, the jobs and the clean energy.
http://freesolaradvice.blogspot.com
How interesting it must be to live in a binary universe. Tell me, when the sun sets on your planet, is it day one instant and night the next, with no intervening "grey area?"
Your post reminds me of the old joke:
Pro-nuker: "For technical reasons, renewable energy will never supply as much power as nuclear and coal."
Anti-nuker: "For technical reasons, nuclear waste can never be disposed of safely."
Pro-nuker: "WHAT! Have you no faith in science?"
Another excellent book that covers alot science is "Physics For Future Presidents; The Science Behind The Headlines" Richard A Muller, a professor at UCLA Berkeley.
It is extremely helpful on a number of issues besides nuclear including the Space Program, Global Warming and Terrorism.
SolarBob, Editor BSOLR.com, "The Precautionary Collection"
Nuclear Free by 2033!
Only the insane see a nuclear arsenal as a defense option. These same disturbed people see nothing wrong with nuclear powerplants. These dupes must be confronted relentlessly with the truth or we will inherit an Earth unfit for life as we know it.
Bob
ps If we succeed, there is still the poison. Watch it like our lives depended on it - for the next 100,000 years?! Thanks, you m**$$##ers.......
If coal and nuclear were treated the same as solar and wind by our scumbags in Washington when it came to subsidization, solar and wind would be riding high. Government has no business meddling with business. Either subsidize them all equally or don't waste our taxpayer money.
Mr. Wasserman does a good job by listing all of the major points against nuclear power. John Perlin, the maven of solar power, puts it a little more succinctly:
http://freesolaradvice.blogspot.com/search?q=perlin+nuclear+power
For those of us serious enough to help shift the energy paradigm...
http://freesolaradvice.blogspot.com/search?q=siliken
He does a great job of listing the major points against nuclear power but unfortunately he does no job of supporting them here, nor in his interesting and hopeful work of fiction, Solartopia. I wish him well, because that is where I want to live. But it is too simplistic to impugn the motives of the vast majority of scientists who pay no attention to him.
are you done yet?
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1963 & 1968- Dallas and Los Angeles Coup d'État by the US Military Industrial Junta completed according to modern examination of old evidence
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.", Albert Einstein. (Ed note: WHITE PHOSPHOROUS, DENSE METAL SUPER WEAPONS, NUCLEAR STICK UP, MISSILE DEFENSE, AND PROPAGANDA!!!!!)
I already knew in my root chakra that the top scientists of Britain and the British Commonwealth who did their own research, and have no known input from the IEA, would soon get their kharmic comeuppance for reaching their own conclusion last year to back nuclear power. I'm talking about that goddamned, ridiculous cabal of 1400 independent members of the United Kingdom National Academy of Science otherwise known as the Royal Society. Deceived fools, one and all.
Then I came to the malicious, stupid, idiotic, report from The United Nations International Panel on Climate Change.
NUCLEAR POWER WILL SAVE THE WORLD, UN SCIENTISTS CLAIM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-451658/Nuclear-power-save...
Naturally I was at first chagrined to find that the report was put out by the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) and that the role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. The IPCC being a scientific intergovernmental body set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is open to all member countries. Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC as authors, contributors and independent reviewers. As part of the United Nations body, the IPCC work aims at the promotion of the United Nations human development goals. IPCC reports are neutral with respect to policy, although they need to deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio economic factors. They are universally recognized to be of the highest scientific and technical standards, and reflect a range of views, and expertise from the widest geographical coverage.
Admittedly, I don't know how the 2000 plus independent IPCC contributing scientific ignoramuses who unanimously weighed in for more nuclear power managed to conceal our planetary salvation arriving imminently on the wings of renewable energy sources. But needless to say the combined work of these democratic-minded, results oriented bastards is metaphysically unfounded. And, yes, I do know from channeling each and every one of their black souls that at least a super majority of the 2000 scientists who contributed to the pro-nuclear power report are spiritually ungrounded, lying, ignorant, crooked, conspiratorial whores wo've been bought off one by one, in a final act of desperation by the financially strapped maniacs who control all nuclear energy from Dick Cheney's bunker at the center of the earth. I can almost, but not quite, see the evidence manifesting before my eyes, so thank you mother Khali for directing me to this chat sight, where this vast conspiracy of scientists will finally be devoured. Thank you omnivisible Pleiades advisors, and thank you Brother YHWH and you too, Sister Spirit Teaser for aligning me with the Interplanetary Society of Perpetual Anti-nuclear Carnival Barkers whose high vibrational energy has already shut down the nukes forever in our parallel universe.
The UN is a corrupt agency and a waste of taxpayer money. They have the nerve to blame small farmers for global warming and not agribusiness who's a real global warming culprit. With nuclear, you can embrace yourself for more nuclear wars and if nuclear is being used primarily for electricity, brace for more power shutdowns. Like coal, nuclear is an environmental and economic scam.
I pray for you. NOT
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1963 & 1968- Dallas and Los Angeles Coup d'État by the US Military Industrial Junta completed according to modern examination of old evidence
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.", Albert Einstein. (Ed note: WHITE PHOSPHOROUS, DENSE METAL SUPER WEAPONS, NUCLEAR STICK UP, MISSILE DEFENSE, AND PROPAGANDA!!!!!)
You say, " Every atomic reactor is an unguardable, uninsurable agent of a potential apocalypse; the human and financial toll from a possible melt-down is incalculable….which is why, after a half-century, only the government is willing to insure them;"
If you are going to send acolytes to the wolves at least equip them with a functioning bullshit detector.
see
http://www.nuclearinsurance.com/
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requires all licensees for nuclear power plants to show proof that they have the primary and secondary insurance coverage mandated by the Price-Anderson Act. Licensees obtain their primary insurance through American Nuclear Insurers. Licensees also sign an agreement with NRC to keep the insurance in effect. American Nuclear Insurers also has a contractual agreement with each of the licensees to collect the retrospective premiums if these payments become necessary. A certified copy of this agreement, which is called a bond for payment of retrospective premiums, is provided to NRC as proof of secondary insurance. It obligates the licensee to pay the retrospective premiums to American Nuclear Insurers if required.
American Nuclear Insurers is a pool comprised of investor-owned stock insurance companies. About half the pool's total liability capacity comes from foreign sources such as Lloyd's of London. The average annual premium for a single-unit reactor site is $400,000. The premium for a second or third reactor at the same site is discounted to reflect a sharing of limits.
The nuclear operators' mutual arrangement is Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited (NEIL) which is funded (a $5 billion surplus) and cooperates closely with the American Nuclear Insurers pool. It was founded in 1980 and insures operators for any costs associated with property damage, decontamination and related nuclear risks.
The Price Anderson Act has been represented as a subsidy to the US nuclear industry. If considered thus, the value of the subsidy is the difference between the premium for full coverage and the premium for $10 billion in coverage. On the basis of data obtained from two studies - one conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the other by the Department of Energy (DOE) - the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the subsidy probably amounts to less than 1 percent of the levelized cost for new nuclear capacity.
"Dear Chairman Crunk,
Let me give you the holy honor of introducing myself, Jesus H. Christ. For years and years and years and years all I ever wanted to do was work faithfully, and, in divine service to your magnificent caring conglomerate, Crunk Inc™. I think I would make a trusty worthy employee, stationed in the control room and eating donuts. I can handle any emergency, should one arise. For instance, one time I saw a hole in my neighborhood aquifer dam. I knew exactly what to do. I put my thumb in it and stopped the leak. But then it started to crack bigger. So I ran home to get my duct tape but on my way back to the aquifer I was attacked by a huge river coming towards me. Had that river not been there between me and the aquifer in the first place, I'm sure I could have applied my duct tape to fix the crack. Anyway, for some strange reason my town got flooded that day, totally unrelated. That is why I have picked up my family and relocated to sunny Crunk Valley™. Please see my attached resume listing my previous experiences contained in this soggy envelope. Thank You.- Jesus H. Christ"
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1963 & 1968- Dallas and Los Angeles Coup d'État by the US Military Industrial Junta completed according to modern examination of old evidence
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.", Albert Einstein. (Ed note: WHITE PHOSPHOROUS, DENSE METAL SUPER WEAPONS, NUCLEAR STICK UP, MISSILE DEFENSE, AND PROPAGANDA!!!!!)
So, if Chernobyl had been "insured" everything would have been just fine.
-- ekaton aka d.k.shaw
You say, "The French nuclear power industry is almost entirely subsidized by the French government, and generates electricity that is (insert here personal a string of negatives including "expensive, unreliable, unsafe, polluting, has no radioactive waste solution,") and cannot compete in the open marketplace"
Would you use this basic argument to attack socialized medicine in France or defend your governments refusal to embrace it?
JHC,
Spot-on!
I like you nick too.
---USAn---
Wow. I don't even know what you're trying to say here.
"Comparing apples to oranges" doesn't even come close to describing your argument.
Jacqueline.S
Excellent comments kayaker and johnshaplin.
The arguments against nuclear power from Harvey Waserman, Ralph Nader, etc are very short on science.
It is truly tragic that the one area where environmentalist have enjoyed the most success--squashing nuclear energy, is the area that has actually done the most damage to the planet. By vilifying nuclear power, coal has been inadvertently promoted.
When it comes to nuclear energy, the opposing side rivals the closed mindedness and disdain for science found in Sarah Palin supporters.
You give environmentalists too much credit.
Nuclear energy "squashed" itself, with Three Mile Island, Windscale, Chernobyl, and other "officially denied" Soviet nuclear disasters....
Do you really believe that those of us opposed to nuclear power are as "anti-science" as Sarah Palin supporters?
"Science" tells me that plutonium is the most toxic substance known to man.
"Science" tells me that the consequences of inevitable human error are greatly magnified when it comes to nuclear power.
"Science" tells me that the half-life of nuclear waste is longer than the period of recorded human history.
"Science" tells me that all current and proposed solutions for disposing of nuclear waste are laughably feeble.
You betcha!
Sioux Rose
GOOSNARGH: Excellent post! I remember a 3-hour special on the waste industry that was narrated by David Suzuki (some years ago). What was most troubling about this presentation was that organized crime was heavily involved in the waste removal industries. Suzuki showed how these unconscionable types would take "biohazard" wastes like AIDS syringes from hospitals, and merely cut a large hole into the ground, place the equivalent a gigantic baggy (plastic filler) as a liner, and then put the dangerous stuff right on it! In time rain waters would carry the toxins back to the water table.
The polymers produced at high temperatures in factories also end up back in the soil, air and water. Nature has no biological precedent for breaking these items down. With respect to bioengineered substances, a similar problem is created. Nature is very good at recycling, and she's had millions of years to learn what to do with each item; but the chemical cocktails everywhere overwhelming her systems pose the equivalent of bringing a labor force from a foreign land that can't speak the language necessary for working with the items it faces.
Just as the Indigenous learned, it is far wiser to work with nature, than to undo her efforts when not undermining the very web of life by eradicating so many key ecosystems. Gaia has been wounded, and from mankind's perspective, it is yet to be determined if these wounds represent mortal blows.
I feel like the entire country is princess Leia pleading helplessly: "Obi-Wan Obama you are my only hope."
He does a great job of listing the major points against nuclear power but unfortunately he does no job of supporting them here, nor in his interesting and hopeful work of fiction, Solartopia. I wish him well, because that is where I want to live. But it is too simplistic to impugn the motives of the vast majority of scientists who pay no attention to him.
Jesus Christ! Get LOST!!
Let me share a little story with you. Back in the 70's, before my dad experienced his progressive spiritual awakening, he worked as a quality control engineer for a Bechtel contractor. His specific job was quality control and test evaluation concerning flow regulation on the safety cooling water valves of nuclear power plants. Well, as man made inventions go... they don't always work as planned the first time. Bechtel realized that they had just invested a bunch of money on this one particular technology but that it was UNFIT and DANGEROUS for use in the United States. So being a money driven corporation as they were, did they send this equipment to the dump where it belonged? No, they turned around and sold it to the NORTH KOREANS WHO PUT IT INTO SERVICE!!!!
"Hello my North Korean friends! It's so nice to finally meet you in person. Here is all the equipment we talked about. Yes, yes it is very shiny. Yes see here we even inscribed the Premiers name on it. Special order for him! Yes! Oh, oh, that valve? No no no, don't worry. It will work fine! Yes it's just a water valve. Water, ha!"
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1963 & 1968- Dallas and Los Angeles Coup d'État by the US Military Industrial Junta completed according to modern examination of old evidence
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.", Albert Einstein. (Ed note: WHITE PHOSPHOROUS, DENSE METAL SUPER WEAPONS, NUCLEAR STICK UP, MISSILE DEFENSE, AND PROPAGANDA!!!!!)
Sioux Rose
FAKE DEMOCRACY: I am not equipped to challenge the science aspect behind this energy debate but I do know two things: one is resonant with your posting. America, so long as it shows foremost a love of money, will do unconscionable things and cover up their dangers. The EPA stating NYC was fine after 911 is one example, so too were those "downwinders" told the nuclear tests in the SW desert were perfectly safe. I recall, too, the U.S. sending DDT to other nations when it was banned here, so that now we eat the DDT on the imported fruits and vegetables, a perfect karmic example of things coming full circle. These are just a few of the examples that come to mind. Until America's energy wizards live by the precept "Harm none" they have no business playing with "The fire of the gods" as deeply planted under the earth for a reason! Hopi prophecy stated that once the white man started using this substance, it would bring on a great many catastrophies, even the possible end of mankind's version of civilization.
P.S. In a discussion like this I sure miss Kem!
agree totally, and while we're at it, let's get rid of electricity and fire.
kloro:
Naw....lets keep the elec.....and get rid of fire.
And while we are at it.....round tires too.
Just think......without fire and round tires......everyone would be cool and square...:)
Phasing out nuclear power is not the catastrophic move that you are making it out to be.
1. Nuclear power plants are not safe-evidence shows after over 50 years of trying the nuclear power industry is and has been operating leaky, dangerous plants.
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/three-mile-island-29-years-lat-0104.html
2. Nuclear Power Plants have been the source of several disasters; Chernobyl and Three Mile Island being the most talked about. These were tremendously destructive events despite the fact that political elites in the pay of the nuclear power industry and their chosen voices in the mainstream press played down total impact of the radiation that was released during each occurrence. There have been other near misses that did not even create a blip on the radar because the political elite protecting the industry has kept a lid on the news.
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/SecretFallout/
http://www.llrc.org/
Low levels of radiation constantly leak out of Nuclear Power plants; this is very dangerous and is the source of breast cancers in women and thyroid cancers in children.
http://www.foe.arc.net.au/kohnlein/kohnpaper.html
The Nuclear Power industry works in close conjunction with the weapons industry; this joint venture is another source of dreadful disease in humans.
http://www.llrc.org/
3. Renewable sources and less harmful sources of power exist; this are proven sources and your statement notwithstanding, there inculcation into our power stream would not obligate us to move back to a neolithic type of culture.
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/faces/faces.html
"The Nuclear Power industry works in close conjunction with the weapons industry; this joint venture is another source of dreadful disease in humans."
Ever wonder where all that "depleted" uranium comes from for use in everything from rifle rounds, to artillery shells, to bomb casings and even to tank "armor". Some armor. Sitting inside a can surrounded by a couple tons of uranium. Of course its not a problem, really, because the pentagon has declared depleted uranium to be "safe" for use in warfare. My mind is at ease.
-- ekaton aka d.k.shaw
This op ed piece is about as useless as tits on a boar. Ya know, some of us believed the lies for awhile, but even if you lie long enough, and loud enough, it is still a lie. And most of us are seeing the truth.
Back in the '70's there was a national movement to stop the building of nuclear power plants in the US. It was successful. No new plants have been built for decades. There is a basic problem with nuclear energy. You have a fuel and waste byproduct which has a half life of longer than all of human civilization. Any, leak, meltdown, whatever, will contaminate that area, in human terms, forever! This is a good source of energy??? Human engineering, no matter how good, cannot predict and therefore design a containment system for the uncertainty of that long a time. It's a disaster waiting to happen. Why defend such a dangerous source of energy when you can use renewable energies that have no such risk?
Nuclear weapons and nuclear power are pathologically stupid. The nuclear energy is "back" not because it is safe or "green" but because the nuclear energy industry and their PR firms rightly (evidently, given these posts) believe most Americans don't know any (recent) history, even their own.
If anything can go wrong, it will. What would the odds be of a house-sized meteor hitting a nuclear plant? What were the odds of 16 of our Saudi friends flying two airliners into the world trade center and one into the pentagon? Either situation would be considered an outlandish scenario until it happens.
BTW, would you happen to be Tom Larsen, the kick-ass blues guitar player and singer?
-- ekaton aka d.k.shaw
OK, O Enlightened One, favor us with some wisdom: What do we do with the nuclear waste?
Someone commented that solar is working for Japan and other countries. So I went to Wikipedia and looked at 'Nuclear Power in Japan'. Very interesting. Here is one excerpt:'Ultimately nuclear's share is planned to rise to around 60% of power production in 2050'.
Tom:
I know history quit well.
One has risks every day in life. What one does it mitigate said risks as much as possible.
Nuclear is part of the solution to get the heck off fossil fuels. Wind is a huge part of the solution to get off fossil fuels.
Solar cells are so toxic, and are all over the place now. To think all these heavy metals are going in land fills to make our water undrinkable isn't funny.
And no matter how you think....that is happening.
Solar steam is a very viable alternative, but solar cells are not. They are worse than the fever as far as the environment is concerned.
My wish is that in 20 years there is not a coal/oil/natural gas elec plant left in production. That can be accomplished with wind/solar steam/nuclear.
Anything else is pure folly in my opinion.
We do not have the right to risk future generations with nuclear contamination. Nuclear power is not a solution to fossil fuels. It is far worse. It would be infinately better for us to give up our energy intensive (and unsustainable) lifestyle and live more simply. Now that's an energy alternative worth exploring.
What?!?! Surely you don't mean we can't have 80 degree homes in the winter and 60 degree homes in the summer? Oh. Horrors. What?!?! Dump the 10 mpg SUV's in favor of 30 mpg cars? 1600 square foot houses instead of 5000 sq. ft. for a family of four?Expanded public transit? Revitalized railroads to replace millions of tractor trailers spewing diesel exhaust? Are you INSANE, man?!?! This is America!!!!
-- ekaton aka d.k.shaw
It's interesting how many pro-nuclear commentators there are on Common Dreams. Harvey Wasserman is called a "religious fanatic" by some for his opposition to nuclear power.
Yet to me, it is the pro-nuclear folks who seem the most religious. Ask them, "What do we do with the waste?" and the answer is always, "We've nearly got it figured out. Just give us more money."
How is this different from any garden-variety televangelist?
deletion
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