By Stephen Lendman
July 1, 2011
In any form, nuclear power is inherently unsafe. For decades, nuclear expert Helen Caldicott warned it must be abandoned, saying:
“As a physician, I contend that nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction. If present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced.”
Anti-nuclear activist/expert Professor Karl Grossman agrees, calling “Atomic Energy: Unsafe in the Real World” in his June 29 article, saying:
“Nuclear power requires perfection and no acts of God” to avoid accidents that may become catastrophes. Humans and technology aren’t perfect. Natural and other type disasters happen. “(W)e can’t eliminate them. But we can – and must eliminate atomic energy” or it will eliminate us.
On March 18, Bloomberg said Japan’s Fukushima disaster “follows decades of falsified safety reports, fatal accidents and underestimated earthquake risks in Japan’s atomic power industry.”
The same is true in America and elsewhere – governments, regulators, and power companies suppressing vital truths, instead of shutting down inherently unsafe plants, making all of them ticking bombs.
Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island exploded. Others as bad or worse are assured, irradiating vast parts of the earth disastrously. On June 22, kinetictruth.com headlined, “US heading toward nuclear disaster,” saying:
“After a yearlong investigation, AP concluded that many of the nation’s facilities are still (operating) because the safety standards that they are held to have been repeatedly weakened as regulations (for the world’s most hazardous industry became) more and more lax.”
After reviewing tens of thousands of government and industry studies and documents since the 1970s, it concluded that the industry-run Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) falsified arguments, saying “safety margins could be eased without peril.” As a result, not only are Americans endangered, so is one-fifth of the nation’s electricity supply.
Many problems AP found could trigger a nuclear disaster, including broken seals and nozzles, rusted pipes, aging facilities past their useful life, and numerous examples of shoddy maintenance and management laxity. Nonetheless, NRC officials rubber stamp license extensions, including 66 facilities over 25 years old re-licensed for another two decades, instead of responsibly shutting them down.
Vermont Yankee is perhaps the most notorious. Licensed to begin operating in 1972, Vermont’s Senate voted 26 – 4 against re-licensing in February 2010, citing radioactive tritium leaks, falsified management statements, a 2007 cooling tower collapse, among other problems, proving the facility is a disaster waiting to happen.
Nonetheless, on March 21, 2011, the NRC extended its life for another 20 years until 2032. Moreover, Entergy, Vermont Yankee’s owner and America’s second largest nuclear generator after Exelon, sued to revoke a state law, giving it legislative authority to suspend operations when its current license expires next March.
The plant, in fact, has the same GE Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactor design as Fukushima’s Units 1 and 2. According to Citizens Action Network’s Bob Stannard:
“It’s unimaginable to think that the NRC would declare this plant safe when (it) houses 640 tons of spent fuel in an unprotected fuel pool with no containment vessel. In Japan, the plant that’s in the worst shape has only 80 tons.”
If Vermont Yankee blows, perhaps all Vermont and New England go with it, and given its deplorable state, it may if it’s 20 year extension isn’t stopped.
Mid-America Threatened
In Missouri, record floods threaten two nuclear plants – the Cooper Nuclear Station and Fort Calhoun Station, yet little about either is reported, especially on television where most people get news. In early June moreover, the FAA issued an indefinite “no-fly hazards” restriction over the facilities to conceal the worst of what’s happening.
Both plants issued low level “unusual event” alerts that may rise to catastrophic ones. On June 30, the Omaha World-Herald reported that both plants store spent fuel rods in open casks. As a result, if Missouri River flood levels rise enough, they’ll “overflow them and carry contaminated water downstream.”
Both plants “use outdoor, above-ground entombment (called dry cask storage) for its oldest fuel,” kept in welded shut steel canisters placed “inside concrete bunkers that rely on outside air flowing” to dissipate residual heat. Allegedly, bunkers and canisters can withstand flooding. They may soon get a chance to prove it.
On June 15, Rense.com contributor Tom Burnett headlined, “Ft. Calhoun Spent Fuel In Ground Pools, Flooded Already?” saying:
“Ft. Calhoun is the designated spent fuel storage facility for the entire state of Nebraska….and maybe for more than one state.” It’s stored in ground-level pools underwater but open on top. “When the Missouri River pours in there, it’s going to make Fukushima look like an x-ray. But that’s not all. There are a LOT of nuclear plants on both the Missouri and Mississippi and they can all go to hell fast” if flood waters or other natural disasters threaten them.
Ft. Calhoun’s spent and recently removed fuel are stored “OUTSIDE the reactor waiting to wash away or explode – which will destroy about 15,000 square miles of what used to be the corn belt,” besides the potential human toll.
In fact, “Calhoun may already be spewing radiation into the flooding Missouri.” However, an information blackout keeps the public uninformed, including about an NRC report effectively saying it’s unprepared “to protect the intake structure and auxiliary building against external flooding.”
Nonetheless, Omaha Public Power District CEO Gary Gates told AP:
“There is no possibility of a meltdown. The floodwaters are outside of Ft. Calhoun, not inside,” AP adding:
“Fort Calhoun is the subject of more public concern because the floodwaters have surrounded that plant and forced workers to use raised catwalks to access the facility.” Cooper Nuclear Station “is more elevated, so the floodwaters aren’t as close to the facility.” But the facility is by no means out of danger.
NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko also claims flooding endangers neither plant, words he may later eat if levels keep rising. In fact, Public Citizen’s Tyson Slocum believes conditions are dangerous, saying:
“We’re inches away from (Calhoun) nuclear plant being flooded. It’s already an island. And we still have a very real possibility of flood levels rising….There’s always the possibility of the situation escalating, especially when we don’t control all the variables. That’s what happened in Japan.”
“There’s no question that there’s significant concern about the threat that rising flood waters pose to flooding certain operations of the plant that could disable certain critical safety features, including cooling systems.”
Cooper may also be endangered, he added, saying:
“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if this were a wind farm or if this were a solar power installation. Nuclear power inherently poses enormous risks to our communities. We really have to start questioning whether (it) should be a viable part of our 21st century energy mix.”
Any sane person would call that a no-brainer.
In addition, conditions appear worse, not better, after a protective Calhoun facility water-filled berm collapsed on June 26 after being struck by some heavy equipment. As a result, “(m)ore than 2 feet (60 cm) of water rushed in around containment buildings and electrical transformers,” according to Reuters.
Most disturbing is that very likely the worst of what’s happening is suppressed. Moreover, it’s standard practice for all major industries to protect their bottom line priorities, aided by complicit regulators, government officials, and media bosses, dismissive of public safety concerns.
As a result, the official IAEA Chernobyl death count was 4,000 when, in fact, a New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) study concluded numbers approaching one million and counting. Moreover, little information explained how BP destroyed America’s Gulf and gravely harmed the health and livelihoods of millions of area residents.
In early June, the Nuclear Energy Institute, a US industry lobbying group, claimed:
“No health effects are expected among the Japanese people as a result of the events at Fukushima.” In fact, weeks after the March 11 disaster, two distinguished nuclear experts, Christopher Busby and Marion Fulk, publicly said northern Japan (one-third of the country) is uninhabitable and should be evacuated. By now perhaps most or all Japan is affected, as well as many other parts of the world, including American air, water, soil and food contaminated by hazardous radiation levels.
America’s Southwest On the Edge
In late June, the Las Conchas fire began in New Mexico’s Sante Fe National Forest, 12 miles southwest of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). It’s America’s largest nuclear weapons research center, storing huge amounts of nuclear waste, including a reported 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium, the most toxic substance known.
According to the Los Alamos Study Group (LASG), a LANL site called “Area G” houses a nuclear dump, 19 miles from Sante Fe Plaza. “It’s Growing. And It’s Ours Forever:”
— larger than the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, NM;
— permanent waste is kept “in shallow unlined pits and shafts covered with dirt;”
— enough’s there to “fill 1.4 million 55 gallon drums – plus (another 60,000 drums) of temporarily-stored waste;”
— weapons testing and production adds another 54,000 drums annually;
— “two other mesas (will also be used) for dump sites;”
— regulatory oversight is entirely absent; and
— most waste “is entirely unnecessary.”
In fact, weapons development, testing and production way exceeds Cold War levels, even after America’s 2010 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia. It was an agreement more in name than substance, given Washington’s determination to pursue nuclear superiority by replacing old weapons with new, improved, more destructive ones.
As a result, LASG said LANL weapons design and testing continue. “Production of plutonium bomb cores has begun. A second plutonium plant is planned. Many more tons of plutonium are needed for the bomb factories. Huge new facilities for weapons testing and or novel kinds of nuclear processing – which will produce even more waste – are planned.”
Everything is dangerous and secret. LASG worries most about:
— increasing US Southwest drought, creating conditions for raging fires; and
— natural or engineered “unexpected events,” causing “unthinkable” nuclear catastrophes, including one affecting LANL, surrounding areas, and potentially much of America’s Southwest because bad enough nuclear accidents are unforgiving.
Whether current Los Alamos fires qualify isn’t known. On June 28, AP said midday flames were “as close as 50 feet from the grounds.” LANL safety assurances aren’t reliable, nor is information about potential widespread contamination if containment doesn’t work.
In Los Alamos, Senator Tom Udall (D. NM) said, “We are throwing absolutely everything at this that we’ve got.” As a precautionary measure, the city’s entire 11,000 population was evacuated.
According to Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety executive director Joni Arends:
“The concern is that (drums of plutonium) will get so hot that they’ll burst. That would put this toxic material into the plume. It’s a concern for everybody.”
She also worries that fire may affect LANL nuclear-contaminated soil. With a staff of about 15,000, the facility is huge, including 2,000 buildings, covering over 36 square miles on nearly four dozen sites.
It’s been around since WW II as part of the Manhattan Project. Thereafter, it evolved into a major scientific and nuclear research facility, developing, testing and producing state-of-the art weapons, as well as multidisciplinary work in various fields, including national security, space, renewable energy, medicine, nanotechnology, and supercomputing.
About one-third of its technical staff are physicists, one-fourth engineers, one-sixth chemists and materials scientists, and the others involved in mathematics, computational science, biology, geoscience, and other disciplines. Along with Alameda County, CA’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, it’s one of two Department of Energy facilities designing nuclear weapons and related activities.
Because of fire, lab facilities were shut for days. Moreover, 30 or more of its structures were destroyed, yet LANL claims its buildings were constructed to meet strict nuclear safety standards. In Japan, Tokyo Electric (TEPCO), regulators and government officials gave similar nuclear safety assurances, even after disaster struck, and still suppress vital information millions of Japanese citizens need to know. America’s NRC does it notoriously.
Why expect LANL to operate otherwise, especially given its sensitive work and large amounts of stored nuclear waste, including plutonium, perhaps vulnerable to ignite and spread over a wide area disastrously, despite officials calling the exposure risk small. Maybe they’re right, maybe not but won’t say. On June 30, Los Alamos County Fire Chief Douglas Tucker said the fire could double or triple in size before it’s checked, adding, “We have fire all around the lab. It’s a road away.”
On June 29, the Sante Fe Reporter said nearly 93,000 acres were consumed. Its feature story headlined, “Flash Point: The West is burning. Is global ‘weirding’ to blame? saying:
Another 60,748 acres are ablaze, threatening LANL. It’s not one big fire. Since last July, nearly 1,000 ignited around the state, most in the past few months because of tinderbox dry conditions. They’re also across the West from Texas to California, as well as north to Colorado and Utah. In nearly a year, over 711,000 New Mexico aces were lost.
In a separate report, writer Chip Ward said Arizona and Texas are burning besides New Mexico and other states. However, residents close to Los Alamos live in fear, worried that smoke plumes might contain deadly radiation, especially plutonium if it ignites. Unless prevented, “the West is ours to lose,” and perhaps a whole lot more.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10am US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
The Hunger Site
July 9, 2011 at 12:25 am
I didn’t miss a damned thing.
You weren’t trying to make any damned point, you were were simply being a juvenile negative contrarian 1) for the sake of puffing up your own ego, and 2) toward disparaging any real solutions to the climate crisis with your Fox news, fossil fuel industry style, bogus pronouncements about renewables, that bear no relation to reality.
And distributed generation would benefit from, but doesn’t require, smart grids at all.
We, would benefit from you taking your blog troll routine somewhere else.
July 8, 2011 at 7:43 pm
I guess you missed the point I was trying to make. All energy creation has impact on the environment. Some more severe than others, but they all have an impact. Distributed power holds great promise, but it isn’t perfect, either, and depends on the development of a smart grid (which will require the not-so-popular smart meters that PG&E is trying to roll out). I am not advocating more nuclear plants, but technologies evolve and improve, and all technologies must be on the table to meet the ever growing demand for electrons, whatever the source. Hundreds of millions of people in the US demand this power, including you and I.
July 8, 2011 at 12:54 pm
@ ‘Richmondman’
First, you are purposely asking your question in a fundamentally deceptive way, and what you have claimed is, across the board, not true.
The Audubon Society is not fighting wind power, it is fighting wind power which is -deployed- in a way that harms endangered species and large numbers of birds and bats. New wind turbines have been developed, and are being sited, in a manner that will avoid these problems. So your claim about wind power, is false.
Ocean preservationists are not fighting wave power development, they are fighting wave power which is -deployed- in a way that will harm endangered species and marine wildlife. As with wind power, wave power can be developed in a way that will avoid these impacts, and environmentalists (including myself) will block any wave power deployment which causes serious harm to ocean ecosystems. So your claim about wave power is, guess what, false.
Desert preservationists (of which I am one because I grew up in the desert) are not fighting solar power development, we are only fighting large industrial solar arrays placed in sensitive desert ecosystems and other sensitive wildlife habitats. There are -massive- opportunities to place solar panels on nearly every roof in every urban area. There is absolutely no need whatsoever to place large industrial solar arrays in sensitive habitats. So, guess what, your claim about solar power, is false.
Gassification technologies are not a solution to global warming at all, because burning of any waste materials, or gasses processed from them, releases more carbon into the atmosphere when we should not be releasing -any- further carbon into the atmosphere. So, your claim about gassification is totally irrelevant to solving the climate crisis, or any other environmental problem, and is therefore a deceptive red herring.
Nuclear, oil, and other fossil fuels all massively increase both greenhouse gasses and toxic environmental pollutants, so there is, of course, no point in even considering them in the first place.
The alternatives are all around us, and are based on a strategy called ‘local distributed generation’, which simply means deploying a large number of diverse small renewable energy generation units like rooftop solar, small windmills, and retrofits on existing small fuel generators to use their waste heat to generate more electricity. This strategy will also be integrated -closely- with broad scale efficiency retrofits to all buildings, as well as big shifts in municipalities to electric mass transit, electric car shares, vastly increased bicycling, walkable communities, local food networks, and other such strategies to radically lower energy use.
So it looks like, ‘Richmondman’, on every point, your claims are either wrong, or totally irrelevant, and also purposely ignore the vast and obvious array of powerful strategies I just laid out in my previous paragraph.
If you are having trouble grasping all of this, read the ebook that I indicated before at:
http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree/
July 8, 2011 at 8:27 am
The Audubon society is fighting new wind power programs, ocean preservationists are fighting wave-power development, desert preservationists are fighting solar power development. Nuclear is unsafe, oil is causing global warming. New gasification technologies could convert garbage to energy, but it would mean the end of recycling. Got any alternatives, Eric?
July 7, 2011 at 3:06 pm
You want a magnum opus of expert analysis of nuclear? See below..
Carbon Free & Nuclear Free (also above):
http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree/
Here are four other crucial sources:
Fairwinds Associates (run by nuclear power engineer Arnold Gunderson)
http://www.fairewinds.com/
Nuclear Free Planet (run by physician Helen Caldicott, a leader of the anti-nuclear movement and expert on health impacts of nuclear materials)
http://www.nuclearfreeplanet.org/
Nuclear Information and Resource Service:
http://www.nirs.org/
‘Nuclear energy: assessing the emissions’ (from Nature: Climate Change magazine – note that this article is overly conservative and understates emissions from nuclear, but it proves the core point. Actual nuke plant lifecycle emissions are between one third to one half those of a natural gas plant of the same capacity.)
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.99.html
There is plenty more. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
July 7, 2011 at 11:47 am
Eric, bloody, but unbowed I retreat to my lair to await the arrival of your definitive magnum opus on nuclear power filled no doubt with citations to experts you find more credible that Ms. Craven’s experts.
July 6, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Excuse me Ralph, but you need to get your facts straight.
They are -way- off.
First, nuclear energy is -far- more expensive than wind, solar, and other renewables. The only reason nuclear is even remotely affordable at all is that the U.S. government agrees to subsidize accident liability for any given plant that exceeds 11 billion dollars, thereby drastically cutting the plant operator’s risk and insurance liabilities. And even -with- that absolutely unacceptable subsidy of a huge taxpayer bailout in case of a major accident, it -still- costs far more to build and operate a nuke plant over its lifetime than it does to install and use wind and solar over -their- lifetimes, especially when we include nuclear waste disposal and plant decommissioning costs in the nuke plant equation.
Secondly, your claim of “extremely low availability factors” for solar and wind is simply false. Solar and wind are made available when States and municipalities seek to acquire and build them. Germany is undergoing a solar boom market right now. Wind production is becoming so robust that it will soon be competitive with coal. It would take far less time to gear up production for solar and wind than it would to gear up the construction of even -one- nuclear plant which would take at least a decade (and likely much longer); another reality that makes nuclear totally -meaningless- to addressing the climate crisis. Massive clean energy and mass transit infrastructure must be built within -this- decade to begin facing the climate crisis. Not the next one.
And I didn’t just -disparage- you Cravens, and Anderson, I showed with clear logical arguments and a web site of Cravens herself giving her spiel, that your sources are simply not credible. In Cravens’ case, she is not only not credible, her arguments are flat out nutty. How you can, with a straight face, after listening to that interview, argue that she has any credibility whatsoever, simply defies imagination.
Let’s now analyze another totally false claim that you just made, specifically:
“If the U.S. moves away from nuclear power like Germany, I fear the U.S. will turn to fossil fuels.”
Total nonsense. Germany is canceling its nuclear program because it has engaged enough in renewables already that it is confident it can make a clean energy shift.
Furthermore, there is strong study work showing that we can easily, and far more rapidly, go carbon free with no reliance on nuclear at all. You can read the chapter and verse on this in a free online book titled “Carbon Free & Nuclear Free” at: http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree/
Finally, in your response to me, you did nothing but repeat tired and very standard nuclear industry propaganda (outright falsehoods) and you did not in fact address in any way, the strong core criticism that I raised of nuclear, which is the fundamental reality that it is -not- carbon free at -all- and so is simply not a climate solution. Period.
I challenge you to somehow prove that this crucial point is inaccurate. Right now.
You won’t be able to. Because it isn’t.
July 6, 2011 at 6:43 am
Time to move on. Eric, you certainly have an attack mode of writing. You have disparaged me, Ms. Cravens, and Mr. Anderson. I would guess that any commentator questioning that nuclear power is inherently dangerous would be subject to similar attacks. So much for a rational debate on a serious subject.
Today about 20 percent of our energy is produced from nuclear power and about 11 percent from renewable energy (31 percent in California). In the wake of the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster, hopefully our nuclear plants will be subject to rigorous inspections and new nuclear plants will be put on hold.
Unfortunately, the U.S. does not have a coherent energy policy. Or rather by default, it is based primarily on fossil fuels. If the U.S. moves away from nuclear power like Germany, I fear the U.S. will turn to fossil fuels.
Renewable energy should be the future, However, the key renewable sources (wind, solar) have at least two negatives – high installed costs and extremely low availability factors. The end result is that a carbon-priced world as proposed in Congress over the past year would likely cost us at least $2 trillion more than the DOE’s current base case would require for 2035.
I am afraid the future of energy production in this country will be to drill, drill, drill.
July 4, 2011 at 11:50 am
Ralph, when a person is making health and safety claims about the nuclear industry (which generates the most dangerous substances known to human kind) there must be a -very- high bar of assessment for that person’s credibility.
The problem here is that you are relying on a -reporter- as your -primary- source for nuclear power health claims, when you should be getting such information from -doctors- and health professionals. You have engaged in a totally specious process to reach your conclusions.
And this problem is magnified to the extreme when we actually take a close look at Gwyneth Cravens. This woman does not pass the laugh test by any stretch of the imagination. She wrote her book in close consultation with Rip Anderson, a chemist who -works- for the nuclear power industry at Sandia National Laboratories.
She and Anderson have spent the last couple of years going around on a paid speaking tour to promote both the book and nuclear power. They make their -living- promoting nuclear power.
Worse still, when I actually wasted a valuable couple of hours of my life last night examining Craven’s work, I discovered that It is a total joke. She does nothing but regurgitate the same tired bogus arguments that the nuclear industry has -always- used to promote nuclear power; such as the deceptive claim that the nuclear waste produced by a family of four in France in their lifetime would fit into an espresso cup. Totally irrelevant hogwash. Cravens’ whole gig amounts to nothing but spouting a bunch of similar idiotic but very catchy one liners to fool people into thinking that nuclear power is harmless.
Toward the end of a radio interview that she did in 2008, when she was asked to address nuclear industry insurance issues, she actually made the outrageous claim that a major nuclear accident in the United States was -impossible- by the -laws of physics-…
Anyone who doubts how totally off base Cravens is in her bullshit claims about nuclear power should simply listen to that interview (30 mins) at:
http://srnnews.townhall.com/talkradio/show.aspx?RadioShowId=3&ContentGuid=68df9ead-d3cd-4abe-88ac-10d247425afd
It is this type of simple research that -you- should have done Ralph before you started evangelizing in articles and blog posts about nuclear power.
You, Ralph, as a journalist, have -totally- failed to do your job by properly and objectively researching a subject before you report on it; -especially- important when reporting on a subject that could -kill- people. You need to do real research on this issue, and once you get the facts, publish retractions of what you have written, in order to help prevent the public from being misled, and potentially seriously harmed by it.
July 4, 2011 at 7:34 am
Putting aside the nuclear power debate for awhile, I was surprised by your comment that author Gwyneth Cravens is only a journalist and therefore, her views shouldn’t be taken seriously. I understand from the comment section that you are a writer/journalist too. Because you are not a scientist or a doctor, I take it that your views then should be taken with a grain of salt. Craven was initially a skeptic about nuclear power. She spent a decade immersing herself in the subject. She teamed up with a leading expert in risk assessment and nuclear safety who is also a committed environmentalist to trace the path of uranium from start to finish. She visited mines as well as experimental reactor laboratories, power plants, and waste sites. She interviewed scientists from many disciplines, public health and counterterrorism experts, and researchers. You may not agree with her conclusions that nuclear power is or can be a safe energy source and an essential deterrent to global warming, but to cavalierly dismiss her as merely a journalist seems strange coming from a journalist.
July 4, 2011 at 5:57 am
This last post is supposed to provide credibility to the anti-nuclear arguments, or to argue for reduced salaries for school teachers? – self-delusion – yes, that is the correct word.
July 3, 2011 at 11:57 pm
@ H – As I noted to you at Daly’s, I purposely chose not to finish high school because I knew that I would get a far better education if I became self directed.
This is by far the best decision that I ever made in my life, and is the reason I became so well educated (because I wasn’t held back by linear, blindered thinking).
And once I became a fully independent thinker there was no turning back. I got myself admitted to college anyway without even a GED, but once inside of the college system, realized that there was little point in my being there.
So I am in fact a very well rounded, and very well educated anarchist learner, and take no offense at all to your dig.
Just to keep this on topic.. It is also because I pursue knowledge in a such a non-linear and multidisciplinary way that I am far more aware of the full spectrum of reality around nuclear materials and nuclear power.
Whereas the typical narrowly educated nuclear scientist or engineer simply doesn’t have the slightest clue about the health dynamics of nuclear materials.
Which is rather strange when one considers that a standard nuclear sciences education must certainly begin with the revelation that Marie Curie died prematurely because she used to carry the stuff around in her pockets.
Self-delusion is a powerful thing…
July 3, 2011 at 10:54 pm
My apologies to Eric and Luke,
I tried to cut out the personal attack from my post at 3:27pm but was too late. I’m sorry, Eric. You’re at least as smart as me and I didn’t finish college until my 6th wife made do it in my late 40’s.
Needless to say, I agree with Eric’s characterization as to the dangers of nuclear power.
Awakened for the 3rd time in 2 weeks to the sound of gunfire under my window at 10:15pm. Cop cars surrounding the BART/Muni entry at Civic Center. I use their presence to walk safely across the street to the liquor store for cigars, some bourbon and a liter of coca cola. Young gang bangers are watching the cops from across the street (7th and Market) and high-fiving one another. I remember to get a cigarette lighter too and settle in to check the ‘trout lines’ I’ve left out on other sites. The explosions of the 4th of July 2011 have already begun.
Giants lost but still in first place.
Adachi for Mayor!
h.
July 3, 2011 at 3:31 pm
On The ‘Two Sides’ Characterization
I’ll defer to your wishes on civility Luke, but I must at the same time take strong issue with the contention that there are two legitimate ‘sides’ in the nuclear safety ‘debate’.
This is precisely like the Israel/Palestine ‘debate’, or global warming ‘controversy’.
What we have is:
– One side made up of thousands of knowledgeable people working ourselves to the -bone- to get people to realize some incredibly dire global realities.
and
– Another ‘side’ made up of a global elites and corporations paying -big- money to trot a small cadre of ‘experts’ in front of the public to fool people into believing that their cynical and destructive private interest is actually some sort of legitimate ‘side’ in a ‘debate’.
It is very dangerous to reinforce that illusion.
And we shouldn’t here.
July 3, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Luke,
I have always refrained from personal attacks on your site. Clearly the same rules don’t apply for likes of Eric. You allow him to attack your most reasoned commentators and I’m just defending them.
h.
July 3, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Luke,
I have always refrained from personal attacks on your site. Clearly the same rules don’t apply for likes of Eric. You allow him to attack your most reasoned commentators and I’m just defending them.
Use your spare time to go back to high school and get your GED, Eric. I’ll be glad to write a reference for you if you decide to reach really high and apply to a junior college.
h.
July 3, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Foggers, this is a debate worthy of intelligent discussion and a lot can be learned from both sides of this important subject.
In that spirit, I ask that you refrain from personal attacks.
Thanks!!
July 3, 2011 at 1:40 pm
@ H – Give me a break.. ‘Pot calling the kettle black’ doesn’t even begin to describe the irony of your dictatorial pronouncement, which thankfully, as you are neither my boss, nor my king, I will see my way clear to ignoring. Instead I will use my own judgement about how much anger I express on such an important issue as the denial that nuclear power is harmful.
The day that you, of all people, can credibly critique others for flaming others on blogs is the day that pigs fly.
July 3, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Dispensing with Gwyneth Cravens…
I did a quick search on Gwyneth Cravens. (As expected, not a scientist or doctor, but a journalist and novelist.) And I almost immediately discovered a blog post in which she praises a ‘news’ report by right wing whack job ‘reporter’ John Stossel.
To watch this nut-ball video report (5 mins) in which Stossel claims that radiation is not only almost completely harmless, but is even, good, for human health go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2ZTt8O__zk&feature=player_embedded
Here’s what Gwyneth Cravens had to say about Stossel’s report:
“Thanks for posting the Stoessel video, Rod. Had not seen it. Am impressed that it ran on 20/20, which has done some nuclear fear-mongering over the years.”
Note: John Stossel has also created loads of ground breaking television news attacking global warming science. You can see a bizarro Stossel climate change denial report at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vpuslrB_cY&feature=related
That Gwyneth Cravens sees John Stossel as a credible authority on -anything- (let alone nuclear power) is laughable.
I think this dispenses with Cravens as a credible source on nuclear power…
July 3, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Eric,
Please take your threats back to the Bay Guardian where they’re acceptable. I have an ugly side too (no, really, I do) but we don’t crap in the middle of the living room here. In fact, I personally come here to get away from you and Kamin and Evans.
Lighten up or do like Elvis and leave the room.
h.
July 3, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Ralph. I am curious as to the relevance of you citing one author’s opinions vs the findings of thousands of other authors, scientists, doctors and engineers in regard to the massive devastating health and environmental impacts of nuclear.
I am also curious as to how Ms Cravens addresses the fact which I just raised, that nuclear power generates massive greenhouse gas emissions.
What does Gwyneth Cravens have to say on these profoundly inescapable realities?
Does she somehow challenge them? If so, how?
The weight of evidence against nuclear on every front is immense, and trying to claim that nuclear is a good thing, is about as sensible as global warming denial.
But by all means, please elucidate for us how Gwyneth Cravens somehow single-handedly turns reality on its head, and changes the fundamental laws of physics.
July 3, 2011 at 6:52 am
Eric, I am curious as to whether you have read “Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy” by Gwyneth Cravens or any of her articles.
July 2, 2011 at 10:12 pm
I’m sorry, but we simply must face the grim reality that the planet is in such deep trouble right now, that being too polite and respectful to each other, could mean a mass global extinction and the total collapse of human civilization.
Look at Washington DC, the quintessential example.
Washington’s polite and respectful, compromise-before-confrontation approach, is putting the Earth at grave immediate risk.
There is no getting around this.
We -must- start confronting each other on dangerous nonsense, or it will be our end…
July 2, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Your points are well taken, Eric, but let’s keep the discussion polite and respectful, please.
Fukushima and Chernobyl are real world examples of Murphy’s Law: What can go wrong will go wrong. We should also keep in mind that It takes tens of thousand of years for nuclear material to fully decay, all the while posing serious, irreversible risks to the environment and all living things.
July 2, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Ralph, I once had respect for you, before you started writing all of this completely nonsensical crap about nuclear power.
As an environmental activist I have been closely following this issue my entire adult life, for -decades-, and I can confidently say that you, Ralph, do not have the slightest goddamned clue what you are talking about.
I’m not going to debate you extensively on all of the bullshit you just wrote so cavalierly, because it would take too long, and with the entire planet literally collapsing around our ears, I don’t have the time to waste debating an utterly naive fool like you on the details of why nuclear power is so incredibly dangerous; and why its has in fact been responsible for at least -thousands- of deaths in the United States, and likely at -least- an order of magnitude more.
But I can boil this issue down to two simple facts.
1) It only takes -one- accident like Chernobyl or Fukushima to cause serious illness and painful premature death in hundreds of thousands of people. And that is what is now happening because of Fukushima. The relative low frequency of accidents that you crow about is meaningless. What fucking difference does it make how rare such events are, if it only takes one in a -generation- to make millions of people sick? And the -reason- these rare accidents will make millions of people sick is that INTERNAL exposure to radioactive pollution is COMPLETELY different to external exposure (such as that received during airline flights) to which it is constantly and totally -erroneously- compared. Internal exposure to even -one- particle of a radioactive substance is deadly serious business, and is an UNACCEPTABLE health risk. This is because even one decaying particle in the body sits there kicking out radiation -directly- into nearby cells over and over again, in many cases for the rest of a victim’s life. And that situation is -very- likely to cause cancer and other illnesses.
And here’s the most important point.
2) EVEN if nuclear power were COMPLETELY harmless it is not a solution to the climate crisis. This is because, contrary to the nonsensical propaganda that you just repeated, nuclear power is NOT carbon neutral AT ALL. Processing of uranium ore requires the burning of fossil fuels. In fact, it is so fossil fuel intensive that currently a nuclear power plant produces roughly one third of the greenhouse gas emissions as does a comparable sized natural gas plant.
Even worse – Uranium ore is currently depleting just like other mined fuels such as oil, gas, and coal. Every year the purity of uranium ore goes down. And this means that every year uranium ore requires -more- fossil fuel to process. This problem is so fundamental to the energy-to-greenhouse-gas ratio, that if we were to try to get a significant enough global electricity supply from nuclear to have any sizable impact on the climate crisis, the vastly larger amount of ore extraction required would so quickly degrade the ore in uranium content that within about a decade, the amount of fossil fuel emissions coming from that ore processing would mean that each nuclear plant in its lifetime, would produce the -same- amount of greenhouse gas emissions as a natural gas power plant in -its- lifetime.
Therefore, nuclear WILL NOT SOLVE the climate crisis, AT ALL. It is a total non starter.
This is especially true when we face the fact that we now have to -reverse- (not simply level) emissions VERY rapidly in order to avoid drastic climate tipping points like complete polar ice melt and huge methane releases from melting permafrost. We will simply not achieve this if we do not start bring emissions -down- as quickly as possible. This means cutting our greenhouse gas emissions to zero within two decades AND deploying very aggressive and widespread permaculture farming and habitat restoration in a way that huge amounts of CO2 are rapidly pulled back down into the soil at rates far higher than those at which nature consumes CO2 on its own.
The task that I have described is ALREADY nearly impossible in the time we have left.
And this means that any fuel source which increases greenhouse gasses in -any- significant way is an impossibility for solving the problem.
Conclusion? Even if nuclear is as safe as mother’s milk, it is NOT a solution.
And Ralph, if you think I am being impolite and rageful in this post to you, let me tell you.
This was the NICE version.
I am sick up to the bridge of my nose with people like you pedaling this absolutely ridiculous and dangerous nuclear nonsense, and I for one am not going to fucking tolerate it any more.
July 1, 2011 at 12:17 pm
You make a strong argument that the regulatory agency oversight of nuclear power plants in the U.S. (and in Japan) was lacking. But in my opinion, you do not make the case that nuclear power is “inherently” dangerous. Helen Caldicott “contend(s) and Professor Karl Grossman agrees, but really they are engaging in speculation with no hard facts or at least not mentioned in your article. Opponents of nuclear power, like Caldicott and Grossman, use a worst-case analysis to scare people by focusing on the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. By only showing the worst-case consequences, people will tend to believe that this is the norm, while ignoring the fact that worldwide, over twelve thousand cumulative reactor-years have passed safely. Instead of using a worst-case analysis, we should instead ask what is the probability — and therefore the risk — of the event. This is called in scientific terms “probabilistic risk assessment” (PRA). (For a full explanation of PRA, see Using PRA, the probability/risk of a nuclear disaster like Japan’s or Three Mile Island, or Chernobyl is very low. To my knowledge, no U.S. commercial reactor has ever caused a single death and worldwide nuclear power has the lowest accident rate based on the amount of energy generated by any source. In terms of the environment, nuclear power emits about the same carbon-equivalent per kwh as that of wind power, and less than solar.
However, I do applaud your article as the U.S. needs a rational discussion about the future of nuclear power.