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Why Anti-Nuclear Belongs in All of Our Movements
The stakes are getting higher by the day in the radioactive roulette playing out at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex. On Monday the Japanese government finally widened the evacuation zone and is raising the threat level from five to seven, the same level as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. In our own movements we need to raise the nuclear threat level too.
While it’s tempting to sit back and wait for an antinuclear movement to rekindle in the United States, we simply can’t afford the time. Nor is it clear that such a movement will emerge. The failure of the anti-war movement to gain broad traction is a case in point. Many progressive movements are just struggling to hold on in the face of vicious right-wing assaults and loss of funding. So the question becomes: How do we build an antinuclear politics in the absence of a full-fledged antinuclear movement?
The answer lies in finding points of convergence. After all, nuclear power, waste and weaponry threaten us all, as well as generations to come. The nuclear accident in Japan – if we can really call it an accident since potential disaster was built into the very location and design of the plants – serves as a glaring reminder that those who hold the reins of power do not have solutions for the serious social, economic and ecological crises of our time. On the contrary, they are making disasters, not unmaking them, risking our collective future for their own short-term gain. As economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote recently, financial meltdown and nuclear meltdown are closely related, both products of a system of delusional speculation, technological hubris, public subsidies and private greed.
In each of our movements, then, we need to make a space for antinuclear activism. Here are just a few of many possible points of convergence:
Nuclear power is a reproductive rights issue. Among other serious side effects, exposure to radiation can increase the risk of sterility, birth defects and genetic mutations that can affect the reproduction of generations to come. Plutonium, a by-product of nuclear power and a key component of atomic bombs, is the most potent manmade poison on the planet, with a half life of 24,000 years. It crosses the placenta and is stored in male testicles.
Nuclear power is an environmental justice issue, from uranium mining on indigenous lands in the southwest to locating reactors in poor African-American rural communities in Georgia.
It’s a climate justice issue. Don’t let them fool you. Nuclear power is not a clean substitute for dirty fossil fuels. For one thing, the government and industry have no idea of how or where to safely store the waste. Moreover, nuclear is hardly emissions-free when you factor in the mining, transport and enrichment of uranium as well as the leakage of the potent greenhouse gas CFC 114 from cooling pipes. The money spent on nuclear development should instead flow to the development of safe renewable energies and conservation.
It’s a labor rights issue. As we’ve seen at Fukushima, nuclear workers, many of them laboring on an exploitative contract basis, are being exposed to unacceptable health risks. Nuclear power also produces dangerous chemical by-products that affect workers. As an industry shrouded in secrecy, workers often lack redress or are scared to complain about health and safety violations for fear of losing their jobs.
It’s a peace and security issue. The notion of ‘atoms for peace’, first trumpeted by President Eisenhower in the 1950s, has always been a sham. Nuclear power fuels the atomic weapons industry, facilitates nuclear proliferation, and increases vulnerability to terrorist attacks. In a profound irony, it helps legitimize the national security state as necessary to protect us from nuclear threats of the state’s own making.
Nuclear power is a basic democracy issue too. Why does President Obama support nuclear power? Because the nuclear lobby supported his candidacy. If we want clean renewable energy, we need clean elections. And we need local control. Right now the brave state of Vermont is fighting to shut down the leaking Vermont Yankee nuclear plant that has the same flawed design as Fukushima. Its state legislature is pitted against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which recently renewed the plant’s license. Whose vote should count – the people of Vermont’s or a few pro-industry representatives on the NRC licensing committee?
By including opposition to nuclear power in all of our diverse struggles, we can start to build an effective antinuclear politics that could spawn a broader movement. But even if it doesn’t, we won’t have stood by passively as the threat level mounts. While the Republicans play at shutting down the government, what really needs shutting down is the nuclear industry. We all need to help in that fight.
77 Comments so far
Show AllI agree with the author's assessment of the downside of nuclear energy, although the list of its dangers to society isn't nearly long enough.
That said, the best *defense* against continued nuclear development...is a good offense.
A *great* offense would consist of showing that electricity can be produced far more cheaply and sustainably by exploiting abundant renewable resources, with a technology that not only has low investment and operating costs, but that can be installed using CONVENTIONAL equipment with fast delivery times, in locations which are close to those who would consume the power.
Such a technology would further not carry with it the environmental *blight* inherent in technologies such as Wind Farms. These are notoriously unreliable, producing, on average, only about 25% of their *nameplate* capacity, maxing out when the power is least likely to be needed.
The *energy resource* I'm referred to is low-grade heat (erroneously referred to sometimes as *waste* heat), and the technology available to harvest it is the Atmospheric Vortex Engine (AVE). Low grade heat often appears naturally in the atmosphere as Convection, or *vertical winds*. The Midwest, southeast and northeast are rich in convective energy during the spring and summer months, when maximum electric output is most needed for air conditioning.
Low-grade heat can also be obtained from geothermal resources in places where convection isn't abundant (northwest USA). It can also be obtained from Urban Heat Islands or coastal locations adjacent to warm surface waters.
Read about it in an article co-authored by it's Inventor, and a top NASA atmospheric scientist, in the latest edition of Mechanical Engineering.
http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2011/April/Skys_Limit.cfm
It is also a class issue. What in this world does not receive the influence of class? As time passes, I become more acutely aware that Marx was on the money in many ways, no pun intended. With nuclear energy, the profits accrue to a privileged insider minority. Large infrastructure projects are invariably giveaways to insider elites. The burden is borne by the rest of us, including lower classes who are roped into working in dangerous, deadly conditions.
Also, Ms. Hartmann is correct when she says: "In a profound irony, it helps legitimize the national security state as necessary to protect us from nuclear threats of the state’s own making."
This is right on target, and is an often-overlooked aspect of nuclear energy. Yes, it guarantees that a nation will be required to be an authoritarian security state. This accounts for a great deal of its appeal-- to those who are of an authoritarian, military-minded, repressive mindset.
wealth-based class distinction shall give way to health-based classes...
one will be cancerous, childless, sterile, etc., or not yet so...
when water is tainted everywhere, who is rich?
Where have all the nuke shill mass murderers gone?
eze,
Sometimes life intrudes. Also I was behind in my mass murdering and had to schedule some time to go get caught up (mass murder can be so tiring-its no wonder I was behind)
Bill
haha. Mass murder can be so funny
--"Mass murder can be so funny." So can calling someone who posts with integrity a mass murderer.
Great article!!! Betsy Hartmann connects the dots. In fact, not only is nuclear energy an issue of reproductive health, environmental health, worker's rights, peace etc all these issues, plus global warming, attacks on working people, woman's rights, war, toxins in the environment, you name it, are ALL CONNECTED TOO! Liberalism has fractured the various issue oriented movements into competing factions that end up decreasing their effectiveness (which is the whole idea). All these issues are connected: from localism to a woman's right to control her own body, to war and cuts to essential state services, to attacks on unions to corporate giveaways. All these people who have been fighting for years in disparate groups need to join together into one massive movement.
Just as "Why Antinuclear Belongs in All of Our Movements", so does anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anti-war, anti-imperialism, support for workers rights, support for woman's rights, support for LGBT rights, support for indigenous rights, support for the rights of nature, real democracy and self-determination etc etc belongs in all our movements too.
"All these people who have been fighting for years in disparate groups need to join together into one massive movement."
-- YES!!!
Fortunately, the public is being told the truth and we probably will not see our Access To Energy - which is a human right (http://accesstoenergy.com/) denied!
Are you ready? The sheer toughness of the Fukushima plant has even convinced GEORGE MONBIOT!
http://co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima
“You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.
A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.
Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com. It shows that the average total dose from the Three Mile Island disaster for someone living within 10 miles of the plant was one 625th of the maximum yearly amount permitted for US radiation workers. This, in turn, is half of the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to an increased cancer risk, which, in its turn, is one 80th of an invariably fatal exposure. I’m not proposing complacency here. I am proposing perspective.”
The Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471904576229854179642220.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
“Workers have largely stabilized the temperatures of nuclear material at the plant, and reduced the possibility of a catastrophic event such as significant melting, in part by spraying facilities with vast amounts of water.”
And there’s this: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2011/Q1/view668.html#Tuesday
“For a reliable report on the Fukuyama Daiichi nuclear plant, see http://mitnse.com/. I note that MIT is standing down from these reports on the grounds that they are no longer needed so badly. The situation is stable. There are no reliable reports of anyone off the nuclear site being injured. . . Once again we have a very expensive test to destruction of a worst case, with the result that no one off site has been injured, and the off-site radiation contamination is very low. It is not zero, and thus this event caused more damage than TMI, but the effect is the same: no one off site has been seriously harmed. That’s so far, and things could get worse, but that seems unlikely.”
Thank goodness for calm cool adults! I do NOT want to see Wyatt’s Torch, which is one reason for my sig:
Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, NOT a newspaper!
So everything's great then? So we should not be concerned that:
"Japan has raised the severity rating of its nuclear crisis to the highest level, matching the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The level 7 rating signifies a major nuclear accident. At a news conference today, an official from the Tokyo Electric Power Company said, 'The radiation leak has not stopped completely, and our concern is that it could eventually exceed Chernobyl.'”
Source: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/12/headlines#1
So we should not be concerned that:
"[That the] estimate the number of deaths attributable to the Chernobyl meltdown at about 980,000." Source: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/11-10
So we should not be concerned that:
"The retrospective lessons of Chernobyl are strikingly akin to the lessons at hand from the unfolding crisis at the Fukushima nuclear reactors and storage pools. Catastrophic risk – no matter how low with improved design, siting, materials, safety systems, and trained operators – is inherent in nuclear power. Safer is nowhere near safe enough. For this reason the US government continues to assume liability for damages to life and property from a nuclear power accident above $12.6 billion and has proposed $36 billion in loan guarantees in 2012 for new nuclear plants. Without these entitlements the nuclear industry would collapse. Wall Street concurs: In 2009 Moody's Investor Services concluded that investment into nuclear power was a “bet the farm” risk." Source: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/12-11
Tom,
The 980k estimate for Chernobyl would be silly if people did not take it seriously.
You are correct that, for most utilities, a nuclear plant is a "bet the farm" investment. It is not because of any safety hazard inherent in nuclear power, however. At this time, nuclear plants only come in X-Large size and they are expensive. The risk is being undercut in the marketplace by fossil fuels.
Those nuclear plants that are going forward in the US at this time operate in a stable regulatory environment and are protected from cheap coal/gas market disruptions. The reactors currently under construction are all in the south: Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia. The utilities involved have pledged to shut down coal plants after the reactors come on line to reduce greenhouse gases.
Bill
"It is not because of any safety hazard inherent in nuclear power, however."
Utter bullshit.
Hue,
The utilities make their generation decisions based primarily on cost of generation.
If coal and/or gas are lower cost electricity sources they will generally go with them even though the environmental damage is greater and the safety risks are higher.
There was a pause in coal/gas plant construction when the utilities perceived a risk of either a carbon tax or cap and trade. That risk was resolved in the last election and coal/gas are back on the table.
Bill
Who is most responsible for cancer forever increasing from nukes, those who are ignorant of their effects, or those who profit economically from their use?
You frequently this ask interesting questions for which there are no simplistic "that's right!" answers. I tend to want to forgive everyday people for being ignorant (as opposed to stupid). It's difficult to learn the facts and when you learn them, it's depressing to know them. However, those who profit may not allow themselves to be fully aware of the consequences. The whole cultural history that led us to this point is responsible, but that's no help whatsoever in figuring out if anything can be done now.
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2009/05/07/secret-epa-study-big-cancer-risks-from-coal-ash-ponds/
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804E0DB1031F931A2575BC0A9659C8B63
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070709-china-pollution.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/11/965915/-Fracking-Shale-Gas-Emissions-Far-Worse-Than-Coal-For-ClimateCornell-Study
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100106193223.htm
http://www.leomo.info/leomobg2010/?p=546
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053.600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power.html
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
Who is most responsible for cancer forever increasing from nukes, those who are ignorant of their effects, or those who profit economically from their use?
This is why I renamed him "George Monbidiot". What a wanker!!!
Besides the enormous costs, problems with waste for hundreds of years,
safety concerns and the fact that any nuclear power represents a precursor
to nuclear weapons and "dirty bombs" people on this Site should
know there is also the problem of "Peak Uranium" - even if we built all
these nuclear plants at enormous cost and danger they will probably only
provide power for 50-100 years before Uranium runs out for exactly
the same reasons as oil. Even if there is more uranium available underground or in the oceans that does not mean it will be feasible in EROEI terms to
obtain it.
See the following on thOildrum.com:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4558
We need to REDUCE our energy usage, first and foremost to save oil by
transitioning to Green transit - rail, light rail, buses, shuttles, walking and biking.
When transportation represents 70% of US oil usage there is no way to
reduce our oil usage without promoting Green transit which is really
public transit, walking and biking.
Yet not only are Republican governors gutting high-speed rail, streetcars
in Cincinnati and other transit initiatives but even NYC has been axing
public transit.
Again Transportation for America has mapped out over 150 cities which
have CUT public transit after 2008:
http://t4america.org/resources/transitfundingcrisis/
You bring up a interesting point, but I think you have things a bit backwards, Nuclear weapons are not a consequence of nuclear energy, but our current dysfunctional nuclear power industry is a product of our cold war weapons program. We could have gone a different direction and designed reactors that were useful only for power, not creating weapons fuel. Its not too late to go that route now, but unfortunately the now have decades of inertia to overcome.
proto,
There is nothing militarily useful that is normally produced in a power reactor. There is plutonium created but it has no military value because of its isotopic composition.
The nuclear power reactors in use today are a byproduct of the cold war but not the weapons program. Captain Hyman Rickover in the late 1940's made a decision that the best and fastest path to a nuclear powered submarine was by using a PWR (pressurized water reactor) design. This was a logical extension from a mature understanding of the steam boiler and turbine for marine propulsion. The naval reactors program developed the data base that supported its needs and of the subsequent PWR industry. The first commercial nuclear power reactor (Shippingsport, PA) in the US was built by Rickover and was a prototype for an aircraft carrier reactor.
I agree with you on the desirability of the thorium fuel cycle, however. Once developed it will be less expensive, cleaner with reduced waste and have a smaller environmental footprint than current PWR/BWR technology. I regret that the US is not pursuing it-I hope the Chinese will let us license their design after they develop it.
Bill
Thanks for the clarification. My impression is that at the outset we put our effort into the uranium/plutonium fuel cycle instead of thorium cycle because thorium could not be as easily adapted to a weapons program. Modern power reactors may not be suitable for weapons production, but the basic fuel choice still has its roots in our early weapons programs. Is that a better way of saying it?
proto,
You never can completely get inside a decision maker's head but the light water PWR/BWR reactor concepts used in the US and throughout the world has never been used to make weapons grade material.
When the liquid fuel thorium reactor got sidetracked and defunded by the federal government, it was in a budget battle to the death with the uraniium/plutonium fast breeder. The fast breeder was ultimately canceled as well. I have seen it alleged that the uranium/plutonium fast breeder was more compatible with weapons grade plutonium production but it was, at least obstensibly, a civilian program.
Bill
Thorium is not actually a “fuel” because it is not fissile and therefore cannot be used to start or sustain a nuclear chain reaction. A fissile material, such as uranium‐235 (U‐235) or plutonium‐239 (which is made in reactors from uranium‐238), is required to kick‐start the reaction. The enriched uranium fuel or plutonium fuel also maintains the chain reaction until enough of the thorium target material has been converted into fissile uranium‐233 (U‐ 233) to take over much or most of the job. An advantage of thorium is that it absorbs slow neutrons relatively efficiently (compared to uranium‐238) to produce fissile uranium‐233.
The use of enriched uranium or plutonium in thorium fuel has proliferation implications. Although U‐235 is found in nature, it is only 0.7 percent of natural uranium, so the proportion of U‐235 must be industrially increased to make “enriched uranium” for use in reactors. Highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium are nuclear weapons materials.
In addition, U‐233 is as effective as plutonium‐239 for making nuclear bombs. In most proposed thorium fuel cycles, reprocessing is required to separate out the U‐233 for use in fresh fuel. This means that, like uranium fuel with reprocessing, bomb‐making material is separated out, making it vulnerable to theft or diversion. Some proposed thorium fuel cycles even require 20% enriched uranium in order to get the chain reaction started in existing reactors using thorium fuel. It takes 90% enrichment to make weapons‐usable uranium, but very little additional work is needed to move from 20% enrichment to 90% enrichment. Most of the separative work is needed to go from natural uranium, which ahs 0.7% uranium‐235 to 20% U‐235.
It has been claimed that thorium fuel cycles with reprocessing would be much less of a proliferation risk because the thorium can be mixed with uranium‐238. In this case, fissile uranium‐233 is also mixed with non‐fissile uranium‐238. The claim is that if the uranium‐ 238 content is high enough, the mixture cannot be used to make bombs without a complex uranium enrichment plant. This is misleading. More uranium‐238 does dilute the uranium‐233, but it also results in the production of more plutonium‐239 as the reactor operates. So the proliferation problem remains – either bomb‐usable uranium‐233 or bomb‐usable plutonium is created and can be separated out by reprocessing.
Further, while an enrichment plant is needed to separate U‐233 from U‐238, it would take less separative work to do so than enriching natural uranium. This is because U‐233 is five atomic weight units lighter than U‐238, compared to only three for U‐235. It is true that such enrichment would not be a straightforward matter because the U‐233 is contaminated with U‐232, which is highly radioactive and has very radioactive radionuclides in its decay chain. The radiation‐dose‐related problems associated with separating U‐233 from U‐238 and then handling the U‐233 would be considerable and more complex than enriching natural uranium for the purpose of bomb making. But in principle, the separation can be done, especially if worker safety is not a primary concern; the resulting U‐233 can be used to make bombs. There is just no way to avoid proliferation problems associated with thorium fuel cycles that involve reprocessing. Thorium fuel cycles without reprocessing would offer the same temptation to reprocess as today’s once‐through uranium fuel cycles. (Physicians for Social Responsibility, Thorium Fact Sheet, 2009)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/th_better_than.php
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45178.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/feb/16/china-nuclear-thorium
"Peak Uranium"
Uranium, like fossil fuels and unlike Solar, Wind, Wave power, geothermal, is
a non-renewable resource which precisely like Peak Oil will become more and
more expensive to get as it runs out in about 50-100 years if we continue
to use it.
the OilDrum.com website had an excellent article on this:
"About 2.3 million tons of uranium have already been produced. Reasonably assured resources below 40 $/kgU are in the range of the already produced uranium. At present reactor uranium demand of about 67 kt/year these reserves would last for about 30 years, and would increase to 50 years if the classes up to 130 $/kgU were included....."
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2379
There are some who contend that we can always extract Uranium from
seawater when mining runs out which is shown to be highly unlikely in the
following article:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4558
Nuclear fission is certainly NOT the answer to our energy problems long-term
even if it were not dangerous, provide radioactive wastes which still have no good disposal method and provide precursor capabilities which could be used
to build nuclear weapons.
orbit,
In evaluating estimates of uranium reserves, it is necessary to remember that uranium prospecting essentially ceased for 30 years because the market price ($7/lb) would not support development of any mineralization that happened to be found.
Bill
Here's a thought then... lets not use Uranium in our reactors. Thorium actually has more energy potential and is four times more abundant. We currently have massive stockpiles of it already dug up as a side effect of mining other rare earth metals. A liquid fluoride thorium reactor is an order of magnitude more efficient that a tradition solid fuel reactor, and far safer.
In and case you think this sounds too good to be true, we've actually built one of these at Oak Ridge National Laboratory back in the sixties, so we know it works. The only reason we did not build more is because the military prefered uranium reactors to create weapons grade byproducts.
mcsandberg1 -
Atlas Shrugged was a novel (and a mediocre one at that, in my opinion). It was not a warning nor a newspaper.
I'm continuously amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent, reasonable people (many of them philosophically inclined towards libertarianism) who consider Ayn Rand to be some sort of intellectual heavyweight, and Atlas Shrugged to be considered serious literature mixed with serious social commentary.
As for the "greens" who have "wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution" I hope they keep speaking up in the style of Betsy Hartmann. The Nuclear Freeze movement had a big following in the United States and achieved significant success in Europe. Before that, it was citizen pressure and input from concerned public health professionals and scientists that pushed through the international ban on atmospheric nuclear testing.
Helen Caldicott is a whole lot more reliable resource on the dangers of nuclear energy and nuclear weaponry than Ayn Rand.
Bill from Saginaw
"I'm continuously amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent, reasonable people (many of them philosophically inclined towards libertarianism) who consider Ayn Rand to be some sort of intellectual heavyweight, and Atlas Shrugged to be considered serious literature mixed with serious social commentary."
They haven't read widely enough.
They may also be reading to justify a certain mindset.
Chris Hedges' column from yesterday is worthwhile...
Atlas Shrugged's warning about what happens when a country goes down the road to Collectivism rings very true - you can see the events in the book occurring. From the takeover of car companies, to the lawlessness of this administrations czars, the shutdown of energy production in the gulf and now the demonization of nuclear power.
Ayn Rand knew exactly what collectivism meant and wrote Atlas Shrugged in the hope that this country could be saved from it. The Tea Partiers are reading it in huge numbers (Its currently in the top 100 at Amazon!) and are reading other classics of liberty too. And we took the warning seriously on November 2, 2010 - the biggest election in a century. Not just 65 House seats and 6 Senate seats - 685 State House seats, 22 State Legislatures!
We are going to go back to small, non-destructive government, doing and building things again and yes we'll even join the rest of the world in the nuclear renaissance that's currently happening.
That you would think that the US is moving toward collectivism - instead of toward stupendous capitalist concentration of wealth, is preposterous and warrants no further comment, save this one:
If the US is moving toward "collectivism" why is wealth rapidly becoming concentrated to an unprecedented degree in the private hands of exactly the sort of people who were the "heroes" of "Atlas Shrugged"?
That's what always happens when collectivism is actually tried - it completely fails in its stated goal of attaining equality. In reality a well connected political class always forms and concentrates wealth in its hands. For example, In the Soviet Union you had the nomenklatura. Ayn Rand knew this too and Orren Boyle, the government assisted steel maker, is one of the villains in Atlas Shrugged. He's much wealthier than Hank Reardon, the man of principle, who refused government help.
In the US today, you have the revolving door between Wall Street and K Street with Tim Geitner and Henry Paulson as examples that you couldn't use in a novel, because the corruption is so visible and extensive as to be unbelievable.
Free markets, on the other hand, produce entirely new wealth, in the hands of outsiders, like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook. Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations used to be a common saying - it only took 3 generations for a fortune to be completely dissipated. Where is the fortune of the most notorious robber baron - Steven Jay Gould? Look at the Rockefeller fortune. You can see the Walton fortune being dissipated as we watch.
I am a business owner and fan of free markets, but I don't buy into this idea that 'free markets' equals 'unregulated markets'. It was the orgy of deregulation over the last decade that led to the financial bubble and subsequent collapse. The Gramme Leach Bliley Act and the Commodities Futures Modernization Act have caused more ill to our society than any supposed push toward 'collectivism'.
"now the demonization of nuclear power." You're kidding right? What else do you call a demon, but a demon.
"We are going to go back to small, non-destructive government, doing and building things again and yes we'll even join the rest of the world in the nuclear renaissance that's currently happening."
"Small, non-destructive government" DOES NOT EQUATE TO $36Billion Taxpayer Bailout/Subsidies of Nuclear Energy and Weapons machinations renaissance manufacturing and development.
All that anti-collectivist thinking is directly supported by the "we" in that sentence, with a massive GOVERNMENT SPONSORED AND WELL PAID COLLECTIVIST RANDIAN GROUP of "65 House seats and 6 Senate seats - 685 State House seats, 22 State Legislatures" -- all simultaneously and collectively spouting the ideologies of Randianism, a state-sponsored, MIC propagandized, fascist death cult. Talk about "one who flew over the cuckoo's nest."
If you truly don't believe in "collectivism," simple math makes nuclear energy certifiably OFF THE TABLE for Randians who spout "get your own" and "don't tread on me." Nuclear Energy is so centralized, so collective a process for the masses, and so filthy wasteful of money and resources, and furthermore, more financially risky than even Wall Street will support, that your arguments are easily disassembled, irrationally organized, and subsequently made irrevocably moot.
So now the "nuclear industry shills" argument is Randianism. Couldn't make it on the undeniable science that it's categorically dirty, unsafe, costly and profoundly unhealthful and destructive to all living things on the planet. So, enter the "pro-nuclear shill" angle of the certifiably mad death cults argument. What's next? Aliens said we should make nukes?
rbtl,
I have great hopes for the uprising in Wisconsin to become a sustained movement.
Bill
No movement beats "prohibition", the only movement supported by progressives that succeeded in having the constitution amended and re-amended!
Good comment.
I really don't think we need any more rigorous and snobbish "litmus tests" for membership in an activist movement.
There is room for disagreement - based on science, and reason and a discussion of the newest technologies - about the future or non-future of nucler power - particularly about its role in addressing global warming.
I myself am looking forward with anticipation to the newest technologies. Particularly the ones that will undertake to rephrase the laws of physics-- they have sorely needed this for awhile now, let's be honest-- so that ionizing radiation will cease to be a byproduct of the fission process, or alternatively, that human genes will be unaffected by same. Also a few details concerning the waste-- either that it be perfectly recycled until harmless, or that its half-life be confined to a period of a few days or, hopefully, hours.
Touche!
I realize you are being satirical, but believe it or not nuclear technology exists that pretty much accomplishes exactly what you want. A Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor burns up almost all of its fuel, leaving less than 1 percent of the volume of waste as traditional reactors. Furthermore, what remains is significantly less toxic with a much shorter half life (decades instead of thousands of years). That is more than manageable. If we restricted nuclear byproducts to a half life of hours, we would lose access to numerous isotopes needed for medical diagnoses and cancer treatment.
Another thing to note is that a thorium reactor has no risk of explosion or melt-down like the older reactors that failed in Japan. They are not water cooled, so there is no risk of steam or hydrogen explosion, no risk of overheating because of lack of water. Losing power to a the cooling system does not lead to disaster, it just causes the reactor to passively shut down and cool off.
"Proponents claim that thorium fuel significantly reduces the volume, weight and long‐term radiotoxicity of spent fuel. Using thorium in a nuclear reactor creates radioactive waste that proponents claim would only have to be isolated from the environment for 500 years, as opposed to the irradiated uranium‐only fuel that remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. This claim is wrong. The fission of thorium creates long‐lived fission products like technetium‐99 (half‐life over 200,000 years). While the mix of fission products is somewhat different than with uranium fuel, the same range of fission products is created. With or without reprocessing, these fission products have to be disposed of in a geologic repository.
If the spent fuel is not reprocessed, thorium‐232 is very‐long lived (half‐life:14 billion years) and its decay products will build up over time in the spent fuel. This will make the spent fuel quite radiotoxic, in addition to all the fission products in it. It should also be noted that inhalation of a unit of radioactivity of thorium‐232 or thorium‐228 (which is also present as a decay product of thorium‐232) produces a far higher dose, especially to certain organs, than the inhalation of uranium containing the same amount of radioactivity. For instance, the bone surface dose from breathing the an amount (mass) of insoluble thorium is about 200 times that of breathing the same mass of uranium.
Finally, the use of thorium also creates waste at the front end of the fuel cycle. The radioactivity associated with these is expected to be considerably less than that associated with a comparable amount of uranium milling. However, mine wastes will pose long‐term hazards, as in the case of uranium mining. There are also often hazardous non‐radioactive metals in both thorium and uranium mill tailings." (Physicians for Social Responsibility, Thorium Fact Sheet, 2009)
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1
You are misinformed. It would be true if thorium were being used in a solid fuel reactor, but in a molten salt configuration those byproducts are consumed. I suggest you read the rebuttal from someone who actually understands the thorium fuel cycle in a liquid fluoride thorium reactor:
http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/03/23/sorensen-rebuttal/
What I said earlier really is true. An LFTR creates a tiny fraction of the spent fuel waste compared to a solid fuel reactor, and it is much shorter lived.
I fervently hope that I will not be forced to "consume" the radioactive "byproducts" of a thorium-based reactor. I much prefer sodium chloride from seawater.
Actually, if you ever go in for a any number of medical scans, you might be asked to consume a consider amount of radioactive byproducts extracted from nuclear reactors. Medical isotopes are a byproduct of the nuclear energy industry. Not all 'waste' is created equal, and fearing a technology just because it has 'nuclear' in the name is not really a good idea. Personally, I would much rather have a thorium reactor next to my house than a coal fired power plant.
Another "shoot the messenger" non-argument...
To borrow your phrase, to be practical, nuclear weapons, a direct and completely intended by-product of nuclear energy, (eg the reason that Iran having nuclear energy leads to them having "the bomb" issue,) is precisely another "...pressing human and political concern..." regarding nuclear energy.
"...the advantages of using nuclear energy, taking into account what we've learned and applying it by retiring more dangerous older plants and replacing them with new, ultra-safe designs..." do NOT outweigh, and more importantly, does NOT diminish the atrocious risks of various machinations of nuclear weapons proliferation, manufacturing, and development directly from the worldwide escalation in the nuclear energy industry.
To consider the proliferation of nuclear weapons from nuclear energy, including the nuclear waste weapons and their casual use, anything but a "...pressing and urgent progressive concern," is to be a neoconservative at best, and a certifiably crazed sociopath at worst.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/business/energy-environment/10nukes.html