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Fukushima Spews, Los Alamos Burns, Vermont Rages and We’ve Almost Lost Nebraska
Humankind is now threatened by the simultaneous implosion, explosion, incineration, courtroom contempt and drowning of its most lethal industry.
We know only two things for certain: worse is yet to come, and those in charge are lying about it---at least to the extent of what they actually know, which is nowhere near enough.
Indeed, the assurances from the nuke power industry continue to flow like the floodwaters now swamping the Missouri Valley heartland.
But major breakthroughs have come from a Pennsylvania Senator and New York’s Governor on issues of evacuation and shut-down. And a public campaign for an end to loan guarantees could put an end to the US industry once and for all.
Fukushima: The bad news continues to bleed from Japan with no end in sight. The “light at the end of the tunnel” is an out-of-control radioactive freight train, headed to the core of an endangered planet.
Widespread internal radioactive contamination among Japanese citizens around Fukushima has now been confirmed.
Two whales caught some 650 kilometers from the melting reactors have shown intense radiation.
Plutonium, the deadliest substance known to our species, has been found dangerously far from the site.
Tokyo Electric and the Japanese government have admitted to three 100% meltdowns but can’t confirm with any reliability the current state of those cores. There’s reason to believe one or more have progressed to “melt-throughs” in which they burn through the thick stainless steel pressure vessel and onto the containment floor.
The molten cores may be covered with water. But whether they can melt further through the containments and into the ground remains unclear.
Possibilities may include a “China Syndrome” scenario in which one or more still-molten cores does melt through the containment and hits ground water. That could lead to a steam explosion that could blow still larger clouds of radioactive steam, water and debris into the atmosphere and ocean.
At least three explosions have occurred, one of which may have involved criticality.
There is no doubt at least two containments were breached very early in the disaster. Unit Four is cracked and sinking. The status of its used radioactive fuel pool, which has clearly caught fire, is uncertain. Also unclear is the ability of the owners to sustain the stability of Units Five and Six, which were shut when the quake/tsunami hit.
That stability depends on continued power to run cooling systems, which could disappear amidst seismic aftershocks many believe are inevitable. A very substantial quake hit after the tremors that led to Indonesia’s devastating tsunami, and few doubt it could happen again---soon---at Fukushima.
All the above is dependent on reports controlled primarily by Tokyo Electric and the Japanese government. There is every reason to believe the situation is worse than it seems, and that those in charge don’t really know the full of the extent of the damage or how to cope with it.
Just five years ago a quake shut seven reactors at Kashiwazaki. The entire nation of Japan sits on a wide range of fault lines. Tsunami is a Japanese word.
Radiation from Fukushima has long since been detected throughout the northern hemisphere, with health effects that will be debated forever.
Some fifty reactors still operate in Japan. According to some, the Japanese public has the legal right to shut them all.
Let us pray they do. Yesterday.
Los Alamos: A massive wildfire has swept at least to the outskirts of the national laboratory that was at the core of the program that built the Atomic Bomb.
The first explosion irradiated a nearby valley on July 16, 1945. Then came the two that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There are significant quantities of stored radioactive material in and around Los Alamos. How much there is, where it is, how badly it is threatened, how much (if any) has already been engulfed in flames remains to be seen. Evacuations are underway.
Official reassurances are not reliable.
Nor are estimates of the potential for radioactive fallout to spread throughout North America and beyond.
Vermont Yankee: Entergy, owner of the one reactor in Vermont, has sued to shred a solemn public contract.
The one thing certain here is the company’s contempt for the sanctity of its own word.
Years ago Entergy sought official permits at VY. It promised in return that the state could choose to shut the reactor on March 21, 2012, which it’s now done.
In recent years VY has spewed tritium into groundwater and the Connecticut River, in some cases from underground pipes whose existence the company denied. A cooling tower has collapsed.
But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended the reactor's license and asked the federal Justice Department to intervene on behalf of the utility.
The request trashes any credibility retained by the NRC. The Commission was established in the mid 1970s to be a disinterested party on which the public could rely. For it to now take a partisan stand on behalf of a reactor owner it’s bound to regulate thoroughly contaminates the core of its existence.
Entergy has sued so it can buy some $65 million in radioactive fuel the people of Vermont do not want burned on their land.
This will go to the US Supreme Court, where the future legal sanctity of any and all public contracts signed by any corporation, nuclear or otherwise, may be determined.
Nebraska: The flooding Missouri River continues to threaten at least two heartland reactors.
Late reports indicate Cooper may still be running, with public assurances it could be shut very quickly. What might happen if the operators are a little bit late has not been explained.
Nor is there much to go on about the impacts of flooded cores and fuel cooling ponds on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers or the eco-systems along the way to a Gulf of Mexico still reeling from BP’s toxic dose.
But an almost surreal set of circumstances surrounds the true nature of design specifications and protections in place (or not) at Ft. Calhoun.
They may be best summarized by what happened to a “flood berm” meant to protect Ft. Calhoun. This huge rubberized water-filled sausage was sixteen feet at the base and eight feet high.
But CNN has quoted a company representative as saying a some sort of equipment “came in contact” with the berm and punctured it.
Not to worry: the “same level of protection is in place” as had been prior to the installation of the berm.
In other words, the device was installed to protect the reactor. Then somebody punctured it. But things are as they were before so they must not have needed that berm in the first place. Got it?
It’s as yet unclear whether flood waters will continue to rise at these two reactors, whether the operators can protect them, and what will happen if they can’t.
The corporate media is carrying virtually zero coverage of any of the above stories. All are subject to rapid, dangerous changes about which we may have little reliable information.
But we do know for sure that US Senator Robert Casey, Jr. (D-PA) now wants to see more deeply into one of the key holes in the nuclear façade: evacuation.
After Three Mile Island’s 1979 partial melt-down, new federal legislation allegedly gave states more power over how to get people out of the path of a melting nuke.
But after an as-yet unopened Perry reactor was damaged by a 1986 earthquake, Ohio's then-Governor Richard Celeste sued to keep Perry shut pending a state evacuation study.
The NRC refused and won in federal court. Perry opened. Ohio’s official study then said evacuation was virtually impossible.
A quarter-century later, Casey wants to see what it might now take to move downwinders out of harm’s way from a TMI, Perry, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Vermont Yankee, Cooper, Ft. Calhoun…..you name it.
Casey’s being joined by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose demands for the shut-down of Indian Point, 35 miles north of Manhattan, have left its owners “shaken.”
Cuomo and Casey might do well to join governors of states like Vermont, Massachusetts, California and others in testing the law on evacuation planning. Populations have vastly increased at virtually all US reactor sites since TMI. And the ugly realities that define the so-called “Peaceful Atom” are still making themselves all too apparent.
Whether the US will now turn with Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Israel and others away from atomic power and toward a green-powered Earth is up to us. The Solartopian technologies of wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, ocean thermal, bio-fuels, increased efficiency and conservation are now demonstrably cheaper, safer, cleaner, more reliable, more job-producing and quicker to install than anything atomic energy can promise.
A $36 billion loan guarantee give-away still mars the proposed 2012 federal budget. Constant pressure on Congress and the White House can kill that, and any other proposed funding for still more of these nightmares.
The stream of reactor disasters spewing from this dying industry is certain to escalate. The toll rises with each leak at Fukushima, every flame at Los Alamos, each legal brief at Vermont Yankee, every foot of Nebraska floodwater.
The need to stop the madness grows more desperate every day.
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Show AllThe economic model, based on extraction achieved by the ancient and longstanding denial, first of the humanity of non-white peoples, second with manifest destiny and the legal framework on which it is hung, the Doctrine of Discovery .
Though on the face of it, this might appear unrelated, what is essential to realize is the the economic model and the technological/economic dynamics benefiting from it are based, fundamentally on denial - plausible deniability. The lives of millions of people are very quietly applied to perceptions of viability, which in our system means profitability - if not in legitimate profit, in plausibility for lobbyists to lay claim to taxpayer $. "Externalized costs" literally inhclude you and me - not just the 'other' over there, far away, in prison for speaking out, what are known as human rights abuses.
Each and every instance of recognition and documentation is valuable - as well as the linked reminders otherwise known as history.
Well said. I think when humanity disappears from the Earth it will not be due to some global catastrophe. Rather, we shall slowly do ourselves in because of our incapacity to think and act as collectively responsible beings rather than as individuals whose only concern is personal greed. That flaw is responsible for us being able to put nuclear reactors on fault lines, or allowing them to function past their shelf life, or even sanctioning their existence in the first place. Profit trumps the common good and humanity will thus be doomed.
On that note. Here is a talk by John McMurtry, moral philosopher from University of Guelph in Ontario who wrote "The Cancer Stage of Capitalism". He goes into what he call's the money sequence of value, which means the only thing that matters is turning money of private money owners, into more money. Nothing else. That is the value system of the global market system.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/zmglobal/2011/06/29/62911--tzm-host-peter-joseph-guest-john-mcmurtry
Can we marshall a little support for the "slowly" part?
NY's governor Cuomo has just called for shutting Indian Point. Popular follow through is needed to keep him on track.
thanks for these comments, & to commondreams for posting this.
for those of you who are interested: i'll be speaking tonight with the great Karl Grossman on the SOLARTOPIA GREEN POWER HOUR at www.talktainment.com tonight at 8-9pm EST. call 877-932-9766. Please do call.
No Nukes! HarveyW
it's actually www.talktainmentradio.com
We have soiled our diaper and there is no one to change it for us. Our planet is dying from our collective waste. Get used to it because the ball is speeding up rolling down hill.
Public benefit vs. private profit.
Nice roundup by Mr. Wasserman, thank you. He did not mention the ongoing nuclear wars using so-called "depleted uranium" being prosecuted by the USA and NATO (which is the US military) that has already irradiated Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and dozens of US miltary bases where the highly radioactive DU ammunition and armor are produced and tested.
Nuclear power stations are insane. They have never had any idea what to do with the waste, it is the equivalent of using a blowtorch to heat up a cup of coffee, most of the power plants are over 35 years old and rely on technologies that are inherently dangerous - and to top that all off - they are an economic disaster. If nuclear plants were not subsidized by US taxpayers, they would all go broke. The big dirty secret the US government does not want you to know is that nuclear power plants are used as a resource for both weapons development and as a source for the "depleted uranium" - which is radioactive for 4 billion years.
You want to waste your breath talking aobut Republican vs. Democrat - that is for little children. Mr. Obama is Bush/Cheney with a vocabulary. Foolow the money - it leads to the international banking cartels, the BIS, the Federal Reserve and the plan for world domination created by the Rothschild family.
Not much time left now. Good luck.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25185
Oh, I forgot to add Libya to the list of coutnries being nuked by the US military - because Ghaddafi had the nerve to announce he wanted the oil company profits to go to his people, not the oil companies - and he was running the Libyan Sovereign Wealth fund to go around the vampires at the IMF and World Bank to assist other African countries with infrastructure financing. That fund has now been stolen by the banksters running the giant ponzi scheme known as "Central Banking".
Follow the money!
When will CD stop printing this shrill fact-free nonsense!
So, just keep driving those SUV's out to you air-conditioned house in the sticks, while new coal-burning plants keep going up - completely without protest or comment - from Wasserman or anyone else.
Congratulations on an entirely fact-free comment, pjd412!
I'm beginning to think he's a shill but I can't figure out for who yet. He's all over the place but it's all fact free, as well as he's stating dems are communists and other extreme rw propaganda. Then again, maybe he's not a shill, but just a Free-Republic-true-believer spouting off everything they've taught him.
So he's making it all up, huh? No facts here at all, just a lot of shrill hysteria. And how the hell does drawing attention to the current dire situation nukes have caused in ANY WAY condone coal-fired energy plants? If I say guns kill people, does that mean I advocate killing people with hammers, knives and bombs? If you want to advocate for more nuclear plants, and deny there's any danger in those already operating, deny the Fukushima situation ALONE is cause to rethink everything nuclear and dispense with this lethal technology ASAP, then come out with it. I suppose you're a long-time denier, so cards on the table.
You are incoherent.
nonsense. which facts specifically would you care to challenge.
no nukes, harveyw
Thank you for your work, harvey. I am going to find another link regarding the whales. It is an important story, and that site appeared to be kind of sleazy. That may just be my own personal sensibilities, and others may not feel that way, of course.
Regards,
rita
1. "We're about to lose Nebraska"
2. "Its most lethal industry" ( While fossil fuels are destroying the planet's ability to support life)
I think pjd412's point is that it's hypocritical to complain about nuclear power but not about coal or other fossil fuels.
I have several objections:
Wasserman's piece is full of facts. Claiming otherwise without disputing any specific fact is just mud slinging.
pjd412 claims no one complains about coal. But it's no secret that many environmental groups advocate against coal powered electricity, or that there have been a large number protests against coal, or that there is an entire movement against mountain top removal coal mining. Furthermore, Fukushima was a historic event, and in the short time since, we have nuclear power stations threatened by fire in one state and water in another, and have heard shocking reports of the lack of safety, absence of evacuation plans, vulnerability to terrorist attacks, slackening of regulations, and deteriorating nuclear power stations. Of course we're talking about nuclear a lot these days!
pjd412's point ignores basic division of labor. Wasserman focuses on nuclear issues. Others focus on other issues. The notion that there's something irresponsible or hypocritical about that is obnoxious. If not for specialization, civilization would never have advanced beyond the stage it had reached 50,000 years ago. Everyone would know a little about everything and there would be no in depth knowledge of anything.
The point about SUVs is not so easily dismissed. Complaining about environmental issues while being environmentally irresponsible in one's own life IS hypocritical. I'm such a hypocrite. I lived in Manhattan for 20 years and loved not having a car. I moved away a decade ago and now I need a car. I drive sub compact and drive about 3000 miles a year, but I doesn't assuage my conscience.
And yet it is not our fault that we cannot buy electric cars. A fair assessment can only be made by taking into account the individual, society, government, science, and technology. We are all more or less to blame for creating the world we have, but coming up with solutions makes a lot more sense than attacking each other.
I suppose you don't intend us to take this literally, but I fail to find any other way to respond, so ---
-- stopping the nukes does not promote AC in stick houses; the nukes exist, in part, to support such abuse
-- stopping the nukes does not encourage SUV use or manufacture; see above
-- plenty of people are protesting coal plants, with good reason
-- most people who protest coal plants are anti-nuke, also with good reason
-- I don't know what Wasserman's position is with respect to coal-fired energy, but a dedicated struggle against a single industry or for a single issue seems to me rather enough for one person to do; I doubt you would say that Wasserman's position on nukes is untenable because he has not taken a stand against Obama's bombing of Libya, but this bears no more relation:
This idea that the world has to make a coal | nuke decision is pure hooey. Coal plants are not the most immediate, the least expensive, or the most practical alternative to nuclear power; nuclear power is not the least expensive, most immediate, or most practical alternative to coal.
Both are outdated, at best. Both are foolish use of clever technology --- not worth the cost of construction.
In practice, either solar or wind power or both can be constructed faster for less money and less environmental damage than coal, oil, gas, or nuclear power plants. In practice, wind or solar generation will not only be complete but will have paid for itself under normal use in less time than it takes a nuclear plant to get constructed and functioning, and without the extensive social damage caused by company towns and the construction boom-and-bust that inevitably accompanies these projects.
Industry would not even want to develop nukes without government subsidy, primarily but not exclusively in the forms of guaranteed loans, government waste storage contracts, and radically limited liability responsibility for eventual damages.
Finally, it would make little sense for CD to not disseminate some discussion of nuclear power when Fukushima does indeed spew, Los Alamos does indeed burn, Vermont swelters in a rage of controversy after decades of faulty service, and Nebraska is indeed in danger. And I would not accuse you of imagining that GE, Westinghouse, Bechtel, and TEPCO do not have money to present an elaborately reasoned defense of their positions and practices for public examination if they wanted public scrutiny.
Usually I see in these posts ample discussion from industry defenders who appear to have considerable training and who attempt to defend the industry with arguments that I find interesting and informative--though ultimately not convincing. For the moment, such industry defenders have pretty nearly vanished, at least on CD.
Why do you suppose that might be?
In so lethal a case, a little silence at an embarrassing moment really is too much to ask. And it seems a bit harsh to criticise CD for not disseminating a well reasoned defence of the nuclear industry, if that is your intention, until one can be produced.
Finally, to whomsoever this may concern, sure it's hard, but there are other places to work.
FYI: Mr Wasserman has stated many times he wants to phase out nukes, coal, & even oil. He advocates speeded-up development of non [or low] polluting energy sources & higher-efficiency technologies which he calls Solar-Topia.
Don't feed the trolls, folks.
If anyone is intersted...
Radiation levels are almost 3 times higher today at Austin Straubel Airport than I have been recording all week. 133nSv/Hr is current reading.
I discovered in this article that Israel is anti-nuclear.
In what civilized World do you live Mr. Wasserman?
Maybe you should write an article informing us all of this new fact.
Last I heard, Israel has nukes. They are just special and the World doesn't ask them for explanations or descriptions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu
Where does he say Israel is anti-nuclear?
"Whether the US will now turn with Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Israel and others away from atomic power and toward a green-powered Earth is up to us."
Either you have misread this or I have. At the very least, *atomic power* does not normally refer to nuclear armaments. I would also suggest that "turn away" does not indicate lack of involvement, but reduction of involvement or disillusion with involvement.
I suspect we agree that all this "turning away" had better be watched closely by the respective populations, but I do not take the author to protest innocence for Israel or, for that matter, the other countries on the list. He just approves of their one current move away from this sort of power generation.
I suspect he is referring to this statement about mid-article:"Whether the US will now turn with Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Israel and others away from atomic power and toward a green-powered Earth is up to us."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel
israel has decided not to build a commercial atomic power plant. a major earthquake fault was part of the decision, as was fukushima.
the comment has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, which i presume the europeans also have.
Few European countries have nuclear weapons. Russia, of course, as well as UK and France. And so does the United States, which, disguised in NATO, has some stationed in Belgium, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Turkey. But that's it.
Great news about NY's Gov. Cuomo!
May all the Governors of the States put an end to the madness of nuclear plants.
That's an excellent comment, dancing bear, and I agree with you!
But I laughed as I read it!
Have you considered the cast of Governors of the States; they're not exactly an enlightened or noble bunch! It looks like the corporations own all but Governor Cuomo; how is it that he stands out? While I hate to think where this leads him, I believe the precedent is Paul Wellstone.
Bill in Dubuque
I think Cuomo's statement is related to the placement of the plant in such a densely populated area. About 1 million or so people live within the 20 miles radius around Indian Point. If you expand it to 50 miles, it is 17 million people. That's a lot of voters and contributors That includes the wealthy communities in Westchester County and Manhattan and lots of lawyers! Everyone knows we can barely move people to and from work on a normal day. And that does not include stay-at-homes or children. An evacuation plan is a joke.
And thanks to the activists who have been doing a good job of campaigning around this.
Tis all true. We should not be fooled by the softer form of thuggism from this Democratic governor on working class issues and budgets. Nonetheless, the fact that he has to make statements about Indian Point indicates something good about public consciousness. It does not hurt that Indian Point is 15 miles from the Clinton's home in Chappaqua. Many other "notables" live in the area.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25433
"Whether the US will now turn with Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Israel and others away from atomic power and toward a green-powered Earth is up to us."
Come again? The powers that be flat out do not listen to "us" anymore, and hardly need even a pretense of doing so.
From Merriam-Webster-a crash course in basic English, for Denruter
Definition of BURN
intransitive verb
1
a : to consume fuel and give off heat, light, and gases
b : to undergo combustion; also : to undergo nuclear fission or nuclear fusion
c : to contain a fire
Nitpick much?
"Miriam's dictionary is not a scientific document."
Neither is Wasserman's article.
You are out of context. If you want to insist on scientifically precise terminology that is at odds with vernacular usage, go peer-review some scientific paper. We all knew what Harvey meant.
I suspect NEI's description is driven more by "spin" than scientific precision, since they are a pro-nuke apologist. "It does not burn any fuel" sounds suspiciously like "too cheap to meter."
Where there is no insight, the people perish!
I'm trying to find the info from the first week of the incidents. From what I remember there were two or three other sites having issues and they were talking about putting sea water into their reactors. Those just disappeared and now we all focus on Fukushima 1 and it's 4 reactors. At one point I was trying to count whether it was 8 or 9 reactors that were reported as having issues. Interesting how all other reactors just went away in the news.
duplicate post.
The blackout of information is intentional. Can't have the public becoming hysterical can we? Never mind that we are told over and over again we're supposed to be personally responsible, and the only way we can be that is by being informed.
good point. we're "lucky" to get any coverage at all even of Fukushima now. you might want to go through the postings at www.NukeFree.org dating back to 3/11. we've put up about 500 articles, many of which refer to other nukes.
THESE PROBLEMS PALE NEXT TO A LITTLE PUBLICIZED NUCLEAR PERIL
Nuclear plants have no provision for long-term power outages of the grid.
NASA and NOAA are concerned that solar flare emissions could cause a collapse of large parts of the grid for many months.
After a month without grid power, affected nuclear plants will spew radioactivity into surrounding communities.
See the Aesop Institute website for a couple of maps and some material that provides an overview of the problem.
This is a far more serious threat than a terror attack.
And facing the problems can restore the economy!
yes...
looking forward, one can easily see that, if any of the key factors suffer a mishap, any of our current nuke plants will quickly become an enormous problem...
when one realistically engages the potential for such mishap, especially given the immense frames of time involved, and the obvious resource crunches lying ahead, the insanity of this creation is clear...
I've long commented that, in a future of declining fossil sunlight, nuclear plants could start going off like popcorn.
In addition to requiring a functioning grid, they require trained, competent, and resolute staff. It's not hard to imagine margins being squeezed, salaries not covering the cost of $20/gallon gas, and security not able to challenge "strippers," who even now raid public infrastructure for salvage.
On the bright side, since we're killing off so many species, perhaps this is Gaia's way of accelerating evolution by speeding the rate of mutation. (Evolution = heritability, mutation, and selection). If we go from one major radiological accident every twenty years to one every year, we'll see the background radiation steadily climb, and presumably, a larger number of new species evolving.
(Hey, I gotta find SOME good in all this!)
Let’s take a look at what alternatives are available.
To replace a typical 1,000 MW power plant using large off-shore turbines of about 3.5 MW capacity would require, using the nameplate rating 1000/3.6 = 278 (rounding up) turbines. Now we have to take into account the fact that the average capacity factor of the world’s wind farms was 19.6% ( http://www.leonardo-energy.org/capacity-factor-wind-power ). We’ll round up to 20% and we find that we need some 1,388 wind turbines to replace the 1,000 MW plant.
What would this cost? Using the actual numbers from Cape Wind, a well known project whose costs are public - 2.5 billion dollars as reported by http://articles.boston.com/2010-10-10/lifestyle/29301843_1_cape-wind-renewable-energy-renewable-power for 130 3.6 MW turbines or about 19 million per turbine gives us 26 billion dollars, enough to build a dozen conventional plants or about 8 nuclear plants. This doesn’t even include the costs of the conventional, dispatchable power, for when the wind doesn’t blow, or a yet unknown way of efficiently storing vast amounts of electrical energy to back them up. Wind is insanely expensive.
Doing the same calculations for solar.
First we need to determine the capacity factor for solar and derating it is extremely complicated so we’ll use NREL’s PVWatts calculator for a best-cast Tucson, Az. scenario ( http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/calculators/PVWATTS/version1/US/Arizona/Tucson.html ). Using a 1 KW panel (for convenience) on a fixed tilt mount would be expected to yield 1663 KWh/year. We can now convert this into a derate factor by dividing it by the nameplate theoretical production of 1 KW * 365 * 24 = 8,760 KWh/Year. The resulting derate is .189 or, close enough to 20%, exactly the same as wind. So it will take 4,500 MW of panels to replace the plant.
What would this cost? From http://solarbythewatt.com/2009/10/16/price-dollar-per-watt-large-solar-pv/ we find that the best price so far is a bit more than $4/watt. So the 1,000 MW replacement would cost $18 billion, again without the required dispatchable or storage. Again, this is insanely expensive.
This is why we won’t abandon nuclear or conventional power plants, its simply not possible.