Obama's Nuclear Plant Pre-Bailout: His Dumbest Move Yet?
You’d think, by 2010, with some 50 years of bad experience, that the question of nuclear power’s suitability would have been settled long ago. You’d think that anyone with a lick of sense would have figured out that nuclear power brings with it enormous risks to…
Yet President Barack Obama announced $8.33 billion in loan guarantees to build two new nuclear power plants in Georgia, and projects another $36 billion in the 2011 budget, or enough for seven to 10 reactors.
Nuclear power is something I know something about. I did a major research project on it in college, and several years later, wrote first a monthly column, and then my first book on it. Yes, the new plants would be a new and better design—but not better enough!
You cannot convince me that the waste products can be safely isolated from the environment for a quarter of a million years (think—pretty much the oldest human artifacts in existence are only 1/10 as old)…that centralizing so much energy, and the powerful, highly toxic fuels that power these plants, does not present unacceptable risk at the hands of our enemies, who could create a disaster that made 9/11 look like a fender bender…that driving these toxic stews around the country doesn’t present grave risks just from normal everyday road behavior…that these plants with their terrible reliability record, frequent outages, gross safety violations, and multiple complexities of power generation, plumbing, electricity, and computer systems can be expected to solve our energy problem…that the nuclear power system as a whole, with its dirty mining and milling, its very imperfect waste processing, its reliance on transportation of dangerous substances over very long distances is going to significantly lower either our carbon footprint, our emissions, or our power needs.
Nuclear power is not necessary. It is not sensible. It opens great risks for small returns that can be much more easily achieved in other ways. It is a gift to the terrorists, a robbery from the taxpayers, a diversion of resources away from better and far more proven technologies that could meet all of our energy needs safely, and a serious threat to the well-being of future generations.
This “plan” must be stopped.
Shel-
You might start with:
https://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348/
Well, I must say this article makes it sound like a very promising alternative. Certainly it looks significantly superior to the uranium reactors of the past. I would still have a lot of questions and would want people who know more than me to take a very close and careful look, but clearly it needs that close look. I’m not seeing any obvious red flags, other than the terrorism issue. Still, before jumping to this unproven technology, I’d hope we as a society would look at this kind of creative alternative, based in vastly increasing energy efficiency: https://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/amorylovins.shtml
Shel-
You might start with:
https://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348/
Well, I must say this article makes it sound like a very promising alternative. Certainly it looks significantly superior to the uranium reactors of the past. I would still have a lot of questions and would want people who know more than me to take a very close and careful look, but clearly it needs that close look. I’m not seeing any obvious red flags, other than the terrorism issue. Still, before jumping to this unproven technology, I’d hope we as a society would look at this kind of creative alternative, based in vastly increasing energy efficiency: https://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/amorylovins.shtml
Shel-
This is substantially a portion of an email response to you earlier:
Assuming for the moment that there are solutions, I am not convinced that solar, wind, and geothermal will overcome the economic (and other) problems in time to stop the stupid Obama initiative to green-light nuclear power plant construction, which will be using the uranium-based reactor designs that have the big money invested up front. The head turkey seems to follow the path of least resistance, the path to the November chopping block strewn with the most corn. We are likely to be stuck with a monumental obsolescence that our grandchildren will be paying for, if it doesn’t harm us in other ways. Thorium-based reactors are already operating in India and China, are far safer and pose a small fraction of the problematical waste issues associated with uranium based designs. Yet no US politician and few public figures talk about this promising option. Why not?
Not familiar with thorium technology. David, can you say more?
Shel-
This is substantially a portion of an email response to you earlier:
Assuming for the moment that there are solutions, I am not convinced that solar, wind, and geothermal will overcome the economic (and other) problems in time to stop the stupid Obama initiative to green-light nuclear power plant construction, which will be using the uranium-based reactor designs that have the big money invested up front. The head turkey seems to follow the path of least resistance, the path to the November chopping block strewn with the most corn. We are likely to be stuck with a monumental obsolescence that our grandchildren will be paying for, if it doesn’t harm us in other ways. Thorium-based reactors are already operating in India and China, are far safer and pose a small fraction of the problematical waste issues associated with uranium based designs. Yet no US politician and few public figures talk about this promising option. Why not?
Not familiar with thorium technology. David, can you say more?