Why Do We Hate Nuclear Power

[iamjoy]

I was talking with a Dem friend today - he puts in a lot of time on Dem campaigns, so he is a core activist.

And he thinks nuclear power is the answer, or part of the answer at least.

He says it doesn't pollute the way coal does and they don't have to blow apart mountains to get at it. He says it is safe and points to the number of accidents/fatalities from nuclear power plants vs. oh, say, dams for hydroelectic plants breaking.

I'm not very educated about nuclear power, so what are the pros and cons? He seems to feel our mistrust of it is because we are uneducated and paranoid.

[MADem]

1. Let's see

THREE MILE ISLAND

THE CHINA SYNDROME


SILKWOOD

CHERNOBYL


I'm guessing those might ring the old "yeccccch" bell on nuke plants. It's a whole NIMBY thing, too...

[sgxnk]

33. there's a brilliant argument

use fictional incidents about nuclear disasters to impugn the benefits of nuclear power

three mile island. wow. there was a huge disaster

not

as for chernobyl, that was a classic soviet era f***up. it's not liek the soviets didn't do just fine decimating their people in industrial accidents of all sorts

furthermore, tell you what

lets compare the # of deaths in nuclear plants per unit of energy produced vs. those in coal mining. and get back to me

[Name removed]

78. Deleted message

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

[sgxnk]

80. lol

"psyche"

the issue isn;'t the psychological effects. its SCIENCE

here's a hint. the china syndrome was a MOVIE

by your logic, we face great dangers from space aliens

because will smith had to fight them in independance day, the movie

lol

classic logic

[Name removed]

86. Deleted message

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

[Solo_in_MD]

83. Lets see...your local generation pet rock is shown to be nonsensical

so you start calling people names. I had no idea that the reducto absurdum form of argument would upset you so much.

The facts are that urban centers require remote services. Manhattan, LI, Baltimore, Atlanta, LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, etc CAN NOT be self supporting in terms of energy, waste, and water. The local sources position you took ignores that. When the remote areas have tried to restrict the dumping of city trash in the country, the urban dominated legislature protects the cities in a classic tyranny of the majority maneuver. Seen it all over the Atlantic coast.

As I read the numbers, we are becoming and increasingly less rural populace in the US. Unless we have a massive population decrease, there no way to support the current population with renewable energy, and cities never will be able to. Its just not there.

As for people's state of mind, part of it can not be helped. There are those who believe in
- Saddam had WMDs
- 911 was a US plot
- Arafat was poisoned
- Scrolls of the Elders of Zion
- Superiority of one race over the others
- Superiority of one gender over the other(s)

For some of them, all the education in the world will do nothing. You just need to let them stew and do what needs to be done. One of those areas is nuclear power. Its not the only solution, but for now its the best one we have in terms of lowest ecological impact.

I note that Calvert Cliffs recertification was fast tracked and went through easily. Perhaps that a sign of good things to come.

[MADem]

89. I beg your pardon, let's REVIEW

The question was asked, by the Original Poster: Why Do We Hate Nuclear Power?

I provided a response, which was based on experience and history--all you have to do to guage the mood of the country is to go back and look at the news reports of the era, they support what I stated.

http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=202399
Just days after Hollywood released The China Syndrome, a film about the possible meltdown of a nuclear power plant, life closely imitated art and a reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power facility near Harrisburg, PA, suddenly overheated. Tension, panic, and fear embroiled the area for a week as scientists scrambled to prevent a nuclear meltdown. It was the worst nuclear accident in American history. More than 100,000 residents fled the area. Narrated by Liev Schreiber, American Experience: Meltdown at Three Mile Island carefully re-examines step-by-step this national disaster which still haunts many Americans, and which dealt a crippling blow to the nation's nuclear power industry.

For my trouble, I was leapt on with a snarky "there's a brilliant argument" followed by a mocking series of retorts which did not even address what I brought up, which was how America VIEWED the matter.

And for the life of me, you seem rather far afield from the OP question, which isn't "Is Nuclear Power good or bad?" but again, "Why Do We Hate Nuclear Power?" And sorry, when you start dragging the Elders of Zion into discussions about why Americans hate nuclear power, there's just no sense in continuing to engage.

[longship]

87. Hmmm.

Three Mile Island -- a true meltdown which, if it had gone much further, could have polluted the water table in the Three Mile Island area for many, many years. This was a huge disaster, not because of what happened, but because of how close to we came to an event which can only be called a huge catastrophe.

Chernobyl - The dead zone of some 30 miles radius is still totally uninhabitable.

China Syndrome -- Yes, fictional. Don't know why the OP included it.

Silkwood -- True story about a real person and a real event. The power industry was shooting craps with the public's safety to save a few bucks. Shameful event that really happened. Silkwood was murdered to coverup the scandal.

Oh, and don't forget another true nuclear disaster, The Enrico Fermi plant meltdown near Monroe, MI in 1966. This was the nation's first fast breeder reactor which had a partial meltdown due to a blockage in a coolant path. The real scare here was that the plant was liquid sodium cooled which is not only highly radioactive, but which reacts violently upon contact with water. If the meltdown had not been stopped there would have been Hell to pay.

[MADem]

92. It was my post, not the OP. that had China Syndrome in it

And I included it because it ANSWERED the QUESTION; which was Why Do We Hate Nuclear Power?

That film came out, and WEEKS later, TMI happened. I guess most people who post here weren't alive, old enough, or watching the news when those events happened. The movie was a bit of a sleeper, until TMI--and then it became an Oscar nominated blockbuster. All of those events impacted American sentiment, and contribute to the reasons WHY we hate nuclear power.

Instructive link that addresses sentiment/mood of the nation/attitudes of the time: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/three/filmmore/transcript/transcript1.html

THORNBURGH'S PRESS CONFERENCE
"Based on advice of the Chairman of the NRC I am advising
pregnant women and pre-school age children to leave the area
within a five mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until
further notice."

Thornburgh's announcement unleashed the panic he had been trying to avoid. Within days, 140,000 people would flee the area.......At the White House, President Carter was becoming alarmed. For an hour he had been trying to call Governor Thornburgh, but the phones lines were clogged.

...Walter Cronkite:
The world has never known a day quite like today. It faced the considerable uncertainties and dangers of the worst nuclear power plant accident of the atomic age. And the horror tonight is that it could get much worse. The potential is there for the ultimate risk of a meltdown at the Three Mile Island .......

Roger Mattson
NRC Senior Engineer
We had a meltdown at Three Mile Island.

It was not the China Syndrome, but we melted the core down. Fifty percent of the core was destroyed or molten and, ahm, some-- something on the order of 20 tons of uranium found its way, by flowing in a molten state, to the bottom head of the pressure vessel. That's a core melt-down. No question about it.

Following the accident, the nuclear power industry would introduce new safety and training standards. But nuclear power would never again hold the promise it once did. Since Three Mile Island, not a single nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States.

[longship]

93. Please remain calm.

My major at university was physics and I'm with you on this all the way. There's no need to yell at me to convince me that nuke power is a very bad thing.

The funny thing about the Fermi I meltdown was that it was in many respects the most dangerous accident until Chernobyl. Had the nuke engineers not got Fermi I shut down, and that was by no means ensured, the result would have been quite a grave situation for the people living in the Detroit-Toledo corridor. Fast breeder reactors do not belong anywhere. They are far, far too dangerous.

[MADem]

95. Who's yelling?

Yelling is ALL CAPS LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME. WITHOUT CEASING, CONTINUOUSLY, IN A DRAMATIC EFFORT TO MAKE THAT ALL IMPORTANT POINT!!!!!! :D :D


I understand that you get my point...but I sense that many here don't remember the mood of the nation at the time. Or weren't around to experience it firsthand. People were afraid; they were evacuating the area; anyone who lived anywhere near a nuke plant was shitting bricks.

And I realize that I got a little irritated at being slapped around for answering, factually, the question Why do we hate nuclear power?

I'm astounded that some will simply discount how people FEEL (that's not yelling, that is emphasis) on this particular issue, yet feelings on other issues, like, say, the importance of fair elections and openness in government, why, those feelings are important and should be acknowledged....

[jpak]

96. And don't forget the 1975 fire at Browns Ferry

It almost burned through all the control room cables.

The published account of that incident was seriously scary...

[longship]

100. That one (Brown's Ferry) was scary indeed.

nt.

[Mnemosyne]

105. I never even heard of this one then. Wow!

How a Candle Caused a Nuclear Emergency!
At noon on March 22, 1975, both Units 1 and 2 at the Brown's Ferry plant in Alabama were operating at full power, delivering 2200 megawatts of electricity to the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Just below the plant's control room, two electricians were trying to seal air leaks in the cable spreading room, where the electrical cables that control the two reactors are separated and routed through different tunnels to the reactor buildings. They were using strips of spongy foam rubber to seal the leaks. They were also using candles to determine whether or not the leaks had been successfully plugged -- by observing how the flame was affected by escaping air.

The electrical engineer put the candle too close to the foam rubber, and it burst into flame.

The resulting fire, which disabled a large number of engineered safety systems at the plant, including the entire emergency core cooling system (ECCS) on Unit 1, and almost resulted in a boiloff/meltdown accident, demonstrates the vulnerability of nuclear plants to "single failure" events and human fallibility.

much more at link:
http://www.ccnr.org/browns_ferry.html#ca


It was a few days before my birthday, guess that's how I missed it. :)

[tavalon]

2. We hate it because it has the potential to damage the earth and people

just like Chernobyl did. Now, if we could be sure that that would never happen, then we could possibly consider it but then, the same folks that brought us Enron and the rolling blackouts would likely be managing the plants and when people as corporate friendly as this administration are in power, there will be next to no oversight and then.........Chernobyl.

I'm actually not speaking for all Dems, just me. That's the problem I have with it. I suspect there are many more problems.

[NNadir]

24. So your argument is that fossil fuels have no potential to damage earth

and people?

[silverojo]

27. No

Nothing on the level of nuclear waste. Crack a book, please.

[3dman]

35. We are talking about

new reactors. Modern reactors utilize fuel that can and is reprocessed--much less waste.

[bananas]

67. Not according to the NRC.

"The United States does not currently reprocess nuclear fuel (a small quantity of used fuel was reprocessed at the West Valley site in the 1960s). ... The DOE has stated that it has no capability and no plans to reprocess used reactor or MOX fuel."
http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/mox/faq.html#9

[Massacure]

69. Because Jimmy Carter banned it.

He was afraid other countries would try to separate plutonium from the fuel for bombs so he wanted to set an example saying "We don't reprocess, so neither should you". It obviously hasn't stopped the proliferation of nuclear weapons though.

[Massacure]

68. Old reactors utilize fuel that can be reprocessed too.

[NNadir]

40. Really? And your evidence for this extraordinary claim is what?

I for instance know the density and composition of so called "nuclear waste."

Do you?

Do you know large stretches of the Table of Nuclides from memory as I do?

I have thousands of posts on this site on the subject of spent nuclear fuel, including these from nearly two years ago:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NNadir/2

I would submit that I have decades more exposure to books on energy than you do.

Maybe you can start by learning the difference between 7 billion tons (annually) and 75,000 metric tons (for the entire history of nuclear power.)

The next topic that you might consider when you finally get around to cracking a book (and, if possible comprehending what is written in it) is the difference between a soluble and acidic gas (that would be carbon dioxide) and solid, generally insoluble compounds.

I would submit that you have no evidence at all that you know the contents of books.

[Viking12]

41. you confuse quantity for quality...

I have thousands of posts on this site on the subject of spent nuclear fuel :eyes:

[Massacure]

70. NNadirs posts are of much better quality than most other peoples post here

[Viking12]

73. If emotional fallacious rants are your thing, I suppose.

[Massacure]

107. His rants are amusing, but there is plenty of substance too.

[jpak]

109. ugh

n/t

[Viking12]

111. amusing?? you have a sick sense of humor.

[tavalon]

77. Uh, no.

Is that what you took from what I said?

I never even mentioned fossil fuels. I was talking about nuclear plants and the dangers inherent to them.

[jpak]

3. 3....2....1

:popcorn:

[noahmijo]

4. I think it's a fantasic alternative---till something goes wrong

It is far cleaner than coal, but I guess it's the danger of happens when the reactor decides to rebel....and from what I understand it's not a matter of "if" but "when"

[Massacure]

71. Coal has been going wrong for the last 150 years.

[noahmijo]

75. Never said it (coal) was going right

[MH1]

5. What's his plan for handling the radioactive waste?

And does he think that nuke plants can really be made safe from human error and sabotage?

[MercutioATC]

6. Because we have no idea what to do with the waste it produces?

Because, although its catastrophic failure rate is low, a catastrophic failure results in some MAJOR issues?


...just a couple of reasons...

[3dman]

7. France has more than 80 percent of it's

electricity provided by nuclear power plants. Most of the electricity in the U.S. is generated by coal fired plants. Burning coal emits CO2, nuclear does not. Nuclear may not be the best answer, but it is much better for the environment than coal.

[MercutioATC]

8. It IS much better...until one of two things happens:

1) There's a catastrophic failure, or

2) we need to dispose of the waste it produces.

In either of these two situations (and #2 is a given), I don't believe that nuclear power is truly any better for the environment than "clean" coal-fired power.

[3dman]

11. Catastrophic failures

almost never happen, and with new technology and modern plant design, it is almost impossible.

Waste can re-processed, as it is in Japan and France.

"Clean" coal still emits CO2.

[MercutioATC]

16. The difference:

While the catastrophic of a nuclear plant may be "almost impossible", if a coal plant in the U.S. (or Russia) has a catastrophic failure people in Sweden don't have to stop eating vegetables.

[3dman]

30. Chernobyl was an

uncontained reactor. Those don't exist here--that kind of event can NOT occur in the U.S.

BTW, Chernobyl was the only truly catastrophic nuclear accident. TMI didn't kill anyone, and the TMI reactor suffered a 90% meltdown. The difference was one of containment.

[Lindacooks]

19. It's that word 'almost' that catches you up every time.

Nothing human beings have ever made has EVER been 100% foolproof. Nothing.

And I still can't understand why people think the choice is coal or nuclear. Solar and wind power are completely safe, produce no waste, and can be available house-by-house. Yet I don't see billions of dollars being poured into those industries.

[3dman]

26. Solar doesn't work

on a cloudy day, and wind turbines don't turn if the wind doesn't blow.

[Lindacooks]

42. Do you mean that to be funny?

Because it is! Those are the most over simplified answers I've ever heard.

The wind is always blowing, and the sun is always shining - somewhere. That's why before a wind turbine or solar panels are installed studies are done to make sure that there is enough wind and sunshine to make the application costworthy. Then there are these things called BATTERIES which can store energy produced during sunny and windy days when you don't use all you produce.

Sheesh.

[3dman]

48. No, I only meant to be realistic.

There is not enough land mass to put up enough solar/wind power generators so that wherever the sun is showing or wind is blowing, there will be enough to supply the demand for electricity.

And as for your idea about storing power in batteries, when the batteries are being charged, what is supplying the current electricity demand?

[Lindacooks]

52. You can store energy at the same time it's being produced.

And yes, there is more than enough land mass to supply electricity through solar.

"If we were able to put photovoltaic devices on 10% of the area where there is recoverable sunlight, in two years enough electricity would be produced to equal all known reserves of coal, oil and natural gas.

<snip>

Wind energy provides similar potentials. It's believed that there is sufficient wind energy in Texas, South Dakota, and North Dakota to satisfy the electricity needs of the entire country."

http://www.naturestudy.org/pdf/SolarNuclearWindPower.pdf

Where are the sources that back up what you say?

[3dman]

56. Not if its needed for current demand.

And by the way, batteries on the scale that you are talking are immensely expensive and their costs would negate any benefit.

I read your the article you linked to. Nowhere does the author address the cost of putting up and maintaining so many solar panels.

As to wind power:

"When it comes to wind, Hayden shows wind farms can generate electrical power at the rate of about 1.2 watts (W) per square meter (m2) for most sites, and up to 4 W/m2 in rare sites where the wind always comes from one direction. The goal is to generate enough energy to replicate a 1,000 megawatts power plant operating around the clock. To do that in California, for example, would require a wind farm one mile wide stretching all the way from Los Angeles to San Francisco."

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=10648

That wind farm would produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity. California uses in excess of 35,000 megawatts of electricity a day:

http://currentenergy.lbl.gov/ca/index.php



Don't get me wrong. Solar and wind power have their place. They just can't fill the whole demand.

[Viking12]

59. The Heartland Institute?

are you series?/????//:rofl:

[Lindacooks]

98. Yep, you're right.

:crazy:

[Lindacooks]

99. Read Counterpunch:

http://www.counterpunch.org/montague05272006.html

And the cost of 'putting up and maintaining solar panels' is negligible compared to the cost of putting up and maintaining nuclear power plants. That article states that we need to build 4,000 nuclear power plants in the next decade to meet the need.

Another problem, that that article addresses, is that nuclear power plants are the most complicated way to make energy on this earth, and the more complicated anything is, the more likely it will break down or have serious problems.

There's a wind turbine near my home that takes up about 100 square FEET, and it produces 5.3 million KWhs, or enough power to run 700 houses. So your Heartland article is debunked.

And finally (I'm done with this):

"We should ask ourselves, Why aren't we willing to spend $77 billion to subsidize energy-saving measures, and the development of existing minimally-polluting technologies like wind turbines with hydrogen storage, and hydrogen fuel cells to make electricity and power vehicles? Even Ford and General Motors -- not the brightest bulbs on the corporate landscape -- say they will offer us hydrogen fuel- cell vehicles in the next few years. These technologies exist now."

[jpak]

91. Nonsense

The DOE concluded that <4% of the area of the lower 48 could provide all our electricity from wind power.

They also concluded that a 100 x 100 mile PV array located in the Southwest could also provide 100% of US electrical demand.

Hydro, biomass and biogas power plants (and hydrogen fuel cell systems) could produce power to balance loads and satisfy night demands - batteries not needed.

[jpak]

88. Better tell these folks that "solar don't work"

Their home has not been working for over 10 years...

http://www.solarhouse.com/

[MADem]

81. Yep, they frame it as either/or, when both choices benefit big energy

Solar and wind could be...gasp...damn near FREE, save the cost of the equipment!!! Can't have THAT, can we???

[Viking12]

29. ...and don't forget nuclear weapons proliferation.

Funny how the cheerleaders for nukes always ignore that nagging question.

[3dman]

32. Nuclear power has absolutely

nothing to do with nuclear weapons.

Different issue.

[MercutioATC]

34. True, to a point.

Nuclear material suitable for use in nuclear power plants is NOT able to be used to create a nuclear explosion...it is, however, a great dispersive agent fo a "dirty bomb".

It's also a little more than halfway through the refinement process to creating weapons-grade nuclear material.

I'm not disputing your statement. I am pointing out that nuclear waste DOES have weapons applications.

[3dman]

37. Yes, nuclear materials

in the nuclear power industry can be used in that fashion, however slim the chances. However, materials for "dirty bombs" are available from many sources, not just nuclear power.

[Viking12]

36. Wow, that's news to the folks at MIT...

get a clue.

But the prospects for nuclear energy as an option are limited, the report finds, by four unresolved problems: high relative costs; perceived adverse safety, environmental, and health effects; potential security risks stemming from proliferation; and unresolved challenges in long-term management of nuclear wastes

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/

[3dman]

38. Cherry picking information

is bad for the soul. Why didn't you share the two preceding paragraphs from the article you excerpted?

The report maintains that "The nuclear option should be retained precisely because it is an important carbon-free source of power."

"Fossil fuel-based electricity is projected to account for more than 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2020," said Deutch. "In the U.S. 90% of the carbon emissions from electricity generation come from coal-fired generation, even though this accounts for only 52% of the electricity produced. Taking nuclear power off the table as a viable alternative will prevent the global community from achieving long-term gains in the control of carbon dioxide emissions."

YOU need to get a clue.

[Viking12]

39. Do you know what cherry-picking means????

You flat out claimed that nuclear energy has nothing to do with proliferation of nuclear weapons. I provided evidence that directly refutes your bogus assertion.

You also need to learn the meaning of but; it's a word that minimizes or negates all that precedes it.

[3dman]

46. You didn't even read your own post!

"...potential security risks stemming from proliferation;"

MIT didn't refer to NUCLEAR WEAPONS!

I will stand by what I said, given that modern nuclear reactors, the type that will be built in the U.S. in the future and what I was referring to, use low grade uranium (enriched to 3%) as opposed to the high grade uranium (enriched to 90% or more) which is required for nuclear weapons. Uranium has to specifically be enriched for weapons use, and it is available from many sources, including SEAWATER, and can be attained and used whether or not it is either for energy or weapons. Also, modern reactors are built so that they do NOT produce plutonium, the other weapons grade material. In that sense, modern nuclear energy will NOT lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

As to the cherry-picking, my point completely flew over your head (unsurprisingly). You brought up proliferation (and inferred nuclear weapons proliferation even though your quote doesn't reference it) as though it was a consideration by MIT which might disqualify nuclear energy. YOU COMPLETELY IGNORED the stated position of MIT that nuclear energy has to remain a viable option:

"...The authors of the study emphasized that nuclear power is not the only non-carbon option and stated that they believe it should be pursued as a long term option..."

I think the but you are referring to is the one you should pull your head out of.

[Viking12]

49. Yes, of course, they're referring to the proliferation of corn nuts..

what was I thinking :eyes: Read the report, they specifically discuss the proliferation of nuclear WEAPONS as does any responsible report on nuclear energy.

I could explain why you're 'analysis' on the relation between modern nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons is completely fucked up, but I doubt you'd understand it so I won't waste my time.

[3dman]

53. Figures.

[bananas]

61. "nuclear proliferation" ALWAYS means "nuclear WEAPONS proliferation"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22nuclear+proliferation%22&btnG=Google+Search

Results 1 - 10 of about 3,700,000 for "nuclear proliferation". (0.36 seconds)

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[jpak]

90. ChimpCo is aching to bomb Iran's uranium enrichment facilities

Why would anyone want to destroy clean and peaceful nuclear energy???

[hunter]

112. Because God gave nukes to Christians and Jews, not anyone else.

:sarcasm:

[dcfirefighter]

120. Don't forget the Shintoists & Buddhist Japanese n/t

[hunter]

121. Oh dear, does Japan have the bomb?

I suppose they could, if they wanted to.

[Lindacooks]

9. And what do you do with the waste?

Which stays radioactive for thousands and thousands of years?

Nobody has been able to answer that question. It's foolish to put so much money into an energy source that creates so many more problems.

[RC]

12. What does France do with its waste? Or any other country

for that matter. We never hear in this country. All we hear are bad things about why nuclear is supposed to be so bad. When was the last time there was a problem with our nuclear fleet?
Chernobyl was a pile of graphic blocks, literally. So that does not apply anywhere outside of Chernobyl. Three Mile Island was just steam escaping due to human error.
The THE CHINA SYNDROME was a not very scientific move.

I know other countries process the waste and recycle much of it. The U.S. does not.

[3dman]

13. The US Navy has

built, operated, maintained, and de-commissioned hundreds of nuclear reactors without an accident.

[jpak]

14. There was the Davis Besse corrosion incident

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2005/2005-04-22-04.asp

<snip>

The plant was started up on May 18, 2000, after a refueling and maintenance outage without a complete cleaning and inspection of the reactor vessel head, as required. During operation, leakage through tubes which penetrate the reactor head caused significant corrosion damage to the reactor vessel head, the NRC explained.

In 2001 the NRC directed Davis-Besse and other plants to inspect by December 3, 2001, the tubes which penetrate the reactor vessel head for possible leakage.

FirstEnergy requested that it be permitted to operate an additional three months before shutting down for the inspection, and the NRC staff, based on information submitted by FirstEnergy, permitted the plant to operate until February 16, 2002.

“FirstEnergy supported its request with inaccurate and incomplete information about the cleaning and inspection of the reactor vessel head in 2000,” said Reyes. “Had the NRC known that the plant was being operated with leakage through the reactor vessel head, the agency would have taken immediate action to shut down the plant.”

<end snip>

and tritium releases into ground water...

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2006/2006-03-21-02.asp

llinois Sues Exelon for Radioactive Tritium Releases Since 1996

CHICAGO, Illinois, March 21, 2006 (ENS) - Exelon's Braidwood nuclear power plant in Illinois has released millions of gallons of wastewater containing radioactive tritium into the groundwater around the plant since 1996, a lawsuit filed Thursday by the state of Illinois against the plant's owner and operators alleges. The releases were not reported to authorities until December 2005.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow are suing Exelon Corporation, a Pennsylvania corporation based in Chicago; Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd), an Illinois corporation; and Exelon Generation Corporation, LLC, of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania for releasing the radioactive wastewater.

“The method of operations put in place at the Braidwood Nuclear Plant since 1996 by Commonwealth Edison and their parent company as of 2000, Exelon, clearly placed their profit margin first with a callous disregard for the health, safety and welfare of the local residents," Glasgow said.

"Exelon was well aware that tritium increases the risk of cancer, miscarriages and birth defects and yet they made a conscious decision not to notify the public of their risk of exposure,” he said.

<more>

but nothing really to get too exited about...

[Mendocino]

115. Davis-Besse Reactor had 6" pit in reactor head

 Good link, but it underestimates the true scope of the
problem. The reactor head had a 6" hole, 70 pounds of
steel had corroded away, leaving only a 1/4 inch liner to
contain the radiation. Had it burst, the emergency cooling
"would not have worked as it's designed to work"
admitted FirstEnergy. Former NRC comissioner Victor Gilinsky
stated that this was the "closest brush with disaster
since Three Mile Island."

 If you look at the link, there is an ariel photo of
Davis-Besse. The ponds in the right foreground are wetlands of
Lake Erie. Millions depend on Lake Erie for water and the
fishing and recreation industries generate millions of
dollars.

 In the Book "Strategic Ignorance" by Carl Pope of
the Sierra Club, this incident is refered to as We Almost Lost
Toledo.

[Lindacooks]

18. I asked you.

I want to see some news reports and reports from WATCHDOG agencies who are satisfied with how France and other countries are disposing of the waste.

Opinions don't matter here.

[MADem]

84. The French, et. al, do reprocess and store, but they also do THIS

http://archive.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/nuctrans/2000dec20.html

Cherbourg, France - Greenpeace condemned the British, French and Japanese governments for endangering South American and Pacific nations as the largest ever nuclear waste shipment left the French port of Cherbourg last night bound for Japan via Cape Horn. ... The waste is a by-product of plutonium separation from Japanese irradiated nuclear fuel at the French state-controlled COGEMA La Hague reprocessing plant. This waste is among the most radioactive material ever produced - the glass blocks are in fact so radioactive that a person standing within one metre of an unshielded block would receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than one minute. If released into the environment, the waste would be a deadly environmental pollutant for hundreds of thousands of years.

The nuclear waste shipment is ultimately bound for the Japanese port of Mutsu Ogawara. The nuclear waste will then be transported to the controversial nuclear waste storage facility at the Rokkasho Mura nuclear site where Japan is building its own plutonium reprocessing facility.

Reprocessed does not equal "safe" by any stretch. And it ain't cheap to store their crap, either:

Parliament issued a report in March, 2005, on the issue of France's nuclear waste. Its recommendations confirm the status quo: waste storage and decontamination research.

The cost of waste disposal -- hundreds of billions of euros -- is being passed along to ratepayers. High rates aren't the only legacy of 50 years of nuclear power. Citizens and scientists alike are concerned about security, groundwater contamination, and storage.

Storage problems
Highly radioactive materials, such as spent fuel rods, are stored in The Hague and at the Marcoule nuclear facility, on the Rhone River near the southern city of Orange.... The initial 300 years is just the beginning. Even moderately radioactive plutonium retains hazardous for 24,000 years. Skeptics wonder if future generations will follow the plan -- or even remember where the site is located. http://energypriorities.com/entries/2005/03/france_nuke_was.php

And the always-timely Monitor has this to say just a few days ago:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0810/p04s01-woeu.html

PARIS – Summer is exposing the chinks in Europe's nuclear power networks.
The extended heat wave in July aggravated drought conditions across much of Europe, lowering water levels in the lakes and rivers that many nuclear plants depend on to cool their reactors.
As a result, utility companies in France, Spain, and Germany were forced to take some plants offline and reduce operations at others. Across Western Europe, nuclear plants also had to secure exemptions from regulations in order to discharge overheated water into the environment.Even with an exemption to environmental rules this summer, the French electric company, Electricité de France (EDF), normally an energy exporter, had to buy electricity on European spot market, a way to meet electricity demand.

The troubles of the nuclear industry did not end there. Sweden shut four of its 10 nuclear reactors after a short-circuit cut power at one plant on July 26, raising fears of a dangerous design flaw. One week later, Czech utility officials shut down one of the country's six nuclear reactors because of what they described as a serious mechanical problem that led to the leak of radioactive water.

The disruptions highlight some of the vulnerabilities of nuclear power, just at a time when its future was looking brighter in traditionally nuclear-shy parts of Europe. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example, has just launched a drive to promote nuclear as the key to making his country self-sufficient in energy....Overall, about one-third of all water used in Europe is used for cooling electrical generators, including those powered by both nuclear and fossil fuels. Environmental officials in several European countries, including France and Germany, have warned that water levels in some reservoirs are at historic lows and have not returned to pre-2003 heat wave levels.

....


It ain't a solution; it's a forestalling of the problem, at best.

And as for our nuclear fleet and associated weaponry in the arsenals of other services, the checks and balances are EXTREME, though if there happened to be a problem, you wouldn't hear about it due to classification considerations, unless there was death on a massive scale and the event could not be easily concealed. This link is interesting, and the incidents listed at the end of the article, though not all-inclusive of every military accident or mishap that has occurred, gives a good overview of some of the more notable events: http://prop1.org/2000/accident/1989/8907a1.htm

And who could forget the poor Russkie sailors aboard the ill-fated, Faded Giant KURSK? That's a haunting incident if there ever was one...

[NNadir]

23. What do you do with coal waste?

Oh I know, you breathe it.

Problem solved I guess.

[Viking12]

31. ...strawmen and false dichotomies...

You sure utilize fallacious arguments well.

[Lindacooks]

43. Yep, that's his specialty.

[hunter]

79. What do we do with fossil fuel waste which is toxic FOREVER?

Not to mention fossil fuel waste that is radioactive, especially coal waste. Not to mention carbon dioxide...

The anti-nuclear movement is rife with innumeracy. There are so many things that are worse than nuclear power.

The environmental damage caused by coal is going to kill the world economy (and a lot of people too) and then all these questions will be moot. World commerce will become difficult as seaports are claimed by the sea, and our container ships have no place to go.

Chernobyl? The true horror of Chernobyl is that it restored an exuberant natural ecology to a very wide area by the exclusion of humans, which demonstrates conclusively that humans are more toxic to the environment than the very worst sorts of nuclear waste.

Have a nice day. :)

[Lindacooks]

97. Wrong.

And once again, you're trapped in the false dichotomy: nuclear or fossil fuel.

People are still being slowly killed by Chernobyl - cancer rates are through the roof in that area. Have you ever had cancer or watched someone die from it? It's hell on earth.

And if you think that coal waste is as radioactive than nuclear waste, then there's no point arguing with you.

And it's the NUCLEAR movement that's 'rife with innumeracy', since they don't include the true cost of nuclear power in their calculations; the vast subsidies, cost of disposal of the waste, potential disasters and cleanup.

Here are more arguments against nuclear:

It's very complex and large scale, centrilized industry, dominated by experts and is a monopoly. There's high impact on the environment, can cause disaster in transportation industries, and is techcratic and undemocratic, especially since the NRC has reduced public impact sessions in the planning of new power plants (Reagan did that, remember?)

You'll never be able to convince me that such an environmental unfriendly, totalitarian industry rife with double bookkeeping and corruption will EVER be as good as solar or wind power.

[hunter]

101. Innumeracy. It's the Quantity of Coal waste, not the Quality.

The small amount of higly radioactive waste from nuclear plants can quite possibly be contained. The vast amounts of wastes produced by the coal industry are not and cannot be contained. Coal industry pollution permeates our environment. In your next breath you will inhale many radioactive particles that were once safely sequestered within a coal seam somewhere.

Our entire economy is based on large scale, centrilized industry, dominated by experts." Many parts of this economy are harmful to individuals, but the greater portion of this economy is now required for the survival of individuals. We are well past the stage where individuals might support themselves on smaller scales because the population of humans has far exceeded the natural carrying capacity of the land. If this economy collapses BILLIONS of people will die horribly as a direct consequence of that collapse.

We have entered the realm of very difficult choices.

[Lindacooks]

102. "quite possibly"?

You lost me with that qualifier.

And if you think that 48 TONS of nuclear waste, PER PLANT, PER YEAR is a 'small amount' there's no point in this discussion.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/03/MNGTODGNEE1.DTL

And you're still arguing coal vs. nuclear, ignoring alternative sources.

[hunter]

108. So, how many tons of toxic waste does a coal plant produce in a year?

And how do we dispose of that waste? (Not to mention all the CO₂ that will probably destroy this civilization.)

I was an anti-nuclear activist in the late 'seventies and early 'eighties. I think some of my opposition was reasonable -- there was a culture of secrecy within the nuclear industry that needed to be pierced. But I was wrong about too many things and I trusted too many people who had dishonest political agendas.

I put that "quite possibly" in my post because it's not impossible, with a sufficient level of corruption and incompetence, to mess up nuclear power. The United States may have reached that level of corruption where we are not competent to safely expand nuclear power. But this increasing corruption makes the overall issue of nuclear power less important to me, especially in light of such colossal disasters as the everlasting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the very real dangers of global warming.

Even a bad nuclear accident, of the sort that is extremely unlikely with modern engineering, would be much less damaging to human life than our war in Iraq, and less damaging to our environment than the ordinary everyday operations of our coal industry.

I argue against coal, I argue for alternative energy. Nuclear power is simply not big on the list of things I worry about anymore. The plants at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon, plants which I vehemently opposed, have made very significant amounts of electricity at very little cost in comparison to fossil fuel power plants.

Here's an old post that may better explain my feelings:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=57616&mesg_id=57616

[jpak]

173. Technically that's wrong, CO2 is not "toxic forever"

Anthropogenic CO2 will be removed from the atmosphere by weathering processes on the continents and solution in the ocean.

It will be isolated from that atmosphere as carbonates and organic carbon are buried in marine sediments.

It will take ~100,000 years for all of it to be removed and isolated from the atmosphere (technically not "forever", but too long for us here today)

And the amount of uranium in coal fly ash is trivial compared to the uranium in mine and mill tailings and in un-recovered ground water left over from in situ leaching methods.

just to set the record straight...(innumeracy??? sheesh)

[hunter]

181. Radioactive wastes are sequestered in the same sorts of ways...

... as nonradioactive wastes -- trapped in sediments, etc.

Your most common method of argument is to focus on some small specific problem while ignoring the much greater general problems.

It's a form of distraction. Hey Look over there!

Nuclear power plants don't get built, solar power plants don't get built, wind power plants don't get built, and energy conservation measures are not implemented while new coal and gas fired plants are built everywhere because activists were too busy focusing in on the emotionally evocative issue of "radioactive waste."

Well, what about radioactive waste? Is there any rational reason that we should be more fearful of it than non-radioactive wastes? From my perspective there are many sorts of industrial toxins that are much scarier than nuclear waste. The reason the general public is not aware of these non-radioactive toxins is that they are unmeasured and unreported.

The most toxic industry in the United States in terms of direct damage done to people is agriculture. The death and misery caused by U.S. agricultural practices is utterly horrendous, but too many of us ignore it and make noise about almost trivial things like tritium under San Onofre.

[jpak]

186. Does anyone know the quantities of radionuclides actually released

from US industrial sources each year????

Nope.

The EPA was supposed to compile and published a nation-wide inventory of radionuclide releases, but guess what??? That program disappeared down the rabbit hole.

My most common method of argument????

Please.

Leave the ad hominem attacks to the real pros...

I am quite well informed about global change, the global carbon cycle, nuclear power, renewable energy and all the rest.

But that's OK.

Just be a little critical of nuclear power or DARE advocate for renewable energy around here and you are automatically labeled an idiot.

Just to let you know though - they ARE building wind farms and solar energy projects and Energy Star appliances and fuel efficient vehicles.

But they ain't building no nuclear plants.

There's a reason for that.

[hunter]

188. The mammoths on an island get smaller and more efficient...

That's what will happen with our appliances and our cars. But the island is shrinking.

The size of the island will probably stabalize at a point where most people don't have cars, air conditioners, or large refrigerators.

"Middle class" might be having your own family stove or microwave oven and a room that's not too hot or too cold to sleep in.

As far as information "down the rabbit hole" goes, that's the Bush Administration's policy with all bad or potentially bad news. It's an effective political strategy when the public is apathetic or too busy trying to keep afloat to pay attention. If it's not in the news, then it doesn't exist, and the bad things that happen are nobody's fault -- especially not the fault of our leaders.

"Sorry," our leaders say, "Shit happens. We didn't know."

But that's just the United States. Historically this U.S. economy is a temporary phenomena. Our "superpower" shall pass, if it hasn't already.

Globally, your assertion that "they ain't building no nuclear plants" is false. If a consensus is reached within the United States that we should start building nuclear power plants again, a great deal of that new construction may involve imported technologies.

[jpak]

189. Should have clarified the "ain't no nuclears" statement - meant the US.

But you're mostly right about the future middle class stuff...

[IronLionZion]

201. bury it deep underground like in....a coal mine!

Personally, I think nuclear waste is much easier to contain and control than the incredible amount of air pollution created by burning coal. And too many people die in coal mines.


I'm very pro-nuclear even though my backyard had a partial core meltdown in 1979. Then all we have to worry about is peak uranium.

We could be driving around hydrogen cars or electric cars right now if we only had enough power. We use too much power as it is in this country though.

[salib]

10. It's RENEWABLES stupid!

Sorry, I am not calling anyone stupid, just a reference to the Clinton story.

Anyway, it is not the issue of which fuel, or technology, or clever strategy is best. Unless we plan to simply consume all the resources of this planet and its surroundings and then move on (a horrible idea), we need something that is sustainable into the future, is not simply something that we consume and then throw away the rest.

[LiberalEsto]

15. Because there is no place to store the waste

and that waste will be radioactive for thousands of years.

Because if something goes wrong at a nuclear plant, it will not only kill plant workers and people living nearby, but send out plumes of radioactive material that will affect people downwind.

This includes children, babies, and fetuses. It also can potentially harm babies born years into the future, in contaminated areas. It can trigger cancers and damage DNA.

Because nuclear materials can be stolen and used to create dangerous weapons.

Because the heated cooling water from these nuclear plants damages the ecosystem. And if there is a drought, there may not be enough cooling water to keep the radioactive materials from reaching dangerously high temperatures.

Also, grids that deliver electric power are extremely vulnerable to storms, high winds, and even squirrels. And of course, terrorism and vandalism. The answer is distributed generation.

Distributed power generation -- making electric power at or near the point of use -- makes much more sense than having vast grids of energy delivery. Local power generation also results in less power loss -- electricity that travels over long distances loses some of its "oomph" due to resistance in the transmission lines over the miles. It's much less wasteful to generate power at or near the point of use.

Nuclear power does not lend itself to on-site generation, the way wind, solar, natural gas and diesel fuel do. It's too risky.

[NickB79]

28. In case you haven't noticed, CO2 emissions are far more hazardous

Than radioactive waste from a nuclear reactor.

Radioactive waste will be deadly for tens of thousands of years, but so will the BILLIONS of tons of CO2 we emit into the atmosphere.

A nuclear accident will kill people in a localized area, but radiation exposure can at least be treated and people evacuated. CO2 emissions cause WORLDWIDE death and destruction as global warming causes famine, drought, floods, hurricanes, etc.

[Lindacooks]

103. False dichotomy

and flawed logic.

You're arguing nuclear vs. coal vs. natural gas, totally forgetting alternative energy. And don't give me that BS about how 'solar energy isn't feasible'. If over the last 40 years we put billions of dollars into solar and wind energy we'd be energy independent at this point.

[jpak]

104. The nuclear fuel cycle also produces greenhouse gases

and as uranium ore quality declines, it will produce more and more.

One study concluded that mining and processing of low-grade uranium ore for a 1000 MW nuclear plant will release more CO2 than a similarly sized gas-fired plant.

US uranium enrichment plants release hundreds of thousands of pounds of CFC-114 each year. Every molecule of CFC-114 has a 100-year radiative forcing potential 9300 times greater than CO2.

and when drought and heat waves elevate cooling water temperatures and river flows, nukes are shut down and their power output replaced by diesel and other fossil-fired generators - producing lots of CO2.

Global warming is the best thing that ever happened to the nuclear power (recently anyway) - too bad it's not the solution...

[Solo_in_MD]

55. I would love to see arguments like yours used in NYC

Where could they generate power without it being long haul? Where would you put the coal fired power plant in Manhattan?

The big cities export their garbage and their power generation. If they cut off, they would choke in the dark in their own wastes.

How about we extend it to water too? It would only get worse.

There are things that benefit from larger central sources. Power generation is one of them. Nuclear is not the only answer, but its a damn site better than coal.

[LiberalEsto]

82. Hydrogen fuel cells are PART of the answer for

I looked up a couple of websites with information about fuel cells and distributed generation. DG and fuel cells have become a big thing in California due to power blackouts.

On-site generation using fuel cells

http://www.utcfuelcells.com/fs/com/bin/fs_com_Page/0,9235,0202,00.html
"On August 14, 2003, a major power outage crippled Manhattan and much of the Northeast. However, the Central Park Police Department as kept fully functional by a PureCell™ 200 Assured Power Solution. And while blackouts of that magnitude don't often occur, smaller rolling blackouts – such as those of California – and brownouts can happen at any time, interrupting power and productivity."

And another website on Distributed Generation:

http://www.aaenvironment.com/DG.htm
"The growing DG market can improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions if clean and efficient technologies are used. However, we should discourage the use of highly polluting emergency backup diesel generators that degrade local air quality. Emissions of greenhouse gases and criteria pollutants from DG technologies range from zero (renewables and hydrogen) to quite high when fuel oil is used at high capacity. Consequently, the expansion of DG may lead to higher levels of pollution unless states can create a framework that recognizes and encourages clean and renewable technologies.

AAEA believes that hydrogen fuel cell generators are the best environmentally friendly technology for distributed generation."

[Alacrat]

17. Didn't the Gov build a giant waste dump in the mountains

out west? Who knows what the long term storage problems could be. We all know what the long term effects of storing mass quantities of co2 in our atmosphere are. Between the two, I think nuclear is the way to go. We could ultimately tear down the dams that ruin our rivers, get rid of the coal fired plants, which in the long run destroy our atmosphere, and pollute our air daily. The long term cost would seem to be cheaper also. Unless we find a way to harvest solar or wind energy in substantial amounts, all of our energy production has a nasty downside.

[LiberalEsto]

22. You mean Yucca Mountain?

That hasn't even been started, and I don't know if it will get built. One of the many issues is whether trainloads of radioactive material will be moving through populated areas -- I'm not sure if Reno would be one of them.

There are also festering nuclear waste sites (Hanford, etc) around the country that would be emptied out and shipped to Yucca Mountain -- but how? Truck? Train? By what route? Nobody has any real answers.

I have always felt strongly that if the nuclear power industry wants to continue, its radioactive waste should be dumped in the yards of the CEOs and other corporate officrs.

[WhiteTara]

20. here are some pictures of why we hate

nuclear power.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-land-of-the-wolves/chapter27.html

[3dman]

50. I have seen her website,

and I am actually looking into riding Chernobyl like she did. It looks like a lot of fun.

BTW, a Chernobyl type accident is not possible in the U.S.--different technology.

[WhiteTara]

60. but we have many sites that were created with

shoddy materials and some that sit on fault lines and the one in Chicago is leaking radiation into the water supply.
http://a4nr.org/library/safety/05.03.2006-independentonline

http://a4nr.org/library/safety/03.21.2006-saukvalley

http://www.rivertowns.net/daily/pch/c060724/

here are some of the problems we are having right here in 'murka

[Massacure]

72. That website is a hoax. She never drove alone into chernobyl.

She took a tour arranged by some governmental organization.

[outofbounds]

151. Very nice.

Some of the photos don't show up well on my monitor but the meaning and significance of this report is not lost. If you are the person who wrote this peace I would thank you for sharing. I remember when the disaster happened and also remember thinking how are those people going to recover from this. This piece answers that question with a sobering startling effect. They wont, at least not in this lifetime. From the pictures it looks like you could just move right in and start a new life and perhaps you could for a few months. Then sickness and death. I appreciate pieces like this. A person's take on an event with a camera is far more intriguing to me than the evening news's take. :applause:

[NNadir]

21. Who are "we?"

People will list nuclear setbacks, but ignore all other forms of energy.

Almost a quarter of a million people died from the Banquio dam collapses in 1975 in China. You have never heard of this disaster, and there is not ONE, zero, people who rattle on about nuclear power who will ever mention this disaster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

You have never heard anyone talk about banning dams.

The Teton dam collapse in Idaho took 14 lives in 1976 and the Three Mile Accident in 1979 took zero lives. Which accident rolls off the tongue of every complete fool and which one is totally forgotten?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teton_Dam

The BP refinery explosion in 2005 killed 15 people, again 15 people more than Three Mile Island killed. Do you ever hear from the same people who can repeat for hours "Three Mile Island...Three Mile Island...Three Mile Island..." a call to ban oil refining?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_disasters

These same people will issue all kinds of soothing apologia for the inconvenient truth that magical renewable energy is not even close to replacing fossil fuels. Even as the fraction of renewable energy in the United States has been declining (slightly) in the last 14 years, they will tell you it will save everything nonetheless if only you have faith in them.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NNadir/19

They will list all sorts of grandiose schemes trying to get you to believe that there is some kind of magic renewable scheme that will save the day - their favorite load of crap concerns solar PV cells - but if you ask them to show you a single exajoule from their pretend sources of energy they will start telling you about some lab experiment or something they say will happen two decades from now.

Note that not one of them will acknowledge ever hearing of Banqiao - a fatal renewable energy accident that dwarfs Chernobyl on any scale.

On the other hand, if a nuclear reactor shuts down unexpectedly, you will see thousands of posts on DU, even if there are zero injuries..

Five million people die each year from air pollution. Not one anti-nuclear activist will give a shit. But, if a pipe leaks somewhere in a nuclear facility - again with no injuries - it will be considered an international incident and you will see thousands of posts on the subject and all kinds of idiot hysteria.

The entire planet's atmosphere can be destroyed by coal waste, (the chief and most important waste being carbon dioxide) and people will debate the question of whether or not the effect is real - but lots of people will parade all sorts of ignorance about so called "nuclear waste," even though there is not one person who can identify a single person who has ever died from the storage of commercial so called "nuclear waste."

Your friend was being generous when he or she just said "ignorant and paranoid." I would add the words criminally inattentive and just plain stupid to the list.

In fact, with the exception of a criticality accident in Japan in the 1990's, there has not been one fatal nuclear accident since Chernobyl, 20 years ago. Chernobyl - the only fatal commercial nuclear reactor accident in the 50 year history of nuclear power - is not even remotely the equivalent of one year of air pollution in Denver in the number of fatalities it involves, but everyone will tell you that everyone in the Ukraine is near death because of Chernobyl. The Chernobyl reactor was a rare type of reactor - just as a Corvair is a rare type of car. Like the Corvair, no one will ever again build a reactor of the Chernobyl type, but do you hear that? Indeed the same people who claim that everyone in the Ukraine is near death from Chernobyl will not raise a single moral whimper when 3,000 Ukrainians are blown up in coal mines.

Think about it. There are less than 1000 deaths from Chernobyl.

http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/annexj.pdf

On the other hand, every year on average, 300 Ukrainian coal miners die.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2115694.stm

You say "nuclear power" and a chorus of complete fools will say Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, blah blah blah.

You say "coal plant" and you will not hear anyone list the names of any mine disasters, numbering in the thousands. Why? Because people are moral turds.

The facts are clearly known, but again, people are enormously stupid. They believe that nuclear energy is "too dangerous," for the same reason that they think that the only cause of death that is important is terrorism. I'll bet you have personally never met a person who has died from terrorism, nor a person who has died from commercial nuclear energy, although you probably, if you live in the United States, have felt ill or at least choked yourself by air pollution. You probably know people who have died in car accidents as well.

Basically, Americans are numerically illiterate. We don't understand science in this country; we don't understand risk. We pay selective attention based on our preconceived biases. The fact that we in particular - Americans - are ignorant assholes is going to kill most of the human population, because the United States is the world's biggest polluter and the United States will destroy the atmosphere while morons tell lull us to sleep telling fairy tales about the magical renewable energy future while lighting their computers with coal. There are lobotomized rabbits with more moral sense than we as a culture have.

It is, in any case, too late to do anything about it. The planet is suffering right now from this stupidity and I very much doubt that the process is at all reversible. I hate to tell you this, but it happens that probably most of the people you now know are going to suffer horribly for this ignorance, you, me, my children, your children (if you have any), and your friend.

Your friend is absolutely right, just as Cassandra was always right. His or her similarity to Cassandra is nearly perfect. Cassandra always told the truth, but no one believed her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra

[3dman]

25. BRAVO!!!

Take the emotions out and tell it like it is!

Think, don't feel.

[Lindacooks]

44. Oh please.

You must have some connection to the nuclear industry for you to defend it so passionately.

How can you justify spending 5-7 BILLION dollars on each nuclear power plant? Not including the cost of waste disposal and upkeep?

With all the facts that have been lobbed at you on this matter, you're the one not providing facts and links. In other words, FEELING, not thinking.

[RC]

45. A good share of that 5-7 billion is for

licensing and inspections and inspection of the inspections. Nuclear is so over regulated it is almost priced out of existence.

[Solo_in_MD]

54. Not to mention fighting off the spurious NIMBY suits and other

valueless protesting done particularly in the courts. I would love loser pays when it comes to blocking power plants, refineries or other infrastructure upgrades.

[3dman]

47. In the interests of full disclosure,

I will admit that I used to work on a nuclear reactor many years ago, and I know plenty about the SCIENCE behind it.

God forbid someone who actually knows what they are talking about takes part in the discussion.

The only benefit I will get out of the coming boom in nuclear energy, however, is a more reliable and cheaper source of electricity.

BTW, here's a link with some facts to chew on:

http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm

[Lindacooks]

51. And here's some facts to chew on:

http://www.naturestudy.org/pdf/SolarNuclearWindPower.pdf

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060306090838.htm

The amount of potential energy in solar and wind is massive. And if the industry hadn't been derailed when Reagan took over, who knows how energy independent we could be.

You'll never be able to convince me that nuclear is okay, simply because of the hazards of the material.

[3dman]

58. Potential energy only has value

after it has been converted into usable energy. On a good day, we can only convert a tiny fraction of that potential energy into usable electricity.

I just don't believe that solar/wind has now or ever will be advanced enough to provide our power needs. It can be one source (although a small one), but it simply isn't enough.

[bananas]

63. And you didn't know that "nuclear proliferation" refers to weapons

Now that's scary - someone who worked on a nuclear power plant was so uneducated they didn't know "nuclear proliferation" referred to "nuclear weapons proliferation".
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=63698&mesg_id=63751

[NNadir]

57. You must have some connection to the fossil fuel industry to cover up

for it so blithely.

Here are the eia figures for oil imports for last week:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_wkly_dc_NUS-Z00_mbblpd_w.htm

The United States imported, more than 13,596,000 barrels of oil in that week. The price of crude oil that week was $69.70 meaning that each day of that week oil use in this country was nearly $950,000,000 per day. Moreover much of this money went to foreign nations.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_wco_k_w.htm

If I were to spend 5-7 billion bucks on a nuclear power plant it will last between 40 and 60 years, meaning it's daily cost would be lower than oil costs by 0.05%, costing only $480,000/day. Given that 1 kg of uranium ($30/k) or plutonium $1000/kg is the equivalent of 600,000 gallons of gasoline, the price is the equivalent of gasoline at 0.005 cents per gallon, or in the plutonium case, 0.17 cents per gallon, all less than a penny a gallon. A nuclear power plant consumes about 3 to 4 kg of uranium per day - the fuel cost is trivial, even at a $1000/kg (for plutonium.) This is the equivalent, again, of 24,000,000 gallons of gasoline. Even in the more expensive case we have ($4000 for the plutonium + $480,000 for the daily reactor cost) = $484,000.

$484,000/24,000,000 gallons = $0.20/gallon. So how is it that you justify paying so much more for oil, and destroying the earth's atmosphere in the process while causing millions of air pollution deaths?

I note that there is no amount of money that can possibly be spent to control the wastes of fossil fuels, because the task of containing them remains impossible on technical grounds. Nulcear energy is the only form of energy for which containment (and recycling) of the so called "waste" is possible. Besides addition fuel materials, including uranium and plutonium, the world supply of the precious catalytical metal rhodium can be obtained in much greater quantities from spent reactor fuel than ores. This is also true for the metals palladium and ruthenium. A new metal with high tensile strength at high temperatures, technetium, is known and it can always be transmuted if desired to even more ruthenium and rhodium.

In any case, new nuclear reactors are built at much less course than you state, without any evidence. Here is a link giving construction costs for modern reactors, including the ABWR (Advanced Boiling Water Reactor) completed about 10 years ago in Japan.

http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower

It behooves you to explain how you can justify a billion dollars a day for oil when nuclear is so much cheaper and safer and cleaner.

http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower

A 1300 MWe reactor at $2000/kw comes in at $2.6 billion dollars, considerably less than you assume and the number I carried for you. Note that it is said these costs can be halved once the FOAKE costs are removed.

[Alacrat]

64. Risk vs Reward

IMO the rewards gained from nuclear power exceed the risk. When you think of all the damage we have done to the environment, and to our health, from using fossil fuels, and look at the damage nuclear reactors have caused, nuclear power is without a doubt the better energy source.

[MADem]

85. Toss that dough into solar/wind research, I say!!!

One day, entire roofs, windows, even home siding might be made of solar collectors! Wind turbines could be made to be quieter, more efficient, as ubiquitous as the TV antennae used to be atop homes in the sixties.

Once upon a time, a radio was a big huge thing that sat on a table in the front room...a far cry from the tiny little things with earbuds that we see nowadays in shirt pockets. No one imagined they'd be so dramatically improved. Surely, we can improve the existing solar and wind technology, if we get off our asses and WORK the problem.

It's all a question of will. And so long as fatcat companies want to send your ass a UTILITY bill, and people, sans complaint, fork over the dough every month, the will won't be there to make affordable equipment that people could rent or purchase to get their energy from the wind and sun at a reasonable cost and with less environmental impact. Far easier to go nuke, toss the waste in a corner, and leave it to the future generations to clean up our mess. Far easier, but irresponsible, I say.

I would imagine you agree with my sense that calling people who LIVED through Three Mile Island and remember the real fear rude names is never a way to convince someone that the argument is a valid one, either!!! It's what people do when they can't work it on the merits...!

[bananas]

62. Al Gore: "I doubt nuclear power will play a much larger role"

Does your friend feel that Al Gore is uneducated and paranoid?

Al Gore: "I doubt nuclear power will play a much larger role"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x57657

[NNadir]

74. Um, have you ever read Al Gore's speech at Chernobyl?

Al Gore is running for President (I hope.)

Al Gore is a politician.

Al Gore is a great guy, but in spite of his movie's name, he cannot always tell the inconvenient truth, which is that climate change cannot be slowed without nuclear power, because, regretfully, a good part of his potential support is uneducated and paranoid and he would alienate them.

One of the first things that Al Gore, the President might do when he becomes President is to head out to the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) to meet with the solar power people, solar power being a trivial form of energy that produces slightly more (for all the hullabaloo) than 0.01% of our nation's electricity. There he will meet up with the chief scientist of the solar research laboratory, Larry Kazmerski.

Dr. Kazmerski might say to Al Gore what he has already been quoted as saying:

"You're probably not going to believe this," Kazmerski replied, "but around here we think it should be nuclear and solar. We're big nuclear enthusiasts, although we don't broadcast it much. I think we need nuclear to cover our base load of electricity, and solar for peaking power. Solar's best right when we need it - on hot summer days. If we do that, we can retire fossil fuels - conserve them at least."

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_4482762,00.html

All politicians pander to those elements of their base that live in la-la land, and Americans, being very, very, very, very stupid fantasy based people don't know anything about reality. They think Osama bin Laden is going to kill each and everyone of them, and so tore up their Constitution and they also believe that they are going to forestall their deaths from global climate change with a few windmills and solar cells.


They will not forestall global climate change without nuclear power. If they don't use nuclear power, if they give into the paranoid and the uneducated (not obviously including Dr. Kazmerski) they will die. To the extent that Al Gore listens to scientists, he will succeed. To the extent he panders, he will fail.

As a politician, as a movie mogul, can you imagine - given the magnitude of the ignorance and paranoia we see here on this subject at DU (though happily there are a good many DUers who step up to confront ignorance and paranoia as well) - if Al Gore told the Inconvenient Truth that nuclear power is the only scalable continuously available alternative to coal?

Now mind you, I find the "Appeal to Authority" logical fallacy (the argument that says "Al Gore says...") to be weak thinking indeed and so do most people who appeal to reason.

An "Appeal to Authority" argument is at its weakest, of course, when it appeals to a politician, even a great politician as said authority.

In celebration of my 10,000th post here, I ran a little thread about Abraham Lincoln over in the lounge. Someone asked me about what I thought Lincoln's reconstruction policies might have been.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=5465986#5467160

I wrote:

All of this bears on the question of Southern racism. Like most white Americans of his time, Lincoln was clearly a racist, at least as we understand it in modern terms. However Lincoln exhibited great flexibility of mind and was clearly learning a great deal about African Americans in the course of the war and clearly his thinking was evolving all during the war...

...Lincoln is known to have favored the extension of voting rights to "the most intelligent" of the "black race." How he decided to determine who, exactly, was "the most intelligent" is unclear. I tend to take a generous view of this obviously racist view and view it as an element of Lincoln leading, easing the path to general public acceptance of African American suffrage by incremental steps, by first saying "most intelligent" but actually meaning everyone. This is exactly how he proceeded through much of his Presidency, by slowly working the issue until his real goals - which he seldom stated - were satisfied.

Because I have great respect for Al Gore, I suspect that his private thinking on nuclear power is very different from his more cautious public statements.

We don't have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving, I think, but to the extent that we have any chance, we will need a President of the caliber of Lincoln to undo what has been done with our acquiescence. That President will have to have to exhibit flexibility of mind. You cannot exhibit flexibility of mind, assimilate the data - including data about risk - and oppose nuclear power. If one looks at the data the conclusions are unavoidable. If Al Gore wants any chance of being of Lincoln's caliber - and every great President from Lincoln to FDR has changed his mind. Lincoln for instance, stated, even after taking office that he would not interfere with slavery where it existed, but he did interfere where it existed. He interfered with it everywhere. Why? Because he had to do so.

But even if Al Gore is unanimously elected President next week by acclamation, the ballgame is pretty much over. My opinion is that there isn't just 10 years left, as Gore claims in his movie. There are zero years left.

But, as I've taken to saying lately, the ignorant, the superstitious, the foolish, the paranoid, the morally indifferent, and the faith based have won. Included among that group are those who have opposed nuclear power beyond the point of all reason and committed a great moral wrong. Those of us who live much longer - and there may not be all that many - are going to live to experience the consequences of their ignorance and paranoia, maybe even be killed by it.

That may include me. It almost certainly will include my children.

The die is cast.

It rains on the just and unjust alike.

[bananas]

160. I quote his 2006 interview - you cherry pick from 1998

Try to keep up!

[bananas]

65. A nuclear power primer

http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-climate_change_debate/2587.jsp

[jpak]

106. You iz hatin' - stop that!!!

Mere childrens could easily extract enough uranium from seawater to run all our nuclears.

Heard it on the internets, so it's gotta be true!

[bananas]

66. Business Week: Nuclear Power's Missing Fuel

Business Week: Nuclear Power's Missing Fuel
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x60328

[Odin2005]

76. The renewable energy sycophants are pie-in-the-sky naive idealists...

...who seem to have an ideologically-based hatred of centralized power generation. In the future we should use BOTH nuclear AND renewables. Also, don't forget that we will eventually get fusion energy (when we will get it, who knows), rendering nuclear fission power obsolete. Nuclear is simply a stopgap measure, it is not going to be used long enough to produce an ungodly amount of waste (especially if we recycle the waste).

[MADem]

94. ....ideologically-based hatred of centralized power generation???????

Isn't that what these large-scale wind and solar farms are going for?? Centralized power generation???

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/08/01/BAG157VM721.DTL
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1155333028374&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467

http://www.capewind.org/
http://www.kilronanwindfarm.com/


I don't see how you can paint the renewable crowd with that broad brush. There may be some who go for the windmill and panels on the roof and nothing else, but there's more than one way to distribute energy generated in renewable fashion.

[Odin2005]

110. Sorry, I just wasn't in a good mood.

:dunce:

[dcfirefighter]

113. It's OK, you're mostly right

Many of the wind/solar proponents ARE ideologically opposed to centralized power generation, and yet have no opposition to centralized government regulations that subsidize wind/solar and allow for massive carbon pollution.

[Odin2005]

114. Good point. I am for whatever works best in a particular situation.

small-scale energy production is fine in rural areas and some suburbs, but is impratical in densely populated urban areas.

[truebrit71]

116. Because when it goes wrong everyone glows in the dark.

No NUKES!!

[Odin2005]

123. A few thousand people, not everyone.

Unlike the 4 billion who will die from Global Warming.

[unpossibles]

117. I would be fine with some nuclear power

but I don't trust the powers that be to not f**k it up either. Look at BP's recent pipeline maintenance fiasco and tell me it would never happen.

I think solar, wind, and sea/water power are all very feasible and have all made many advances over the last decade with less funding than we should be giving them.

I think hand in hand with this, until we figure out fusion, we need to consider trying to reduce energy use as well as using what we have more efficiently.

to the OP - I'd say it boils down to two things: (1) a NIMBY problem - who wants a potential meltdown in their backyard, and (2) what to do with the waste.

[JohnWxy]

118. Making the most sensible choices for the long run.

It has not been demonstrated that nuclear waste can be stored for 10,000 to 14,000 years safely and kept isolated from the environment. Nuclear types keep saying we've got our old problems (with operating nuclear plants without leaks or risks of meltdown) solved. But it seems this is still a work in progress as new problems keep cropping up.

Nuclear plants have a usefull life of about 15 to 25 years afterwhich they must be decommissioned - 'hot', contaminated, components and spent fuel must be stored somewhere. It costs about 10 times as much to decommission a nuclear plant as to build one. We now have tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste (of varying half-lives) which we still do not have a storage site for. Building new nuclear plants would generate thousands of tons more waste. Even if this waste could be stored for say 14,000 safely it's a real problem figuring out where you would store all the nuclear waste generated. Some say breeder reactors turn waste into fuel - but nuclear waste is still generated by breeder reactors too.

The main problem is that it hasn't been shown that nuclear wasste can be stored safely for thousands of years. Since wind power is abundant and the cheapesat source of power we have today it doesn't make much sense to continue the experiment in nuclear survivability when we have other sources of energy (which are much cheaper especially when you figure in the true cost of nuclear) available to us.

wind power potential for the U.S. is about twice the annual demand (with current technology). the cost of generating electricity from wind is the cheapest of all sources - and there is no pollution generated. We have only begun to scratch the surface with wind power and other renewables. Much more can be achieved if we really try.


IT just a matter of making the most sensible choices, in the long run.

[Name removed]

119. Deleted message

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

[JohnWxy]

125. Nobody needs to take my word for it - HEre are some links

links for those who are interested in emperical data from legitimate sources:

HEre's a good overview, very concise: http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf


excerpt, emphases my own:

Worldwide, nuclear power has less installed capacity and generates less electricity than its decentralized no and low carbon competitors. In 2004, the competing sources added nearly three times as much output and six times as much capacity as nuclear power. (29)

Worldwide, low- and no-carbon decentralized generators surpassed nuclear power’s total installed capacity in 2002 and its annual output in 2005. (27)

According to Rocky Mountain Institute’s economic estimates and projections,
long lead times, costly overruns, and open-ended liabilities contribute to nuclear power’s high financial risks, making new nuclear plants uncompetitive with certain decentralized renewables, combined-heat-and-power (CHP), and efficient end-use of electricity. (27)

World Nuclear Industry Status Reports (1992 and 2004) conclude that “nuclear power is being squeezed out of the global energy marketplace”. Nuclear power is a risky investment, with a long history of key problems constituting a severe disadvantage in the global marketplace, including: financial risks, cost growth, technological and safety problems, cost of decommissioning and unresolved question of waste, as well as proliferation and security risks. (84)

The costs of nuclear energy have increased as more nuclear reactors have been built, due to the need for additional safety measures, storage of highly radioactive waste and decommissioning costs. (43)


Too cheap to meter?
Nuclear power is not viable without public subsidies and corporate giveaways

Nuclear power is unable to compete economically on its own; it is dependent on tens of billions of dollars in federal subsidies. (20, 21)

Despite strong official support and greatly increased U.S. subsidies, nuclear power’s bad economics make it unfinanceable in the private capital market. (22)

Numerous studies conducted by the British government conclude that in a liberalized electricity market, utilities would not build new nuclear power plants without government subsidies, as well as cost and market guarantees. (40)

In the last 50 years, nuclear energy subsidies have totaled close to $145 billion; renewable energy subsidies (wind and solar) total close to $5 billion. (99, 104)

In the United States, subsidies for nuclear have cost the average household a total of $1,411 compared to $11 for wind. (104)

The recent Energy Bill, signed on August 8, 2005, includes over $13 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for the nuclear industry. (20, 58)

The recently reauthorized Price-Anderson Act caps the liability of the entire nuclear industry at $10.2 billion in the event of accident or attack. Estimates of economic damages at nuclear power plants are in the range of $2.1 trillion (for New York’s Indian Point nuclear power plant). Tax-payers get to pay the difference. (11)

The nuclear power industry has been given more taxpayer dollars for research and development than all other energy sectors combined. In the last 50 years, research and development expenditures for nuclear energy amount to $74 billion; fossil fuels, renewables and energy efficiency received $30.9, $14.6, and $11.7 billion, respectively. (20)

20. Public Citizen. Nuclear’s Fatal Flaws – Cost
Public Citizen Fact Sheet – Cost
Nuclear's Fatal Flaws
Despite its promise more than 50 years ago of energy “too cheap to meter,” the nuclear power industry continues to be dependent on taxpayer handouts to survive. Since its inception in 1948, this industry has received tens of billions of dollars in federal subsidies but remains unable to compete economically on its own. On August 8, 2005, President Bush signed an energy bill that included over $13 billion in tax breaks and subsidies, as well as other incentives, for the nuclear industry. Here’s a rundown of some of the giveaways to the mature, wealthy industry included in the bill.


21. Heyes, Anthony. “Determining the Price of Price-Anderson: What is the cost of federal liability protection for the nuclear industry?” Regulation: Winter 2002-2003.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv25n4/v25n4-8.pdf
Academic article applies economic analysis to the “limited liability” allowance provided the nuclear industry by the Price-Anderson Act, amounting this insurance exemption to a massive (hundreds of billions of dollars) government subsidy.

22. LOVINS, AMORY B. 2005. ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE. “NUCLEAR POWER: ECONOMICS AND CLIMATE-PROTECTION POTENTIAL.”


23. LOVINS, AMORY B., ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE.
“MORE PROFIT WITH LESS CARBON.”
Scientific American: Sept. 2005. Hard-copy on file at GRACE.

24. NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL (2005). POSITION PAPER: COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR POWER.
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf
October 2005 position paper examines the issues that prevent nuclear power from becoming a viable alternate energy source means to combat global warming pollution, including security, safety and environmental exposure problems, and excessive costs. Report includes recommendations for the nuclear industry as well as feasible approaches in the form of renewable and efficient technologies.

25. Public Citizen. Nuclear’s Fatal Flaws – Waste
Public Citizen Fact Sheet - Waste
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_power_plants/nukewaste/
Nuclear power is not a clean energy source: it produces radioactive waste that remains dangerous for several hundred thousand years. This waste is the Achilles heel of the nuclear power industry, and no country in the world has found a solution for what to do with it. Radioactive waste poses a serious danger to human health, and because of its toxicity and longevity, we are unable to truly manage and contain it. Public Citizen advocates for stringent laws and regulations to keep nuclear waste securely isolated from people and the environment.

some more links:

The National Resources Defense Council: http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf

Good overview of NUclear Power and it's pracitcality from Pacific Ecologist:

http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf


Frankly, I kinda put this issue on the back burner as I think nuclear is entering the twilight of it's years. But obviously, the true believers (and of course those with economic interests) keep on keepin' on.


Hope the open minded will enjoy the links provided.

[NNadir]

126. Really? Nuclear power is dying? From economic reasons?

The NRDC told you so?

Amory Lovins told you so?

Public Citizen told you so?

It sounds like these folks must be living on another planet. (With the exception of Amory Lovins, who lives in a Mc Mansion on the mountain of Snowmass - where he can really reside in dreamland.)

You're convinced I bet too, with all of these "nuclear experts," none of whom actually have operated a nuclear power plant, designed a nuclear power plant, taken a nuclear engineering course or built a nuclear power plant, would impress, well, someone who has never operated a nuclear power plant, understood a nuclear power plant, taken a nuclear engineering course or even bothered to learn the nuclear decay law.

I'll bet they tell you too that 0.22 exajoules of ethanol is enough, too and I'll bet you believe them.

I am always surprised that the "renewables will save us" crowd, rather than demonstrate an existing exajoule from their favorite technology, squirm so much when they say "nuclear power is dying." I guess I would squirm too, if I was clueless.

Here is the table of nuclear reactors in the world, compiled by people who do know something about nuclear reactors:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.htm

Let's see, 28 nuclear reactors under construction, 52 on order, and a 152 planned. Total capacity 187,000 MWe. That's 6 exajoules of electrical energy, roughly 18 exajoules of primary energy and it's all new capacity.

US nuclear builders have ordered components.

Yeah, that sounds like a dying industry.



By the way, the last time I looked, a few months ago, the number of proposed reactors was around 113. It's happening pretty quickly, it would seem.

It sounds like you and your friends really know what you're talking about, but hey, I've always found your stuff amusing.

Speaking of amusing and clueless, let's look through your curious collection of "references:"

As for your claim about "the most subsidized industry," you're not even close, bub. There's a war in Iraq right now, and vast health bills from breathing something of which you've apparently never heard: It's called air pollution. That subsidy is going to be trillions of dollars - some of it represented by medical bills and premature death, before it's done, not that you give a rat's ass over at the Corn Grower's Association about air pollution. I would like to look at your subsidy and compare it in exajoules/dollar with the so called "nuclear subsidy."

For the record, since nuclear power works on an exajoule scale, I favor completely government financed nuclear power on a trillion dollar scale. It's about the only shot we have. If the nuclear subsidy is only $74 billion - roughly 1.5 billion dollars per year, it is way too small, since nuclear energy is a vast success. If on the other hand, your other conflicting number (in the same post) is $145 billion dollars, that is less than 3 billion dollars per year also too small. These numbers represent a few days worth of US oil imports. I think that the nuclear subsidy should be scaled up by a factor of 1000 worldwide. I note that renewables, according to your (probably pixilated) figures claims that (depending on which of the two conflicting references you believe is either $13 billion dollars or $30.9, $14.6, and $11.7 billion) do not produce exajoule quantities of energy. Therefore the latter figures, whatever they are, were a bad investment, while nuclear energy, which does produce on an exajoule scale, was a good investment.

Here is one account of the size of the corn subsidy from 2005:

It also shovels yet more federal cash on the single most subsidized crop in America, corn. Between 1995 and 2003, federal corn subsidies totaled $37.3 billion. That's more than twice the amount spent on wheat subsidies, three times the amount spent on soybeans, and 70 times the amount spent on tobacco

http://www.slate.com/id/2122961/

But let's leave the Slate "Stupidest Subsidy Ever" article aside.

Now I will do what you can't do: calculate from government data.

Here are the EIA figures for ethanol subsidies from the "milestones in ethanol" page:

1998 The ethanol subsidy is extended through 2007 but will be gradually reduced. The ethanol subsidy of 54 cents per gallon will be reduced gradually to 51 cents per gallon in 2005.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/history/timelines/ethanol.html

Now we will leave aside the fact that ethanol is not "too cheap to meter." If you have a fucking form of energy that is too cheap to meter, please announce it. If you have a fucking form of energy that is perfect, and free, please announce it. You seem to insist that nuclear energy must be perfect, but you don't give a flying fuck who dies from the alternatives to nuclear energy. You don't give a flying fuck about who dies from ethanol either, baby.

If these 21 guys had died in a nuclear power plant, you'd never stop talking about them: http://homepage.mac.com/oscura/ctd/docs/tanker_explosion.pdf But since they didn't die in a nuclear plant accident (there have been zero fatal nuclear accidents in the US) you simply ignore them, just as you ignore the coal dead.




The energy content of ethanol is 89 MJ/gallon:

http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/energy_conv.html

The output of nuclear power plants is recorded in detail by the EIA. The data is here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table27.xls

Between 1998 and 2004, nuclear power plants produced, in the United States, 5,257 billion kilowatt-hours of electrical energy, or 18.4 exajoules. However nuclear power plants, being systems that obey the second law of thermodynamics are only about 1/3 efficient, thus the primary energy is three times greater. Thus the primary energy produced was around 63 exajoules in this six year period.

From the above data it is relatively straight forward to calculate the amount of subsidy that the ethanol industry would have needed to match the energy output of nuclear energy in that period where the 54 cent per gallon subsidy applied. Since ethanol has 89 MJ/gallon, the amount of ethanol to produce 63 exajoules would be 709 billion gallons. (This is not possible for the ethanol industry to produce with every bit of corn in the country - but who's counting.) Since the ethanol subsidy was $0.54/gallon in this period, the amount of subsidy that would have been required to simply match nuclear's energy output would have therefore been 402 BILLION DOLLARS.

But 402 billion dollars could not produce that much energy from ethanol, not on its best day.

The entire US production of all renewables in that same period, including your personal favorite, ethanol, but also wind, solar, garbage burning, wood burning, geothermal blah, blah, blah... was 615 billion kilowatt hours or 2.2 exajoules. Tripling it to give any inefficiencies, we therefore claim 6.6 exajoules of primary energy. Thus the amount of energy is roughly 10% that produced by nuclear means. So which investment did more in that 5 year period? Moreover, there is no evidence whatsoever, wind excepted (and we all want more wind) that the renewable energy industry can scale. The solar industry, pressed to expand from less than 0.015% of electrical production to a figure a little larger, choked and broke down. They ran out of silicon and couldn't produce, even at absurd prices.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table17.xls

In fact, as I showed by analysis of EIA figures, the percentage of electricity produced by renewable energy has slightly declined: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NNadir/19

Thus the evidence is that if, in a time of global climate change - coupled with water shortages on a global scale - we tried to rely on renewable energy, we would most probably die.

I welcome whatever renewable energy can be produced, but I'm certainly not going to pretend that it's enough. It remains trivial on the scale required. There is only one form of risk minimized energy that works on scale. As I showed above, the world is adopting that form of energy, nuclear energy, on a vast scale. In the last six months, the number of proposed reactors has risen from 113 to 152. I expect that the numbers will be more impressive even a year from now. Within a few years, should humanity survive, thousands of new reactors may be planned or proposed. It's our only shot. It doesn't give a flying fuck about what the renewable dunderheads have to say, because this is an emergency of incredible proportion. You have been promising too much, too long and delivering too little. It's all over baby, except the crying and whining.

Nobody is trying to stop renewable energy, by the way. On the other hand, we should stop trying to pretend that we should choose between nuclear and renewables. Even if you can't get it, the fact is that fossil fuels are the world's greatest threat.

I know you don't understand it, but here, again, is the energy chart:

[Name removed]

127. Deleted message

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

[NNadir]

128. Um, Johnny. The ethanol subsidy's size was listed by the EIA.

I have told you - not that you can comprehend it - that energy is energy. I have explained many times that the world is moving to DME - which will outstrip ethanol in a matter of years by a factor of ten. Many times I have explained this conception here, often by direct reference to the scientific literature and not by "appeal to authority arguments."

Maybe they don't teach about "appeal to authority" arguments at the Corn Grower's Association, so I'll link - as I always must do to address the unyielding need of the anti-nuclear position to appeal to logical fallacy:

Here are some operative points on this type of poor argument that applies to arguments like "Professor Wang at Cornell says ethanol is really cool," or "That NRDC says nuclear power is really, really, really, really, really, really bad." From the files explaining weak thinking and weak argument I offer the following about the "Appeal Authority" placing in bold the parts that characterize almost every post that I bother to read of yours:

An appeal to authority may be inappropriate in a couple of ways:

It is unnecessary. If a question can be answered by observation or calculation, an argument from authority is not needed. Since arguments from authority are weaker than more direct evidence, go look or figure it out for yourself.

Now, Johnnyboy, I did some direct calculation in the last post. I often ask those who argue for instance, that so called "nuclear wastes" are "dangerous," to produce a case of a person injured or killed by the storage of spent fuel. They can't. This would constitute a case of direct observation.

Now, let's see how your claims stock up about the vast tragedy of the Yankee Rowe decommissioning, which you claim is a financial burden:

You write, citing a popular reference and not a site with any authority: " The figure continues to rise; the owner's latest guess is $375 million- ten times what it cost to build the plant. Other estimates go as high as $500 million."

Am I to take this as evidence that you, Johnnyboy, believe that a nuclear plant costs $37.5 million to build? This is direct calculation Johnnyboy. If this is your misapprehension, let me correct you. Or are you ignoring inflation here, Johnnyboy in a deliberate misrepresentation that assumes your readers are stupid? (Sorry, Johnnyboy we're not as fucking stupid as you think we are.) Most of the more than 200 nuclear power plants now under construction, on order or proposed will cost around $2 billion dollars.

Now, let's assume that your higher made up figure magically proves correct, that it costs $500 million to restore the Yankee Rowe site to a pristine state. If I show you a removed mountain stripped out for coal, will you have from any of your dubious sources a discussion of how much it would cost to replace the mountain to the state in which the strip miners found it? Or is this just another case of the pro-coal anti-nuclear lobby not giving a flying fuck about what coal does?

Let's directly calculate Johnnyboy. No authorites. Just you and me and data.

Here is the data on the operating history of Yankee Rowe:

During its 32-year operating history, the Yankee plant generated over 34 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, and had a lifetime capacity factor of 74%.

The Yankee Rowe plant was permanently shut down in October, 1991. The decision was made to dismantle the plant when a low-level radioactive waste site was available and return the site to a green field condition, During late 1993 and early 1994, the four steam generators, the pressurizer, and reactor internals were removed and shipped to a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Barnwell, South Carolina. Decommissioning is expected to be completed by the end of 1997, although Yankee's 533 spent fuel assemblies will continue to be stored on-site until a national high-level waste storage facility or repository is built for commercial spent fuel from U.S. nuclear plants.

http://www.nukeworker.com/nuke_facilities/North_America/usa/NRC_Facilities/Region_1/yankee_rowe/

So, the plant produced 34 billion-kilowatt-hours over 34 years. That comes to less than 0.015 cents per kilowatt-hour to restore the plant to GREENFIELDS status.

Do you have an account of a strip mine ever being restored to Greenfields status at such a cost. Oh, I forgot, your moral position is "I don't give a fuck about coal," right Johnny boy?

Now I have already pointed out, in my previous post, that the NRDC does not consist of nuclear engineers, nor do you know any nuclear engineering, having demonstrated already poor calculational skills.

Another part of the "Appeal to Authority" logical fallacy:

The "authority" cited is not an expert on the issue, that is, the person who supplies the opinion is not an expert at all, or is one, but in an unrelated area. The now-classic example is the old television commercial which began: "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV...." The actor then proceeded to recommend a brand of medicine.

It is unfortunate that there is any environmentalist who fails to recognize the enormous environmental benefits of nuclear energy, but for some, sadly, the environmentalism consists of the repetition of certain elements of dogma, and not fact.

The authority is an expert, but is not disinterested. That is, the expert is biased towards one side of the issue, and his opinion is thereby untrustworthy.
For example, suppose that a medical scientist testifies that ambient cigarette smoke does not pose a hazard to the health of non-smokers exposed to it. Suppose, further, that it turns out that the scientist is an employee of a cigarette company. Clearly, the scientist has a powerful bias in favor of the position that he is taking which calls into question his objectivity.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/authorit.html

The next time you appeal to authority, like "Dr. Wang" or whatever, or "NRDC" one would hope you would refer to the fallacy files, but then again, it is very likely you would have nothing to say then. Teaching you about rational argument is tantanmount to teaching a rabbit how to play the piano: Success is just not likely.

(I will note also that you have poor reading skills, having failed to apprehend the direct statement of the size of the ethanol subsidy from the EIA site, which was still more than 0.50 gallon. The EIA, of course, Johnnyboy is the government - the folks who subsidize the folks who pay out on behalf of the membership of the Corn Growers Association.)

The fact is, Johnny boy, that energy is energy. It is measured in joules. I don't know if they teach this at the Corn Grower's Association, but it's basic science, Johnny boy. You may wish to distract attention that as a source of energy your little highly subsidized project would need 408 billion dollars to match nuclear energy's energy output, but the matter is easily addressed by comparing how much it would cost to equal gasoline's output Johnny Boy, since you don't understand the basics of energy.

You say that ethanol is a motor fuel, though, and so let's explore that. Again, by direct calculation, you, me and EIA data. Let's pretend for a minute that you're not making numbers up (although I don't really believe that) and that the ethanol subisidy is now only $0.16/gallon, down from the $0.50+/gallon subsidy of the late 1990's:

Here is the barrels per day used for gasoline in the US in 2005:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.htm

The figure is 9,125 thousand barrels a day. There are 365.26 days in a sideral year, but we'll round down, because your skill with calculation is clearly limited. A barrel is 42 gallons. Multiplying 42 X 9,125,000 X 365, we see that the US burned 139 billion gallons of gasoline. "Only" 0.16/gallon you say? In order to supply just one year's worth of gasoline - something the Corn Grower's Association will never actually do, no matter how much money they rape us for - we see that $22 billion dollars per year is required. That mind you is just the subsidy not the cost of the ravaged landscape, the fertilizers and pesticides pouring into the rivers, creating oceanic dead zones, the land dried up and blown away.

I contend, and have provided lots of scientific references to support my claim, that DME can be made synthetically by hydrogenation of carbon dioxide. I note that many tens of thousands of PhD level nuclear engineers are working on the problem of the thermochemical production of hydrogen via nuclear energy, and there is every reason to expect they will solve it.

Here would be an example of a scientific reference that can be found on the internet for those willing to pay: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/catl/2001/00000072/F0020001/00301199

Here is another: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/76507118/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

You will avoid this and offer us more moonshine, Johnnyboy, but the fact is that the entire planet doesn't give a fuck what you and your friends think. The new nuclear plants are coming, and coming in vast numbers. The power of ignorance to stop them is over. It is probable that a lot of people may die from global climate change before they come on line - not that any of you coal boys give a rat's ass about that - but most rational people recognize that the nukes are the best shot we have.

The fact is that this nonsense about CAN and WILL is no different than the exact same bullshit I was hearing as a young man in the 1970's. You're full of rich fantasies, and bullshit. Here's some news for you: Jimmy Carter was promising big things from ethanol fuel. It didn't just start with the recent activities of the Corn Grower's Association. If you could deliver, you would have done so a long time ago. If it's so damn easy why is it always promises and never deliveries? Why has the production of renewable fuels declined in percentage terms in the last 14 years? Because you're as full of shit as people spouting the same crap thirty years ago were.

0.2 exajoules, that's all you've got for all this dancing, whining and crying. Here's a fucking bloodstained clue for you pal, the fucking global climate change crisis isn't going to happen after you've raped us for $30 billion a year in ethanol subsidies. It's happening NOW. Nuclear power has been around for 50 years. If nuclear energy received $30 billion a year in subsidies, it would have cost $1.5 trillion dollars, in subsidies alone.

Now, as it happens, I favor trillion dollar purchases of nuclear power plants, annually world wide, because nuclear power works. It's demonstrated on an exajoule scale. It exceeds all other non-greenhouse gas producing energy combined as shown in the energy chart, including all your pet bullshit forms about which you prattle so easily.

Instead of talking about nuclear energy - a subject about which you know precisely zero - why not produce ethanol, rather than talk about it? I'm sure we'd all love to hear about your results rather than your promises.

[bananas]

130. LOL! "Decommissioning is expected to be completed by the end of 1997"

LOL! "expected to be completed by the end of 1997"
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!

They're still working on it - 1997 came and went a looong time ago.
Gee, nukes seem so wonderful, if you use decades-old rosy promises!
Try to keep up, sir! This is a fast-paced industry!
Zooming along at a snails pace! Too fast for you, apparently!

Here's the latest from the NRC - "Sites Undergoing Decommissioning"!
OOPS - not completed yet!
"the plant is undergoing dismantlement" - May 04, 2006!
"Estimated Date For Closure" - blank! They don't know!

Where is the spent fuel? "onsite"
Where will it go? Nobody knows.
When will it get there? Nobody knows.

http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/decommissioning/power-reactor/yankee-rowe.html

Home > Facility Info Finder > Sites Undergoing Decommissioning > Power Reactors

Yankee Rowe

1.0 Site Identification
Location: Greenfield, MA
License No.: DPR-3
Docket No.: 50-29
Project Manager: John Hickman

2.0 Site Status Summary
The plant was permanently shut down on October 1, 1991. The DECON DP was approved in February 1995, and the plant is undergoing dismantlement. The steam generators were shipped to the Barnwell, North Carolina LLW facility in November 1993. The reactor vessel was shipped to Barnwell in April 1997. The owner has removed all of the primary systems, secondary side components, and switch yard equipment from the site. The plant is about 80 percent dismantled. The containment and other major structures remain. The owner has completed construction of an onsite ISFSI. An LTP was submitted in May 1997, and a public meeting was held to discuss the LTP in January 1998. A public hearing was requested on the LTP but was canceled after the owner withdrew the plan in May 1999, to consider the MARSSIM approach. The licensee resubmitted a revised LTP in November 2003 and it is currently under staff review. The staff completed its review in April 2005. All of the fuel from the spent fuel pool has been transferred to the onsite ISFSI. Currently the owner does not intend on terminating the license until DOE takes possession of the spent fuel in the ISFSI.

3.0 Major Technical or Regulatory Issues
NONE

4.0 Estimated Date For Closure


Privacy Policy | Site Disclaimer
Last revised Thursday, May 04, 2006

[NNadir]

131. Ha! Ha! Ha! The decommission of strip mines is going how?

The Yankee Rowe facility is required to go to Greenfields status.

Not one of you coal advocates has a plan to return your strip mines to Greenfield status, never mind returning the atmosphere to normal carbon status.

The spent fuel remains on the Yankee Rowe site. When it is removed, they could build an elementary school on the site and no one would be injured. Zero people.

This is in contrast to coal mines that have caught fire and continue to burn decade after decade, unremarked by any pro-coal anti-nuclear person.

Ever hear of the Centralia fire? That coal mine fire has been burning continuously since 1962. You don't care? Is it because only nuclear energy can be returned to Greenfields status and being a coal boy, you're jealous?

It was on that day in 1962 that a local resident set fire to his trash heap. This fact alone is not what set the town ablaze. Because the town is situated over a coal mine, sink holes are quite common. A sink hole is created when the ceiling of a cave collapses making a crater shape depression on the surface (see figure A). The weight of the structure over head is too much for the cave to support and the cave ceiling collapses creating the sink hole. Here, the old supports in the mine were not strong enough to support the ceiling of the cave. Unfortunately, it collapsed with a burning heap above it. Consequently, the heap collapsed into a sink hole and into the coal deposits beneath.


The fire has burned ever since. For the first twenty years the fire stayed around its original location, but by the early 1980’s it had spread and started becoming a serious dilemma for the town and its residents. Claude Downing of the Office of Surface Mining will never forget the cemetery in Centralia when he visited it in the early 1980’s. “It was more eerie than anything else,” he said. He went on to describe it, “Flames were shooting out from above the tombstones in the cemetery. I was not prepared for that. This was an image that you just don’t forget.” All but 30 of the 500 houses and businesses across this once beautiful town have been wiped away. Between 1984 the U.S. Congress decided to spend 42 million dollars for the voluntary acquisition and relocation of impacted residents and businesses.

Today the fire continues to spread. The town is now destroyed, with a small amount of residents left to inhabit it. The population is currently 46 and falling. Mostly elderly who still live there, are happy with their town, and do not plan on moving. “It’s nicer now than it ever was,” said a local resident still living in Centralia. “It’s like a big park,” they said. No flames are visible anymore on the surface, but visitors are still able to see the evidence of the fire. Fields and hillsides that are smoking and are littered with burnt bleached-white or scorched black trees and smoldering stumps. As many as 450 acres might be burning now, which is up from the 350 that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection which was estimated in the mid 1980’s.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/gcr113/centralia.html

Instead of hearing about the spent fuel at Yankee Rowe, which by the way - in contrast to the Centralia fire and thousands of fires like it - did not destroy an entire town, and in fact, has injured no one, zero people as in zip, zilch, why not tell us about how you intend - since you support coal - to put out the fire caused by your fuel option - a fire that has destroyed a whole town forever? Why do you not insist coal be perfect?

But I know that you have a special standard for nuclear facilities. Why? Because you have arbitrarily determined based on moral indifference, based on a decision that many millions of people must have their lives destroyed because you can imagine that someday, somewhere, somehow, one theoretical person might be injured in a nuclear event.

Once again you are engaging in "nuclear exceptionalism" which is the requirement based on your moral indifference that nuclear power be perfect while the alternative, coal, can wipe out the planet unremarked by you.

You have no plan to replace the missing mountains of West Virginia. You have no plan to save the atmosphere. On the other hand, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of high level scientists who have lots of ideas about spent nuclear fuel. The main impediment to doing those things is not technical, but rather is ignorance on the part of the general public, coal boy.

The site of the first nuclear power plant, Shippingport, has been released for unrestricted use, as Yankee Rowe will be when the fuel is removed. I doubt that you have the moral courage to get back to me with a plan to put out the Centralia fire and release that area for unrestricted use, or with a plan to release the thousands of abandoned coal mines, coal waste dumps, to unrestricted use. And we know already that you don't give a fuck about restoring the atmosphere to the state in which it once was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shippingport_Reactor

By the way, the decommission of reactors is a new process. Eventually - as experience is gained - it will become routine, even if there will never be an experience of replacing missing mountain ranges caused by your preferred option, coal.

[jpak]

134. There is a uranium strip mine in Moab Utah that threatens a major water

supply.

It will cost TAXPAYERS (not the mine owners) $450 million to decommission.

Also, please tell us how in situ leaching uranium mining works.

Don't know????

OK

They inject sulfuric acid or ammonium salts into ground water, leach the uranium out of the ore, and then pump it back to the surface for extraction.

The ground water is permanently contaminated with acids, soluble uranium and heavy metals. The ammonium is also oxidized by bacteria and the water goes anoxic (which liberates metals as well).

Ask the Navajoes how good uranium mining was for them - and ask them how many of them died as the result of radon exposure.

And tell us all about the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and how many uranium workers (thousands) have been compensated for mortality and morbidity as the result of exposure to Clean Green uranium.

Come on, tell us all about it.

<crickets>

[hunter]

135. But again, on the vast scales of suckage, coal is worse.

Where do you direct your personal energy?

Certainly the uranium mining in the U.S. southwest was a very rotten thing. I've spoken with many people who worked and lived that.

But I have to pay more attention to the coal mining that is going on TODAY. It is killing more people and it is killing more of our environment, right now, on a scale that makes the many problems of nuclear power look trivial.

[jpak]

136. Who denies that coal is dirty and that coal mining is a dangerous nasty

business????

Nobody.

I was just pointing out the realities of the nuclear fuel cycle - which is not clean or green or safe (or, on edit, cheap).

Things you won't hear from nuclear proponents...

[hunter]

140. This is a very melancholy topic with me.

Overall, I don't believe my own anti-nuclear activism made the world a better place.

We are better off that San Onofre, Diablo Canyon, and Palo Verde were completed. Coal or natural gas fired replacements for these plants would have done far more damage to our environment.

If, as anti-nuclear activists, we accomplished anything positive, it was in lifting the veil of "national security" that surrounded many aspects of the nuclear industry. Anyone who says bomb-making and civilian power projects are unrelated is simply wrong, and perhaps deceitful. There are ways of keeping the two technologies separated, but it must be done by deliberate political intervention.

At one of the rallies against Diablo Canyon Jackson Browne milked the audience with "Won't you stay..." but eventually I was left feeling something else, my youthful idealism crushed by a love gone wrong and people who used me. This idealism has been replaced, I hope, by a sturdier and more effective sort of idealism.


It was a ruby that she wore
On a chain around her neck
In the shape of a heart
In the shape of a heart
It was a time I won't forget
For the sorrow and regret
And the shape of a heart
And the shape of a heart
I guess I never knew
What she was talking about
I guess I never knew
What she was living without
People speak of love don't know what they're thinking of
Wait around for the one who fits just like a glove
Speak in terms of belief and belonging
Try to fit some name to their longing
There was a hole left in the wall
From some ancient fight
About the size of a fist
Or something thrown that had missed
And there were other holes as well
In the house where our nights fell
Far too many to repair
In the time that we were there
People speak of love don't know what they're thinking of
Reach out to each other though the push and shove
Speak in terms of a life and the learning
Try to think of a word for the burning
You keep it up
You try so hard
To keep a life from coming apart
And never know
What breaches and faults are concealed
In the shape of a heart
It was the ruby that she wore
On a stand beside the bed
In the hour before dawn
When I knew she was gone
And I held it in my hand
For a little while
And dropped it into the wall
Let it go, heard it fall
I guess I never knew
What she was talking about
I guess I never knew
What she was living without
People speak of love don't know what they're thinking of
Wait around for the one who fits just like a glove
Speak in terms of a life and the living
Try to find the word for forgiving
You keep it up
You try so hard
To keep a life from coming apart
And never know
The shallows and the unseen reefs
That are there from the start
In the shape of a heart


sigh...

[bananas]

164. Bullshit

we were headed towards sustainable renewable energy and agriculture.
If not for your activism, nuclear power plants in America would be run like the Bhopal plant in India.
Two wrongs don't make a right.

[hunter]

172. Chernobyl would be a more apt than Bhopal...

...and then you look at places like Hanford, and imagine what similar places in the Soviet Union and China must be like, places where dissent was not tolerated.

The U.S. approach was to keep bad things secret as long as possible, often by burying them in, um, "Bullshit." Crushing dissent was a rarer thing here. (But you've probably seen Meryl Streep in "Silkwood.")

What you think is wrong about nuclear power is probably not what I think is wrong about nuclear power. In that case it is most certainly true that "Two wrongs don't make a right."

[JohnWxy]

138. another reason for aggressively pushing Wind Power. Just imagine if the

Billions we are spending propping up the nuclear experiment were spent supporting expansion of Wind Turbine production and installation. Imagine how quickly we'd be getting power from a clean technology - with all those Billions of dollars.

[JohnWxy]

137. "The ground water is permanently contaminated with acids, --

with acids, soluble uranium and heavy metals. The ammonium is also oxidized by bacteria and the water goes anoxic (which liberates metals as well)."

....wonderful!!

[phantom power]

177. Good to keep that in mind, but...

how many uranium mines are there, worldwide, compared with how many coal mines? One important feature of nuclear power is that it takes a lot less mining, due to the energy density of uranium as compared with coal.

Yes?

[JohnWxy]

141. You referred to the "corn subsidy" - so I responded to that -

LEt me clarify, when you speak of the "corn subsidy" I assumed you were talking about the crop subsidy program:

The crop subsidy for corn ( http://www.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn)

was $4.5 billion dollars (the crop subsidy debate is another issue)
The proportion of corn grown for sale to ethanol producers was about 12%. 12% of 4.5 Bil is 540 Million. 3.9 Billion gallons of ethanol were produced in 2005 That comes to about 14 cents for each gallom of ethanol.

$4,500,000,000 corn subsidy
0.12 proportion of crop for ethanol
$540,000,000 subsidy benefiting ethanol
3,900,000,000 gallons of ethanol produced - 2005

$0.138461538 corn subsidy per gallon of ethanol


http://www.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=9816 3.9 million gallons


Now, if you were referring to the ethanol excise tax credit (Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC)) that of course is widely known to be $0.51 per gallon given to gasoline producers for each gallon of ethanol they produce. I figuered averybody was well aware of this tax credit which is referred to as the Ethanol EXCISE TAX CREDIT.


REgarding my relating of criticisms of nuclear power - they aere all based on emperical evidence drawn from experience. I think actual experience trumps models, simulations and idealized conceptions of how nuclear reactors are supposed to perform.

You obviously have much more time to devote to posting web searching on this subject than I do. I do have a life outside DU. I will try to address this issue some more as time permits.

But again, the issues I raise are based upon actual performance of nuclear reactors and storage sites. That is the 'authority' I look to.

[JohnWxy]

144. addendum: cost of support of ethanol vs cost of oil not imported.

for 4 Billion gallons of ethanol the suppport comes to about $2.2 Billion. The cost of imported gasoline displaced, about $8.7 Billion (to about $10 billion, depending upon the market price).

"The production of 4 billion gallons of ethanol means that the U.S. needed to import 170 million fewer barrels of oil in 2005, valued at $8.7 billion, to
meet the same demand levels."
http://www.ethanol.org/ethanolresearch.html

[NNadir]

147. Um, Johnny, the ethanol subsidy is 51 cents/gallon.

In the manner of a Corn Grower's Association lobbyist, you are being deliberately misleading again, by trying to confuse subsidies.

You can google 51 cents and ethanol and get tens of thousands of references on the subject.

But it really doesn't matter. I'm agnostic on ethanol. I think it could be good in some places, but in other places its a shell game. I note that ethanol is not a new technology, although you want to pretend it is. Gasoline actually displaced ethanol back in the early part of the 20th century.

But that doesn't matter. The real matter is that your opposition to nuclear energy is based on pure hypocrisy. You whine about nuclear subsidies while lobbying for more ADM and Corn Grower's Association subsidies. So the matter proves that your opposition to a specific energy technology does not spring from any concern about subsidies. You just want your guys subsidized and are concerned that all of the money go to you.

After posting thousands of nonsense posts about ethanol, you suddenly announce that you have no time to be accurate. I have another view of your continuous misinterpretation of the issues: It's not that you lack time but that you lack honesty and comprehension skills.

Your links - which you use in a distorted way - again assuming that your readers are stupid even though they are not - don't work. Even if they did work, they would prove a point. You make numbers up and claim that ethanol's subsidy is 0.13 cents a gallon. In your deleted post, you claimed 0.16/gallon. Googling and the EIA website shows a 0.51 cents per gallon subsidy.

It is perfectly reasonable to give a cost per exajoule of these subsidies and compare them with your equally distorted interpretation of so called "nuclear subsidies."

Again referring to the energy chart, which you would like to pretend isn't real, the energy output of nuclear power was 8.6 exajoules. To produce this much energy with ethanol - irrespective of how that energy is used - assuming an energy content of 89 MJ/gallon for ethanol shows that it would require 96 billion gallons of ethanol to produce this much energy. That breaks down to about close to 50 billion dollars per year of subsidy to produce that much energy from ethanol - not counting vast destruction of the environment - including rivers and land - on a continental scale.

Now close your little eyes, because I'm going to post that chart again:



Now that we understand that your opposition to subsidies is purely situational and not absolute, I will further state that such a subsidy if it matched the 50 year lifetime of nuclear power, would amount to 2.5 trillion dollars in subsidy alone.

But the fact is that you will never be able to produce 96 billion gallons of ethanol. With all the money squandered thus far, the ethanol share isn't even one exajoule.

Now Johnny boy, you say that you don't have the time for serious investigation of your claims or for research to support your posts. Since I make the time to post here, to research my posts, to support my views - because I believe the issue of energy and the environment is crucial to the survival of humanity - we can take this as your acknowledgment that you simply don't know what you are talking about and that I do know what I'm talking about.

Of course, since I have been studying issues surrounding energy for decades, I already knew that, but it's nice to see you be honest for once and 'fess up.

Here is one thing that I know and that your kind cannot disprove, at least to the satisfaction of rational people: If you are anti-nuclear, you are pro-coal. Strip away all the wind, all the solar, all the biofuels, and this is the reality, obvious from that energy chart that spooks you so badly and produces so much apoplectic stuttering on your part.

[JohnWxy]

152. I STATED THE EXCISE TAX CREDIT IS $.51 IN MY POST - let me provide a quote

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=63698&mesg_id=64520



"Now, if you were referring to the ethanol excise tax credit (Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC)) that of course is widely known to be $0.51 per gallon given to gasoline producers for each gallon of ethanol they produce. I figuered averybody was well aware of this tax credit which is referred to as the Ethanol EXCISE TAX CREDIT."

Since you referred to teh "Corn subsidy" in your post that I was resonding to I addressed that too. IT's all there in my post for anybody to read who wants to see it.

Ethanol is NOT a new technology only the development of producing ethanol as a fuel on an industrial scale. I have said that before (after all they have been producing ethanol in stills for many years. But making in on an industrial scale is something relatively new, offering new opportunities for efficiencies not previously achievable.).

LET ME MAKE CLEAR - WHAT I DONT' LIKE TO TAKE TIME FOR IS ALL YOUR RANTS AND RAVINGS WHICH GO OFF ON WILD TANGENTS. I HAVE SPENT PLENTY OF TIME RESEARCHING ETHANOL AND ALL MY STATEMENTS IN MY POST OF ETHANOL HAVE BEEN ACCURATE. REGARDING NUCLEAR, IT LONG AGO BECAME APPARENT TO ME (I once thought nuclear would solve all our energy problems too) THAT THE WEIGHT OF THE EMPERICAL EVIDENCE WAS AGAINST THE LONG TERM SAFETY OF NUCLEAR.

I think I provided good links to NRDC, Public Citizen, CATO Institute documents and others. Your statement that I used links "in a distorted way" makes no sense to me without some specifics. Again you have provided us with a baseless meaningless screaming rant. IF you have something to say about the information provided on those sites then say it. Lets stick to the point - nuclear is expensive and the safety issue is still in doubt.

A complete and realistic evaluation of nuclear power must include a legitimate accounting of all the costs of nuclear power including those absorbed by the Government. This it's just using some common sense. And I did provide all the information I had on subsidies to ethanol. YOur accusation to the contrary is, again wild rantings without basis in fact and without meaning.

YOur "energy chart" a presentation of total energy produced and consumed, which you claim "I would like to pretend isn't real" - (LOL) really, are you off your meds again? THis last post of yours has me kindof worried about you. I really think you are starting to 'lose it'.

Let's just try to stay on the issue. The emperical evidence for the safety of nuclear power is troubling - especially when you consider the time frames over which nuclear waste will have to be isolated from the environment (if that's really possible - not at all demonstrated).

YOur rants about my not stating what you call the "corn subsidy" are clearly rediculous - it's all there in my post- properly identified as to which is from the actual corn subsidy (which does vary by year, BTW) and which properly identified as the Excise Tax Credit for Ethanol) (when you do research a topic you get more particular about the terminology)(okay, here's the quote from my post: "ethanol excise tax credit (Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC)) that of course is widely known to be $0.51 per gallon given to gasoline producers for each gallon of ethanol they produce. I figured everybody was well aware of this tax credit which is referred to as the Ethanol EXCISE TAX CREDIT.")

Seriously, are you off your meds or something.. I'm beginning to worry about you.

[NNadir]

155. You decided?

You decided "REGARDING NUCLEAR, IT LONG AGO BECAME APPARENT TO ME (I once thought nuclear would solve all our energy problems too) THAT THE WEIGHT OF THE EMPERICAL (sic) EVIDENCE WAS AGAINST THE LONG TERM SAFETY OF NUCLEAR."

Empirical evidence? Was this when "you had no time" to research the issue?

Johnny boy, let's not get shrill, OK?

Step back, boy, take a deep breath. Then re-read my post about "appeal to authority," you know, the one about poor thinking.

Here let me give you a link to a site that explains it even better than I can: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/authorit.html

You still don't understand it? Why am I not surprised?

I am unimpressed by your authorities (Public Citizen?) just as I am unimpressed by any of your claims, most of which depend wholly on that particular logical fallacy.

The fact is that you, irrespective of whether it is out of laziness or deliberate ignorance, cannot produce a single person who has been killed or injured in the United States from the storage or transport of nuclear fuels. None of the nuclear opponents here can, because their claims are based on dogma and not experimental facts.

I can easily produce 21 people killed by ethanol transport. Here you go:

http://www.energyjustice.net/ethanol/factsheet.html

Whatever. We have established two important things:

1) You support subsidies and therefore your claim that nuclear energy is unacceptable because of alleged subsidies is hypocritical.

2) There is no way that your pet biofuel can produce 8.6 exajoules, not even close. It's 96 billion gallons Johnny boy, 96 billion.

I really don't care whether these facts cause you to scream. In fact, I don't care about you at all, one way or the other. I have a long experience with appeals to ignorance, denial and out right fraud. No one case is any more remarkable than another. I've taken to ignoring some of the purveyors and confronting others.

It doesn't matter anymore. I've won. The reactors are being built.

For many years I felt as I was fighting this battle - the battle to recognize the vast environmental benefits of nuclear energy - alone, but no more. It felt bizarre, because the science of the matter was so clear, so obvious.

But I'm not alone anymore. Tens of thousands of nuclear professionals are working in more than 37 countries to stave off - to the extent that it is still possible - the ravages of global climate change. The number of reactors on the drawing boards, on order, and under construction is now over 200. There are fine young people who are taking up the fight to save what we can:

http://web.mit.edu/nse/newsandevents/news.html

http://mit.edu/ans/www/alphanusigma.html

http://mstd.ans.org/awards.html

Sometimes I focus too much on how contemptible the mere existence of ignorance is. It is sad that no matter where you go, ignorance rears its ugly head and is impossible to escape.

On the other hand, if you take the time to do a little digging, you can find sources of hope as well. It may not be as obvious as ignorance, but it is there all the same.

For all the shrill shills shoveling out made up blabber about nuclear energy, there are people like this group, the young members of the American Nuclear Society at the Georgia Institute of Technology:

http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/ans/

These fine young people are fresh, young, exciting and - if you've looked into their program - quite brilliant. They aren't rehashing century-old babble, Johnny Boy. Here is what they are doing while you do whatever, exactly, it is that you do:

http://www.nre.gatech.edu/me/academics/ne/nreundergradcur06-07.pdf

They are the hope of the world, and you...you are nothing.

[bananas]

158. "you...you are nothing"

"you...you are nothing"
"you...you are nothing"
"you...you are nothing"

[NNadir]

165. But they are the hope of the world...

As stunning as ignorance is, and boy do I get to see a lot of it around these days, it's amazing what education can do.

Those kids are going to make a difference.

They're definitely not bananas.

Look at the program these kids put together for their conference in Stockholm earlier this year:

Technical Program Committee Awards for Best Papers
Gold Award
Andrea Zoia
Monte Carlo Evaluation of Fractional Kinetics Approach to Superdiffusive Contaminant Transport


Silver Award
Je-Yong Oh, Yang-Hyun Koo, Jin-Sik Cheon, Byung-Ho Lee, Dong-Seong Sohn
Estimation on Pressure of Bubbles in the Rim Structure of UO2 Fuel


Bronze Award
Gloria Kwong
Aging Management Applied to the Storage of Bulk Ion Exchange Resin in Epoxy Coated Carbon Steel Containers


Awards for Best Presentations
Gold Award
M. Leberig
Measurements of Void Fractions at the KATHY Test Loop


Silver Award
Elvina Finzi
Integral PWR for Space Applications: Core Design


Bronze Award
T.J. Lampman
Investigation of CANDU Used Fuel Integrety for Long-Term Dry Storage


Award for the Best Poster
Gold Award
Silvia De Grandis
Analytical and numerical methods for computing fragility curves for NPPs components under random seismic excitation...

http://www.iync.org/cfp/index.shtml

Those kids are something.

I'll bet not one of them has spent their lifetime with their heads up their asses.

[JohnWxy]

190. i'll say it again: the main problem with nuclear is the containment of

radio-active waste for tens of thousands of years. It's a huge unsolved problem.

Now, in addition to that, over the years nuclear reactor designers, builders and operators keep running into 'glitches', leading to leaks and melt-downs, shut-downs and various problems the designers and operators have been saying they have solved. The unfortunate truth is they keep running into problems they didn't anticipate.

The subsudies I bring up is to provide a realistic evaluation of the actual cost of nuclear power when comparing to other sources of power (The relavant comparison to nuclear is wind power). Wind Power is the best candidate to replace coal.

Am I keeping it simple enough?

I provided links to efforts by various groups to evaluate the various risks and costs of nuclear power. What they examine and present are data drawn from actual experience of operating nuclear power plants or disposal sites. that's what the word 'empirical' refers to, actual results of operating nuclear power plants and waste sites. the actual experience is not encouraging. I think empirical data, actual experience, trumps estimates and simulations based on laboratory condition test data extrapolated using assumptions about environmental conditions likely to be encountered.

http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf

The Problem of Waste Disposal is Still Unsolved

During the fission process that powers a commercial nuclear reactor, the reactor produces significant volumes of contaminated wastewater and low-level radioactive materials. In the United States, decommissioning the more than 100 reactors contaminated by neutron activation products in the pressure vessel, fission product and activation product contamination of the piping, and even the turbines of boiling water-type reactors will cost tens of billions of dollars and create a large and varied amount of radioactive waste. But the nuclear waste storage issue of greatest concern is how and where to dispose of the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel in deep geological repositories. As previously noted, U.S commercial nuclear reactors discharge spent fuel at the rate of about 20 tonnes per year per plant, or about 2,000 tonnes per year for the fleet of just over 100 reactors. To date there is a backlog of about 40,000 tonnes of spent fuel awaiting final disposition.

Given the industry’s unique waste problem and the proliferation issues inherent in spent fuel management, the federal government took the responsibility to dispose of high-level radioactive waste in one or more geologic repositories. To date, the government has focused all of its efforts on building a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but over the years, it has become clear that the site may not have the necessary geology to keep the waste from migrating and eventually contaminating the nearby water table.

Instead of confronting this problem directly, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1999 redrew the zone of compliance for environmental laws around the Yucca Mountain site⎯what is called the controlled area⎯so that the site could be assured of receiving a license, rather than fully protecting the health of future generations. The controlled area sets the boundary beyond which a radiation dose to individuals living nearby must not exceed acceptable levels when spent fuel canisters corrode away and radioactivity leaks from the repository, tens of thousand of years from now. To ensure licensing, the EPA extended the controlled area 11 miles (18 kilometers) in the direction that radioactivity is projected to leak from the site. The EPA now concedes that the site will leak. Placing an environmental compliance boundary far enough away to allow for licensing would essentially create a radioactive septic field, rather than ensure the geologic isolation required by Congress in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.24


In July 2001, the state of Nevada, NRDC, and a handful of other environmental groups filed suit against the EPA for issuing inadequate standards for Yucca Mountain. Three years later, in July 2004, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of NRDC and Nevada, finding that the agency’s 10,000 year standard was illegal. The EPA should now write stronger standards, and it is unclear whether the site, when filled to capacity, will be able to meet strict, protective public health standards. More recently, e-mails from government scientists have surfaced indicating falsification of technical data regarding water migration. At a minimum, the prospects for building the first U.S. repository at Yucca Mountain are uncertain, raising the question of whether it is sound energy policy to expand our commitment to civilian nuclear power before confidently establishing a pathway for the safe long-term isolation of nuclear waste.

A Mature Industry That’s Received More than Its Share of Federal Subsidies


The worldwide nuclear power industry is a creature of government subsidies. Indeed, in many if not most countries, it is a government-owned or quasi-governmental enterprise. Originally a by-product of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, the commercial nuclear power industry in the United States has received more than $77 billion (constant 2005) dollars in federal subsidies—an estimated 60 percent of the total federal energy research and development funding between 1948 and 1998.3 Over the same 50 years, $26 billion in Research & Development expenditures, or 23 percent, went to oil, coal, and natural gas; $12 billion, or 11 percent, to renewable energy sources such as wind, hydro, geothermal, and solar power; and $8 billion, or 7 percent, to energy efficiency technologies.4 The nuclear power industry has been further sheltered from market forces by the Price-Anderson Act,
which limits nuclear industry liability in the event of a catastrophic accident, and by the federal government assuming the multi-billion dollar responsibility for developing an underground repository for long-term isolation of the industry’s highly radioactive waste.

[NNadir]

191. You can say lots of things, but cannot produce a single case that

justifies your paranoia.


There is not one person in the United States who has died from the storage of so called "nuclear wastes." Not one. So you are threatening the lives of every living being on the planet because of an irrational fear. If this is the case, how can you claim the problem is unsolved?

Wouldn't it be more rational to find safer ways to transport ethanol, since there actually have been vast explosions involving ethanol, including cases in which deaths occurred?

I know that you find science meaningless but I can show a case of the containment of fission products for billions of years without incident. This is the now well understood case of the natural nuclear reactors that operated at Oklo for several hundred thousand years about 2 billion years ago.

In two billion years, part of which involved the area being a rain forest, few of the fission products migrated more than 100 meters.

This is well known to anyone who bothers to take the time to investigate the facts. For lazy people who talk on subjects about which they know zero, I will give just one of than many thousands of links that can be found by googling "Oklo": http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml

[JohnWxy]

192. Nuclear waste will be around for tens of thousands of years.

THe development of cancer (I think i went over this once before) takes a long time. As maybe you understand when a person gets cancer in an industrial society with many environmental contaminants it is often impossible to pick out one source of a contaminant and say this is what caused a specific persons cancer.

Nonetheless, it's a pretty sure bet the cancer cases found among those living down wind of Chernobyl were caused by the Chernobyl release. Of course, it's not necessary to point to a dead body and say yes a nuclear power plant ran over this guy and that's what killed him. Nuclear waste in long term repositories will remain potent cancer causing agents for thusands of generations to come.


Gambling on nuclear when we have wind power as a cheaper alternative just doesn't make much sense.

[NNadir]

193. Did you ever solve a differential equation?

I don't think so. I very much doubt that you even have an idea what a differential equation is. There is nothing in your writings that indicate any conception of what basic science involves.

If you had solved a differential equation - or even knew what one was - I could easily show that any substance that is destroyed at the same time as it is formed - particularly when the rate of decomposition is proportional to the quantity of the compound present - reaches an equilibrium.

These equations are often very complex, but can be rendered into simplified forms that can be used to show that nuclear energy is the only form of energy where there are defined maxima for the "wastes" that accumulate. Collectively the set of equations that define these equilibria are known as the "fuel depletion equations." They are all covered in a sophmore introductory course in nuclear engineering.

This effect is responsible for the ability to operate nuclear reactors at all and is discussed under the rubric of "xenon poisoning." This is a case where the thing that you (in your limited comprehension) call "nuclear waste" reaches that maximum while still inside the reactor.

It is relatively easy to show that under a continuous fuel recycling program, it is possible to reduce the overall radioactivity of the planet as a whole in about 600 - 1000 years of using nuclear power, depending on the nature of the fuel cycle. Thus if one was concerned about the "danger" of radioactivity, one would support nuclear power.

But your opposition is not based on an understanding of physics to be sure. You're the member of an anti-nuclear religion and all religions are based on faith, not facts. For the rest of us - that would be rational people - there's science.

Of course, it would be impossible for you to comprehend any of this, since you confuse even far more basic things, like why wind is not alternative to nuclear.

[bananas]

154. Why are you telling outright lies about DUers?

You said, "In the manner of a Corn Grower's Association lobbyist, you are being deliberately misleading again, by trying to confuse subsidies."
That's an outright lie.

[bananas]

157. "you are being deliberately misleading again"

"you are being deliberately misleading again"
"you are being deliberately misleading again"
"you are being deliberately misleading again"

[JohnWxy]

142. You referred to the "corn subsidy" - so I responded to that -

LEt me clarify, when you speak of the "corn subsidy" I assumed you were talking about the crop subsidy program:

The crop subsidy for corn ( http://www.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn)

was $4.5 billion dollars (the crop subsidy debate is another issue)
The proportion of corn grown for sale to ethanol producers was about 12%. 12% of 4.5 Bil is 540 Million. 3.9 Billion gallons of ethanol were produced in 2005 That comes to about 14 cents for each gallom of ethanol.

$4,500,000,000 corn subsidy
0.12 proportion of crop for ethanol
$540,000,000 subsidy benefiting ethanol
3,900,000,000 gallons of ethanol produced - 2005

$0.138461538 corn subsidy per gallon of ethanol


http://www.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=9816 3.9 million gallons


Now, if you were referring to the ethanol excise tax credit (Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC)) that of course is widely known to be $0.51 per gallon given to gasoline producers for each gallon of ethanol they produce. I figuered averybody was well aware of this tax credit which is referred to as the Ethanol EXCISE TAX CREDIT.


REgarding my relating of criticisms of nuclear power - they aere all based on emperical evidence drawn from experience. I think actual experience trumps models, simulations and idealized conceptions of how nuclear reactors are supposed to perform.

You obviously have much more time to devote to posting web searching on this subject than I do. I do have a life outside DU. I will try to address this issue some more as time permits.

But again, the issues I raise are based upon actual performance of nuclear reactors and storage sites. That is the 'authority' I look to.

[JohnWxy]

153. the energy source to compare nuclear to is Wind Power.

Comparing to ethanol which is intended for transportation and to dispace oil, makes no sense, unless you can figure out how to put wheels on a nuclear power plant and then drive it around town. The relavant comparison to ethanol would be to gasoline (withuot governmet subsidies to oil industry gas would run about $5.00 a gallon. Some put the cost even higher: www.icta.org/doc/Real%20Price%20of%20Gasoline.pdf

A more relevant comparison is to wind power. A government study concluded the U.S. wind power potential to be twice the total demand for power. Wind power is far cheaper than nuclear (www.awea.org).
http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_costs.html#How%20much%20does%20wind%20energy%20cost

The cost of wind energy is declining steadily. Long-term forecasts
of the early 1990s by Pacific Gas & Electric and the Electric
Power Research Institute (EPRI) that wind would ultimately
become the least expensive electricity generation source are no
longer pipe dreams. It is clear that wind's costs are now in a
competitive range with those of mainstream power technologies.
Based on its knowledge of current market conditions, the
American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) estimates the
levelized cost <1> of wind energy at many of the larger sites as
less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), not including the
federal production tax credit (PTC). The credit (1.5 cents/kWh,
adjusted for inflation) applies to the first 10 years that a new wind
plant operates, and can reduce the levelized cost of wind by
about 0.7 cents/kWh over the plant's 30-year lifetime.
The following table compares the costs of major energy sources
with wind energy. The figures are from the California Energy Commission’s 1996
Energy Technology Status Report <2>, which examined the costs and market readiness
of various energy options. The CEC calculations do not include subsidies or
environmental costs.

Fuel Levelized costs (cents/kWh) (1996)
Coal             4.8-5.5
Gas             3.9-4.4
Hydro             5.1-11.3
Biomass             5.8-11.6
Nuclear             11.1-14.5
Wind (without PTC)       4.0-6.0
Wind (with PTC)       3.3-5.3

The cost of natural gas has increased since 1996, so that the levelized cost of gas–
fired power plants would now be considerably higher. In January 2001, the cost of
natural gas generated power was running as high as 15 cents to 20 cents per kWh in
certain markets <3>. The cost of wind power, meanwhile, has declined slightly.

[bananas]

161. Now I will do what you can't do: calculate from government data.

Now I will do what you can't do: calculate from government data.
Now I will do what you can't do: calculate from government data.
Now I will do what you can't do: calculate from government data.

[bananas]

129. Here's a big fat zero for you: zero growth of nuclear power

It's the flat line at the bottom of the graph.
Renewables have ALWAYS provided more energy than nuclear, and they ALWAYS will.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_energy_development

[NNadir]

132. Of course, you ignore the coal line, and pretend there's more hydro

available.

Most of the alledged "flat line" for nuclear is based on projections by a person who is obviously writing from an anti-nuclear perspective.

In fact, the current number of reactors either under construction, planned, or proposed is 232 new reactors.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.htm

This is more than half again of the world's existing reactors, 440.

I've been listening to anti-nuclear advocates predict the demise of nuclear energy for 30 years. Like their prediction of an single exajoule from solar energy, they are making stuff up. If, in fact, nuclear energy was likely to just go away, as you endlessly predict, you wouldn't have to shout such unadulterated nonsense so loudly. In fact, no matter how loudly you shout nonsense, you are being ignored. Why? Because the world really fears what coal is doing. Serious people can do risk comparisons, and it isn't even close.

As for future predictions of nuclear capacity IPCC, the world's premier climate change organization, intends to discuss it big time in their 2007 Mitigation report, which I, for one, eagerly await reading:

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jul102005/national184016200579.asp

[Karenina]

143. PLEASE, build your nuclear plants

to your heart's delight while breathing in the dust on the tradewinds from Iraq and watching the families of those immediately exposed shrivel and die. Murphy's Law informs that it is not a question if IF, just WHEN. Homo Sapiens need to be wiped off the face of this planet before they further damage its ability to support sentient life.

To all those who tout nuclear energy: You're short-sighted and simply STUPID. The WASTE cannot be effectively contained, just as the waste from our political/economic systems is now drowning us all in trash on SO MANY LEVELS.

Beam me up, Scottie!

[NNadir]

146. Oooooh. I'm impressed with your self proclaimed "intelligence."

I would ask you to explain with this "intelligence" that is sufficient to pronounce on what is and is not "stupid," what on earth the tradewinds from Iraq have to do with nuclear power, but it would probably be a lot more fun if you leave us in suspense about that one. It's more fun if I guess.

It's amazing how "stupid" people can comprehend and work with things like equations 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4: http://nuceng.mcmaster.ca/ep4d3/text/13-summary-r1.pdf#search=%22%22fuel%20depletion%20equations%22%22 (See page 3, "summary of the multigroup neutron diffusion equations")
and how many "smart" people who know all about the trade winds and Iraq and its secret relationship with nuclear power (and, of course, brain control waves from outer space), obviously did not pass 4th grade math.

Lady, when the time comes, and you want to know whose ignorance caused what is going to happen to you, I suggest you take a long, hard look in the mirror.

[bananas]

156. Oooooh. I'm impressed with your self proclaimed "intelligence."

Oooooh. I'm impressed with your self proclaimed "intelligence."

NNutcase, when the time comes, and you want to know whose ignorance caused what is going to happen to you, I suggest you take a long, hard look in the mirror.

[NNadir]

166. You're not impressed.

You're bananas.

I'm certainly not going to engage in any false modesty here. I'm sure that Albert Einstein did not solicit the opinion of Laurel and Hardy to form his impression of Werner Heisenberg or for that matter, to construe his opinion of his own intellectual heft.

I am much smarter than you are, by a long shot, and, what's more, I know it too.

Tough shit if you don't like it.

[jpak]

174. And I is most smarter than anyone on this board

The great and powerful JPAK has spoken

:nuke: :P :nuke:

[bananas]

159. Those projections are from the EIA

Stop making stuff up!
You wrote: "Most of the alledged "flat line" for nuclear is based on projections by a person who is obviously writing from an anti-nuclear perspective."
Horse shit!
That graph comes straight from EIA data - are such an ignoramus that you think the EIA is "a person"? Do you think the EIA is "a person..writing from an anti-nuclear perspective"?
Well I have to inform you, the EIA is not "a person", and they are not "writing from an anti-nuclear perspective".


(Source: Energy Information Administration: "International Energy Outlook 2004", http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html. For copyright policy, se http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/aboutEIA/copy_right.htm)

[hunter]

133. I'll be straight up. Industrial agriculture is worse than nuclear power.

Multi million acre ecological dead zones growing corn or switchgrass, and inhumanely treated factory farm pigs, beef, and chickens force fed hydrolyzed protein still and mill wastes is not my idea of utopia.

Many sorts of "renewables" make nuclear energy look very good.

[hankthecrank]

149. So is all farming bad or just Industrial agriculture?

So nuclear going to grow food now

[bananas]

163. Yes, NNadir says nuke waste is safe to eat

I'm going to ask my local Walmart why they don't serve cesium-on-a-stick.
And whatever happened to those radium wristwatches?
Wrist cancer is very treatable!

[NNadir]

167. You don't need to go to Walmart to get coal soot, baby.

In fact, you can't avoid it. Like the song says, "every breath you take..."

So, should I say that "Bananas says, 'Burning coal is acceptable?'" Of course that is what you say because it remains true that if you are anti-nuclear, you are pro-coal.

In fact, you can't get cesium, although you'd like to pretend that it's killing everyone. You can still not produce a single person killed in the United States by so called "nuclear waste," and now, you've taken to whining "NNadir says..."

How come you're so expert on what I say? You seem not to have comprehended a word of it, and now have taken to sullen whining.

Do you have any figures on the latest number of deaths from cesium poisoning or is this just like all of your other posts: You don't know what the fuck you're talking about and so you just make stuff up?

[hunter]

171. Farming is bad, but we have to eat.

There are too many of us to establish any sort of society based on hunting and gathering which would be truer to our human nature. If we do not farm, we do not eat.

But I do not support the cult of American Agriculture. It has turned much of the country into vast wastelands of very low biological diversity. The idea that we might expand these wastelands to provide fuel for our very wasteful and inefficient automobiles is appalling to me.

I'm the kind of radical environmentalist who would ban "factory farm" meat and dairy products. The collapse of the corn and soybean market devoted to feeding all these mistreated animals would allow us to restore marginal ag lands that currently require heavy artificial inputs of nutrients and pesticides to a natural state of biodiversity.

At home I'm an organic gardener, and I do what I can to support small-market mostly organic farmers.

[hankthecrank]

176. Farming is not bad mega farms are bad

You can blame the USDA for that. They are pushing for bigger and bigger farms. Because if you control the food supply you have to much power for the people that are in charge. But if the farm is big enough and owns enough debt than you can pull the strings.

There will be no expansion of vast waste lands of farming. Sorry no new ground to be put to the plow. What land we have under the plow now is all there is going to be. Other land doesn't have enough rain or is too poor to be used. Mega farms might try too, not going to happen

The vast waste lands you talk of are the Mac Mansions with their over treated grass at any cost stuff. Haul the black dirt away. Ah topsoil another very sore subject with me. We treat dirt like dirt or I wish we did. Takes longer to make topsoil than man has the attention span to make.

Good farmers are like the ones you support. They care about the land and take care of it. They also care about the animals under their care.

[hunter]

185. No expansion of Ag lands?

Bad news for biodiesel and ethanol fans, unless we stop eating meat.

It will be interesting to see which we value more -- our cars or our hamburgers.

My wife and I have been trying to make topsoil in our yard for about eight years now. It's a very heavy clay, and it seems to eat as much compost as we can feed it.

But this house is better than the house we lived in before, where one of the previous occupants had used the backyard to dismantle stolen cars. There were large dead spots where he had dumped oil, transmission, brake, and radiator fluid. We eventually got things to grow, but we didn't grow things to eat.

Our landlords at that house were nice enough (I suppose because we were not dismatling cars in the back yard) but I could never get them to understand that a compost heap wasn't simply a pile of trash. They were not satisfied until we bought expensive composting bins, and even then they thought we were strange. But they were happy we'd brought the yard back to life.

[JohnWxy]

145. The Problem of Waste Disposal is Still Unsolved

POSITION PAPER: COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR POWER
Authors
Thomas B. Cochran
Christopher E. Paine
Geoffrey Fettus
Robert S. Norris
Matthew G. McKinzie

NRDC
(EXCERPT)

The Problem of Waste Disposal is Still Unsolved

During the fission process that powers a commercial nuclear reactor, the reactor produces significant volumes of contaminated wastewater and low-level radioactive materials. In the United States, decommissioning the more than 100 reactors contaminated by neutron activation products in the pressure vessel, fission product and activation product contamination of the piping, and even the turbines of boiling water-type reactors will cost tens of billions of dollars and create a large and varied amount of radioactive waste. But the nuclear waste storage issue of greatest
concern is how and where to dispose of the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel in deep geological repositories. As previously noted, U.S commercial nuclear reactors discharge spent fuel at the rate of about 20 tonnes per year per plant, or about 2,000 tonnes per year for the fleet of just over 100 reactors. To date there is a backlog of about 40,000 tonnes of spent fuel awaiting final
disposition.

Given the industry’s unique waste problem and the proliferation issues inherent in spent fuel management, the federal government took the responsibility to dispose of high-level radioactive waste in one or more geologic repositories. To date, the government has focused all of its efforts on building a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but over the years, it has become clear that the site may not have the necessary geology to keep the waste from migrating and eventually contaminating the nearby water table.

Instead of confronting this problem directly, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1999 redrew the zone of compliance for environmental laws around the Yucca Mountain site⎯what is called the controlled area⎯so that the site could be assured of receiving a license, rather than fully protecting the health of future generations. The controlled area sets the boundary beyond which a radiation dose to individuals living nearby must not exceed acceptable levels when spent fuel canisters corrode away and radioactivity leaks from the repository, tens of thousand of years from now. To ensure licensing, the EPA extended the controlled area 11 miles (18 kilometers) in
the direction that radioactivity is projected to leak from the site. The EPA now concedes that the site will leak.

Placing an environmental compliance boundary far enough away to allow for licensing would essentially create a radioactive septic field, rather than ensure the geologic isolation required by Congress in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.24 In July 2001, the state of Nevada, NRDC, and a handful of other environmental groups filed suit against the EPA for issuing inadequate standards for Yucca Mountain. Three years later, in July 2004, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of NRDC and Nevada, finding that the agency’s 10,000 year standard was illegal. The EPA should now write
stronger standards, and it is unclear whether the site, when filled to capacity, will be able to meet strict, protective public health standards. More recently, e-mails from government scientists have surfaced indicating falsification of technical data regarding water migration. At a minimum, the prospects for building the first U.S. repository at Yucca Mountain are uncertain, raising the question of whether it is sound energy policy to expand our commitment to civilian nuclear power before confidently establishing a pathway for the safe long-term isolation of nuclear waste.

[Odin2005]

122. BS.

The waste from the Oklo natural nuclear reactors in Africa hasn't moved much in 1.5 BILLION years, and that's in conditions far less ideal then storing it under a mountain.

[jpak]

139. The 90Sr, 137Cs and 129I most certainly did leach from the so-called Oklo

reactor.

Those are the major fission products of concern in spent nuclear fuel.

They are highly soluble, mobile and biologically active.

That's why the DOE is spending ~8 billion dollars to deploy exotic alloy drip shields over the spent fuel canisters at Yucca Mountain.

They fully expect the canisters to rapidly corrode - the shields are an expensive stopgap measure that will only (maybe) slow the process.

[drfresh]

124. We won't be here in thousands of years if CO2 emissions keep rising

You say that it hasn't been shown that nuclear waste can be stored for thousands of years, but right now we are storing more and more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. CO2 concentrations are at its highest point in 650,000 years.

We are going to have to deal with long term consequences no matter what energy we choose, but I am with NNadir on this one. Everything I've learned about modern nuclear power tells me that it's superior to burning coal or oil, and is better for our environment.

Of course, it would also be good to move toward solar, wind, geothermal power.

[johnny_yuma]

148. groundwater contamination is a good reason

I just saw this in the "breaking news" forum...

Radioactive, cancer-causing tritium has leaked into the groundwater beneath the San Onofre nuclear power plant, prompting the closure of one drinking-water well in southern Orange County, CA, authorities said.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2463434

[Odin2005]

150. Look at NNadir's post, the amount released is less then harmless.

[bananas]

162. Which post?

He's made many length posts, all full of flawed analysis, personal attacks, and outright lies.
Do you have anything original to say?
"Oh NNadir please save me there is someone who doesn't worship the Nuclear Priesthood! A blasphemer! And he doesn't believe in Gaia, either! Heresey!"

[NNadir]

168. Flawed analysis?

Can you provide an example?

I don't recall that I've ever seen an example of a calculation from you showing me that I'm wrong. I don't think you do calculations, but it would be interesting for you to cite an example of an "outright lie."

Now, Skids, who I expect doesn't like me anymore than you do, has done calculations to prove me wrong. Here for instance is an example:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=50249#50324

It was memorable. I never forgot it. My response follows his post.

But I guess the point of your post is not to provide evidence of anything but your opinion of what constitutes personal attacks. :-) :rofl:

By the way: I am smarter than you are. By a long shot. And I know it too.

But that's not saying much.

[bananas]

169. Heh, you even admitted you were wrong.

Of course you don't remember,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde could never remember what the other one did, either.

bananas
11. Once again you prove that nuclear advocates can't do math
<snip>

NNadir
12. Heh, heh.
You got me there. My calculation is wrong.
<snip>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x49658#50072

[NNadir]

170. Well there you go.

You're not always as stupid as I generally think you are.

It is true that I hold a low opinion of you, but you have rightly pointed to a case where I made a mistake and where you got the better of me. Good job.

However I am smarter than you are. By a long shot. And I know it too.

[hankthecrank]

175. No really smart people don't rub your face in it.

Really smart people have grace and good will

May be evil smart people rub your face in it.

The only reason you are not on ignore is because I am waiting for the meltdown

No reason none none for you to treat people like you do, only the south end of north bound mule needs to do that.

One person came on the board with only eight post and you ripped into them, not a thing that people do to each other.

It was not me I've earned what I've gotten

Being stupid I can comment on it.

[phantom power]

178. Being smart does not make you an enlightened being of pure energy...

You can be a cantankerous asshole and still be very very smart. And right. Life is complicated that way.

[hankthecrank]

179. No the really smart people are good

People who are smart don't take advantage of people who don't have as much gray matter as they do. Or they are not as smart as they think they are.

Thinking you are right doesn't make it so, still your opinion, with that an 1.25 you can get a cup of coffee.

Life is not complicated you are on the path or you are not. Does not mean you can be an ass when you want and not pay for it.

And I'm so going to pay for this.

[phantom power]

180. You are talking about at least three separate topics, I think.

1) intelligence, as in "IQ"
2) people skills, as in "EQ"
3) ethics, as in "ethics"

These three things are orthogonal, and statistically uncorrelated, at least among human beings. If they were correlated, the human condition would be infinitely better than it is. (To see that I'm right, imagine a world where everybody who had a high IQ also had great people skills and rock-solid ethics, and everybody who was a rat bastard was also dumb as a rock. I'd pay rent to live in that world)

Since this forum is the E/E forum, I'm most interested in whether NNadir's positions on environment and energy are correct. Whether or not he has good people skills is somewhat beside the point. I've never seen any indication that he lacks ethics. Unless you consider insulting people unethical. It may be counterproductive, but it's far from the worst of human sins.

[hankthecrank]

182. No I'm talking people path in their lifetime

Really smart people I've know don't need to blow their own horn.
Really smart people can get their point across without taking some one else down.
Really smart people do not have to build themselves up at the expense of some one else.

The path that you are on has plus and negative parts they all count. If you are not a working to good I guess you can be an ass. Or you can be worse the ass helper. Good is not for me or you to decide. My opinion counts for no more or less than yours. I try to work for the good but some times I stray.

[jpak]

195. So where is the super secret molten salt breeder reactor????

Haven't heard about that in a while....

[bananas]

196. Maybe you mean the Morton Salt reactor?

"When it rains, it pours"

[hunter]

183. I may not be enlightened, but I am a being of pure energy.

Einstein figured that one out.

E=mc²

Unfortuanately, nasty beings like George W. Bush or West Nile Virus are pure energy too.

[hankthecrank]

184. Two different kinds

What would the balance on what Georgie has done look like

I have to answer for a lot of things. The older I get the bigger my balance seems to be getting, I thought before my grey matter starts to go bad I would be wise. Don't they say that. But it seems in my case not to be so. I just get more stupid, and less forgiving of things.

[hunter]

187. I often worry that smart people "of grace and goodwill" are simply cunning

But mostly I think U.S anti-intellectualism sucks.

People like Abraham Lincoln or John Muir were farm boys, but it didn't stop them from using their brains and getting out in the world.

Might as well nail your feet to the floor and sew your lips shut than claim to be stupid.

[NNadir]

197. I don't happen to believe that IQ tests measure what they purport to...

...measure, but I'm going to guess that the questions on the test do not include, "Are you kind to your mother?" and "Do you play nice with other children?" and "Do you work hard to make modesty your best quality?"

I don't recall ever bashing you, but being, unlike me, a good guy you are concerned about how I treat others. Well enough.

I don't agree with your formula grace = smart = modesty = north end of a mule, but what of it?

There comes a point in these conversations in my long tenure here, where those who either don't like what I have to say, or don't like me, or both, try to turn threads about nuclear energy into a conversation about my personal faults. Why? Because the standard approach to the truth of what I say is to run through lists of logical fallacies. Rather than demonstrate a case where so called "nuclear waste" has been proved to be "dangerous," we have my opponents following me around reminding everyone what an asshole I am. But I can guarantee you that if I wrote a brazillion insults on this site, so called "nuclear waste" would still be more safe than coal waste. Rather than demonstrate energy outputs attributable to the various pet forms of renewable energy - and the fact that I often point out - that in percentage terms, the use of renewable energy is declining rather than rising - my opponents try to follow me around, like wanna-be-vicious puppies with no teeth, and flesh my remarks into extreme forms like "NNadir, says we should all eat nuclear waste," and blah, blah, blah.

Now. Let's get back to your "concern for others" that you subtly trumpet for yourself in your burst of modesty.

Suppose you see a child on a train track from a good distance away with a locomotive steaming toward her at high velocity. Suppose there are people standing around. Suppose they are having a conversation about their favorite activity, bicycling as transportation. What do you do?

Here is what I would do: I'd scream. I'd yell. I'd start running toward the child but I would also try either to attract their attention to the reality of the danger so they could help, or even get there sooner than I would.

Unfortunately, on this website, there are four or five people - always the same people - who feel that the appropriate response is to give a lecture on how the bicycle some day can replace the locomotive and how therefore we can let the locomotive run over as many people as it runs over, just so long as we all agree that bicycles are the way.

I abhor these people. I think they are engaged in a great moral wrong, and I believe they are all lacking in analytical skills, comprehension of the facts, familiarity with technology, familiarity with scientific principles, the ability to make comparisons, and the ability to distinguish wishful thinking from reality. Moreover, they do not think clearly.

Here is a list of logical fallacies that I routinely encounter in my discussions here with my four or five regular opponents. I have selected from this list: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ only those cases that I can remember from my tenure here. The link contains exposition of each case.

Ad Hominem
Appeal to Authority
Appeal to Belief
Appeal to Common Practice
Appeal to Emotion
Appeal to Fear
Appeal to Novelty
Appeal to Tradition
Bandwagon
Begging the Question
Biased Sample
Burden of Proof
Circumstantial Ad Hominem
Composition
Confusing Cause and Effect
Guilt By Association
Hasty Generalization
Middle Ground
Misleading Vividness
Personal Attack
Poisoning the Well
Post Hoc
Questionable Cause
Red Herring
Spotlight
Straw Man


My belief is that most people, including myself, finds himself or herself occasionally lapsing into these types argument. But my opponents here use this type of thinking almost exclusively.

Now some of my weaker posts have widely engaged in ad hominem attacks, in the sense that if I think I see a moron asserting rote dogma it makes me angry, and in anger, I lose my better judgment. However my stronger posts give just the facts. I am a very volatile human. I lose my temper. On the other hand, I know what I am talking about, and frankly my opponents don't.

I have put my best posts in my journal. Many of them contain my own calculations to flesh out the data provided. For instance, here is my post on the decline, in percentage, terms of renewable energy use over the last 14 years:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x62456

Edited on Tue Aug-01-06 11:33 AM by NNadir
Renewable energy in the EIA data at which I have been looking generally lumps the non-hydro renewables under a single heading "biomass/other." This has been unsatisfying for establishing real trends since the various types of renewable energy we discuss here, solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal vary so widely in availability, cost, and scale.

Recently I came across data on the EIA website that gives a more detailed picture of the trends in renewable energy and I thought I would discuss the trends we have seen in the last 14 years.

The data is here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epmxlfile1...


Electrical energy demand increased from 1992 to 2005 by 30.9% overall.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/tablees1a....

This of course does not mean that conservation is a failure, since the situation may have been far worse without conservation. Some of the shift may represent energy demand shifted from other quarters to the electric sphere. Some of the increase also derives from other effects, especially things like the introduction of the personal computer and other new electronic devices, like cell phones and video games, all of which add up.

I have crunched the numbers a bit, and identified the following information:

The non hydro renewable portion has more or less kept up it's share of the electrical generation, but still remains in percentage terms, a very small fraction of the electrical generation in this country. In fact the portion of electrical energy produced by renewables has decreased slightly since 1992, 1992 being the year in which renewables produced their maximum percentage of total US electrical energy demand, 2.39%. The year in this period during which renewables were minimized was 2001, when renewables accounted for 2.01% of the electricity. In the most recent completed year, 2005, renewables represented 2.28% of electrical energy, and have almost recovered the position in which they were in 1992.

It is interesting to break the matter down into individual types of renewable energy.

Wood:: The only form of renewable energy that has represented an average greater than 1% of total US energy demand in this period is wood fired electricity. It has averaged 1.04% of renewable energy since 1992, 1992 also being the year for which its contribution was maximized, at 1.18% of overall energy. In 2005 that percentage was 0.94%.

Waste: Whether this is truly a "renewable" form of energy is questionable, since much of our waste -plastic is petroleum based, but there is certainly plenty of garbage to burn. This is the second largest form of energy included in the renewable category. It's average in percentage terms is 0.60% of overall US electrical energy generation. In 1992 the percentage was 0.58% and the maximal contribution was in 1997 when it produced 0.62% of US electrical energy generation.

Geothermal: The use of geothermal energy in the United States as a percentage of overall energy is declining. The average use over the 1992-2005 period in percentage terms was 0.41% of overall US electrical energy generation. The year it's percentage was maximized was 1993, when it produced 0.53% In 2005, it produced 0.37%, about the same percentage it has produced since 1999.

Solar: Solar energy in my perception generates the most discussion here in the DU E&E forum which I find astounding, since it is by far the most trivial form of electrical generation - at least grid based - there is. The average amount of solar energy in percentage terms has remained nearly constant over the 1992 to 2005 period, where the average contribution is 0.014% of total US electrical energy production. It has not varied by more than 0.001% in any single year.. The highest years in this period were 1994-1998, when solar electricity represent 0.015% of total electrical energy production. The lowest year was 2005, when it represented 0.013% of electrical energy production.

Wind: Wind is still a small form of energy but in terms of growth in percentage terms, it is by far the most promising form of renewable energy. The average production of renewable electricity from wind over the 1992-2005 period was 0.170% of electrical energy but the highest year was 2005, when it represented 0.36% of total US electrical energy production. The lowest year was 1998 when it represented 0.08% of electrical energy, slightly lower than 1992, when it was 0.09% of electrical energy produced in the United States.

Thus the ability of renewables to maintain a percentage of around 2-3% of the growing total electrical energy produced in the United States over the last 14 years is mostly attributable to the growth of wind power, a form of energy that we all hope will continue to provide larger and larger percentages of our electrical energy demand. Geothermal production is not keeping pace with electrical demand, solar is stagnant, wood is slightly declining and garbage burning remains constant.

For reference here are the other forms of energy and their average percentages for electrical generation over this period:

Coal: 51.4%. Petroleum liquids: 2.7%. Natural Gas: 15.4% Petroleum Coke: 0.4%. Nuclear: 19.6% Hydroelectric 8.0%.

My view is that renewables have the best shot at displacing natural gas and maybe petroleum. They have some ways to go before accomplishing that.

There is not one logical fallacy in that post. (Now if people like Bananas could once in a while write a post like this, he would be worth more than ridicule. But mostly he or she follows me around like one of those little annoying dogs, yapping at my heels. The vast majority of his or her posts are reactive. Almost none are original.)

I will briefly return to my analogy: My opponents, of course, ignored my comments about their bicycle and went on pretending that I should not be upset when they appeal to their bicycle while my child is in danger from the locomotive, the locomotive being coal.

I contend, that in fact, the bicycle won't work. We can't haul grain from the midwest to the east coast on bicycles. We need a better and safer train, at least while there are more than 6 billion of us on the planet.

You have appointed yourself arbiter of what the qualities of what constitutes a fine mind and a limited mind. I'm less than impressed with your description. In my view you have confused grace, ethics, intelligence and wisdom and attempted to make a mishmash of all of these fine traits. Actually though, had you been exposed to all of them extensively, you would easily know that their existence does not depend upon one another. Some of the smartest people I have personally known - and I have known very brilliant people - have been assholes.

Your logical inference seems to go like this: "Grace is good." "Intelligence is good." "Therefore Intelligence is grace." Sorry, but that's not thinking clearly.

And I'll close from some graceful quotes from a guy who was, like I am, much smarter than Bananas, and smarter than me:

Albert Einstein wrote:

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

and

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

and

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Albert_Einstein/

See if you can discern consistency with your view of how smart people behave from these two quotes from this complex man.

I have almost no opinion of you, good or bad. You have written well here on the subject of farming, and what you had to say enlightened me. You have, on the other hand, written a poor account of how to evaluate humans. The latter in no way changes the former. Personally I have no objection to you putting me on ignore if you can't take what I say. Still, your opinion of what I say will have no effect whatsoever on the truth of what I say.

[Name removed]

194. Deleted message

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

[Name removed]

198. Deleted message

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

[NNadir]

199. Whatever.

It's kind of amusing how much television my detractors watch.

I had another guy on this level tell me that I reminded him of the TV show "Cheers."

I've never seen Jerry Springer, although - as is the case with "Cheers," I know what the show is through osmosis.

I have seen "Howdy Doody." It was on TV when I was a child. It was a puppet show, where a puppet with a wooden head had words put in its mouth by amusing people.

Well, look at the bright side Johnny boy, the wooden puppet could be hydrolyzed with enzymes and fermented and made into a liter or so of ethanol.

As for smarts, let's see how you answered my post #193...

Oh. You didn't answer it at all.

Yeah, I'm smarter than Bananas; I'm smarter than the guy who watches Cheers reruns all night, night after night, oh yeah, and I'm smarter than you.

Tough shit.

[Dogmudgeon]

200. I'm #200, nyah nyah!

Well, I finally joined in the jihad -- Blogosphere-oo Akbar!

And nobody has yet really answered why we hate nuclear power, or even if it's a good idea to.

Well, *I* don't hate nuclear power; and far from being the "corporate running-dog lackey" I've been described as on occasion, I even have criticisms of it. I don't believe that there is such a thing as One True Form Of Energy, or The Axis Of Energy Evil. But there will be about seven billion dead people in a short time if we don't actually start to solve some of the energy and resource problems we're facing. A 2% alt-energy and a stalled-at-10% nuclear capacity won't slow down that re-descent into Olduvai Gorge. As far as we're concerned, we should be looking at the overall energy picture as a dynamic -- and fragile -- system.

Internet pissing matches while the engine of civilization chokes out are self limiting. No engine, no Internet. Similarly, no food, no pissing-match contestants.

When people start to die by the long ton, our perspectives will change, no matter what "side" any of us are on.

--p!