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Is the Climate Bill Being Fossil/Nuked?
Is the Climate Bill morphing into an excuse to promote fossil fuels and new nuclear power plants?
Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) recent promotion of a pro-nuke/pro-drilling/pro-coal agenda in the name of Climate Protection has been highlighted in a New York Times op ed co-authored with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC). The piece brands nuke power "our single largest contributor of emissions-free power." It advocates abolishing "cumbersome regulations" so utilities can "secure financing for more plants." And it wants "serious investment" to "find solutions to our nuclear waste problem."
The Senate Bill as now drafted also includes a "Clean Energy Development Administration" that could deliver virtually unlimited federal cash to build new reactors and fund other mega-polluters.
Also on the table are vastly expanded permits for off-shore drilling. And Kerry/Graham have talked of making the US "the Saudi Arabia of clean coal" while bringing "new financial incentives for companies that develop carbon capture and sequestration technology."
If you think pushing nukes, oil wells and coal mines to "prevent global warming" is counter-intuitive, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
The give-aways are allegedly meant to attract GOP votes. The joint Kerry/Graham op ed is being billed as a "game changer."
But even with provisions pushing a hundred new reactors in the US alone, some GOP stalwarts hint they would NEVER vote for a bill that includes cap-and-trade clauses. So is the GOP set to play the same game with climate legislation as it has with health care: prolong negotiations, gut the substance of reform, demand---and GET---untold corporate give-aways, and then oppose the bill anyway?
What thin green substance survives could be limited to a few showpiece handouts for renewables and efficiency, with cap-and-trade as the centerpiece. But many environmentalists argue that cap-and-trade could create yet another costly bureaucracy with little real impact on the climate crisis.
To get real about solving this crisis, Congress should demand---and fund---a definitive national transition to energy efficiency and modernized mass transit. We still waste half the energy we consume. There's no source of usable juice cheaper and quicker to install than increased efficiency.
Taxes on carbon and other forms of "ancillary" pollution would help if they assess radioactive emissions (from coal as well as nukes), destruction of our oceans,lakes and rivers, removal of mountain tops, creation of nuclear waste, and so on. Merely axing the subsidies to King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes & Gas) and rendering a level playing field for true green energy sources to fairly compete with the old fossil/nukes would take us a long way up the road to Solartopia. A feed-in tariff that rewards renewables for the pollution they avoid would also help.
Without all that, the Climate Bill's outright negatives could be huge. Atomic reactors can do little or nothing to bring down carbon emissions. Projected construction costs for new nukes have jumped from $2 billion to $13 billion and counting. Body-blows to the all-but-dead Yucca Mountain nuke waste dump have left the industry, after 50 years, with nothing tangible to do with some 50,000 tons of spent lethal radioactive fuel rods. And after a half-century, the industry cannot command private construction financing or private liability insurance to cover a catastrophic melt-down or terror attack. Even if reactors could help with greenhouse gas emissions, it would take a trillion dollars or more to make a noticeable dent, and a decade or more for such reactors to begin to come on line.
But the reactor lifeline does not flow through licensing or waste. Because it has failed as a commercial technology, the industry must have massive infusions of cash and loan guarantees. The Climate Bill's real damage will be measured by the size and scope of reactor subsidies, if any.
Kerry's willingness to entertain "clean coal" and new offshore oil drilling as "solutions" for climate chaos staggers the imagination. It seems to signal that King CONG still owns Washington, and that any meaningful Congressional push for green power will demand serious re-direction from the grassroots.
DC insiders generally doubt that any Climate Bill can pass this year. Afghanistan and health care still dominate the national agenda.
But Democrats are desperate for SOMETHING to show at December's Copenhagen Climate Conference. The question is: how much will they give fossil/nuke Republicans to get a bill---ANY bill---with the world "Climate" attached?
The anti-nuclear movement has three times defeated proposed $50 billion loan guarantees for new nuclear plants. The environmental community still understands that solving the climate crisis requires the ultimate phase-out of fossil fuels. "A carbon-free, nuclear-free energy future is within the Senate's reach," says Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service. "The approach laid out by Kerry and Graham would lead to a climate bill in name only." NIRS is organizing a national call-in this week .( http://nukefree.org/news/callyoursenatorsoctober15 ). A nationwide series of demonstrations for the environment will take place October 24.
Preserving our ability to survive on this planet demands we phase out fossil fuels and nuclear power, and make the transition to a green-powered Earth based solely on renewables and efficiency. Ultimately, we cannot live with less.
44 Comments so far
Show AllCancer forever increasing nukes and coal's devastation are the only political solutions. Real solutions to the energy problem would have to include politically unpopular decisions. Decisions such as halting and reversing overpopulation humanely and sharing the wealth and power with all the people.
I think one reason why studies have proven that the people make the correct decisions more often than politicians do is that direct democratic decisions are not subject to politician's games.
nuclear energy offers "the lowest costs to the consumer...?" Does this include all the tax dollars for insurance coverage, NRC, overheated water that kills fish, and other subsidies?
Excelon, FPL and other nuke utlities are already doing pretty well extending licenses, uprating their existing nukes, and planning new ones, have even retired a few coal coal fired clunkers, and they will have tons of carbon credits to trade. So nuclear can be done without direct funding from the Climate Bill.
The oil companies haven't exploited off-shore leases already in place because the crude would be too expensive, and CO2 capture from coal will probably never be practical.
So right on, Mr. Wassermann! The climate Bill should be Cap and Trade that leads to renewables, infrastructure and transportation improvement, conservation, and phasing out fossil energy. Where I disagree with you is if a utility builds or uprates a nuke station and retires fossil capacity, it should be entitled to sell carbon credits.
bbr: By FPL I presume you mean Florida Power and Light and this prompts me to note that right now here in Florida we're getting a double whammy of the national trend toward nuke and oil drilling development. FPL, in the midst of credible charges of a too-cozy relation with the Public Service Commission, has just been given the authority to raise utility rates for current rate-payers to finance nuclear plants that won't be operational for many years. Meanwhile the oil and gas industry is moving to re-align the local opposition to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, on public concern about the price of gasoline when any effect of the drilling will come only years in the future, if ever. Wassermann as usual is as you say right on.
Causing one kind of problem should net no one credit in another.
Cap and trade looks like a hucksters' cover to keep polluting, one way or another.
The demand for fossil fuels and nuclear energy is going up. There used to be a time when less oil was used. As soon as the energy crisis was over in the early 80s, oil usage and demand went up and it hasn't stopped. Nuclear energy is not a solution for replacing fossil fuels. The nuclear hacks show no interest in being realistic and practical. We could cut back our demands on oil and avoid those nuke plants. Here's my ideas:
Invest in switch grass instead of corn for a biofuel.
Divert money being subsidized for highway pork to expanding travelling by train and publicly owned buses.
Ride your bike as often as you can.
Make fuel efficient vehicles affordable. There is no excuse for keeping them too pricey.
I'm no nuclear guru but I have heard too many safety issues about nuclear. But where's affordable solar and wind energy when blue collared workers such me need it? Only reserved for rich pigs. I heard that solar panels and wind turbines need oil to produce. Could you provide me so information unbiased about nuclear power? I hear Europe is mixed on nuclear energy. At first it worked and then it ran into issues. Can't afford that here. If the safety issues can be resolved, then sign me on. We need affordable energy whatever the source.
I wouldn't mind substituting my current SUV and pickup truck which I use for work to take stuff back and forth for an electric hybrid but it's too damn expensive. Instead of blaming the SUV, there ought to be a switch from corn based ethanol to switchgrass ethanol which would work with existing gasoline powered vehicles and reduce dependence on oil.
Thanks Mr. Wasserman! I'm always glad to see your efforts to save us all from King CONG. You and Mr. Solomon's book, Killing Our Own is an excellent book detailing the dangers of atomic radiation and the enormous amount of damage it has already done.
Here's another good article about the horrors of nuclear energy.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15673
Here's a little excerpt :
"The average age of operating reactors globally is 25 years, while the average age of 123 reactors already closed is 22 years only. In addition to the 52 reactors currently under construction, another 43 reactors would have to be planned, built and started by 2015 - one every six weeks, and another 192 units over the following 10 years - one every 19 days - in order to maintain the same number that are operating today. With extremely long lead times of 10 to 15 years, this will be an impossible task, let alone actually increasing the number of reactors."
Just another grand folly that will benefit a few corrupt scumbags with who knows how much suffering and hardship for the majority.
If solar and wind had been and were subsidized like King CONG a large percentage of our electricity would already be supplied by renewable sources.
p.s. King CONG refers to Coal, Oil, Natural Gas. I think Mr. Wasserman made a mistake when he called it Nuclear Gas.
Ack! The nuclear vampire is back! I thought 3-mile Island drove a stake through its heart... then Chernobel (sp, sorry) drove another one... but here it is back again. Two quick arguments if you encounter one of this parasite's promoters. 1) Nukes are not energy efficient. Forget extra costs (disease esp.), just the energy that it takes to build, maintain, process the fuel and decommission is simply more than the plant produces. 2) If they're such great power producers, why are they begging for investment guarantees, insurance limitations (Price-Anderson), federally-subsidized fuel, etc. We've got a "free-market system. Raise the f---ing money yourself, you welfare queen! The #1 solution: Conservation!
The climate change tax dodgers.
------
The most endearing to our hearts is what makes lives and economies growable.
What brings us our daily food and keeps us happy and comfortable.
Families and friends who help gather benefits and share it around.
Are surprised that such goodness is given up at a price from sea and ground.
Our work jobs help to grow, harvest, deliver and display, hygenically packaged.
Life all carved up, with small hidden costs in price tags of Gaia ravaged
Sourced from other life,many a plant, fungi, fish, bird and mammal.
Exploited, displaced or made extinct by this dominant animal.
Everything seems made to serve us, the centre of our own Creation,
Nature endowed us, evolved our race, but only we developed the religious ideation.
Much life before had became coal, oil and natural gas, buried and cooked deep in the past,
Rich stores of carbon and hydrogen energy, both very dangerous and vast.
We liked the idea that more of dead lifes treasure was for us to mine.
and Mine it we did, for it brought us fuel, chemistry and lifestyle devine.
We, the so lucky beneficieries of more than just living lifes grace,
Did not we really know that geochemistry puts strict limits in our face?
Everywhere around are sign-posts that only the trained in Science can read,
Do you trust in their hard-won rationality, or do you have stupidity, blindness or greed?
Every breath you exhale is proof that carbon chemistry always works.
In every word you speak, more than just a trace of carbon dioxide lurks.
The fact that earth is at the very least more than a bit warm,
And did not stay just an icy ball free from rainy storm,
is due in part to aerial Carbon Dioxide, in amounts so small,
In parts per million, that may seem unbelievably not much at all.
It always has been a delicate balance, between plants that harvest carbon from air,
The forests, peat bogs, soils and ocean deposits that compress and keep the carbon rare,
There is a jiggling balance with climate at which plants and animals thrive best.
As the sun has aged and warmed, aerial carbon was reduced to bottom in each ice age test.
What we have done has now polluted the air beyond the safety limits of Gaian agency.
Limits estimated to exist at somewhere below three fifty.
Only a large reduction in human numbers, done very soon, or a sudden stringency.
Can still be effective as we have run past our allowed time for complacency.
A severe reduction of carbon burning now will prevent worse disaster later.
Interest on unpaid tax, the Gaian climate debt compounds with every year.
Are we really not smart enough to plan for our longer term survival?
Only rich privileges prevent risking smallish costs of carbon reduction trial.
As a child suddenly threatened with removal of its toy,
The most spoilt nations treat carbon reductions with cries of denial.
Since their fossil fuel reserves look like they might deplete.
They carry out extended war plans to steal from others their carbon treet.
Instead of harvasting the constant Solar flow,
They would rather their nuclear waste and weapons grow.
Instead of leaving the poisonous dirty coal deep underground,
Clean coal lies and blasting of mountain tops reverberate around.
harvey wasserman
Thanks for all your comments. It's a mystery where John Kerry is coming from on this. Now today we read he is appearing to support escalation in Afghanistan. Why not just sign the death certificate for what was once a great nation?
These comments are all right on, including the one pro-nuclear note, which is remarkably polite. Nuclear power is a failed technology because after 50 years it can't deal with its wastes, has no liability insurance and no prospects for private funding. It is also vulnerable to disaster by terror and error, kills people every day with its "normal" emissions and heats the planet directly rather than relying greenhouse gases.
What's mystifying is how people continue to support this nightmare. My feeling is the industry will begin to build a few reactors, the projects will soar over budget and behind schedule and, a few tens of billions of dollars later, they'll pull the plug again. But it'll be up to us to make that happen. Meantime, KEEP THE FAITH! NO NUKES/4 SOLARTOPIA!
Billy,
Well, one could ask you, "if you are intellectually honest", why you do not detail the provisions of Price Anderson, under which the federal government (meaning we the taxpayers) assumes liability for all costs beyond $10B ($10,000,000,000) in the event of a commercial reactor accident.
So yes, all the reactors are insured, but only because you and i have been signed up by our representatives as guarantors of a $10B cap on the reactor operators' liability.
Otherwise the market would price the insurance so high that no commercial operator would be able to afford insurance - because the costs and liability of a catastrophic accident would far far far outstrip $10B.
You do obliquely reference a "common liability pool... in excess of $10,000,000,000", but what do you intend the reader to understand when you say this?
The first $10B is "from the utilities", but you do not mention that all liability beyond this common pool is backed by the taxpayers, and has no cap. Taxpayers could be liable for far more than $10B under Price Anderson, and it is precisely and only this guarantee that allows reactor operators to operate.
Perhaps you would be more "intellectually honest" to explain this more plainly to readers who may be unfamiliar with the political realities behind the nuclear power industry that you so assiduously promote here at Common Dreams.
They are not insured in a way commensurate with their potential damage.
The dispute over injury from TMI is spurious. The increase in cancer fatalities in the 1980's maps to the same pattern as particle dispersal from the plant, given a prevailing westerly wind.
Again, the plants deny responsibility, fire those who refuse complicity. As to the government, it denies responsibility even when it blows up a fission weapon and allows the fallout to drift over human populations.
And it is worth mentioning that we are not even discussing the more routine problems for labor handling the materials.
Now that's a pile of bs which just disproves your own support of nuclear energy. No thanks for nuclear. I'll keep it safe without it.
Whatever happened to cold fusion now that we could really use it?
The statement that atomic energy can do little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions is not scientifically sound.
The debate has never been whether or not nuclear power can reduce CO-2 emissions.
Uranium, unlike coal and gas, is not a carbon based energy source.
Even considering the carbon footprint along every step of the way, including the cement that is used to form a containment dome, nuclear power is far less carbon intensive than coal and gas. Furthermore it does not foul the air with noxious smog, or the water with mercury and arsenic.
Nuclear power is environmentally far superior to fossil fuels.
That is why the main talking point against nuclear power has become the high cost of new construction.
Our cheapest energy source is coal.
Unless you consider that coal is destroying the planet.
When you look at it that way, coal is actually the most expensive energy source by far.
That would assume that coal is the only source destroying the planet.
Same ole, same ole.....
"We need an energy system that can fight climate change, based on renewable energy and energy efficiency. Nuclear power already delivers less energy globally than renewable energy, and the share will continue to decrease in the coming years.
Despite what the nuclear industry tells us, building enough nuclear power stations to make a meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would cost trillions of dollars, create tens of thousands of tons of lethal high-level radioactive waste, contribute to further proliferation of nuclear weapons materials, and result in a Chernobyl-scale accident once every decade. Perhaps most significantly, it will squander the resources necessary to implement meaningful climate change solutions. (Briefing: Climate change - Nuclear not the answer."
""Nuclear power plants are, next to nuclear warheads themselves, the most dangerous devices that man has ever created. Their construction and proliferation is the most irresponsible, in fact the most criminal, act ever to have taken place on this planet."
Patrick Moore, Assault on Future Generations, 1976
"The Nuclear Age began in July 1945 when the US tested their first nuclear bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico. A few years later, in 1953, President Eisenhower launched his "Atoms for Peace" Programme at the UN amid a wave of unbridled atomic optimism.
But as we know there is nothing "peaceful" about all things nuclear. More than half a century after Eisenhower's speech the planet is left with the legacy of nuclear waste. This legacy is beginning to be recognised for what it truly is.
Things are moving slowly in the right direction. In November 2000 the world recognised nuclear power as a dirty, dangerous and unnecessary technology by refusing to give it greenhouse gas credits during the UN Climate Change talks in The Hague. Nuclear power was dealt a further blow when a UN Sustainable Development Conference refused to label nuclear a sustainable technology in April 2001.
The risks from nuclear energy are real, inherent and long-lasting."
"Safety: No reactor in the world is inherently safe. All operational reactors have inherent safety flaws, which cannot be eliminated by safety upgrading. Highly radioactive spent fuel requires constant cooling. If this fails, it could lead to a catastrophic release of radioactivity. They are also highly vulnerable to deliberate acts of sabotage, including terrorist attack.
Waste: From the moment uranium is mined nuclear waste on a massive scale is produced. There is no secure, risk free way to store nuclear waste. No country in the world has a solution for high-level waste that stays radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. The least damaging option at this current time is for waste to be stored above ground, in dry storage at the site of origin, but this option also presents major challenges and the threats.
Weapons proliferation: The possession of nuclear weapons by the US, Russia, France, the UK and China has encouraged the further proliferation of nuclear technology and materials. Every state that has a nuclear power capability, has the means to obtain nuclear material usable in a nuclear weapon. Basically this means that the 44 nuclear power states could become 44 nuclear weapons states. Many nations that have active commercial nuclear power programs, began their research with two objectives - electricity generation and the option to develop nuclear weapons. Also nuclear programs based on reprocessing plutonium from spent fuel have dramatically increased the risk of proliferation as the creation of more plutonium, means more nuclear waste which in turn means more materials available for the creation of dirty bombs."
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/nuclear
The weapons proliferation stuff sounds weird. That's one safety issue I never heard. The pro-nuclear crowd needs to address that safety issue most of all. Thanks for the link.
Sounds weird because it is...
Canada is a world leader in nuclear reactors. Have they a nuclear weapons program?
Japan is a world leader in nuclear reactors. Have they a nuclear weapons program?
(repeat, 42 times)
This seems to me like a false association. Governments pursue nuclear power for energy independence. Governments pursue nuclear weapons for defense against nuclear-armed foes.
The U.S. developed the A-bomb because they thought the Germans were working on it.
The Russians stole the U.S. design to defend against western aggression.
The U.S. gave the design to the British and French for defense against the Russians.
The Chinese stole the U.S. design to defend against Russian aggression.
The Indians got the U.S. design (from the Russians?) for defense against the Chinese.
The Pakistanis got the U.S. design (from ?) for defense against the Indians.
The North Koreans got the U.S. design from the Chinese for - well, they were invaded by the Japanese, U.S., Chinese - who can blaim them for being paranoid? Even so, the North Koreans came close to dropping their weapons program in the face of sanctions, and for the promise of power plants.
The Iraqis dropped their program in the face of sanctions.
The South Africans dropped their program in the face of sanctions.
The Libyans dropped their program in the face of sanctions.
The Iranians are predicted to drop their weapons program in the face of sanctions - if they can get some powerplants out of the deal like the North Koreans were trying to do.
The U.S. declared a moratorium on spent fuel reprocessing as a "moral example" to other nations, because of the supposed proliferation threat of reprocessed fuel.
France certainly didn't follow our example - they reprocess all their fuel (even the stuff that gets temporarily stored in Siberia).
The British certainly didn't follow our example - they reprocess their own fuel, and other countries' fuel too.
Japan certainly didn't follow our example - they reprocess their fuel and make a profit on the palladium they recover!
India certainly isn't following our example - they are reprocessing their fuel to enable thorium reactors, and extracting not just palladium but very valuable rhodium.
Proliferation safety has not played out the way people half a century ago were worried it might.
True,
Having a nuclear reactor does not guarantee that one will create nuclear arms.
However,
all nuclear weapons programs that do exist do use materials from plants.
In your examples above, the US defended distributing nuclear technology to both the Indians and Pakistanis as nuclear power for energy independence. I suspect you are correct about the motivations of Pakistani and Indian elites, but that does not make nuclear power less a part of the proliferation process.
While few predictions hold over fifty years, someone in 1959 predicting that nuclear power would play a role in proliferation would have been 100% correct.
I was thinking the same. I see more bs to nuclear than any good the more the pro-nuke supporters try to justify it.
harvey wasserman
the point about nuclear reactor liability insurance bears some further scrutiny. the 1957 Price-Anderson Act was passed by Congress because the utilities said they would not take the liability themselves. the reactor industry said the private insurance industry would jump in once the technology matured. that was more than 50 years ago.
despite all the carping about "inherently safe," no new reactor will be built without the same guarantees. Billy lauds the$10b liability fund now allegedly in place. by very conservative estimates Chernobyl did more than $500b. that was beginning in 1986 in a relatively poor rural area.
imagine, as did the Sandia Laboratories did in the late 1950s, a credible reactor accident that permanently contaminates a land area the size of Pennsylvania. or imagine it happening to the actual Pennsylvania, as nearly happened at Three Mile Island in 1979. then tell us how meaningful that paltry $10b will be when millions of claims start pouring in for destroyed life and property.
in effect, the industry has no insurance at all. read your homeowners' policy and you'll see you have no coverage at all. that's what this nuclear industry is really all about, and the "new nukes" (which i think will never be built) are scheduled to be just more of the same.
Billy,
Is there any other commercial business that requires explicit specific taxpayer guarantee of all liability above $10B, just in order for the business to get insurance and operate? Sure that is "the law of the land" and it should be repealed.
And Price Anderson did not become "the law of the land" due to lobbying by common people like Harvey Wasserman, who is of course as you say "free" to petition his government, but instead due to lobbying by truly effective corporate lobbyists in the nuclear industry. You don't really mean to indicate that the law is as it is due to citizen input, or that it can be changed by common people?
The government does not document such injuries publicly. Neither did the companies closely involved in operation and production of the plants.
Employees of some power services can be fired for using the word "accident" in place of "incident."
Far from adjusting the potential damage down, potential damage of plants was adjusted up by the 1980's. Expensive retrofitting of plants when the government recognized certain emissions as being hundreds of thousands of times more lethal than had been acknowledged played a part in killing new construction in the 1980's, along with the wave of lawsuits threatened by players within the industry at that time.
Being "free to petition the government" is a poor substitute for one's health.
Witness, for example, the victims of government nuclear experiments on American soldiers and on the residents of Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and neighboring states, as well as the victims of the Three Mile Island incident.
Certainly intentional exposure from arms tends to be very different than exposure from plants.
I don't mean to make them equivalent. However, non-identity does not amount to irrelevancy, particularly since the government still regularly exposes soldiers and local populations to radiation from DU ammo in its ongoing occupations.
I appreciate that you do acknowledge the tragedy of the weapons tests. In many cases, the government has not.
I haven't seen the tooth fairy account. Could you be classifying it as such because it does not match NRC or industry accounts? Both industry and the NRC have very strong vested interests in presenting one side of this story, but of course that does not give them a monopoly on foolishness. Perhaps you can point out some way the criticisms are incorrect.
As to language and firings, such information does not always travel well within industry, particularly in industries with significant security requirements.
These articles are always a day late and a dollar short by years. The authentic environmental movement has been telling people this information since long before Kerry got the Democratic nomination for president back in 2004. It fell on deaf ears then, it will fall on deaf ears now. Those still following the Democratic Herd simply do not have any resolve whatsoever to take on the entrenched powers of our collective demise.
And like Cygnus noted elsewhere, non-status quo voters represent 1% of the population. We cannot do it by ourselves.
Meanwhile, the venting by the 24/7 guru crowd will chime in and again fall in line with the corporate plan in 2010 and 2012 pulling levers for more of the same.
It is very misleading to compare modern US reactors to Chernobyl.
Chernobyl was an antiquated plant that lacked a containment dome.
Furthermore, at the time of the accident, the plant was forced to run beyond its design limitations and crucial safety features were disabled for a test.
Chernobyl is not relevant to US nuclear power plants.
All of the Earth's inhabitants are exposed to radiation.
The vast majority of the exposure is naturally occurring from Radon and cosmic rays.
The second biggest source of exposure is diagnostic and therapeutic radiation.
Radiation from nuclear power plants does not even make the pie chart.
Burying radioactive waste in the ground is not as scary as it is made out to be.
What I find scary is when you pull coal out of the ground with all of its impurities including radioactive matter and carbon--then release it straight into the atmosphere with no controls or scrutiny.
Once again, Mr. Wasserman, your comments above come back to insurance and costs.
What I am worried about is the environment.
The most modern US reactors involved in power production were built by the mid-1980's and are seriously corroding.
Since the most recent ones were light-water reactors, they had the same main problems with emissions, irreparability, and waste disposal that had dogged the industry for several decades.
Of course we had been exposed to radiation before the plants. The quantity of exposure does make a difference, however. Why do you think that the radiation from plants, which can on occasion be detected thousands of miles away from its source, be "off the pie chart"?
Whose chart are we looking at? How was it assembled? What aspects of the process are included?
It is utterly typical that authoritative-looking statistics are assembled, most notably by the NRC, that fail to include much of the cycle of uranium processing - from mining, assembly, transport, storage, use in plants, production of waste not only from the uranium itself but also from anything that has passed near it, and then frequently its passage into munitions, either as fissionable material or DU projectiles.
Why would you assume that running beyond limitations would make the Soviet plant *less* similar to American plants, rather than more? Surely it is clear that companies run plants as long as they can. These plants cost considerable money to shut down. Besides, human error exists in the United States as well.
Why would storage of massive radioactivity for thousands of years anywhere be unscary?
The insurance is limited and pushed off onto government and taxpayers because the large corporate entities that invest in these things consider them too risky.
Of course, the environmental and human damage of these plants has not been and will not be covered in any realistic way by the insurance, which is mostly interesting only in that it points up the depth of hypocrisy in the NRC and in the industry, both of whom tend to pretend that things are safe while being utterly unwilling to begin to undertake the enormity of their responsibility for irradiating large human populations.
Nuclear power is the only technology ever shown to significantly displace fossil fuels and reduce CO2 emissions. In the U.S., France, and Japan, nuclear power almost completely replaced oil for electricity generation.
I wouldn't mind people having a quasi-religious objection to nuclear power if they could point to some other existing technology that could realistically replace fossil fuels. There is no other existing technology. Solar might be able to some day but can't come close today - I could have written that 30 years ago too. Geothermal might some day be able to make a contribution, but can't today. Wind will never be able to make more than a minor contribution. Even if we wanted to do what we used to tease the Iranians about and go back to a 16th century standard of living, renewables wouldn't cut it.
I understand this essay was a political piece, but Kerry/Graham is the first sign anyone in Washington is getting serious about addressing climate change. Now if we could just get them to dump cap-and-trade in favor of a carbon tax!
The old problems with nuclear are all solvable, and most have already been solved. It's time to move out with a second wave of nuclear power to replace coal plants the way we replaced oil plants, to reduce our CO2 emissions back to what is sustainable.
Which objections to nuclear power do you find quasi-religious?
Why do you imagine wind or solar power can only make a slight contribution, given that they have been more cost-effective than nuclear plants since at least the mid-1980's?
What makes you think that any of the more serious problems with nuclear power are solvable? I would think that those would at least include emissions, non-repairable plants, and still-unresolved questions of waste storage currently the subject of lawsuit between the US government and nearly every power company in the US. At some point one might address the labor-management problems that come out of huge centralized construction projects outside of the city, with the resultant monkeywrenching of plants and so forth.
Why would renewables necessitate a 16th-Century standard of living? -- or, perhaps, a 16-th century level of technology, if that's what you mean?
"Nuclear power is the only technology ever shown to significantly displace fossil fuels and reduce CO2 emissions."
2008 was the first year in history that the largest contributor worldwide of NEW power generation was renewables, primarily wind and solar.
Wind and solar ARE significantly displacing fossil fuels and reducing CO2 emissions. In Germany today solar has surpassed 1 percent of national electricity generation and is ramping up to provide 25% before mid-century. And Germany is far from the ideal location for most efficient solar collection.
If renewables got a sliver of the incentives and government support that fossil and nuclear receive, already-accelerating development would skyrocket further. Mouthpieces for fossil fuel and nuclear interests who mislead about renewables may successfully undermine public awareness but they do not change the truth.
Gosh, Billy sure was here a lot, replying a lot.
He never replied to any of my specific posts and concrete questions.
Interesting...