Bush’s Call to Reduce Oil Imports by Building More Nukes Makes No Sense

[kerrygoddess]

Bush’s Call to Reduce Oil Imports by Building More Nukes Makes No Sense
9 May 2005



Just why does Bush want more nuclear reactors anyway? After all nuclear reactors make electricity not oil.

In a recent speech, Bush called for the construction of more nuclear plants while touting the use of technology to ease our energy woes.

An article in the NY Times points out the flaws in Bush’s pipe dream of building more nuclear plants. I view this as a reason to start asking more questions.

When It Comes to Replacing Oil Imports, Nuclear Is No Easy Option, Experts Say

President Bush has proposed reducing oil imports by increasing the use of nuclear power, which he said in a recent speech was "one of the most promising sources of energy."

There is a problem, though: reactors make electricity, not oil. And oil does not make much electricity.

MORE & LINKS: http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=860

[Tux]

1. Joe Blow

Wouldn't know. Oil and nuclear energy are 2 things yet Joe BLow thinks that oil, gas, fission, solar, etc can all power a car, blender, PC, vibrator, whatnot. It's based on a lack of education on both sides.

[blogbear]

2. True..So just where do folks get off telling someplace like Iran or

N Korea the way things are a gonna be..when they don't even have the whole or accurate story?

[loveable liberal]

3. I think he meant....

Use a bunch more oil to make nuclear power plants.

[kerrygoddess]

9. Well that too

Nuclear reactors use oil to run.

[hecate77]

4. We have lots of Uranium, not so much oil. We use oil to make electricity

It makes sense on some levels. The real problem here is folks resistance to nuclear power, more than anything else. Yeah, it has its problems. But it does save on oil overall, and does, in the end, require fewer oil imports. Is it the best solution. Probably not, but it is a step in a direction other than greater oil imports. Personally, I favor all forms of solar energy, but I don't make the rules. The solar power projects I worked on in the 80s were all axed by Ronny Raygun.

I don't want to start an argument about nuclear power here, but only wanted to point out that nuclear power would reduce dependence on oil, even if we don't like that answer.

Being a physicist and having been involved with the folks who did the Yucca mountain studies and the folks creating the means of transportation of highly radioactive waste, I do not have the fear and revulsion of nuclear that so many seem to have, but that is for another discussion. The only real fear I have with nuclear is the people handling it, but they are far more dangerous with nuclear weapons than they are with power reactors. Far more steady damage accrues to us from coal and oil fired power plants than is ever likely to accrue from nuclear plants.

[kerrygoddess]

7. Tell that to the Navajos

who have gotten sick from our mining of uranium!

[hecate77]

10. I didn't say I approved. I was only pointing out something.

If we make arguments, they must be based on facts, not wishful thinking. We do make electicity with oil, and we do have more Uranium than oil. Those are facts. If you want to argue against nuclear power, you need to use other issues than the original poster used. The main ones to me are the unreliablity of the utility companies running it, the dangers for mining and processing (albeit much smaller than the dangers from oil and coal, but nonetheless, significant), and the difficulties of waste disposal.

Again, I would rather see solar, and I did begin my professional career working in solar energy, but like I said, Ronald Raygun took care of that pretty quickly. Also, I do not work in the nuclear power industry, and never have, so this is not something personal. I am just looking at what I see before me in terms of risks and cost, and the realistic choices we have under the current fascist regime.

Besides, tell it to the coal miners who die all the time from mining coal. If we could just go to solar we wouldn't need anyone to die in mines. (However, there will still be deaths and pollution related to making solar power, just fewer and less). Tell it to the people in Iraq who die so we can have oil. Tell it to the people all over the world who die so we can have oil.

None of this is coming without huge prices. My point is that people die for all our attempts at getting energy by burning limited fuels. I believe we can do without any of it, but in the meantime, since we are not there, nuclear power is at least as safe overall as coal and oil when you count up the true cost. And getting us a little less dependent on foreign oil is a good thing. Maybe the risk is greater on our own people with nuclear, while with oil, we blithly put the death debt on other people. Maybe we should face more of the risk ourselves for our own greed, and not put it off on the people of Iraq, and the rest of the world.

I lived in New Mexico for 20 years. I am well aware of the problems caused by Uranium mining. I have friends who worked in those mines. I am also well aware of the problems and deaths related to coal mining, burning of fossil fuels, etc. Did you know that the pollution plume from the Four Corners fossil fuel power plant is one of the human artifacts visible from space? Where does this coal come from? Navaho and Hopi lands, being strip mined. Does anyone die mining that? You betcha (black lung disease, to name one). Does the ground water get poisoned by this process? You betcha. Do people die because of that? You betcha. Did you know that Albuquerque is one of the dirtiest air cities in the country? Did you know that health problems abound when you have dirty air? Now, not all that is the result of the Four Corners non-nuclear, coal burning, air-polluting power station, but some of it is (rest is inversion layer problems related to cars and wood burning stoves in the winter). It wafts its deadly plume across the state (right across Navajo and Pueblo land) and down the Rio Grande valley, killing all the way, albeit slowly.

[IChing]

5. talk to nadernader or nader n

In the environment energy section
He will explain what GE will do for this planet and New Zealand?

[flordehinojos]

6. does bush ever make sense? i don't think his sorrry *** ever does.

[kerrygoddess]

8. No he doesn't

ever make sense!

[kenny blankenship]

11. We're soon to become a big importer of Natural Gas

as well as petroleum. And natural gas is used to generate electricity. So far we've been self-sufficient for natural gas even as we began to shift away from coal-fired electricity generation, but no more. So, if you don't want the US to become dependent on other countries for the stuff that generates our electrical power as well dependent on them for the stuff that runs our personal and commercial transportation, you have to come up with an alternative source of power generation.

Nuclear--excuse me, nookyulur--is one such alternative. There are others. Of course people disagree on the economic efficiency of all these alternatives, nuclear power included. Or you can forego hashing out which alternative makes the most sense to go with and continue to use LP gas and accept that our electrical power grid will be (theoretically at least) susceptible to wild price shocks and shutoffs from the increasingly foreign origin of the natural gas that powers it.

Other countries like France seem to have embraced the atom, despite the risks. There is also domestic coal--and all the damage that is certain (not risks, but cetainties) that result from burning coal. The downsides of accelerating burning of hydrocarbons of any type cannot be neglected either when considering nuclear. Global warming is not just a theoretical risk anymore, it's here and our hydrocarbon burning is the cause.

You don't trust Bush and Cheney to make good decisions about our future energy needs and I don't either (isn't funny how they seem to think Big Government should be setting policy to decide and provide these things instead of the sacred "market"?) Still, even though Bush and Cheney are the last people whom you would want making these decisions, we cannot escape the need to have a national dialog about the future of our energy needs. Capitalism must grow or crash and burn; to grow it requires the input of more and more energy--more electricity generated from fuels, and more portable fuels to move people and stuff around. The sources these fuels come from all have their associated risks to our environment, as wells as other kinds of risks to our national sovereignty and economy. Being paleolithic conservative paranoiacs, Bushco. can only see the world system as a system which ONE great power will dominate, dominating all the lesser countries and converting them to service its selfish needs. "The human being and the fish can coexist," Herr Bush will allow, but not as equals; and neither will he accept anything tending to the equality of energy producers and energy leeches. We, the leeches, must prevail unswayed by the co-existence of, or the opinions of other countries in any policy matter, however small. Bush cannot accept INTER-dependence as a principle for the peaceful future coexistence of different countries. For then he wouldn't be able to dominate like an Emperor of old. Also, in an energy-interdependent future, a non-Imperial America, no longer free to terrorize the world at its whim, wouldn't be able to EXTRACT the wealth of the world in one-sided fashion anymore. That means, we'd all have to get REAL jobs and work like the rest of the planet. You can imagine how that terrifies someone of Bush's background. So, for Herr Bush it is PARAMOUNT und MANDATORY that America construct nookyulur generating plants to keep our power grid from ever becoming dependent of foreign sources of LNG.

He'll probably want them constructed underground with prison conscript labor too, in secret locations well away from Blue cities, or any ports, or the Candadadian border, so them terrarsts can't get at 'em.

But we'll have to adress these issues too, if we ever manage to return this country to democracy and wrest power away from the Fascist coup leaders. You want hydrogen powered cars? You need to find a big source of electricity. Natural gas will be getting scarcer and increasingly expensive. Burning coal to power hydrogen generation is defeating the purpose. Atomic power is going to have to be considered among the other options.