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[somedaybitch]

here's something you don't see everyday.

· Nuclear fuel can be diverted to make nuclear weapons. This is the most serious issue associated with nuclear energy and the most difficult to address, as the example of Iran shows. But just because nuclear technology can be put to evil purposes is not an argument to ban its use.

Over the past 20 years, one of the simplest tools -- the machete -- has been used to kill more than a million people in Africa, far more than were killed in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings combined. What are car bombs made of? Diesel oil, fertilizer and cars. If we banned everything that can be used to kill people, we would never have harnessed fire.

amazing what happens when people care enough to seek out the facts and ignore the hysteria.

Comments

[eve11]

Yes! D and I were just talking about this last week when we were hiking. He works at a coal fired power plant and there's a nuclear plant right across the street. "In thirty years, our plant has literally filled up an entire valley with waste products (nothing toxic, just kind of like a cement slag). And the nuclear plant across the way in the same time? They've filled a small swimming pool." According to D, nuclear power is also *much cheaper*, ie, an order of magnitude cheaper, to produce than coal-fired.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

infinitely so. but the anti-nuclear priesthood won't hear of that kind of heresy. well if you are simultaneously bitching about how the EVIL EMPIRE US is polluting the entire universe planet, then you'd best recognize that maybe you can't cling to your irrational fears anymore if you want that pollution to stop.

[arthurfrdent.livejournal.com]

so at this very moment the tune "Pay for what you get..." by Dave Matthews is quietly playing... and after contemplating this article and a few other tidbits of knowledge, as well as some things I didn't know, something dawned on me about hard core environmentalists. They want something for nothing. I guess I never thought of it that way before, but many people conveniently forget that without energy, the world SCREECHES to a halt. It is true that there are many in the third world who probably wouldn't be immediately affected, but there are very few that actually live in a way that doesn't require at least some outside input. Even if that input is vaccines, how long would it take for typhus or something else to decimate even the marginals?

Energy isn't free. Even harnessing sunlight isn't free, even where it's cheap. Making electricity from sunlight is inherently expensive but few think about it that way. We are very much maxed out worldwide making photovoltaic panels, but that doesn't frame the whole problem. Most people think, well they'll build more factories...

Aye, mate, that's the rub. The real cost of making solar panels, is not measured ONLY in the raw materials... It TAKES electricity to make them, AND the process MAKES a lot of toxic waste... SO? the REAL price is higher than advertized. Wind? the same. Many places it's the law that you have utility backup for a wind power farm. Since nothing starts instantaneously, you have to have power on line. This set up makes a great deal of sense for one family, on the large scale, not so much...

Everything costs something. But taking that into account doesn't bring home the bacon politically for either side, leaving us in our present conundrum. The withering of nuke power worldwide, has some serious time consequence, because of lost time.

As was pointed out, ThreeMileIsland worked more or less to design. Sadly, no-one bothered to say that to the public, to explain that containment works like that. Everyone expected the contingency to never happen, and then were outraged when it did. Chernobyl on the other hand, was not expecting the contingency. Arrogant or stupid or both. What is strange and unfortunate, was the reaction to the events. Instead of figuring out how to do better, the genie was encased in concrete, and declared evil. Research slowed to a crawl and money dried up. Energy was still consumed though. Like it would always be there. While production industries wrestled with the pollution they generate, few people cared... because it is difficult to measure the change in amounts of pollution in the air. It's so incremental no one sees it. So, 20 years on and now global warming is the next boogeyman. Some say it's behind everything, some that it hasn't happened yet. The question is: can you foresee it happening and take action? It'll be years before any kind of new type of power production comes on line, but if you don't start, you will never get there. If we had continued with nuke research, we may have been steps closer to fusion. May have had pebblefed fail safe plants on line now. It WILL cost something, and that must be taken into account. All this must be taken into account, because ain't nothin free...

Thanks for pointing this out, toots...

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

As was pointed out, ThreeMileIsland worked more or less to design. Sadly, no-one bothered to say that to the public, to explain that containment works like that.

well, yeah, because it didn't suit their agenda. kinda like the war.

If we had continued with nuke research, we may have been steps closer to fusion. May have had pebblefed fail safe plants on line now. It WILL cost something, and that must be taken into account. All this must be taken into account, because ain't nothin free...

exactly. and i don't want sloppy nuke power. i *remember* Three Mile Island. i grew up with nuclear attack drills, but at the same time, sticking your head in the sand with respect to nuclear energy is just stupid. and does nothing to solve the world's reliance on oil.

Thanks for pointing this out, toots...

my pleasure.

hope your holiday was a good one.;)

[arthurfrdent.livejournal.com]

i *remember* Three Mile Island.
Yup, me too... what was worse, was that we had St. Vrain nuke, and they WERE having problems... It wasn't a spectacalacular design, and eventually they just decom'd it, and turned it to natural gas. But they DIDN'T freak out, and they learned A LOT about designs that look good on paper, but fail in implementation. With what we can do with CAD and simulations now, design will go faster. But who will invest? Who will insure the thing? I think only the foremost authority in nuke power can do it, but it will take some audacity, and in the current political climate, I just don't see it. The Fed is going to have to start this, until it is financially viable, IMHO... anyway, if'n you want to read some details on the only nuke in Colo...
Fort St. Vrain

and yes, good, if solidly unproductive holiday... oh wait... isn't that what holidays are for? :D hope yours was good too...

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

solidy unproductive. :D my idea of perfect.

miss you.