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Re: News Advisory: Still Crazy After Oil These Years!



On 18 Jul 1996, Scott Nudds wrote:

> From: Scott Nudds <af329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca>
> Newgroups: alt.energy.renewable, alt.save.the.earth,
>     alt.sustainable.agriculture, talk.environment, sci.environment,
>     sci.energy, bionet.agroforestry
> 
> : > Eric Riley <103263.3410@CompuServe.COM>
> : > > What's wrong with using nuclear energy?
> 
> David Beorn <dbeorn@freenet.vcu.edu> wrote:
> : Absolutely nothing - as a matter of fact, those who are REALLY serious
> : about cleaning up the environment WITHOUT going back to living in caves
> : should consider it because it's the ONLY truly non-polluting power.
> 
>   Yup, its totally non polluting, once you ignore the waste generated.

Well, don't go spreading it on your garden - but we have methods of
dealing with the waste that are acceptable and don't expose people to
radioactivity (you get more radiation flying in a plane than you do from
nuclear power plants).  But fossil fuels plants expose everyone to
pollution every day and while we can clean it up somewhat (at prohibitive
costs) we'll probably never get it to 100%.  Meanwhile, nuclear is not
polluting and they are also developing ways to re-refine the fuel and use
it again.  And, as I mentioned, if the containment building is large
enough, spent fuel can be store for some time until they get even better
ways to handle it. 

> David Beorn <dbeorn@freenet.vcu.edu> wrote:
> : The
> : power plant I worked at has stored ALL of the spent fuel on-site in the
> : containment building and therefore there has been NO need for waste
> : disposal of this type.
> 
>   Do you plan on keeping the spent fuel on site for a few hundred
> thousand years?

If necessary - as long as no one is exposed, who CARES how long we keep 
it???  The benefit is that we don't pollute in the meantime.  

> David Beorn <dbeorn@freenet.vcu.edu> wrote:
> : And by the way, for those of you who might point to Chernobyl or TMI,
> : these were HUMAN mistakes and TOTALLY preventable.
> 
>   All technological accidents are HUMAN mistakes.  I suppose that makes
> all accidents totally preventable.  Fine.  Please prevent all accidents.

Totally, no, obviously - but we can prevent most if not all of those 
that we watch as carefully as a nuclear plant (you have to have a 
design & requisition with 5 signature in order to breath).  

> David Beorn <dbeorn@freenet.vcu.edu> wrote:
> : In truth, there have been NO deaths in
> : the US attributable to Nuclear power since 1956 when it started.
> 
> 3 January 1961
> A reactor exploded at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho
> Falls, Idaho, killing three military technicians and releasing
> radioactivity "largely confined" (words of John A. McCone, Director,
> Atomic Energy Commission) to the reactor building. The three
> technicians were killed as they moved fuel rods in a "routine"
> preparation for the reactor start-up. One technician was blown to the

Obviously the reactor was NOT running so how the "reactor exploded" is a 
mystery to me since they were PREPARING for start-up.  What exploded???  
It doesn't say.  If the REACTOR had truly exploded, the containment 
building probably would not still exist.  

> ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a control rod. His body
> remained there until it was taken down six days later. The men were so
> heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried
> separately with other radioactive waste.

I'd be interested in finding out more about this - where did you get this 
info??  And, by the way, if this is the ONLY incident from nuclear, it is 
still a very small cost - there are coal fired boilers that really do 
explode and kill people too so that doesn't make it any more viable.  But 
we have a lot more experience than they did then and it's even safer.  

> ---
> "This administration is committed to a balanced budget, and we will
> fight to the last blow to achieve it by 1984." (Reagan, 9/15/81)

And they did - but since the democrats were in control of the House, it 
couldn't be accomplished.  

> "In the first place, I said that [a balanced budget] was our goal, not a
> promise." (Reagan, 12/17/81)

He promised to FIGHT, not balance - without a balanced budget passed by 
Congress, this is a thing the President CANNOT accomplish on his own.  

         *-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^
        *        David Beorn, david.beorn@pobox.com (internet)        *
        *        Virginia FREENET                                     *
         *-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^

~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'





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