Ralph Nader writes, "The unfolding multiple nuclear reactor catastrophe in Japan is prompting overdue attention to the 104 nuclear plants in the United States - many of them aging, many of them near earthquake faults, some on the west coast exposed to potential tsunamis."
Ralph Nader addresses the unfolding nuclear reactor crisis in Japan and unsafe nuclear plants in the US. (photo: TruthAlliance)
Nuclear Nightmare
19 March 11
he unfolding multiple nuclear reactor catastrophe in Japan is prompting overdue attention to the 104 nuclear plants in the United States - many of them aging, many of them near earthquake faults, some on the west coast exposed to potential tsunamis.
Nuclear power plants boil water to produce steam to turn turbines that generate electricity. Nuclear power's overly complex fuel cycle begins with uranium mines and ends with deadly radioactive wastes for which there still are no permanent storage facilities to contain them for tens of thousands of years.
Atomic power plants generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity. Over forty years ago, the industry's promoter and regulator, the Atomic Energy Commission estimated that a full nuclear meltdown could contaminate an area "the size of Pennsylvania" and cause massive casualties. You, the taxpayers, have heavily subsidized nuclear power research, development, and promotion from day one with tens of billions of dollars.
Because of many costs, perils, close calls at various reactors, and the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979, there has not been a nuclear power plant built in the United States since 1974.
Now the industry is coming back "on your back" claiming it will help reduce global warming from fossil fuel emitted greenhouse gases.
Pushed aggressively by President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu, who refuses to meet with longtime nuclear industry critics, here is what "on your back" means:
- 1. Wall Street will not finance new nuclear plants without a 100% taxpayer loan guarantee. Too risky. That's a lot of guarantee given that new nukes cost $12 billion each, assuming no mishaps. Obama and the Congress are OK with that arrangement.
- 2. Nuclear power is uninsurable in the private insurance market - too risky. Under the Price-Anderson Act, taxpayers pay the greatest cost of a meltdown's devastation.
- 3. Nuclear power plants and transports of radioactive wastes are a national security nightmare for the Department of Homeland Security. Imagine the target that thousands of vulnerable spent fuel rods present for sabotage.
- 4. Guess who pays for whatever final waste repositories are licensed? You the taxpayer and your descendants as far as your gene line persists. Huge decommissioning costs, at the end of a nuclear plant's existence come from the ratepayers' pockets.
- 5. Nuclear plant disasters present impossible evacuation burdens for those living anywhere near a plant, especially if time is short.
Imagine evacuating the long-troubled Indian Point plants 26 miles north of New York City. Workers in that region have a hard enough time evacuating their places of employment during 5 pm rush hour. That's one reason Secretary of State Clinton (in her time as Senator of New York) and Governor Andrew Cuomo called for the shutdown of Indian Point. - 6. Nuclear power is both uneconomical and unnecessary. It can't compete against energy conservation, including cogeneration, windpower and ever more efficient, quicker, safer, renewable forms of providing electricity. Amory Lovins argues this point convincingly (see RMI.org). Physicist Lovins asserts that nuclear power "will reduce and retard climate protection." His reasoning: shifting the tens of billions invested in nuclear power to efficiency and renewables reduce far more carbon per dollar (http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whynewnukesareriskyfcts.pdf). The country should move deliberately to shutdown nuclear plants, starting with the aging and seismically threatened reactors. Peter Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) commissioner has also made a compelling case against nuclear power on economic and safety grounds (http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whynewnukesareriskyfcts.pdf).
There is far more for ratepayers, taxpayers and families near nuclear plants to find out. Here's how you can start:
- 1. Demand public hearings in your communities where there is a nuke, sponsored either by your member of Congress or the NRC, to put the facts, risks and evacuation plans on the table. Insist that the critics as well as the proponents testify and cross-examine each other in front of you and the media.
- 2. If you call yourself conservative, ask why nuclear power requires such huge amounts of your tax dollars and guarantees and can't buy adequate private insurance. If you have a small business that can't buy insurance because what you do is too risky, you don't stay in business.
- 3. If you are an environmentalist, ask why nuclear power isn't required to meet a cost-efficient market test against investments in energy conservation and renewables.
- 4. If you understand traffic congestion, ask for an actual real life evacuation drill for those living and working 10 miles around the plant (some scientists think it should be at least 25 miles) and watch the hemming and hawing from proponents of nuclear power.
The people in northern Japan may lose their land, homes, relatives, and friends as a result of a dangerous technology designed simply to boil water. There are better ways to generate steam.
Like the troubled Japanese nuclear plants, the Indian Point plants and the four plants at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon in southern California rest near earthquake faults. The seismologists concur that there is a 94% chance of a big earthquake in California within the next thirty years. Obama, Chu and the powerful nuke industry must not be allowed to force the American people to play Russian Roulette!
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Comments
If we look at what's happening in Japan, so far (obviously, this might change over time, let's see) there are some 10,000 dead people, most (if not all) victims of the tsunami. Surely, the nuclear radiation get's more media coverage, and seems to trigger more fear in people - most likely because of our associations to the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and since radiation is less tangible than an a huge wave, and therefore more anxiety provoking.
In short: 100 per cent of the people who died in Japan during the current catastrophe would have died with or without a nuclear failure. As I said, this might change, but let's be careful not to press for polities triggered by what might be nothing but irrational fear.
So if it changes for the worse -which you admit might happen- the fears are not so irrational? We all know the situation in Japan sits on a knife edge and could go either way. You are suggesting that we put another apple on our head after the archer just parted our hair on the last attempt.
None of what you said addresses a single point in Ralph Nader's argument.
I'm speaking in favor of rationality. And all I'm saying is: let's not make a decision about nuclear power or not based on the emotional plume blowing in from the Pacific these hours. Instead, let's look at the numbers, and based on that - not fear - decide if nuclear is the way to go or not.
So far it's obvious we need to rethink how and where we build close to tsunami prone areas. When it comes to nuclear, the dice is still in the air.
a) 50-175 workers
b) more than 50 per cent chance
Last year my thyroid gland was removed because of cancer. When I asked the doctor what caused it, he told me I was exposed to radiation as a child. Thyroid cancer takes decades to show up, leaving the nuke industry plenty of time to claim it was something else that caused it. Then there's this business about "nobody died". How many hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated? I guess that counts for nothing. How much food has been contaminated in a country now devastated by the tsunami and earthquake and already desperate for food? How many are going to die from radiation exposure in the years to come? The nuclear industry is fond of saying, "Nobody died at Chernobyl or TMI", but they are only talking about whether somebody received a lethal dose of radiation in the spot, not how many cancer deaths were caused by exposure later on.
I can't take you seriously stefanhansen. You're just parroting industry talking points that are designed to confuse the issue. I think we all saw Thank You For Smoking. We know how this play goes.
And speaking of that, one will not know the true effects of the Japanese nuclear incident for many years, after there are statistics regarding cancers and other health impacts that are linked or not to the release of radiation.
Here are some numbers...the US NRC is telling the Japanese that they need to move ALL of their people (not the plant workers or fire fighters) 50 kilometers away from the site. The Japanese say 20-30 kilometers is good enough. The NRC is merely a front organization for the whole nuke industry...so the true safe range is probably around 100 kilometers (where the US Navy is).
Another thing to contemplate-"Compared to nuclear bombs, nuclear reactors seem "peaceful," although this is clearly not the case. Compared to nuclear reactors, nuclear bombs are as safe as houses, because they don't start a chain reaction until somebody pulls the trigger, whereas nuclear reactors maintain a controlled chain reaction during most of their existences. It's like comparing having a gun safely in your possession to heating your house with ammo, in which case, surely enough, accidents will happen." (Dmitry Orlov) Yeah...lets keep heating the house with ammo.
No. It's completely irrational to believe that nuclear power will be completely safe in human hands. That is the great irrational tragedy here. It will happen again, maybe in your back yard.
You say you are talking about rationality. I think it is just the opposite.
if massive amounts of japan become uninhabitable for 1000 yrs, where will the japanese people live? can you take on a few million roommates?
Nuclear costs more, has demonstrated how dangerous it is, and yet still our people in power, even the supposedly 'green' President Obama, still push nuclear. Why?
The economics of utility monopolies: the more costly the power source, the more profitable the (regulated) return.
With ten thousand people's body washing up to shore, no one is forgetting the disasters Japan has faced.
The aftermath is a Nuclear Problem...large Nuclear Problem. We are all learning, we are all watching. This is the most significant Nuke Problem since Cernobyl, so we need to focus.
Too risky for private industry is too risky for government backed power plants.
Do I support the current nuclear reactors? No. I'm an advocate of solar, wind, ocean current, and geothermal energy. My point is that our government is needlessly making nuclear power here even more dangerous than it is elsewhere.
Also, there is concern in France about radioactive leakage into the North Sea and in the champagne growing regions.
France "recycles" their nuclear waste by sticking it in someone else's pocket. The area surrounding their "reprocessing" facilities will be a wasteland for centuries to come. It is also a very costly and involves usage of vast quantities of water and a wide array of highly toxic and volatile chemicals. It will never be profitable nor sustainable.
If we were to put all the money that these plants cost us into renewables, we would have all the electricity we can use.
I will no longer take no for an answer.
Nuclear and fossil energy is so last century and we need to progress, thank you!
(Ralph Nader can be a troublemaker and not always right, but I agree with him on this all the way.)
I do not believe People should be sacrificed but too many like you do.
The domestic Nuclear Energy is minuscule by comparison, yet stole 20% of the domestic electricity production from the fossilers in about 20 years, from 1970 - 1990.
Kinematics - windmills and donkey wheels, sunshine and breezes, and conservation: going without, *cannot* compete with fossil fuels and you know it.
It is pretty clear your agenda, and that of Amory Lovins is an attempt to effect the continued primacy of weakforce combustion over the strong force energy production, to hold it back as long as possible. There is just too much money at stake.
To this I say, thank god for China, India, South Korea, France, Russia, and even japan to not be stymied by fossil fuel avarice.
The Strong force Energy production will eventually come despite your misguided best efforts.
It has been estimated that a desert area in the southwestern United States that measures 161 km on a side (0.3% of the land area of the United States) could theoretically meet the electricity needs of the entire country if the solar radiation in that area could be converted to electricity with 10% efficiency (Sandia National Laboratories 2001).
The technology is ready. On the following pages we present a grand plan that could provide 69% of the U.S.’s electricity and 35% of its total energy (which includes transportation) with solar power by 2050. We project that this energy could be sold to consumers at rates equivalent to today’s rates for conventional power sources, about five cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). If wind, biomass and geothermal sources were also developed, renewable energy could provide 100% of the nation’s electricity and 90% of its energy by 2100. - Scientific American magazine December 16, 2007
Imagine that, sustainable endless energy, least damaging to environment (our lifeline). You are right, there is way too much money at stake, money is more important than people, now is more important than our children's future... such a shame.
For more on how to solve our individual and global power footprint, you might find these articles interesting:
http://www.hansensmag.net/2011/02/28/the-best-solution-reprogramming-humans/
http://www.hansensmag.net/2011/02/28/saving-ourselves-from-our-planned-extinction/
http://www.hansensmag.net/2011/02/27/high-living-standards-misunderstood/
Any discussion of the relative merit/bona fides of various forms of energy is always premature without the prerequisite thorough discussion of a viable and planetarially-reasonable energy-consumption baseline.
Do we need Nuclear on fault lines and mega-solar in pristine desert eco-systems in order to power ice skating rinks in Phoenix and Palm Springs and 1,000,000 candle power car dealership lighting arrays going full blast at 3am?
Am I the only one that turns off the lights upon exiting public restrooms?
I know it feels much better to blame it on others (in this case the government), but if we are fair we would recognize that we are to blame as well. And only when we do so, we'll be able to find the incentive within to make the change no politician can make.
He told us, showing the true GOP, that when we could come up with better Energy to let them know!
Sun, Wind, Water have been used for hundreds of years...Successfully, ask the Planet what it was like before us. Safe, clean, replenished.
Hard to fight City Hall when they do not let you in, ask Wisconsin! I marched 40 years ago against Nukes, where were you?
Sounds like a Tea Party style prank to me...
Ralph,
Your participation in 2000 rattled Gore's campaign and I believe w/o you there Gore would have won.
Where would we be now if Gore had the chance to forward his pro low carbon economic proposals? Thanks to your wrong headed and arrogant ambitions, we suffered through Bush's letting our guard down leading to his 9/11 , his insane withdrawal from Afghanistan and attack of Iraq, and Cheney's insane back room energy policies.
History is funny sometimes and I hold you accountable for 9/11, the deaths of thousands, and the replacement of somewhat factually based politics by Fox News/Tea Party/GOP faith based, mostly made up propaganda.
Sorry, I might sound a bit weird and emotional, but that's just how it is after seeing the aftermath of Gore defeated by Bush.
Please do everything you can to allow Obama a clear chance at re-election. I haven't seen a GOP candidate that's willing to run on a reality based platform since Bush 1. It's really scary thinking you or another 'liberal' independant might screw up Obama's reelection.
You obviously didn't read the history that Gore actually carried Florida, but the Gang of Five stopped the recount because it would have "harmed candidate Bush" of EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW!
Nader's to blame for 9/11? Pathetic.
"What ifs?" are silly exercises in light of "what is."
Obama is a whimp among other things and only slightly better than the corrupt,etc. opposition.
In a recent discussion, iirc on Diane Rehm's show, as well as I can recall, funding for the NRC was said to be cut back significantly in the late 1990s, so the NRC can't do its job properly. So much for defunding government! Ask a libertarian about this one.
Fact is Mr Nader is a genius, He does a lot of homework. I am sure if he was asked to do the total run down of how Turbines worked he would of. However, most people in past thought him long winded, so he cut the known procedure into a nutshell, we all understand the basic functioning of this type of power...so many use it.
Just want to criticize someone's knowledgeable opinion.
Government under GOP's always defund the wrong Agencies if they cannot control them.
Apparently you know nothing of either Ralph Nader or Amory Lovins. Both men have been in the forefront of efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels for many years. They also have been leaders in exposing the flawed calculus of nuclear energy. It takes as much fossil fuel to build and feed a nuclear power plant as it can produce in the first three-quarters of its design lifetime. The public subsidy to nuclear power adds another 10-20 cents per KWh that is hidden. So nuclear is no solution to either the fossil fuel shortage, greenhouse gas emissions, or escalating energy costs.
Conservation is the most immediate, cost effective way of attaining dramatic improvements in our energy budget with entirely positive effects in reducing carbon emissions.
Germany now has over 18 gigawatts of solar power generation capacity -not bad for a country with about as much solar insolation as northern Wisconsin. They added 10 GW in 2010 alone. A state-of-the-art nuclear reactor produces about 1 GW. The stimulus package is financing 12 GW of wind farm development.
So long as the fossilers can skew public perception such that the competition for fossil fuels is seen to be weak sunshine and kinematics, then the gambit is won, and the fossil fuel companies revenues will be maintained. For proof, watch their advertising. Don't you see? They're picking their own competition: Wind and Solar!.
It wouldn't bother me so much if they were the ones putting up useless windmills and solar panels. The thing is, they're so skewing things such that governments pay for them. It is ruinous to Spain, and it is ruinous to Germany unless like lemmings we follow them into the abyss and they're the ones selling us the Windmills and solar Panels.
Did you know that a golf ball sized hunk of either Thorium or Depleted Uranium (238U) could supply a typical American a LIFETIME share of electricity? People don't realise.
I guess we have different Agendas. I want 100 Billion actualizing people, AND a green planet. You can keep your Oil wars, your Malthusian catastrophes and you ugly agendas.
what else is there to say? So glad I voted for you Ralph- Imagine what would be if you had won and they let you live. No obamanation, we wouldn't have Summers and Geithner and the rest of the wolf pack, selling off the US for parts right now, inserting gmo abominations into our food supply, etc etc. Time for everyone to join the human nation and start fighting back. Hope everyone who loves and believes in what Ralph has done will join in and help in some way asap!!
Nader is on the mark, and very well-organized, in his comments about nuclear energy.
Techno babble and nuclear industry spin cannot change reality.
I think our exposure to the marketing of "endless electricity" has conditioned us to forget that we depend on the limited resources of the earth. We need to adjust ourselves and our technologies to that simple fact.
Using nuclear power plants to make electricity goes a long way in the wrong direction. Just looking at the amount of water that nukes require should be an eye-opener.
But you and those of us who have stuck with you are in the minority I'm afraid. Even Michael Moore turned his back on you, asking you NOT TO RUN. And they now see what they got---Bush lite; in a way almost worse than the Shrub, because so filled with hypocrisy. At least we knew in advance that Bush was taking us on the road to hell. We had hopes the next in line, Mr. Moore's GREAT HOPE, would take us in the other direction.
But I'm pleased and PROUD I chose the right man--again.
Thank you for being there for us, Mr. Nader.
If nuclear energy advocates wanted to convince the public that their reactors were safe, then they ought to do a better job ensuring that public schools are doing a better job educating our young people.
I'm no longer sure that our own government is all that sincere in its efforts to educate the American people.
I'm thriving on solar power and look forward to selling power back to my utility and I don't have to intimidate my neighbors or scare them with a nuclear accident that could potentially contaminate a state the size of Pennsylvania. I am not looking forward to Americans pushing lead-lined baby strollers as some mothers are forced to do in parts of Russia.
Lets not forget that the real crisis, like oil spills in the Gulf, are just beginning to unfold in both the US and Japan.
Nuclear power is uninsurable in the private insurance market - too risky. Under the Price-Anderson Act, taxpayers pay the greatest cost of a meltdown's devastation."
Where are the Republicans screaming about the "free market", unfettered by gov't. interference? Where are the Tea-baggers who screamed about the gov't. bailout of Wall St. and Detroit? Where are all the people who screamed that the gov't. has no business bailing out mortgage holders in over their heads?
There is one, and only one, solution to the energy problem; birth control. Period.
Mr. Nader's essay makes complete sense and is anchored in the realities of human nature and scientific expertise, not in the finely honed public relations fantasies of the nuclear power lobby.
Let's try that evacuation drill at Indian Point...just once!
My wife and I are not rich by any means, but have reduced our use of oil, gas, and electricity dramatically. We have reduced our fuel oil consumption from over 1200 gal/year to about 300, and hope to cut that in half soon. Much of the difference was by reducing air infiltration and improving insulation. We are now a net "producer" of electricity (with a 400 sq ft grid tied solar array). It cost about $3.50 per watt of installed capacity (about a third the cost per watt of a new nuclear installation) and includes the cost of "fuel" for thirty years or more, and does not require any "operation" costs. It is automatic and safe enough to install on the roof a baby's bedroom. About 80% of our hot water is produced by solar hot water collectors. Our house in Vermont is about 150 years old and has a dirt cellar, but this winter we have been warm in spite of using very little fuel oil, We did this by replacing an old oil boiler that began to leak last year, and burning renewable wood pellets in a glass front stove in the living room. Now if we could find a suitable electric vehicle to use the excess electrical production and save a few hundred gallons of gasoline....
Did you know that Thorium-based reactor R&D is going on in Japan, China, and India right now? This kind of reactor is called a Thorium Molten Salt Reactor.
It is also called a MSR for Molten Salt Reactor, and a LFTR for Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. It was invented in the USA during the 1960s at Oak Ridge National laboratories, and one ran for four years.
They are much safer than other kinds of nuclear reactors:
They regulate themselves so they don't melt down or blow up.
They are unpressurized so expensive containment buildings are not necessary.
They don't require an expensive cooling system.
They are far more immune to human error and national disasters than other kinds of nuclear power.
Waste from other reactors can be added in the Molten Salt Reactors and used up. This is a big plus, because nuclear waste is a problem right now.
They are more efficient than other kinds of nuclear reactors.
They require low maintenance.
DE-commissioned nuclear reactors can be converted to LFTRs, and become far more powerful.
See http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/media/499/thorium-reactors-a-new-type-nuclear-reactor for more information.
Why everyone isn't using these is beyond me, aside from the fact they can't be used to make nukes. (Or am I being naive here?)
Nuclear energy (especially in unreliable GE-designed plants) is much too risky.
* What kind of business can pass the financial and safety risks to taxpayers, whether they like it or not?
* Isn't it peculiar that only the taxpayer can guarentee nuclear power insurance?
* There is lots of money to be made in building nuclear plants--$15-20 billion per plant--hence the powerful lobby.
* Forget about jumping to conclusions. Lovins is not the only one to come to the conclusion that nulcear power is unsafe and uneconomic. The analyses are constantly discredited by former cigarette company PR firms.
* Finally, you don't need an earthquake or tsunami to cause massive devastation worst than Japan's current challenge. 2012 will be the peak year for the worst 11-year cycle solar electromagtneti c storms in known history. Coupled with the current weakening of the earth's natural magnetic field & shield, this could cause wide spread grid outages for many weeks, which could put cooling equipment at risk for nuclear plants. This equipment not only provides reactor cooling, but also keeps dangerous nuclear waste stored on the ground of every one of the 104 U.S.nuclear plants. Extended power outages could pose a fightening nulcear meltdown.
That Obama seems to be hanging in there with the nuclear energy gang should surprise no one. It's entirely according to pattern. For he begins with some fairly thoughtful common sense. Having established his reasonableness, he then drifts off into wonderland--in the company of all the monsters. He is a third-term for the policies of Bush and Cheney. In this nuclear business, he clearly believes in "BIG Government" and should be as objectionable to conservatives as he is
to progressives. (Trouble is, conservatives have disappeared from the scene, and their children are all "emotionally challenged" and can't be expected to help much since they stand in desperate need of help and compassion themselves. Let's just hope, with a little help from their friends in the nuclear lobby, they just don't manage to burn down the only "house" that any of us have as a home.)
-James, somehow claiming that ONE article used the word "disaster" rather than, say, "revealing mishap" regarding Three Mile Island is hardly going to go very far in making your case.
"The problem was caused by human error." So to put THAT much power at risk of human error is irresponsible.
Surely you're not going to argue that the new DESIGNS function so autonomously
that there is no interaction with humans.
"Modern reactor designs are fail-safe." -I think an historian of language would probably discover that it was precisely over nuclear-energy uses that the adjective "fail-safe" became a universally familiar term. It was used no doubt earlier, but my dictionary offers 1946 as the year the term entered common usage. I think the term has probably been used of every nuclear reactor that has ever been built. That you use it for the "new designs" is nothing new at all.
A simple circuit can provide more electrical power than you can use without fuel, pollution, COST or a grid. It should be as common as table salt, and was invented 130 years ago. Industry and your government don't want you to know.
I've been asking where it is for 48 years, and only in the past couple came to understand it's among our country's most highly classified technologies and closely held secrets.
The primitive world in which we live looks more like a cartoon to me with each passing second.
There will be at least one nuclear reactor catastrophe in the U. S.
The release of deadly radioactive contamination can come either from fuel in an active reactor or spent radioactive waste materials. As Nader pointed out, scientists have not found any way to neutralize or store the steadily increasing nuclear waste material from existing reactors, and that waste is stored in TEMPORARY facilities, ON SITE. And on-site safe storage and security are minimal.
Some of the risks are release of deadly radioactive materials via:
earthquake damage;
tornado damage;
flood damage;
externally instigated terrorist attack
internally instigated terrorist attack
invasion of U.S. in a war
human error
leakage of nuclear waste into soil and water
But never fear. We have a wonderful record in the U.S. of not worrying about worst case scenarios until after they happen. Once the horse is out, we increase security and preventive measures. In the meantime, we all say to one another, let's wait and see.
Heaven forbid we should worry until it happens, and we are thereby made aware that we waited too long.
Here's a question: if it's so safe, why was anybody evacuated? If it's so safe, why so many precautions? If it's so safe, why can't they get privately insured (you'd think the statistics guys at the insurance companies would be screaming at the company to insure the nuclear plants because it would be easy money, no?) If it's so safe, why aren't these sock puppets in Japan right now, standing on a pile of reactor rubble in shorts and t-shirts to demonstrate how safe it is? If it is so safe, why are the Japanese so desperate to stop the radiation release?
I love how it's always "Well, nobody could have anticipated a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami". Every time some disaster occurs, the response is, "Well, that was unusual". The problem is, something is always going to happen somewhere, so why build a giant machine that will give tens of thousands of people cancer when it does happen.
One last thing: how come I never heard, ever, not even once, not one single nuke apologist say, "Of course, we ought to try conservation, too." Funny how they never say anything about that. stefanhansen, you seem to have a lot to say, but you never get anywhere close to the word "conservation". Why is that?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041121220635.htm
http://www.llrc.org/belarusokeanov.htm
Or maybe....
"There are better ways to boil water"
Boiling water for steam with nuclear power is insane.
The nuclear energy promised to bring us heat and electricity into our homes and we thought this was good, but they also brought sickness and death and the sense of no longer having any perspective for the future.
They called it a peaceful form of nuclear energy, but now she looks at Japanese children in the area and she knows their future because she has seen it in Russia and the Ukraine.
The lives that Irina Gruschewaja has witnessed may appear to be a normal lives, but they are not not. When one looks closer, there is suffering. She has seen so many people die young, and children still being born with terrible defects.
It is a human catastrophe, because it shatters peoples lives in the most fundamental sense.
The atom industry cannot stand up to one iota of truth. Human beings are so arrogant. It is arrogant to imagine that humans are capable of harnessing nuclear energy. It is not peaceful. it is a war against the human being as a species and against nature and it runs in the human marrow of the next generations like a time bomb. What will it take to make human beings realize that this energy is not compatible with human life per se?
to be contd.
- all dangers, including all the horrific disposal and clean up factors, with costs estimated for the next 500 years.
- all the breakdowns, leaks, near misses, etc. that have occurred world-wide (that's a lot)
- the known deaths to date and details of kinds of cancer, of skin ailments, bone breakdown, birth defects, etc. etc. (endless list)
- the whole fatal financial set-up between corporations and governments, how much tax the nuclear plants pay, how much they can write off, every detail, shareholder interests (should there even be shareholders in the nuclear power industry?), what we actually pay for on top of what appears on our electricity bills. etc. etc.
The news leaks out day by day along with the certainty that many people will die of radiation poisoning in Japan. And yet again we learn that enormous criticism was raised over the years about the standards of the atom energy plants in Japan, as well as evidence of cover-ups and falsified records, and it was just ignored.
It will happen again, there can be no doubt of that. And if it hurts the Japanese, it hurts every one of us, at least morally.
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