Weigh in... with the nuclear power straw poll!

[phantom power]

Poll question: Weigh in... with the nuclear power straw poll!

I think I'll make this one simpler than last time.

[rocktivity]

1. The only thing I have against nuclear power

is that it hasn't been figured out how to make it safe enough. Maybe we will someday, like we did with fire and gas, but until then...
:headbang:
rocknation

[HonorTheConstitution]

3. Sorry, but on an international level nuclear power has killed less people

than our dirty coal fired power plants here in the US. Nuclear energy is not perfect, but the type of plants that have been built in Europe (except Tschernobyl) are fairly save. To replace the existing nuclear power plants with wind or solar energy sources would be to pricy. Especially knowing that the US and China will not reduce their energy demands in the future.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. It's safer than everything else. Everything.

Safer than burning petroleum products.
Safer than burning coal.
Safer than wind.
Safer than photovoltaics.
Safer than ethanol.
Safer than burning wood.

Count up the deaths-per-gigawatt (and sickness-per-gigawatt) in each of these categories. Wind power is the only thing that comes close.

But don't take my word for it. There is plenty of research on energy that you can find online. The Energy Information Administration is a good place to start.

Remember what the doormouse said: "feed your head".

--p!

[garybeck]

52. unsafe: uranium mining, energy production, nuclear waste storage

from beginning to end, it's unsafe. you are right.

[TheWraith]

60. Nonsense. All of those things are done safely every day. NT

[jpak]

113. Please tell us all about the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act

it has paid (so far) over 16,000 claims at a cost of >$1.1 billion.

The nuclear fuel cycle is *NOT* safe...

[VTMechEngr]

116. Wasn't as safe in the PAST.

Its the proverbial learning curve.

All modern technologies go through it.

Boilers just about never explode now, but prior to the ASME boiler code...

[jpak]

120. Is uranium mining, milling, transport, conversion and enrichment "safe" today???

Nope

[VTMechEngr]

123. You realize Uranium is weakly radioactive right?

And Alpha particles are the easiest to stop.

[appal_jack]

124. unless they are in your lungs

You are right that alpha particles are easy to stop, but uranium mining creates dust, and when that radioactive dust is breathed by people nearby, then those same alpha particles can wreak havoc from within a human body.

-app

[VTMechEngr]

130. And there are processes to mitigate that hazard. n/t

[jpak]

134. Please tell us about the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and the thousands

of claims by uranium workers that have been settled and the >$1 billion paid out so far.

And tell us all about the Navajo experience with uranium mining.

Working with uranium is a dangerous business.

period

[smiley_glad_hands]

2. We need a new National Mandate for

Nuclear Fusion. Sort of like getting man to the moon.

[phantom power]

5. One unwritten assumption of my poll is: technologies that are mature today.

Mostly because today is when we need to start displacing fossil fuels.

I'm also interested in various fusion technologies, along with other kinds of alternative energy. Some of these are mature and deployable today, many others are not, and so they are excellent lines of research, but not in our toolbox.

[texastoast]

6. Oh think of the potential

for devastation. Like at the South Texas Nuclear Project where there was no drug testing when the welds were made. And all those rumors among the workers that STNP could never be made safe unless it was torn down and rebuilt. But you know, those cost overruns . . .

[phantom power]

7. I am much more concerned with *actual* devastation.

I've been trying to figure out the source of nuclear phobia. The basic premise seems to be that anything radioactive is inherently so dangerous that any mishap of any kind, no matter how inconsequential, relating to a nuclear power plant, is an existential threat to all life in the general vicinity.

Am I correct that's what you are assuming? Because otherwise, I don't understand why people would be fretting over rumors about "drug testing of welders" when we can all read about CO2-induced climate change dismantling our biosphere on a daily basis, while we head inexorably into the downslope of peak-fossil.

I mean, is it some kind of residue of the cold war? Or was it that all those nuclear-monster movies injected some extremely hardy memes into our culture?

[Bread and Circus]

10. I know, what a huge mystery!!!

Like omg! A nuclear reactor has NEVER leaked radioactive material. Ever. And even then radioactive waste isn't harmful. It's never caused cancer or birth defects, either. It never has delayed effects and it can never be spread beyond the initial accident area by wind or water.

True story.

[TheWraith]

61. Do you know how many people coal-based power has killed today? 26 just today in the US.

Almost ten thousand people a year in the US are killed by air pollution, most of it from fossil fuel plants like coal. That's more in one country, in one year, than have been killed by nuclear power or accidents in the entire world in 60 years.

[Kolesar]

13. We are lucky that the First Energy plants never poured radioactive water into Lake Erie

...Like happened yesterday after the earthquake in Japan. The Perry nuclear plant is built over a fault line that causes earthquakes that I have felt. The Davis Besse plant was within 60 days of the lid rupturing a few years ago.

The people in these cities that use Lake Erie water have been lucky so far:
Cleveland, Sandusky, Lorain, Ashtabula, Erie, Port Stanley, Buffalo, Ashtabula, Toledo, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Hamilton, Rochester, Montreal and a long list of other small cities.

You would not have such a problem. BTW, where would a nuclear or coal fired plant near Tempe get cooling water for condensers, anyway?

[phantom power]

14. The Palo Verde nuclear plant, near here, uses treated sewage for coolant.

I'd like to learn more about "radioactive water." I assume this is water used for heat exchanging. How radioactive is it? If I drank some, would it make me sick? Kill me in 20 years? Kill me in 24 hours? If a few hundred gallons of this water got into Lake Erie, and was therefore vastly diluted, what, exactly, would be the effect on those people who use Lake Erie water? (and the plants/animals who live in it, etc)?

[Kolesar]

19. The condenser water is an isolated system from the radioactive water in the reactor

The radioactive water in the reactor would only get into the larger environment through an accident, a broken pipe or seal due to an earthquake, a terrorist attack or due to criminal malfeasance in the maintenence cycle.

[texastoast]

16. Too late to worry about drug testing those welders

Rumors? No, those folks were buuuuuzzzzzzing in the light of the arc and saying stuff like, "Whoa! Cool!"

Like fossil fuels, nuclear is a short-sighted fix.

I am reminded of my mom, rest her soul. When I was young and becoming environmentally aware in the oil field, I asked my mom, "Mom, when you saw all that car exhaust coming out of those Model T's, did you guys ever wonder what it would be like if EVERYONE had a car--you know, what would the air be like?"

And this is what she said: "Oh, we got you the means to get around. Your generation will have to worry about the fumes."

Never was a truer word spoken.

Undeservedly you will atone for the sins of your fathers.

[TheWraith]

63. I think it's a knee-jerk reaction to the word "nuclear."

That nuclear power is, in their minds, inherently tied to nuclear weapons in an undefinable way that makes them one and the same thing. That, and they've listened for too long to the Hollywood dramas that play fast and loose with the facts, and anti-nuke groups who knowingly spread false information.

Realistically, most of these people don't really understand what they're talking about, such as the actual count of people killed by nuclear power as opposed to conventional fossil fuels, the principles of half-life for atomic particles, fuel recycling, what level of radiation is needed to actually make someone sick, the proceedures of storing used fuel rods, etcetera.

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Mandatory drug testing?

There are also the thousands of "Nuclear 9-11" stories.

The exaggerated concern for "the children".

The lawyers involved.

Zero tolerance policies.

Obsessive interest in individual deaths when thousands of people are dying from ongoing, real threats.

Why is this sounding familiar?

--p!

[texastoast]

15. Just think

All those people, high as shit (and they were in those days) going to work welding the infrastructure used to power your children's energy needs. If it is your kids, is it so exaggerated? Or is it exaggerated only if it is the kids living within 20 miles of a reactor?

[phantom power]

17. yes, yes, all those damned dirty hippies, high as shit. back in the day.

Archie, is that you?

[Dead_Parrot]

20. What about kids living within 2 metres of sea-level?

There some in Bangladesh, apparently...



Or don't they count if they're not white?

[Dogmudgeon]

23. Conservation will do them good

Most people have too much useless crap, anyway. All that materialism causes dis-ease and is a blight on Hu-Man (Un)Kind. It dishonors Our Mother Earth, and makes the Great Spirit weep.

Why, just look at that baby -- it's fat! Fatty fatty fat! Look at the bloated belly! I bet it drives the family SUV down to the corner 7-11 whenever it needs a pack of smokes and a box of Ho-Hos.

These people will benefit by simplifying their lives. If they eat less junk food and get less icky protein, they will live much longer, much healthier lives and achieve the trim and sexy bodies they deserve. They can spend more time at home or their cottage in the woods, reading great works of literature, getting to know their families and their (surviving) children!

--p!
"I got my life back -- and my husband says 'I got my WIFE back'"
(Amy the Nutri-System cable TV bimbo. She lost 30 pounds. She is a good person again.)

[The2ndWheel]

9. Does it matter?

We will use whatever resource we have to in order to keep this thing together, no matter what the objection is. Objections and protests from this group or that are tolerated as long as what they're objecting to or protesting about aren't required for the system to function. As soon as it NEEDS nuclear energy, the people standing in the way will be pushed aside(sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently, whatever gets the job done).

[GliderGuider]

11. A vote with a caveat

I am convinced that nuclear power is a necessary tool for surviving peak-fossil and climate change

I'm voting as if I believed it will be possible to "survive" PO/GW. As I don't actually think our civilization will survive this combined crisis in its present form, my vote is perhaps moot. Except, except, except. If our ability to keep advanced technology together falters and fails as I think it will, I don't know if I really want to have a bunch of unmaintainable nukes sitting around.

If we can keep our shit together, cool. If not...

[phantom power]

18. speaking of that, I had secretly hoped that you would have something to say about...

this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=103128&mesg_id=103128

as pertains to seeding a hypothetical new civilization, with less energy to work with.

[phantom power]

12. a kick for straw

[4dsc]

21. Its too late for peak oil

Peak oil is a liquid fuel problem and nuclear energy will offer little assistance with the mitigation to another fuel source..

[GliderGuider]

22. Yes, PO is a much more urgent problem than GW

We have 5 years or less before the world starts feeling the effects of PO. Even if we could build nukes in that time they couldn't address the problems PO will pose. The whole question of nuclear power is moot as a result.

We can argue about it all we want, but we won't see very many new nukes built before the technological infrastructure needed for them is hopelessly compromised. I wonder - for opponents of nuclear power would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

[phantom power]

24. It does raise an interesting question: what does an economy look like...

with electricity, but little transportation.

It's worth noting that fuels can be manufactured, using heat energy, which is obviously easy to provide with nukes. Of course, that's yet another bunch of reactors that we probably don't have time or resources to build. So it would be something that might happen after the bottleneck, if at all.

[GliderGuider]

25. It's an intersting thought experiment, but has low real-world value

If we don't get the nukes built before the bottleneck, they may not be built for hundreds of years. The infrastructure to to build, operate and maintain them will be MIA. Even building a bunch of them right before a bottleneck that then happens anyway would likely be a poor idea.

An all-electric society seems like something a good SF writer should have explored, though. High standards of living, extremely localized and decentralized manufacturing and habitation, Internet communication takes the place of personal visits (wait, that's here now...)

[phantom power]

26. I'm not completely sure.

People aren't going to stop generating electricity as we head thru peak oil. So the economy will indeed attempt to adapt to a scenario where electricity is available, but liquid fuel is becoming scarcer and scarcer.

I really have no idea what it all means. But I think it's worth noting that peak fossil will be devastating, but it isn't going to be a magic wall past which all of our activities and attempts to adjust just cease to exist.

I think part of what it means is, that there will be opportunities to preserve infrastructure. How much, where, what kinds, etc, I don't propose to know. I do know that the electric grid is going to be an obvious priority for people to try preserving. (unfortunately, coal is going to be tempting beyond reason in that regard)

[GliderGuider]

27. That's a fundamental difference in our outlook

I believe that peak fossil will be a singularity, due to the complexity and brittleness of our civilization. Is looks to me like you're more of a gradualist, and assume that while it will be enormously difficult the loss of oil won't cause any fundamental dislocations in other areas of our energy universe. I hope you're right.

[phantom power]

28. I wouldn't call myself a gradualist....

For instance, I firmly believe that our economy is going to experience cascading failures, and that they are going to be high up on the richter-scale of that power-law.

However, even our globalized economy isn't fully connected (in the sense of inducing a fully-randomized fitness landscape). In fact, it's connectivity, although over-shot toward the chaos region, almost by definition can't have overshot extremely far.

In Kauffman-ese, we will remain in the percolating zone, where adaptation pathways exist. Well, at any rate I think we will. Maybe that's the best way to distinguish our viewpoints. I think there's a reasonable chance that adaptation pathways will continue to exist, and you do not.

Come to think of it, that brings up a possibly important opportunity. It's possible to measure systems, to determine whether they reside in the percolation zone or not. Wouldn't it be something to attempt an estimation for our global economy, and see?

At any rate, that's a good way to frame the question: Will the advent of peak oil be sufficient to take us out of the percolating zone (in which case, that should imply that you are right), or will it remain, in which case there will be adaptation pathways available for our economy.

And you can ask the question at various levels:
preserving percolation for global economy
preserving it only for regional economies
preserving it only for tribal economies (reverting to hunter-gatherers)
total loss of percolation (human extinction)

and then there's the analogous questions for earth's biosphere.

[VTMechEngr]

106. Electric Cars. The technology is there.

Use electric cars with ~ 250 mile range that plug in during the day for work and errands, and keep a gas car (future hybrids, maybe ethanol or current hybrid) for long trips.

Thats my hope for the future.
Nuclear can produce the clean electricity.

[chiggerbit]

29. Sure, I'll have a helping of nuclear dust with my veggies.

Sorry, I'm cynical. I had a cousin who grew up in Nevada who died of cancer in her thirties, and have seen too many people suffer from cancer (including my best friend) who worked at an ordinance near here that used to make nuclear weapons. I don't trust nuclear in any form.

http://www.euradcom.org/2003/execsumm.htm

[chiggerbit]

30. European study concludes more than 66 million dead from nukes since 1945

Let's see, which of your offspring are you going to offer up as "collateral damage", as nuclear victims who would have otherwise lived an ordinarily long life? Talk about eating your young...


http://www.euradcom.org/2003/execsumm.htm
clip
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"10. The committee concludes that the present cancer epidemic is a consequence of exposures to global atmospheric weapons fallout in the period 1959-63 and that more recent releases of radioisotopes to the environment from the operation of the nuclear fuel cycle will result in significant increases in cancer and other types of ill health.

"11. Using both the ECRR's new model and that of the ICRP the committee calculates the total number of deaths resulting from the nuclear project since 1945. The ICRP calculation, based on figures for doses to populations up to 1989 given by the United Nations, results in 1,173,600 deaths from cancer. The ECRR model predicts 61,600,000 deaths from cancer, 1,600,000 infant deaths and 1,900,000 foetal deaths. In addition, the ECRR predict a 10% loss of life quality integrated over all diseases and conditions in those who were exposed over the period of global weapons fallout. "

[chiggerbit]

31. Or, maybe I sould say...

...plugging in your young, as 1,600,000 infant deaths and 1,900,000 fetuses have already died (as of 1989)as a result of fallout and the release of radioisotopes. Gotta keep that electricity running, though.

[NNadir]

32. Well, if you don't know what you're talking about, make stuff up.

[Dogmudgeon]

34. Ooh -- it sounds ever so official and scientific!

Half of it's in French. Ooh, La La! Donnez-moi le Glam, mon Mec!

On the other hand, none of the data are online, it costs $40 to buy the report, and it is from Green Audit, which has a proclaimed strong anti-nuclear bias, and Low Level Radiation Campaign, its pseudoscientific arm, which likes to defame dead scientists. It looks like about the tenth cherry-picked version of the UNSCEAR report -- they all appear to be the epitome of Scientific Respectability, but are all "green" propaganda mills specializing in sensationalism and fund-raising. (Of course, anyone else who makes money is morally compromised -- the outrage!)

In other words, it sounds like a scientific report issued by some high-level intergovernmental commission, but it's just another Green Astroturf outfit. And a credential mill. And a shell game. And probably an off-Broadway musical, too.

The notorious Citizens Commission on Human Rights and a huge number of life insurance marketing companies use the same technique for their own seedy aims. So do sciency RPGs and Scientific American -- but for "infotainment" purposes, and without intent to deceive. With the right format and the right language, a cereal box can be made to look peer-reviewed. It's got the scent of science, but little else.

When I see some actual science going on, subject to scholarly debate and open replication, I'll pay attention, but "EuRadCom" looks like a group of about five back-bench scientists with a computer, an office at some small Euro uni, and a bunch of friends with P.O. boxes across Europe.

I'm sorry to hear about your cousin and your friend. I had an uncle who was a nuclear veteran, and I also had a great grandfather and several uncles who worked the coal mines in upstate Pennsylvania and died of black lung disease. My uncle the nuclear veteran died of lung cancer, but he also smoked two packs or more of Camels a day from age 13 until they had to entubate him in the hospital. I've seen wa-a-ay too many hucksters to trust yet another Unimpeachable Properly Credentialed High Scientific Commission or even a Soi-Disant Haute Groupe Europeen Scientifique.

But you did do some research, I'll give you that. Most anti-nuclearists expect us to believe them on their own say-so, then get angry when we don't cheerfully go along. It's like with Nancy Grace, or the drug warriors -- "How DARE you disagree! People have died! The outrage!" Indeed.

--p!

[TheWraith]

68. That is the single most stupid thing that I've ever read.

1.9 million fetal deaths? Cancer epidemic? ECRR model? That's all so full of crap I don't know where to begin, except by noting that most of the fallout from a nuclear weapons detonation burns itself out quickly, dropping to less than 0.001% of its original strength within a period of 3 years.

[chiggerbit]

33. Wikipedia says about Nevada as a testing ground.....

"....Between 1951 and 1992, there were a total of 928 announced nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site. Of those, 828 were underground; seismic data have indicated there may have been many unannounced underground tests as well. The site is covered with subsidence craters from the testing. The Nevada Test Site was the primary testing location of American nuclear devices; only 129 tests were conducted elsewhere (many at the Pacific Proving Grounds in the Marshall Islands)...."

This means that at least 100 were above-ground.

I'm mixing nuclear bomb history in with the issue of nuclear energy because I find it ironic/tragic that Nevada is now the state that is going to be forced to eat the nuclear waste of the rest of the country's nuclear energy sites, regardless of the will of the citizens of Nevada. How many of you are comfortable with nuclear energy because the waste won't be in your backyard? But then, how do you know that? In 1954, in a nuclear test on Bikini in the Marshall Islands, a bomb was tested that produced an explosion that was much more powerful than scientists expected. Are you going allow yourself to be lulled by "scientific nuclear knowledge"?

I'm just asking that you give this issue a good, deep think-through.

[Dogmudgeon]

36. That's the only source of nuclear fallout?

Check out King Coal.

Appalachian coal contains about 2 PPM of uranium and 5 PPM of thorium. So one year's production of one gigawatt puts 50 tons of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere.

Fifty tons. It's all fly-ash. And there are truly huge amounts of mercury, arsenic, and cadmium, enough to dwarf the radioactive material.

But that's just per gigawatt-year. Coal produces abut 1200 GWe-y of energy worldwide, each year. (GWe-y = "gigawatt of electricity per year".)

Yep. Sixty thousand tons of uranium and thorium fallout. Per year. Every year. Growing at an historical rate of about 3% per year.

But don't believe me. Believe this guy. He's a real scientist, not some poseur from the Green Party. His numbers are also markedly more conservative, and he wrote this about fifteen years ago:

Based on the predicted combustion of 2516 million tons of coal in the United States and 12,580 million tons worldwide during the year 2040, cumulative releases for the 100 years of coal combustion following 1937 are predicted to be:

U.S. release (from combustion of 111,716 million tons):
Uranium: 145,230 tons (containing 1031 tons of uranium-235)
Thorium: 357,491 tons

Worldwide release (from combustion of 637,409 million tons):
Uranium: 828,632 tons (containing 5883 tons of uranium-235)
Thorium: 2,039,709 tons

We're already a lot closer to his predicted 2040 consumption than he predicted. With all of Asia building coal plants at a rate of four per week, we should be at Gabbard's predicted 2040 level within a few years.

Most of us HAVE given this issue a good, deep think-through. We have concluded that the safest, cleanest form of energy yet discovered has been maligned by a small number of self-appointed radicals who are working for the benefit of the fossil fuel companies.

The response by the anti-nuclearists? "Well, dude, we don't like coal either," But I have yet to see activists lash themselves to coal smokestacks like they lash themselves to cooling towers.

I guess all that coal smoke freaks them out a little, eh?

We are, naturally, not happy about the whole situation.

--p!

[VTMechEngr]

117. Simple Question to you: Where do you logically put waste?

In the middle of an urban area, or in the middle of a desert?

Riddle me that.

[chiggerbit]

35. Pigwidgeon said...

"..It's safer than everything else. Everything..."

And my response is, nuclear's waste is almost forever. The others' "waste" isn't.

[Dogmudgeon]

37. It decays to background in about 300-1000 years

That's not forever. It isn't trivial, and I don't discount it, but it's not forever.

(The discrepancy between 300 and 1000 years comes from the different fuel mixtures.)

Mercury, arsenic, cadmium -- the by-products of burning coal, oil, and manufacturing solar PV cells -- THEY are forever.

You are in error -- the others' waste IS forever. And it IS waste -- nuclear fuel can be recycled without much fuss. Organometallic pollutants are almost impossible to recover from the environment.

Most anti-nuclearists DO discount them. They overlook toxic metal pollutants, and forget about their victims.

--p!

[chiggerbit]

38. Pigwidgeon says...

"...nuclear fuel can be recycled without much fuss.."

Is that what the plan is for Nevada's Yucca Mountain? Storing nuclear waste that could have been recycled? I'd say, what a waste of a recyclable resource.

The Department of Energy says:

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/

"Our mission is to manage and dispose of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel in a manner that protects health, safety and the environment; enhances national and energy security; and merits public confidence.


License Application Information

Congress has directed the Department of Energy to prepare a license application to construct and operate Yucca Mountain for disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste....."



Wow, high-level "recyclable" waste? Poor Nevada.

[Dogmudgeon]

41. Chiggerbit is interested in recycling

You can, and should, check out the scientific work on nuclear fuel recycling for yourself. For context, make sure to read up on the economics and especially the legality of recycling, too, which will explain the seeming illogic of the situation. And look at recycling in the French nuclear program. There is no shortage of information on the Internet, enough to avoid biased sources.

Also, the term "high level waste" has a specific definition to the Department of Energy. It isn't being used as an unquantified adjective.

Yucca Mountain is its own expansive topic. I'm currently working on (i.e., not done reading) a 200-page technical report on it.

As a side note, a humorous touch is fine and welcome, but you probably don't want to adopt a superior or condescending pose.

Trust me on this one -- you don't.

--p!

[chiggerbit]

40. And by "recycle"...

...are you talking about recycling into depleted uranium armament? I've always wondered where that du came from.

[Dogmudgeon]

43. That's where most DU comes from.

Incidentally, I do not support war, and especially not Mr. Bush's recreational war in Iraq.

There are many uses for depleted uranium. War is one of them. That is a market I hope will go out of business ASAP.

--p!

[TheWraith]

65. Nonsense. The two have nothing to do with each other.

Depleted uranium is what's left over when you extract the usable uranium. The leftovers never come into the nuclear fuel cycle. Fuel recycling has to do with re-extracting the usable uranium from the rods, which has the dual benefit of vastly reducing the size and radioactivity of the true waste, and freeing the still usable uranium from the clogging effect of the fission byproducts. The only reason it's not more commonly practiced is because new uranium is too cheap to make reprocessing seem like something that's neccessary rather than optional.

[struggle4progress]

47. Horseshit. The National Academy of Science suggested maybe a million years.

Court Rules Against 10,000−Year Radiation Safety Standard at Yucca Mountain

Saying the Environmental Protection Agency "unabashedly" ignored a National Academy of Sciences report on future radiation levels at the facility, a US appeals court sends the radioactive waste problem back to Congress.

September 2004, page 29

~snip~ The court ruled that the EPA "unabashedly rejected" earlier findings by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that said "some potentially important exposures might not occur until after several hundred thousand years."

The academy, in a 1995 report, said that the radiation standard for the facility should be measured at "the time of peak risk, whenever it occurs." That could be on the order of a million years, the academy noted.

In passing the 1992 Energy Policy Act, Congress required the EPA to set standards for Yucca Mountain consistent with the time frame for radiation risks as determined by the NAS. The EPA, according to the court, intentionally disregarded the NAS peak−dose standard as, quoting from an EPA regulation, "not practical for regulatory decision making." Instead, the EPA settled on a 10 000−year standard based on "policy considerations," the court said. ~snip~

http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-9/p29a.html

[TheWraith]

66. The NAS is mistaken.

The fission byproducts of a nuclear reactor decay down to background level in between 300 and 900 years. Of course they're on a fast curve, so the radiation declines much faster as the most intense isotopes burn out first, but the over under is 300 to 900.

[struggle4progress]

80. How convincing! You repeat your canard and add "The NAS is mistaken"

The advice in the "Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards" was that planning standards should be based on the maximal exposure to an individual, which exposure, the report concluded, could (as a result of certain long-lived fission by-products in a waste repository) occur hundreds of thousands of years in the future

The half-life of iodine-129, for example, is about 15 million years. Concerning it, the EPA says:

~snip~ Iodine-129 is one of the more important radionuclides of concern in the large inventory of spent reactor fuel and defense high-level waste ~snip~ http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/iodine.htm

[VTMechEngr]

93. The most highly radioactive isotopes decay the quickest.

The low level stuff has the long half lives. Its the quick decay that makes them so highly radioactive.

[struggle4progress]

127. And so different scenarios give the maximum exposure at different time scales

[TheWraith]

101. If you bothered to actually look at the data, you'd see that I'm right.

If you're waiting for me to say something that can singlehandedly convince you that your information is bad, I can't do that without you opening up to the possibility. Look up the nature of half-lives. The basic principle is that the most highly radioactive isotopes decay quickly, specifically because they're highly active. It's like gasoline on a fire: it burns very hot, but very briefly. It's why despite being nuke-bombed, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still exist today--the most dangerous radioisotopes burned off within a few weeks or months. It's why it's perfectly safe for you to take a tour of the Chernobyl radiological exclusion zone, as long as you don't live there.

The danger from long term isotopes like iodine-129 is, in fact, pretty minimal when you look at it in overall terms of REMs.

[Dogmudgeon]

105. You'll wait a long time

I don't think one anti in 20 reads their own links, let alone those posted by a proponent. And nearly all links are the result of a quick search to find "ammunition".

The Internet is a very easy-to-use source of information, and there is no shortage of knowledge on nuclear energy. But is this knowledge consulted? Of course not.

You might as well be discussing pixie dust -- cursed black pixie dust from the Dark Horcrux of Mordor.

--p!

[VTMechEngr]

107. Most Anti's don't have a clue about Nuclear Reactors.

They fear it because they have little understanding about it.

Myself, I've been with mere feet of an operating fission reactor. I know what I support.

[Dogmudgeon]

110. The Ocean changed my mind

Over 100 mg in each cubic meter at 12 Bq activity, with radioactive material in every drop.

Plus all that deuterium!

Contemplating that hit me like a tsunami.

I'd been tepidly pro-nuclear for a couple of years. I had been anti-nuclear before that because good lefties and musicians oppose bad nuclear. I followed the program.

Today, I don't know why we're wasting our time on anything else, except for the scientific knowledge to be gained, and maybe some targeted applications -- like the manufacture of portable energy such as DME or fuel cells. For example, I have a solar calculator which works quite well, and the toxic waste from manufacturing the solar cells was pretty small for a convenience like that.

I also don't know why the Left and so much of the Democratic Party has ceded control of the entire issue. It's just plain bone-headed to say, "Here's the cheapest, most efficient, environmentally safest method of producing energy ever known; YOU guys can control it, every watt of it!"

On the other hand, the grass-roots have learned to be skeptical of fear-mongering of all kinds from 6 years of Bushism. The attempt to create a "Nuclear Disaster In Japan!!!" story failed when people caught on that the amount of radiation involved was a minute fraction of the normal background dose. The ubiquity of the computer has made math easy to do. I guess there is progress being made after all.

--p!

[TheWraith]

108. Talk about a nicely mixed metaphor. NT

[struggle4progress]

126. It's not a matter of my information being bad, but of your failure to understand what the NAS

discussed.

If one wants to safely isolate reactor wastes, one confronts (of course) the issue that the maximum exposures result at different time scales from completely different scenarios. Nobody worries as much about the internal effects of I-129 for exposures in the years immediately after the fuel is removed from the reactor for storage and cooling, because a much bigger hazard comes from (say) Cs-137 gamma. After an extended period, when the shorter-lived isotopes have decayed somewhat, certain hazards nevertheless remain.

[Dogmudgeon]

69. The horse is all yours

You quoted a political review that quoted a policy report, and it didn't so much as give the name of the report, let alone a link. (Good reporting, huh?)

And I'm supposed to believe that it's God's Revealed Word?

Is that before or after your cry of "horseshit" convinces me I'm wrong?

--p!

[struggle4progress]

78. No, I quoted "Physics Today" reporting on a court case

"Physics Today" is a publication of the American Institute of Physics. Most atmospheric scientists and geophysicists in the country get a free subscription to "Physics Today" with their subscription to more specialized American Geophysical Union journals.

[chiggerbit]

39. Again, Pigwidgeon says...

"...It decays to background in about 300-1000 years
That's not forever. It isn't trivial, and I don't discount it, but it's not forever.

(The discrepancy between 300 and 1000 years comes from the different fuel mixtures.)"

The problem is that that is THIS year's nuclear "recyclable" waste which lasts, supposedly, up to a thousand years. What about the waste from a hundred years from now, and the waste from 999 years from now? All of it, from today forward, a thousand years of storing "recyclable" waste that lasts up to a thousand years, piling up year after year? How much, volumn-wise, are we talking about at the end of a thousand years, that, of course, lasts up to an additional thousand years?

[Dogmudgeon]

42. Please clarify that

I'm not sure what your point is.

The 300 to 1000 year period starts when the material leaves the reactor core. Its radioactivity is down to one millionth of its original rate. Ten half-lives after use -- 300 to 1000 years -- it is down to one billionth.

Spent fuel that comes out today will be "safe" by 2300 to 3000 CE. Spent fuel that comes out in 2400 CE will be "safe" by 2700 to 3400 CE.

Let me know if you meant something else. I will reply tomorrow.

--p!

[chiggerbit]

44. Well, my math's not so good......

"Spent fuel that comes out today will be "safe" by 2300 to 3000 CE. Spent fuel that comes out in 2400 CE will be "safe" by 2700 to 3400 CE."

2007+1000=???
3007+ 1000=???

But then, we're supposed to trust the experts, aren't we? Hmmm...so many secrets.



http://www.agrnews.org/issues/72/index.html

“Forgotten” nuclear weapons factory poisons Iowa town

By Dennis J. Carroll

Middletown, Iowa, May 29— The assignment in an environmental issues class at Southeastern Community College seemed innocuous: Write a letter to a local official about the environment.

So Bob Anderson, 60 years old, wrote to US Senator Tom Harkin. In seven paragraphs, Anderson told about his experiences as a security guard at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant from 1968 to 1973, and suggested that exposure to radioactive materials may have given him and others cancer.

The letter, and the off-and-on inquiry it triggered, ultimately unleashed a stream of startling disclosures in recent months from federal officials and former plant workers who broke decades of silence to talk about the plant.

Radioactive uranium clouds routinely floated above the military compound, while workers, often unprotected by safety gear, probably came into contact with plutonium and other radioactive and hazardous materials. A few weeks ago, a groundwater well test at the plant showed radiation far above the levels considered safe for drinking.

The inquiry also found a huge institutional memory loss at the US Department of Energy, which had forgotten that the plant was once the nation’s only producer of nuclear weapons, and had completely lost track of plant records.

At the peak of production, almost 10,000 workers toiled around the clock at the 19,000-acre plant, making everything from bullets to atomic bombs. Almost anyone who lived in southeastern Iowa for any length of time, it seemed, either worked at the plant or knows some continued from page 1 one who did.

The Department of Energy and the University of Iowa have begun a survey of health problems among the plant’s nuclear workers, and the department recently began testing workers for possible exposure to beryllium, a toxic metal used in constructing nuclear weapons.

Harkin said he never knew the plant produced nuclear weapons. When he received Anderson’s letter in the fall of 1997, he asked the Energy Department about it and was told that the plant never produced nuclear weapons. So he sent Anderson a letter thanking him for his interest, and let the matter drop.

But last August, after a Harkin aide touring the plant learned of its nuclear-weapons history, the senator’s office contacted Anderson and asked for more information. In the meantime, Harkin stepped up his questioning of the Energy Department and the US Army. But finding answers was difficult because workers’ health had never been monitored, as it was at designated nuclear arms plants.

On top of that, the records of plant operations and working conditions were in cardboard boxes scattered among Energy Department facilities and archives across the country. Many of the records turned up in boxes at the Pantex nuclear weapons facility near Amarillo, Texas, where Middletown’s nuclear operations were moved in the mid-1970s.

Finally, Energy Department officials confirmed for Harkin and themselves that the Atomic Energy Commission did indeed make nuclear weapons in Middletown from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. In fact, from 1949 to 1951, the facility was the nation’s only nuclear weapons assembly plant.

“When I learned the extent of IAAP’s role in creating the US nuclear arsenal, I was astonished to learn that some key federal officials knew little or nothing of its history,” Harkin told the Hawk Eye, a daily newspaper in Burlington, Iowa. “In other words, the IAAP’s nuclear history fell between some big bureaucratic cracks,” Harkin said.

“Senator Harkin was correct when he said that the plant fell through the cracks,’’ said Earl Whiteman, an official at the Energy Department’s office in Albuquerque. “Many people outside of forgot about the important work that was done there.”

Anderson said he and the guards he supervised often boarded train cars loaded with metal barrels of radioactive materials. He said that at the time, he wasn’t sure just exactly what was in the drums that he walked among and touched. “I just knew that it must be pretty important ... to have people with machine guns guarding a railroad car,” Anderson said.

Fifteen years after Anderson left the plant, doctors diagnosed his non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system that they suspected was caused by exposure to radiation.

Several of his friends, who had also worked at the plant, had died of similar diseases, Anderson told Harkin.

“We always prided ourselves on following everything by the rules,’’ Anderson said of his work on the nuclear production line. “Little did I know that we didn’t have a rule book. We were writing it as we went along.’’

Anderson’s account and the subsequent disclosures have prompted dozens of other workers or their relatives to come forward with stories of health problems and unsafe conditions.

“Is there anything the government is going to do to find out what’s going on with these people?’’ asked Terri Bailey, whose parents worked at the plant. She said her stepfather has throat cancer and her mother suffers from brain aneurysms.

“She carried live powder,’’ Bailey said of her mother’s work in the plant. “If she dropped it, she’d blow up.’’

For decades, workers, sworn to secrecy about what they did at the plant, had been reluctant -- even fearful -- about coming forward with their stories.

Vaughn Moore, a former guard at the plant, painted a dark picture of conditions at the plant.

“Talking about your work was strictly taboo. Back in them days, they would tell you, ‘Run your mouth and you’re going to Leavenworth Penitentiary,’” said Moore.

“They had 15 FBI agents stationed in this town,’’ he said. “All they did was run around in bars listening, grocery stores listening. They knew what clubs you belonged to, they knew where you ate, they knew where you went fishing.

“They knew all about you,’’ Moore said. “They knew more about you than you knew about yourself.’’

Harkin has been pushing the Defense Department to lift its secrecy about the plant so workers will feel free to tell their stories. Even now, the Army refuses either to confirm or deny that nuclear weapons were assembled there.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson in January traveled to the area to talk to former workers, calling them Cold War heroes. He promised to conduct a radiological review of the nuclear arms production line at the plant and to explore ways of compensating former workers for their health problems.

Last month, Richardson announced a nearly $500 million proposal to compensate the nation’s nuclear weapons workers for their medical expenses and lost wages. It will not be easy to attribute health problems to nuclear arms production specifically. The plant is already part of a $110 million Superfund cleanup supervised by the Environmental Protection Agency. The cleanup generally does not involve former Atomic Energy Commission areas of the plant, and is focused on restoring soil and groundwater contaminated by decades of producing conventional weapons and improper disposal and burning of hazardous wastes.

But Energy Department officials have said that if workers can show they were exposed to certain hazardous materials, they will be given the benefit of the doubt in determining compensation.

As for his reaction to all that has happened since his letter to Harkin, Anderson said: “All of my life has been one of observation and reporting if something is wrong, and basically that’s what I wanted to do.’’

[garybeck]

49. here's a use for that nuclear waste

why don't we mix it into the warheads and drop it as bombs on innocent civilians in other countries? out of site, out of mind.

[Dogmudgeon]

54. I'm anti-war. If you are pro-war, you're on your own.

--p!

[garybeck]

58. well it's already happening in case you didn't know

depleted uranium is all over the place in Iraq. it costs the government too much to dispose of it liegally in the US so they drop it on Iraq. true it comes mainly from nuclear weapons manufacturing waste, not nuclear power waste, but it's all just as well. I say leave all that uranium in the ground where it belongs.

[Kolesar]

88. DU is not spent fuel from reactors

It is depleted to lower radioactivity in the process of enriching uranium.

[garybeck]

90. I know that, read what I said. n/t

[Kolesar]

99. Ooops, sorry, you are right

Guess I was out in the sun too long yesterday.

[chiggerbit]

45. Reports of blue flash studied..

Look how long it took for this to leak out:

http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2001nn/0106nn/010610nn.htm#084



Scientists offer varying theories about what may have caused event.

By Dennis J. Carroll
The Hawk Eye (Burlington, Iowa)
June 10, 2001
http://www.thehawkeye.com/specials/IAAP/breaking/b61000.html

Federal and state regulators are investigating the possibility that a runaway nuclear chain reaction at the Middletown munitions plant in the early 1970s released a large burst of radiation that may have killed two workers and sent large amounts of radiation into the environment.

One regulator, Dan McGhee of the Radiological Bureau of the Iowa Department of Public Health, said there appears to be "a 50-50 chance" that a nuclear "criticality" occurred in which people were killed.

According to Department of Energy reports, a criticality accident occurs when the minimal amount of fissionable material necessary to sustain a nuclear reaction inadvertently comes together, setting off the chain reaction.

There is a sudden release of energy and deadly radiation, but not necessarily an explosion.

Such an event is accompanied by a blue flash of light or a glow that can linger for some time.

It is thought that if such an event did occur at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, it may have occurred in one of the areas used to assemble and disassemble nuclear bombs.

In the entire Atomic Age, there have been only 60 documented criticality events reported worldwide, according to scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and only 21 fatalities reported since 1945.

Such an occurrence at the Middletown plant is not listed among those events, as published in a 2000 update of "A Review of Criticality Accidents" by the Los Alamos lab and Russian nuclear experts.

Investigators, who include the Iowa Department of Public Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, have centered their probe around information contained in recently declassified documents and the accounts of former IAAP workers who said they witnessed or were familiar with the event.

Pinning down a date has been difficult, but the reported flash is believed to have occurred in the summer of 1972 or 1973, according to researchers at the University of Iowa College Public Health who have talked with former nuclear weapons workers who said they saw or knew of the flash.

A report from the university survey team includes the account of a worker who said he witnessed a blue flash in a nuclear assembly room, then helped two injured workers who later died.

However, former workers remain reluctant to say much more --Êassuming they know more --Êand the reported victims have not been identified.

One is said to have died the day after the flash, the other a year later.

Nuclear weapons were assembled and, in later years, disassembled at Middletown in circular reinforced-concrete rooms, about 30 feet wide. The rooms were surrounded by earth and topped with tons of gravel to contain radiation from possible nuclear explosions or other radiation releases.

Daniel Bullen, former director of the nuclear reactor program at Iowa State University, said it is unlikely that a criticality would have occurred during the assembly or disassembly of a nuclear weapon.

"I would be extremely skeptical," he said.

Bullen is not involved in the IAAP investigation.

Other nuclear scientists have said such a glow could have been caused by a chemical fluorescence or phosphorescence or a glow from tritium -- a radioactive material sometimes handled by IAAP nuclear workers.

Scott Marquess, project manager for the EPA Superfund cleanup at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, said his agency is trying to determine whether there are residual signs of such a criticality that would remain nearly 30 years later.

For example, it is considered possible that fission materials from a criticality still might be embedded in nearby glass, and there still could be lingering radiation.

Bill Field, radiation expert with the university's team surveying the health of former IAAP nuclear workers, said the blue flash or glow seen by workers could have been what is known as Cerenkov radiation, in which charged radioactive particles traveling faster than the speed of light from a fission reaction release a blue glow.

That often is observed at nuclear power plants when spent nuclear rods are submerged in water, but that is a controlled environment.

In an April letter to Army officials urging a aerial radiological survey of the plant, Gov. Tom Vilsack cited recently declassified documents that he said refer to plutonium, "ground zero" and "an incident that may have led to contamination" in the early 1970s.

It has not be determined whether that "incident" was the blue flash seen by workers.

The Atomic Energy Commission assembled, test-fired and in later years, disassembled nuclear weapons and their components at IAAP from the late 1940s to the mid 1970s.

[garybeck]

46. Every hour, enough solar radiation hits the earth to power the entire planet for a year.

so says the United States Department of Energy.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/animations.html

we only need to tap into a tiny fraction of what is available to us. we do not need nuclear energy, period.

nuclear energy is very harmful to our planet and people. uranium mining is very bad. nuclear waste is very bad. we all know that.

nuclear energy would make sense perhaps if we didn't have solar, wind, and other renewables available to us. but we do. let's use them. nuclear is dirty, dangerous, and just plain NASTY.

[Like It Is]

48. Waste disposal is the problem.

Maybe when they finally decide how to handle nuclear waste and it makes sense, only then will I support nuclear power.

[garybeck]

50. And uranium mining too. n/t

[silverojo]

51. Nuclear is too dangerous -- period. n/t

[garybeck]

53. It's all about the OPTIONS.

You can't just say nuclear power is good or bad. It all has to do with our NEEDS, and the possible ways we can SATISFY those needs.

Nuclear, when compared to coal and oil, might look OK.

But when you consider that we have renewable energy sources, then nuclear is clearly not the best choice. Those who say renewable energy can't really fulfill our needs, well, they are simply wrong. the science, math, economics, everything points to clean renewables.

we simply don't need nuclear because there are other better OPTIONS.

[Dogmudgeon]

55. This poll has been TROLLED

Read the whole pathetic story here...
... and here.

There are also links to other sites.

--p!

[hankthecrank]

57. Thanks for the good links

Trolled my ass

[Dogmudgeon]

59. It's a conspiracy to promote abortion

Just check the link. Especially the end of Page 2.

Fight the power!

Off the pig(widgeon)s!

Let's order sushi, and not pay!

--p!
"The pronuke fascists are well organized and assaultive and rude..."
(-- some guy)

[hankthecrank]

62. I like the board you gave me links too

So sorry

[Dogmudgeon]

64. Knock yourself out, Hank

If you want to hang with a bunch of dishonest chickenshits whose idea of "activism" is rigging polls they don't like, that's your decision to make.

I thought their Maximum Leader had signed up for some dialog. I replied to several posts s/he made in good faith. Looks like I was wrong.

But I'm just a fascist. You know, one of those guys who doesn't hang well with the Cool Kids. Say hello to them for me, will you?

--p!

[hankthecrank]

72. Sorry used up all my electrons can't write them

I had whole box of them but one little hole and they leaked out

Damm if I was only a kid again I could change some things

not sure that I would go thru high school that sucked but maybe after that

[TheWraith]

67. Sweet fancy Moses, what a weird and crazy site.

It's like somebody siphoned off the cream of the weirdest that DU gets, and put it there. 66 million people dead from nuclear power? That's a claim even the most foolish of the semi-credible anti-nuclear types wouldn't get behind.

[Dogmudgeon]

70. They only come out at night

They all think they're Freedom Fighters, and they're all batshit crazy.

Freepers. Neo-Nazis. Conspiracy nuts.

I like the "66 million" number. It's a shameless rip from the Holocaust. The anti-abortion crazies also have used that number for many years.

It is a shame to think that the anti-nuclearists have developed their own stable of rampaging loonies. I don't mind it when people disagree with me, but to some people, dissent is fascism.

--p!

[chiggerbit]

76. Right,, sure, uh huh

"I don't mind it when people disagree with me..."-----------------------------------------> "They all think they're Freedom Fighters, and they're all batshit crazy. Freepers. Neo-Nazis. Conspiracy nuts. I like the "66 million" number. It's a shameless rip from the Holocaust. The anti-abortion crazies also have used that number for many years. It is a shame to think that the anti-nuclearists have developed their own stable of rampaging loonies."


~Heh~ Nope Pig doesn't mind anyone disagreeing with it...until they do. No wonder people here were a little reluctant to express an opinion in opposition to Pig. And what's with the anti-abortion shit? I can't recall anyone at RI ever making anti-abortion statements. Not that it's impossible that there are people there at RI who feel that way. Who knows? Actually, I'm not sure when it's even come up for discussion. Was that misleading statement deliberate or accidental?


As for the poll questions, I can't imagine questions being asked in a more leading manner. Certainly no imagination necessary to determine what the right answer is, right? So, let me ask this: Why even bother with the risks involved in a real poll? Why not just make up a graph that suits your fancy?

[Dead_Parrot]

77. So where DID the "66 million" come from?

Are you sure it's 65 million or 67 million?

[Name removed]

79. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dead_Parrot]

81. Ahhh...

I missed one one of his posts - It's a figure from Grattan http://www.motherearth.org/bulletin/01_06/bewapening.htm">"HAARP brain waves alter your memory" Healy and the maniacs at The European Committee on Radiation Risk (Avenue de la Fauconnerie 73, Bruxelles) which is totally unconnected with the European Renewable Energies Federation (Avenue de la Fauconnerie 73, Bruxelles), the European Solar Thermal Power Industry Association (Avenue de la Fauconnerie 73, Bruxelles) or the World Wind Energy Association (Avenue de la Fauconnerie 73, Bruxelles). Oh, and there's a lawyer there too, just in case.

.

[Name removed]

82. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

84. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dead_Parrot]

86. Cool

When do we get the "Protocols of the Elders of Westinghouse"?

Oh, and here's the Mongols killing 66 million in the 14th C.

http://listserv.kent.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0611d&L=ownership&P=427

$50 says Genghis Khan, Joseph Stalin and Dick Cheney all have the same address in Brussels.

[phantom power]

83. I expected this a lot sooner.

[phantom power]

87. Even with polling-Hessians, they haven't quite cracked 50%.

[garybeck]

91. Na,

Most of these votes are coming from the DU GD forum, where *I* just asked people to go and vote on this poll. I'm glad to see that when more people voted, the tides were turned.

[Name removed]

92. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Nihil]

96. Ick!

Seems to have been a nasty infestation over the weekend ...

:wtf:

I have no problem with the resident anti-nuclear crowd but how come
these trolls are still tombstone free?

[Dead_Parrot]

98. Aww, but they're cute

Besides, I still need Storm van Leeuwen and Elena "girl on a bus tour" Filatova to complete my "bullshit bingo" card on one thread. It's a while since I did that.

[chiggerbit]

102. wrong reply

[chiggerbit]

56. Interesting read on effects..

of radiation:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/20010610/t000048310.html

[farmboxer]

71. Solar All the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, to solar

[chknltl]

73. I voted "Convinced against..."

There are alternatives, geothermal, solar, tidal and etc. An investment of resources into these equal to the investment of resources into nuclear should provide a clean product equal to or surpassing nuclear energy as a source for our future energy needs. I am against looking to nuclear energy for our future because of the waste products. Storing it has it's demons, reusing it, for example: depleted uranium, has it's obvious demons, shooting it off into space or the sun has it's demons too. The phenomenon of hazardous waste does not accompany the natural energy sources we have that may indeed be within our technoligical reach regardless of what the oil or nucular industries would want us to believe.

[phantom power]

85. Show me your math for geothermal, solar, tidal, etc.

Because when *I* do the math, they don't look like good alternatives.

[chknltl]

89. I answered your question fairly. You answer mine now:

Look, my fellow DUer, you asked for my opinion, I gave it. Instead of accepting that I am against nuclear energy because of it's waste products you challenge my answer. Show me YOUR MATH that the waste products from Solar, Tidal or Geothermal energy sources produce a toxic waste that is equal to or worse as a hazard for our environment than nuclear energy waste products are.

You do that and I'll be against those potential energy sources too!

:popcorn:

[Dead_Parrot]

94. Try here:

http://www.externe.info/expolwp6.pdf

Flick to page 17 if you want a quick answer.

If you want a long answer, try http://www.ier.uni-stuttgart.de/forschung/projektwebsites/newext/newext_final.pdf. Warning, it's a biggish document - 3.5MB and 333 pages.

[chknltl]

95. Gee, who here has the college PhD do unravel that math???

...strangely my hand did not go up. Ok HA HA, I fell for that. I am asked to partake in a rigged poll. Silly me! It appears that folks here are not at all interested in discussion as much as interested in selling me something I know I do not want! I once had an Anthropology professor who debated with his students over his fictional premise that humans descended directly from tree frogs...try as we could we lowly undergrads could not win against him. His salient point was not lost on us...that point comes home to roost again I see. What a great teacher, huh?

Look, I am hopelessly outmatched, I came here to do a poll and explain why I am for alternate forms of energy as opposed to nuclear. I see no reason to stay and debate with those who would waste both our times by trying to convince me that Wind, Tidal, Solar, and Geo-Thermal energy is more hazardous to our environment than Nuclear energy. If you want debate on this topic go talk to Helen Caldicott. I have spoken to her and ya know what???... I'll bet she does not believe man is descended from tree-frogs either! I think I would rather watch a "Girls Gone Wilde Infomercial" than hang around this thread any longer!

[Name removed]

97. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Esra Star]

74. We have to address our energy profligacy. I am distressed when

I see heating appliances and refrigerating appliances competing with
each other in the same space.
The other thing about nuclear is:- how long will the available uranium last.
I don't think it will last a century. Then where will the planet be.
The trick is to use energy wisely.
I am not holding my breath.

[Dogmudgeon]

75. Uranium supply: almost forever

Uranium, thorium, and deuterium ("heavy water") are preset in seawater -- 30 milligrams of uranium, 90 milligrams of thorium, and 1.5 grams of deuterium in each cubic meter of seawater. Even forgetting about deuterium, which is more suited to fusion (whenever it is developed) and CANDU reactors, there's enough in the oceans for a couple of thousand years.

The crust of the Earth also has a lot of uranium and thorium, in about the same proportions as seawater (12 PPM U and Th). There is no shortage. Some of the anti-nuclear orgs, however, are promoting that as a talking point.

Of course, we should not misuse our supply of fissile material, either. Wisdom is in short supply, and we can't get it from the ocean or the crust of the Earth. THAT is the truly critical resource.

--p!

[jpak]

111. The US would have to process 7000+ cubic kilometers of seawater each year

to satisfy it's current uranium demand.

In comparison.

The volume of Chesapeake Bay is "only" 71 cubic kilometers.

The annual discharge of the Mississippi River is "only" 535 cubic kilometers per year.

The amount of energy required to process that amount of seawater would far exceed any energy returns.

and, it would be a global scale environmental disaster...

[VTMechEngr]

118. The beauty is that you can make new fuel. Plutonium.

We just won't.

[jpak]

119. Breeder reactors do not work

Every sodium-cooled breeder ever built has suffered sodium fires and/or core meltdowns.

None have bred significant quantities of Pu.

Reprocessing is hugely expensive (Japan's new reprocessing plant cost >$20 billion and is still not operational) and the plutonium produced exorbitant in price (>$2000/kg).

Commercial spent fuel reprocessing in the US was a commercial failure.

Reprocessing is dangerous and produces large quantities of highly radioactive liquid and solid wastes that must be contained and disposed (at great cost).

The Plutonium Economy ain't gonna happen...

[Dogmudgeon]

121. Compared to millions of windmills, it's small stuff

Each of the wind plants you propose will require 500 to 2500 TONS of concrete. And then there's the environmental impact of concrete production. That doesn't include the metal and the extensive engineering required -- and the large parallel investment in energy storage technology and infrastructure.

One million aerogenerator towers for 1.0-2.0 GWe heads would require over one billion tons of concrete -- maybe two billion. But we wouldn't be building them all at once -- even the most aggressive plans call for a million to be built over the next 20 years. "20% in 20" it's called by a few proposals. Yet the land-based wind plants are only rated for 20 years, concrete wear being a big factor, so let's say we put building on a continuous 20-year cycle. (Sea-based wind plants may last less than 20 years, but Denmark will be able to tell us from experience earlier in the cycle.)

That's 50,000 TONS of concrete a year, every year, for most of the next century. And the amount of energy would only be significantly greater than that produced by nuclear energy if the generators became significantly more efficient.

You could fill in the Chesapeake Bay or dam the Mississippi with all that concrete.

That's ALSO if we pursue a strong no-growth agenda, and are able to enforce it world-wide. The world will still require about five times that number of wind plants -- five million wind plants and five BILLION tons of concrete in 20 years, or less.

And that will only put a dent in the problem. Coal and oil will still be required for at least half the demand. And if there is still economic growth (like in China or India) that we can't persuade or bribe or bomb out of existence, we will need more.

Ten million in 30 years. Forty million in sixty. Nearly 200 million by the end of the century. That's on a 30-year doubling schedule, about 2.5% per year growth, from a jump-start of 50,000 wind plants the first year.

There have been about 200 deaths from building wind generators in the last 30 years. Much of the work is similar to building skyscrapers (one million skyscrapers). This is several thousand times as many.

Meanwhile, salt water can be dried simply by letting it sit out in the sun. The energy demand you claim can ALSO be satisfied easily by a portion of the collected nuclear material, too -- I do not know the exact J/gm conversions between uranium/thorium and water, but it's much more economical than using fossil fuel. More complicated systems would require some big hardware, but that would still be a fraction of the construction required for a million wind plants. Asphalt could even be used for large-surface evaporation, a much better deal than processing it into expensive gasoline and destroying Alberta. In many areas, if not most, human-made salt flats can be "built" instead.

A dedicated solar desalination system could be developed along with it and eliminate water supply problems. At last, solar power would be remunerative!

Still not happy with the numbers? There is also extensive existing de-sal capacity that operates around the world. It may not process 7000 km^3 of seawater a year, but I'm sure it's a lot. And most of these are fossil-fuel fired desalination projects. They were built with no undue stress on the world economy. They improved the environment in many places, not the least of which is Israel.

Do you think 5000 gigawatt nuclear reactors is a big job? You are proposing a pyramid-scale project when a modest industrial effort will serve us better, safer, and with far less damage to the environment. Once again, MIS-application of the "Small Is Beautiful" philosophy leads to The Big Ugly.

--p!

[jpak]

135. There are 3.5 grams/L of salt in seawater and only 3.3 micro-grams/L of uranium

Moving 7000 km3 of seawater will require enormous quantities of energy.

No one has proposed extracting U from dried sea salts - it's extracted using ion exchange resins.

Ion exchange resins are produced from petroleum - and large scale U extraction would require billions of tons of it a year.

Furthermore, processing that amount of water would kill untold trillions of marine organisms - including fish larvae - and alter the temperature and chemistry of the waste water.

It would be a monumental environmental disaster...

[Dogmudgeon]

137. 200 km^3 a day. We probably do that now.

There is a complete desalination industry that operates around the world. It is not a popular technology in North America, but California has debated using it for half a century. There is even a movie that gives an entertaining background on their water problems -- Chinatown. Israel also uses de-sal to irrigate a whole lot of desert.

It takes a lot of energy to move 200 km^3 of water each day. The tides and the sun do it every day -- to several more orders of magnitude of seawater than my small example. And efficient chemical extraction from million-to-one substance concentrations are performed routinely -- even by junior-high-school students.

There are hundreds of patents for extracting metals, including uranium, from seawater -- at natural concentration, as a concentrated slush, and as salt. Ion exchange resin is not required by many of them. However, most resins are re-usable for a long time. It may, indeed, be the best way to separate uranium.

Earths (e.g., zeolites) are also usable for the process. Several patents exist in this field, too, and they have uses for cleaning up spills of nuclear material -- even those which are more scary than dangerous.

Adding water to salt is a very simple technology. It has been around since before 1990. LONG before 1990.

Now, if you want to talk about "monumental environmental disaster(s)", you will have to consider this in some kind of context:

• The damage to be done by one to ten million offshore windmills (vs onshore siting) (no concern shown for potential and real damage)
  
• Existing desalination plants around the world (minimal scattered damage; some local ecological enhancement)
  
• Burning of billions of tons of fossil fuel each year (major damage ongoing)
  
• Oceanic die-off due to increased temperature (major damage ongoing)

The waste water is, indeed, altered. And it is either pumped inland for irrigation, or it goes right up into the atmosphere. Perhaps a case can be made that valuable desert ecology is being ruined, but the world's deserts are all expanding rapidly, and it is not being viewed as a sign of environmental health.

In addition, when we are done with the uranium and thorium, we can judiciously scatter it back into the ocean (dumping it in one place just won't do). It is chemically the same element, even though it will contain one millionth of the radioactivity.

Every time there's a press release that solar cells can be printed out on a cheap inkjet printer with a magic solar buckyball cartridge, the anti-nuclear world goes ga-ga. I describe existing technology, not particularly exotic, yet it can't be done, and it will be disastrous anyway.

But I do not think these are informed objections. They are rhetorical roadblocks designed to discourage people who are unaware that these things are not just possible, but proven over the last century. Desalination, solar and otherwise, is currently being done on a large scale. Industrial-scale materials separation is a thriving industry. Nuclear energy provides a 20% chunk of our electrical energy, and we built most of our nukes in a period of less than a decade.

The only things holding back large-scale nuclear energy use are fear and massively subsidized petroleum.

--p!

[jpak]

138. 200 cubic kilometers per day??? You've got to be kidding

The discharge of the Mississippi River is "only" 1.46 cubic km/day

200 cubic km/day would require processing the equivalent of 2.8 Chesapeake Bays per day - every day.

Furthermore, at 200 km^3/day the quantity of organisms and biological material removed and destroyed each day would be enormous.

It's Lunacy

You cannot reuse ion exchange resins indefinitely. In the laboratory, 2-3 extraction/regeneration cycles is all that can be expected.

There is *no* damage from offshore wind farms. If anything they would form de facto artificial reefs.

The waste water from seawater U extraction is seawater - you cannot irrigate with it and pumping 200 km^3/day inland would require enormous quantities of energy.

U extraction from seawater is pie-in-the-sky nonsense...

[Dogmudgeon]

140. No pie, but blue skies for nuclear energy AND de-sal

You call it "pie-in-the-sky". But materials separation technology has built an industry. The Israelis made the desert bloom from seawater a lot higher in salt content than the Atlantic.

This is just more of the same "well, what about ..." that antinuclearists always come up with, in spite of real-world experience to the contrary. Plus, you continue to ignore huge sections of what I write -- which I have come to expect. I can write about solar desalination -- the only substantially remunerative application of solar energy -- and you'll continue to tell me I'm talking about brine.

Well, what about the problems with wind power we already have? They don't exist because you wished them away! Except that they DO exist, because you CAN'T wish them away. Nor can you wish nuclear technology, desalination, the materials separation industry, or the need for half a terajoule of energy away.

It's like saying that we will never get to the Moon. It is 238,000 miles away. Do you know how big the rocket would have to be? And it would have to be precisely balanced. It will be a big flying phallic explosive device for white men. Poor people will die building it. And worst of all, DICK Cheney likes it.

Oops! Too late! We already went to the moon 38 years ago, and Dick Cheney was one of the most aggressive opponents of the space program in FIVE presidential administrations. Twenty-one astronauts died since 1958, and there was a big explosion at Tyuratam in 1960 that killed 90 scientists and technicians, but nobody thinks that space exploration is too dangerous and will destroy all of nature with a liter of spilled hypergolic propellant.

It's 2007. We know better than to cling to the fantasies of the 1970s. We have learned. No one will gloat, hoot, or fault you for taking another look at the issue.

--p!

[phantom power]

100. This is the most popular post I ever did.

I feel like a... superstar

[chiggerbit]

103. Nihil said...

"Seems to have been a nasty infestation over the weekend ...

I have no problem with the resident anti-nuclear crowd but how come
these trolls are still tombstone free?"

I'm a Democrat, I participate in Democrat caucuses here in Iowa, I've been a member here at du for awhile(I don't remember how long), but because I happen to post to a subject that is important to me, I get called a troll by you and others here, just because I'm an outsider who doesn't post much, even though I lurk. Thanks, I see that I don't belong here.

[phantom power]

104. I think that's a fair point.

the "trolling" accusation arose from the observation that somebody specifically organized an anti-nuclear response to the poll, from outside of DU. And it involved a former DU-er who was kicked off the forum.

On the other hand, it's an open poll, and any DU member is welcome to vote in it.

We regularly organize responses to polls on sites like CNN, MSNBC, etc. No reason somebody can't do it to my poll, I suppose.

One person's "trolling" is another's "DU-ing." Can you "DU" a poll on DU? Or does that tear a hole in the fabric of spacetime?

[Dogmudgeon]

109. I have no problem there

I sincerely thought that "bad stuff" was taking place. At least, it seemed so. I was naturally put off by it. I have detailed it elsewhere to the degree that I felt was permitted and won't repeat it.

I may have been wrong. There is always the exception to the rule. I also realize that the mods may have made a difficult judgment call here, in light of the controversial nature of the subject.

As for "DUing" a DU poll, I think the fabric of space-time will hold. But it seems like a tacky thing to do. I've also avoided other organized DUings of DU polls (my fellow freethinkers are just as "passionate" as are anti-nuclearists), but that's just me. And it also appears to be against the rules, but again, a certain amount of slack may be granted in the interest of peace.

And I suppose the most effective way to deal with the ill-behavior of other forums' members is through the their ISPs.

I know that my position on nuclear energy is unpopular. Many people find that it makes them "go nucular". I truly regret that such emotional intensity is aroused, but I have to weigh this against the possibility of what I think would be a human disaster. The general adoption of the "us-or-them" philosophy has gotten into nearly all issues. But until nuclear energy advocacy is specifically forbidden by Democratic Underground, I will continue to post and organize here in its support. I will simply calibrate my activity better.

Okay ... this has given me an hour or two of agita over the weekend, but I am closing the book on this matter. After all, we are Democrats. Let us fight if we must, but keep the real-world enemy in our sights.

--p!

[phantom power]

115. I thought what you found was very juicy. This poll provoked quite a reaction.

It seemed "wrong" to me at first, but on reflection, it really was more "subverting my experiment." But this never had any hope of being a scientific poll to begin with, so at the end of the day, I guess I don't mind so much. If I wanted to restrict my poll to "E/E readers," I could have requested it (and even if I did, there would be no way to enforce it).

What surprises me is that the result continues to be relatively close to 50/50. 20 years ago, I doubt you could have elicited a 50% pro-nuke response in any poll, anywhere. Much less a poll in an environmental forum. 20 years ago, I myself would have voted "against."

[Dogmudgeon]

122. That's a good point

Twenty years ago, nuclear energy was unpopular, even as it became safer, more efficient, and the earlier, slapdash corporate cultures were pushed into retirement. More recent national polls show considerable acceptance of it, and the ideological split is weak.

One of the points I seldom get the chance to raise is that of who decides? Giving the Republicans and Conservatives the issue of nuclear energy (and energy in general) lock, stock, and barrel was one of the biggest blunders we on the left ever made. Whatever plans are to be made, it is WE who should be making them. I do not trust the Republicans (at least not this generation's) to make critical decisions about anything of significance. I would rather hash this out mano a mano with a ranter like Harvey Wasserman than even a reasonable Republican like a Joe Scarborough or a Chris Buckley.

The fact that the Republicans/Conservatives did not even partly recognize the problems of Peak Oil and abrupt climate change until over the last two years, has given us a major break. We have the potential to completely dominate the dialog after four decades of uncontrolled rapine. Forty years of granola jokes are going to backfire like the proverbial Brown Acid.

Energy, the environment, and the transit of Humanity through the next few decades should be OUR task -- philosophically speaking, not as a matter of ownership. If I didn't believe that nuclear advocacy was important to that process, I would let it go. But I think it will be a keystone to building a better future, and forcing us to stop playing fast and loose with the synergy of civilization and nature.

I'm sure there will be MUCH more fun to be had. I also discovered a highly efficient way to remotely detect trolling and "campaigning", and its only downside is that sometimes the trolls aren't trolls after all. But it's kind of like discovering extrasolar planets. Not nearly so important, but it is its own small pathetic thrill.

Back to being Democrats -- who's steppin' inta th' ring next?

:toothlessevilgrin:

Excellent thread!

--p!

[losthills]

125. No...

You're not going to get Democrats to sign on to nuclear salvation.

The Democratic party is the pro- environment and pro-labor party.

Nuclear power belongs to the Republicans lock stock and barrel because it is an environmental nightmare that profits the corporations and the military industrial complex at the expense of the environment and at the expense of social justice.

Real Democrats and real environmentalists see through the propaganda and will not be swayed. When all of the cigar smoke is blown away, this is a liberal/ conservative issue.

AS the song song says, "Which side are you on?"

[Dead_Parrot]

128. Err, no.

"Real" environmentalists know how much shit we're in: We're not going to be convinced by the maniacs at Greenpeace that cutting 50% of our fossil fuel use by 2040 is going to make a spit of difference - We want to stop fucking the entire planet in the shortest time possible. We've already caused massive damage, as witnessed by the evacuated islands and the dead coral reefs: We're causing more damage at the rate of about a thousand tons per second.

Now, if you have a solution that eliminates CO₂ in the next few years without using nuclear power, great: Tell us what it is.

If, on the other hand, your 'solution' is to carry on rolling out wind-farms and solar over the next 30 years, burning gas when they're not generating because there's no terajoule storage, then the shit is going to get deeper and deeper and deeper.

Sitting around waiting for something new to turn up is no longer an option. It hasn't been since 1990, but we've been too dumb to notice.

So yeah, let's find out which side everybody is on: More sitting around waiting for "a solution", or pull our thumbs out of our arses and act?

[VTMechEngr]

129. Now that is full of shit.

This talk of "real" Democrats, who just happen to hold your narrow minded view.

[Nihil]

133. ... but chiggerbit said ...

> I've been a member here at du for awhile(I don't remember how long),

Mar 28th 2005 apparently. Ain't technology grand?

> ... but because I happen to post to a subject that is important to me,
> I get called a troll by you and others here, just because I'm an outsider
> who doesn't post much, even though I lurk.

Bullshit. You get called a troll because you delighted in responding to
a banned poster's call to Freep this specific poll, much to the pleasure
of your little buddies on your originating site. Whoop-de-fucking-do.

> Thanks, I see that I don't belong here.

"My mission here is over." :eyes:

[chiggerbit]

136. We're talking about two things here...

....(a)my posting an article promoted by a du banned member (oh, horrors, he was BANNED???), and (b)the impression here that members at the site Pig linked to flooded the poll. I liked the article that ~THE BANNED MEMBER~ posted over there, I am hotly against nuclear energy, and I'm a member at du, so I posted it. So what? Besides the article found by ~THE BANNED MEMBER~, I also began posting my own stuff. So what? As for the poll, if you would do a little fact-checking by following the link Pig gave, you will see that ~THE BANNED MEMBER~ (whose name we will not speak), had posted his request on the 17th. The anti-nuclear poll numbers didn't begin to change until at least the 21st, if I remember right. As a matter of fact, I had the impression that the the thread had begun to peter out, and then the poll numbers began to change. That would seem to indicate that the numbers didn't come from the other site. You might want to check elsewhere for the answer to your concern, like maybe in other posts on this thread.

If this board is a clique in which no outsiders are welcome, it should be clearly stated so on the home page.

[lakeguy]

147. i think you meant...

"I'm a Democrat, I participate in Democrat caucuses here in Iowa..." or maybe you are so used to using the slur form you 'forgot'.

[depakid]

112. The key to this is going to be financing

It's not going to be so much whether we can convince people of safety, but whether people will be willing to pony up the money for these projects.

I saw an interesting piece on that recently- and granted it's industry material, but it's the sort of thing that people with the money and the power to actually make these decisions will be using.

Among the conclusions:

* Nuclear power is cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation, except where there is direct access to low-cost fossil fuels.
* Fuel costs for nuclear plants are a minor proportion of total generating costs, though capital costs are greater than those for coal-fired plants.
* In assessing the cost competitiveness of nuclear energy, decommissioning and waste disposal costs are taken into account.

Much more, with cool graphs: http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm

[chiggerbit]

114. Actually,

...the discussion would have been interesting if it hadn't been for the personal sniping. I'll admit that, when someone leans in my face, I tend to lean right back in their face.

[chknltl]

131. Here, I'll let these guys speak for me why I am AGAINST

http://www.nuclearpolicy.org/index.cfm/Page/Article/ID/2684
If you wish to debate THEM, go there. They are infinitely better equipped to debate with the advocates than I on this topic.

It is easily apparent that the Nuclear Industry is fighting hard to get folks to listen to their side in order to maximize their profits. In my mind they have had their day in the sun and what we saw we found unhealthy. This is now fairly deeply ingrained in our collective unconscious. Yet they still fight to tell us that what we saw was not what we saw or things will be better. I believe they are now trying to exploit our concerns over Global Warming in order to muscle their way into our lives, to convince us that we need them and to convince us that it's their way or disaster!

Who here wants to see America invade Iran? Think tankers can come up with some damned fine arguments why we should invade Iran. No, They may not persuade many here in the DU because we KNOW better, deep down WE KNOW BETTER. They would not think to pose those arguments to invade Iran here in the DU, not only because we know better but because there are a hoard of folks here who can easily refute the think tankers smoke screens revealing the underlying purpose!

In this case, on the topic of Nuclear energy, most DUers are ill equipped to debate those who spend a great deal of their time studying this issue. Most of us would not fare well against the likes of a Nuclear Industry Think Tank or a Helen Caldicott, (http://www.nuclearpolicy.org/), for that matter. That said, I suspect that if we were to watch a debate between the two, the above poll would swing away from the 50-50 split and there would be more of us DUers siding AGAINST Nuclear Energy as the panacea some here would suggest.

Do I really think those who advocate for the Nuclear Industry really want honest debate more than they want to spread their message? NO! I am betting the flames I get for this very post should demonstrate that well enough...I suggested that they go debate with those better equipped to debate this issue than I...They will likely not be too keen to do so, preferring to beat up on the little guy instead. I'll post this anyway, in case a fellow DUer who is sitting on the fence comes across it. If you need a place to start, a place to hear the Anti-Nuclear folks, check out my links, the material there does not require a PHD in Physics and for what it is worth, Dr. Calldicott has been open to questions in the past so she may answer yours should you have them.

[Dogmudgeon]

132. Your link is a hit piece

Important Note: Unless otherwise specified, "YOU" is used in the plural. Although it is about chknltl's text, it is NOT about chknltl. PERIOD.

Your link is a hit piece ... But since it comes from professional "activists", it passes as investigative journalism.

It's all screed. There is nothing reasoned or "nuanced" about it: they hate Patrick Moore and have declared him the Enemy. Their pose of public interest is ... a pose. And they are poseurs. Their aim is to annihilate Moore by any means necessary, then pat themselves on the back for being revolutionary and hip. It's Naderism without the gray hair.

"It is easily apparent that the Nuclear Industry is fighting hard to get folks to listen to their side in order to maximize their profits."

This is one of the biggest steaming piles deposited by the bourgeois left: that everyone is a whore but them. That you are the only ones who are able to have an opinion without being paid for it. And no one with whom you disagree is permitted to work for money. Oh, no!

Why, then, are so many of you antis Trustafarians? Helen Broinowski Caldicott is from one of the most powerful families in Australia. Greenpeace was founded by a bunch of heirs and heiresses, and the lion's share of its leadership has been drawn from the very affluent. And so on. So stop insisting that the antinuclear movement consists of first-year Buddhist sannyasins. Your movement is rich in the rich.

"I believe they are now trying to exploit our concerns over Global Warming in order to muscle their way into our lives, to convince us that we need them and to convince us that it's their way or disaster!"

This is pure-driven hypocrisy. The anti-nuclearists characterize EVERY incident in a reactor as a disaster, but then WE are the disaster mongers? No, we agree with you on the dangers of uncontrolled human-caused climate change. If we are wowsers, then you are our accomplices, our mentors, and our teachers.

At least we back what we rep.

"Do I really think those who advocate for the Nuclear Industry really want honest debate more than they want to spread their message? NO!"

Then you not only don't listen to people with whom you don't agree, you misrepresent them, too. I challenge my own ideas frequently. That is how I became a proponent of nuclear energy in the first place.

" ... preferring to beat up on the little guy instead."

Poor things! You're just the little guys, but we are ten feet tall, made of iron, and we spank orphans for fun.

Check some of the other anti-nuclearist posts and DUers. One of the most aggressive sells "peace" bumper stickers, and a couple of them claim loudly to be pacifists. And check out some of the abuse I got this weekend -- I posted links to it. Your side is no gathering of delicate flower people. You seethe, you boil, you erupt like anybody else, you cheat and lie when you see fit, and your shit stinks just like mine, so stop crying "oppression!"

"... some of the the material there does not require a PHD in Physics ..."

Now it's the nerds who are beating up on you?

I have very poor math skills. If I could handle basic algebra with any confidence at all, I would be much more effective. But the fundamental ideas in nuclear physics are fairly easy to understand. Even for me.

The real story is straightforward: you've made your minds up and can't be bothered to so much as click over to Wikipedia and read up on that which you hate. You claim deep knowledge but avoid the work it requires. And you go on feelings and peer pressure rather than thought and peer review. (Again, I must stress, this is not a personal "you", it is an abstract and plural "you".)

I completely understand that other people may disagree with me. In fact, I enjoy it. What I DON'T go along with is the drive to demonize and dehumanize your "enemies". That is an accurate description of over three-quarters of the anti-nuclear material posted here. We proponents are far from Simon-pure, but the dehumanization is a lot less frequent.

Now that the Left has an active group of nuclear energy proponents, you are going to have to deal with us the same way Fundamentalists have to deal with Ayn Rand's atheists. You should consider this to be a boon; instead of giving the Right complete control over energy issues, the conversation has moved to the Left. Nor will we hate and dehumanize you. Sure, we will try to convince you, and you will try to convince us. But face it -- we each like the rough and tumble of politics, and we aim to develop the chops to dominate politics for the rest of the century.

That's why we're Democrats.

--p!

[chknltl]

141. Kill the messenger....where have I heard that before

Yep. This is a "Hit Piece" My goal was to attack this thread. :sarcasm:
I was minding my own business scrolling through the threads over in GD when I came across one asking folks to come here and partake in this poll. Fine, a fellow DUer wants my help, I am there for 'em! I did the poll and even responded with why I voted against, then I went out about my business. Next thing I know I am being challenged to produce the data to support why I am against Nuclear Energy. No fair, I did as I was asked to begin with, I even added my 2 cents and now I am expected to dive into this debate. For my efforts I have been rudely belittled by a proponent who is now on my ignore list, (list of 2 DUers, one was tomb-stoned), accused of posting some kind of a "Hit Piece", whatever that means and now I am being goaded into defending a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

First off, there are more important debates here in the DU that I would have my time better spent with. Saving our country from bushco tops my list. Impeachment is fairly important to me, any of my efforts, small though they are, to bring about impeachment of the bush crime family, is for me time well spent. Advocating against the horrors of Depleted Uranium Oxide would be another item high on my list. For those unfamiliar with this "debate" start with this lady: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuren_Moret (I am quite sure she would be voting "No" in this poll too). As further homework, do a history check here in the DU on the topic of "depleted uranium" and you will get plenty of information on this nightmare.

So instead of spending my time saving the world from bush I am back here AGAIN!!! WTF!!! Tell ya what. You want to advocate for Nuclear energy, fine. Do you suppose you will find ANY sympathy from the tens of thousands on this planet who have been affected by the horrors of depleted uranium oxide? Fact: Depleted Uranium Oxide is a nightmare for humanity, one we will be dealing with for a long long time. To debate otherwise is IMO, equal to debating that Global Warming is not an urgent problem. I have absolutely no interest in reading ANY material which suggests that bush is the best president ever, Global Warming is a myth or that Depleted Uranium Oxide Poisoning is a myth and I'll now add: That Nuclear Energy and all it entails are safer for the environment than Geothermal, Solar, Tidal or Wind Powers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Caldicott
Yep. This lady has nothing better to do then attack Patrick Moore with the goal of winning then patting herself on the back... a self styled poser :sarcasm: . Folks get nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for doing stuff OTHER than that. The Wiki link describes her, her views and also describes what some of her critics have to say about her. From what I see here, I am quite happy to show her what aid I can. Besides anyone who speaks out and educates the public about the Depleted Uranium issue is someone I choose to side with. You called her a poseur, whatever that is, so I suppose that makes me one too! I'll add it to my list: "dove", "pinko-commie" "dirty-hippy" "tax-n spender", "cut and runner", "lib-rul", "flip flopper", "ter'rist" "defeatest" and now "poseur" I have GOT to get me a t-shirt! Oh, I almost forget: "Nerd-Bait"

I take no issue with folks making money. I take issue with folks making money hawking products which senselessly wrecks our environment, ESPECIALLY when there are alternatives. Attacking me or my ilk because we want to see our planet in better shape than it is...well... this sounds more like something the bfee is pretty good at: Kill the messengers by destroying their credibility! So go ahead and attack Hellen Caldicott and now that I added Leuren Moret have a go at her too. If you like I'll find a few more folks fighting for our future and you can trash them as well.

BTW I used to work at HANFORD. (Security guard, W.P.P.S. sites #2 and #4) I now have an unexplained black lump in my chest. My doctor at the VA Hospital has suggested that if it "bothers me" she will see to it..(??!!!???..), likely no connections here, afterall I am 52 years old male and folks DO get unexplained black lumps the size of a fifty cent piece growing in their chests all the time... probably caused by one of those wind generators atop Rattlesnake Ridge over in Eastern Washington...

Look, I did yer poll and posted my thoughts...It would have been better to have left it at that. I have NO DESIRE to be here defending my position. If you want to support nuclear energy that is up to you...if you feel that it is the key to our future well that is fine too, I'll not support ya there. If you think you will win over fence sitters by bashing those who disagree with yer views...PLEASE continue doing this! As someone who is outspoken against Depleted Uranium, As someone who thinks a 747 smashed into one of our reactors would be even worse than what has happened before, as someone who feels that the nuclear genie is best if stuffed back in the bottle, I STRONGLY encourage you to bash away! (Or maybe you might leave me alone and I'll go back to trying to save our planet)

[Dogmudgeon]

143. What was that?

That's more self-pity than I've seen in a long, long, long, long time. I don't know what is happening in your life to make you feel like you are such a victim, but I empathize.

Long story short: You (probably) came over here looking to jump in on an easy beat-down, but it didn't go the way it was planned. I stand up for myself. That surprises a lot of people, although I don't know why.

But you took the entire thing as a grave personal injury. It wasn't. In my mind, it was a simple process: you took a couple swings and I swung back.

I originally wrote it longer. I write fast and I think I write well. I won't apologize for it. That's all I need to say about the personal part of it.

But I do want to make it clear that I did not call Helen Caldicott a poseur. Nor did I call YOU a poseur. You jumped to an incorrect conclusion.

I called the people at Green"peace" poseurs.

The article you linked to is a vindictive, spiteful effort to get back at Moore over a split in Greenpeace that happened about 20 years ago. This is not secret information. The clique that "won" has been going after the deposed members since the 80s. Nuclear issues are strictly secondary. Greenpeace is a very political, aggressive, domineering organization that has messed with pro- and anti-nuclearists alike.

Also, you do not seem to understand what Depleted Uranium is. It is not a by-product of spent nuclear fuel. Don't feel bad -- I myself was misinformed about it until recently. The main threat of DU is its chemical toxicity, not its radiological effects, but it is poisoning a generation or more of Iraqis and others. I do NOT support its use in warfare; nor do I support nuclear weapons. It is a common mistake that the anti-nuclear movement makes. My position is close to that of the late Linus Pauling: I support nuclear energy, strongly oppose nuclear arms, and "weaponized" DU is included. Nearly every pro-nuclearist I know shares these positions. And Pauling was the guy who nominated Caldicott for the Nobel Prize. Pauling himself won for Chemistry and Peace.

Here is a link to the article about Depleted Uranium at Wikipedia.

If you look at some of my other postings, you will see that I am frequently supportive of people I argue with on nuclear matters -- jpak and Bananas in particular. I do not consider people here to be my "enemies" -- but politics is not a game for the delicate. I take my best shot, and encourage others to take theirs. jpak and Bananas make me work -- thankfully.

I, too, am trying to "save the planet". I think most of us are. I strongly believe that if you get a good grounding in issues of nuclear physics (the overall concepts, not the technical details) and energy, you will, too. I do not you expect you to change your position casually, nor should you consider me an expert. Make YOURSELF the expert, and you will see.

--p!

[chknltl]

144. Where to start...lets use your own words.

"That's more self-pity than I've seen in a long, long, long, long time. I don't know what is happening in your life to make you feel like you are such a victim, but I empathize." Condescension written to make me appear as something I am not...boarderline trolling I'll ask nicely that you cease and desist.

"Long story short: You (probably) came over here looking to jump in on an easy beat-down, but it didn't go the way it was planned." You all but suggest that I have some preplanned motives here and my nefarious plan has been foiled. Wrong again, I made it quite clear what my intentions were. I saw a post over in GD asking that folks come here and do this poll. When asked by a fellow DUer, I generally take a little time to do the poll and I even have the courtesy to add a thought or two as to why I voted as I did. On a rare occasion someone, (generally the pollster) will respond to my courtesy. This is the first poll where I have been goaded into a debate, one I might add I wish no part in but so far have not backed down from either. You are suggesting otherwise of me, I'll again ask nicely, cease and desist on this behavior.

"But you took the entire thing as a grave personal injury." A false assumption, borderline condesension...why are you trying to belittle me? Again, I am asking nicely that you cease and desist on such tactics.

"But I do want to make it clear that I did not call Helen Caldicott a poseur. Nor did I call YOU a poseur. You jumped to an incorrect conclusion"

Oh Really?

"It's all screed. There is nothing reasoned or "nuanced" about it: they hate Patrick Moore and have declared him the Enemy. Their pose of public interest is ... a pose. And they are poseurs. Their aim is to annihilate Moore by any means necessary, then pat themselves on the back for being revolutionary and hip. It's Naderism without the gray hair."

Thanks for the clarification, I see now that there can indeed be a second interpretation of that statement...one that for some reason eluded me until you pointed it out. I thank you for noticing that you did not call me a poseur either...I agree, you have never called me a poseur.

"The article you linked to is a vindictive, spiteful effort..." Um who are you calling vindictive and spiteful? Me? Hellen Caldicott? The Authors of the link? I'll take a stab at it, you are suggesting that the authors of that article are being vindictive and spiteful. Like I said, if ya can't kill the message, kill the messengers. bushco 101: "How to respond to those who would disagree to your philosophy" Hmmm. wait a minute...isn't this the same sort of tactic being used against me yet with a careful selection of insults in order to not be accused of behavior which is against the rules of the DU? sigh

"Also, you do not seem to understand what Depleted Uranium is. It is not a by-product of spent nuclear fuel. Don't feel bad -- I myself was misinformed about it until recently. The main threat of DU is its chemical toxicity, not its radiological effects, but it is poisoning a generation or more of Iraqis and others." MY FELLOW DUERS: This notion that some will spread, that the radioactive properties of DU Oxide are less harmful than the poisonous properties is false. Granted the levels are VERY weak, that said, a single particle of this material lodged anywhere in our organs, will send out a constant burst of weak radioactivity causing considerable damage over time. The potential risks from cancer and leukemia down the road by those who have breathed in this material are considerable. Most folks who are infected from breathing it, are getting a hell of a lot more than just one deadly particle. Worse, they tend to lodge in the body as well! I do not know if Pigwidgeon is suggesting that the threat of DU Oxide's radioactivity is of little concern here, it is not clear from the statement made, ("the main threat"), but understand this: BOTH are extremely hazardous to life on this planet. The "radioactive" hazard to the Middle East will persist until the material is cleaned up. If not, that hazard will persist for the material's radioactive half-life and longer. I don't remember, was that half-life measured in MILLIONS or BILLIONS of years??? Well let us say a considerable bit longer than a generation or so for the Iraqis. In this case, sure, the bullet can kill you faster but make no mistake dieing a slow death from particles of that bullet can be even worse than the quick death. (Not to mention, there are now cases of likely secondary exposures from DU Oxide, some even back here where returning vets may have exposed their own loved ones!!! but this strays off topic...if you want to learn more, check out Doug Rokke or Leuren Moret)
Oh and Pigwidgeon, "Don't feel bad--" more condescension designed to belittle me...again I'll ask that you cease and desist.

Enough chit chat about non germain stuff.

Iran is possibly making a nuke reactor. Does anyone here feel safe with this? Perhaps we should not be worrying about what others do...but for some reason, that has not been in our cards and we do indeed worry.

Option A: Go ahead and build our own reactors and let other nations do as they will, trusting that others who follow our lead will not allow their own Nuclear technology to bring harm to anyone... after-all man is far more noble than that!

Option B: Build our own reactors and make damned sure that sovereign nations we deem as potentially hazardous to ours or their neighbors health, NOT be allowed to develop their own technology. If needs-be we will use our own military to stop them.

Option C: Let us strive to stuff that genie back in the bottle best we can and lead the world in a different, safer direction.

I suggest the fools option, option A and the hypocrites option, option B, are not the way to go here.
Either of those ways risks far too many peoples lives. Even if we somehow found a way to make option A viable, say by having some sort of UN watchdogs out there ensuring all reactors were only for purposes of peace, how long would it last? If anything, mankind's history suggests that we have a long way to go before WAR is actually no longer a concern. To suggest that someone somewhere is NOT going to use this technology to someone else's detriment is foolish indeed!

Speaking of folks willing to cause harm, what do you suppose would happen if a terrorist took over a 747 and smashed it into the Hoover Dam? Yep, pretty devastating. On the other hand we could be thankful he didn't smash it into an active Nuclear Reactor somewhere on our west coast! Remember Mt St Hellens and all those pretty charts showing the ash cloud as it spread east-word to eventually drop particles throughout the entire northern hemisphere? Arguably the terrorist strike with a jet will produce a lot less material but unlike volcanic ash it will be radioactive. Now I am quite sure nobody here advocates this but who would argue the potential risk is there RIGHT THIS MOMENT.
Building MORE reactors only increases that risk. Trusting the terrorists to leave our reactors alone is a road I'll NOT travel thank you.

Can you imagine if a terrorist DID hit one of our reactors with a 747? I wonder what bush and chertoff would say about that...come to think of it I wonder what our fellow DUers who advocate more reactors would say...especially if their loved ones were down wind! :popcorn:

Look, Pigwidgeon, I really never came here for a flamewar, don't even want to be here... but I WILL respond to those who respond to my posts. It is easily apparent I am never going to change your viewpoint and I promise that you shall not be changing mine. I understand that you may mean well but I disagree with you nonetheless. I have a close friend who I tell folks with no shame is my personal hero, this guy is also a Republican Precinct Commander so we are no strangers to debate. It's not like I am unused to civilized debate but at this point I have no further desires to discuss stuff with you because of HOW it is discussed. My feeling is this thread is flamebait and little more. I see others have said the same. It would not bother me if you placed me on ignore...it would not bother me if I never speak on this topic again. There is a damned good reason I stay out of the Free Republic...and when I look back over this thread and the anger some of you have deliberately tried to bring out in me, I see that there are equal reasons for me to stay out of this thread too. I'll only be back here should someone respond....again I say: I only came here to post my vote in the poll and leave a coment, NOTHING MORE.

[Dogmudgeon]

145. "My feeling is this thread is flamebait and little more."

And yet, you came back for another bite of the apple.

Look, Pigwidgeon, I really never came here for a flamewar, don't even want to be here... but I WILL respond to those who respond to my posts. ... It's not like I am unused to civilized debate but at this point I have no further desires to discuss stuff with you because of HOW it is discussed. My feeling is this thread is flamebait and little more. I see others have said the same. It would not bother me if you placed me on ignore...it would not bother me if I never speak on this topic again. There is a damned good reason I stay out of the Free Republic...and when I look back over this thread and the anger some of you have deliberately tried to bring out in me, I see that there are equal reasons for me to stay out of this thread too. I'll only be back here should someone respond....again I say: I only came here to post my vote in the poll and leave a coment, NOTHING MORE.

Still the noble victim.

Of course, you can stop any time you want. Choice, not compulsion. You're in control.

So follow your own advice.

--p!

[chknltl]

146. .

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Dogmudgeon]

148. I thought it was funny, too

Let me post it for you again, but with more formating for the punchlines:

Look, Pigwidgeon, I really never came here for a flamewar, don't even want to be here... but I WILL respond to those who respond to my posts. ... It's not like I am unused to civilized debate but at this point I have no further desires to discuss stuff with you because of HOW it is discussed. My feeling is this thread is flamebait and little more. I see others have said the same. It would not bother me if you placed me on ignore...it would not bother me if I never speak on this topic again. There is a damned good reason I stay out of the Free Republic...and when I look back over this thread and the anger some of you have deliberately tried to bring out in me, I see that there are equal reasons for me to stay out of this thread too. I'll only be back here should someone respond....again I say: I only came here to post my vote in the poll and leave a coment, NOTHING MORE.

:nopity:

--p!

[chknltl]

151. Attention fish in barrel: meet stick o dynamite

Let me preface this: This post is in regards to pigwidgeon's words and has nothing to do with pigwidgeon...:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: ....

I told you I would be back if you answered my post... I half expected you might have an original argument for askin' me back here... :rofl: not only were you unable to come up with an original argument for bringing me back..:rofl: :rofl: ....you couldn't even come up with yer own arguments... :rofl: bwahaha... :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


It is clear for all to see that the ONLY reason you bothered to respond to my post... ...:rofl:....... ...was because.... (OMG are you ready for this folks?) .....YOU NEEDED TO GET IN THE LAST WORD!!!! :rofl: :rofl:...buwahahahaha :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


Tell ya what, when you are allowed back on the computer, you can go ahead and post the last words...you have convinced me that you, pidwigeon have absolutely nothing this adult is interested in hearin..:rofl:...so don't expect any further out of me :rofl:...

........because after this post:

you can officially join yer pal on my ignore list :rofl: :rofl: Which brings my ignore list up to 3, (one of which got tomb-stoned so technically there are only 2 of yas)... thanks for the laugh though.... :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: ....--p! :rofl:

[Dogmudgeon]

152. Your last post said it all

Have a good one, chknltl.

--p!

[hankthecrank]

139. I like your links good info

I only have so many electrons so can't write much
I can't make as much text as some here, just as well as my foot tends to stuck in my mouth
I do like your input on this subject

[chknltl]

142. Thanks for the support

For what it is worth, I am using a rapidly dieing computer so I may not get many more words in here either. I am GREAT at sticking my foot in my mouth too, some times I get a bit of unwanted help sticking my foot there and I tend to get...agitated. Thanks again for the support, I especially like the fact that someone who has been here a lot longer than I have is lending me that support.

[cui bono]

149. I'm shocked that a board such as this has a poll with these results.

I assumed it was a forgone conclusion that nuclear energy is bad, mmmkay?

I'll have to read this thread when I have time so that I can hear the arguments for it coming from the Dem pov.

[Dogmudgeon]

153. That's the whole point. Why is it *bad*?

Most forgone conclusions are the result of dogmatism.

Why should we, as Democrats and Progressives, have a list of allowable and forbidden ideas? It has never made sense to me, especially when times change and better information becomes available.

I will reply some more to your next posting.

--p!

[cui bono]

150. Well scanning through this thread and reading what I could digest

hasn't changed my mind. Granted I don't understand most of the technological talk, but most of the responses I saw to the posts with links against nuclear energy were simple dismissals and accusations of them being hit pieces by "activists". Well why should any articles by pro-nuke people be regarded as anything other than the same from the opposite side?

One thing that didn't seem to be brought up though was the fact that insurance is unobtainable for nuclear power plants. If it is so safe, why is that?

I guess I'm in the camp that will never be convinced that it is safe. Just because it is deemed safer than coal, which I don't believe it is as safety is not determined by immediate deaths alone, doesn't make it the best option. There are many clean and safe alternative energies out there, unfortunately they've not been given the chance to flourish. I can't believe that 25 years after taking a course in environmental studies we still don't have more solar and wind power.

Well I'm off to look for the topic for which I came into this forum, free energy. Just learning about that and Tesla... sounds fascinating!

[Dogmudgeon]

154. Some responses. No flames, no rancor.

(This is a long post. I like to write.)

First of all, I recognize some of the rhetoric (like "hit pieces by 'activists'") as originating from my posts. Guilty as charged. The exact piece I was discussing was, in fact, a hit piece against Patrick Moore. There is no relevant information about the issue of nuclear energy in that piece. However, in the context of Greenpeace's in-fighting, it makes perfect sense. Moore's faction lost and the "winners" are still trying to clean up the mess from their very un-progressive behavior. Moore's recent advocacy of nuclear energy gave them a foot-in-the-door to open the fight again.

I use the term "activists" scornfully because they are "active" for personal agendas and power. Ego. Sometimes I use the term "bourgeois leftists" or "poseurs" or the like. I also do not like to settle on clichés, which quickly outlive their usefulness and become their own kinds of verbal disease.

If you do not trust nuclear energy, it is understandable. I have said that to just about everybody I have later squabbled with -- but it's true. We do have a long history here of "a-fussin' and a-fightin'". I look at it as a kind of recreation, like a "fight club", but I am starting to see that most of the antis view opposition to their points of view as personal insults -- and some think nothing of making accusations themselves. I am frequently called a "Paid Shill™" -- and use the sarcastic ™ to indicate the contempt I hold it in.

So I will not try to convince or convert you. I will simply make my case without flames or rancor.

"One thing that didn't seem to be brought up though was the fact that insurance is unobtainable for nuclear power plants. If it is so safe, why is that?"

We have spoken about Price-Anderson here in the past. It is not a popular topic because it is pretty dry, and it ends up making the nuclear industry look good. I also seem to be the only one here with much insurance industry experience -- I worked in the field for about five years in the early '80s.

Price-Anderson is not a gimme for the nuclear industry. It is a gimme for the insurance industry. The insurance lobbyists have shaken down both the nuclear industry (the premium payers) and the federal government (the re-insurers). Of course, you know who really pays. In the 1950s, the insurance community, as a cartel, denied insurance to the fledgling nuclear industry until the federal government underwrote the "excess risk". "Excess" became "all of it, suckers!" In addition, the nuclear industry is not permitted to self-insure. The original excuse had nothing to do with the safety of nukes, but the rules that put nuclear power under federal law, and insurance under state law. It would be more accurate to blame the '50s "States' Rights" movement than '70s anti-nuclear movement. Similar laws and programs pre-existed Price-Anderson. It is an insurance give-away.

"Just because it is deemed safer than coal, which I don't believe it is as safety is not determined by immediate deaths alone, doesn't make it the best option."

Nuclear energy is not deemed to be anything. Actual evidence is the basis for the conclusions we have arrived at. Coal and its effects can, and have, been analyzed thoroughly (as has just about everything to do with nuclear energy). There is no lack of hard evidence, and politics can't taint chemical analyses that can even be performed by properly trained teenagers. The evidence has been checked and re-checked, by peer review and accounting rules, under penalty of perjury. Nothing can be hidden for long. We know.

The most basic evidence is that coal contains uranium at a concentration of 2-10 parts per million, sometimes (much) more. And there is three times as much radioactive thorium. Burning coal to generate one gigawatt of power for one year releases something like fifty tons of radioactive material, and coal generates something like 350 GWe of power each year in the USA alone (about 1300 GWe for the world). There are lesser, but significant, amounts of highly radioactive elements like radium and polonium. That's over sixty thousand tons of radioactive material each year. And it all goes into the atmosphere.

If you do the math, you will see that's a whole lot of Chernobyls -- just for normal operation. Also, it ignores the contribution of carbon gas, nitric and sulfuric compounds, mercury, cadmium, and a host of other toxic goodies.

But suppose I'm exaggerating. Suppose it's only 1,000 tons of radioactive material per year. Feel safer? Neither do I. And I know it's closer to 60,000 tons than to 1,000.

Oil is about two-thirds as bad. Natural gas is better, but it is still fairly dirty overall, and releases a lot of CO2. Biofuels also contain radioactive material. Uranium and thorium are present in seawater at a total of 12 PPM. Uranium is more common than zinc; thorium is twice as common as uranium. Radioactivity is part of nature.

So I ask -- why does nuclear energy receive so much scrutiny, fear, and loathing? The most common answer to that is, "nuclear waste is dangerous for 2,000/24,000/240,000/(your own favorite number here) years".

Indeed it can be. But the really dangerous fraction can be separated out, as is done in France and much of the rest of the world. The rest of it is weakly radioactive, and that radioactivity dissipates after about 300 years. After all, most of the fuel's radioactivity has been used to make power. The process leaves very little of that radioactivity remaining. Even that can be recycled, although at present, recycling is illegal in the USA, and is not well-coordinated. Finally, what little that remains could be transmutated, which is expensive and not really necessary.

Nobody has been killed by this waste, although thousands of people have handled it. The premature death rate among its handlers has been monitored strictly for decades, and it is not exceptionally high. There is also a big controversy over the damage done by uranium mining, but if you compare it to coal mining, you will find that uranium mining has been much safer. In my opinion, ALL mining is unacceptably dangerous, and should be overhauled and done robotically ASAP. But then, a quarter of my family comes from coal-mining upstate Pennsylvania Irish.

Then consider the toxicity of the metals that coal and petroleum emit. Mercury is the worst and most significant. And mercury will never "decay". Theoretically, it will decay when the proton binding force of the atom weakens 10^46 years from now, but when that happens, the entire universe itself will decay. Toxic metal is poisonous forever.

But there is another, BIG point to be made: climate change will last for thousands of years and will effect everybody who is born while it is happening. Nuclear energy's greenhouse gas "footprint" is tiny. It's an externality, produced when building the reactor, or mining and delivering the uranium, etc. Wind plants have a similar external cost from producing, moving, and pouring 1500 tons of concrete apiece, building multi-ton complex cast-metal turbines, and so on. Neither generate CO2 from energy production itself, and the external costs can, with effort, be minimized.

You are also quite correct that safety is not just a matter of immediate deaths. But that applies to ALL causes of risk, disease, and death, not just nuclear energy. And solar energy is no bargain, either. Solar cells are semiconductors, and semiconductors require highly toxic chemicals to manufacture. That waste is not sealed in hardened casks, as it is with spent nuclear fuel; a lot of it is just dumped. The next generation of photovoltaic cells will be made from cadmium and tellurium, a highly toxic combination. LEDs are commonly made of gallium arsenide -- "arsenide" as in arsenic. Solar thermal is better, but there is a lot of plumbing involved. They are NOT "free and clean" by a long shot!

So we come down to the Big Question: Why single out Nuclear Energy for elimination when it is superior to everything else we've got?

Why?

There is no risk-free form of energy. There is no risk-free form of technology. Nuclear energy is excellent. How did it come to be demonized?

"There are many clean and safe alternative energies out there, unfortunately they've not been given the chance to flourish. I can't believe that 25 years after taking a course in environmental studies we still don't have more solar and wind power."

From 1980 until 2001, oil was under $25 a barrel. No nukes were built; neither were many wind plants or solar installations. They just weren't financially worth it. As Cyndi Lauper once sang, "money changes everything". The BIG "cui bono?" question should be asked about the outcome of the OPEC oil embargoes -- for whose good were the embargoes?

The Texarkana Cowboy Mafia were the winners; the Arabs lost (though Prince Bandar al-Saud and his retainers threw in his lot with them). They were catapulted from being a cheapjack small-beer outfit on the declining curve of American oil production and onto the Black Oil Throne Of Destiny. This is the same political clique which has controlled the federal government since 1980 -- yes, even during Bill Clinton's administration.

There is a lot more I could write -- not to convince, but merely to explain. Convincing is a whole 'nother process! But I hope this has given you some idea why more and more of us have become advocates for nuclear energy. The fact that the Left ceded control of energy issues to the Right, at a time when energy interests own the Right, is the biggest blunder the political Left has made since Russian Communism established its continent-spanning necropolis.

I advocate taking back nuclear energy -- and control of ALL energy resources. WE should decide, not the cabal of backslapping Texas tyrants currently riding the world like a drunk Janjaweed on a sick and starving horse.

But don't take my word for it -- ANY of it. If you are actively reading up on energy subjects, that is excellent. I would tell you to keep an open mind, but you are probably already keenly aware of the need to do just that. So don't accept anything on my say-so. I am confident you will run across it in due time, and put it into your own context.

So I will end not by exhorting you to believe, but to keep looking. Ultimately, I believe, and you probably do too, that the real power comes not from any force of nature but the force of the human spirit.

Good luck!

--p!