On Mar 1, 12:46*pm, " wrote:
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* Published on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Now that we see where you get your news from and consider credible as
a source, it explains a lot.
Why Must Nuke-Power Lemmings Again Flock to the Radioactive Sea?
by Harvey Wasserman
It's baaaaaack. The fifty-year multi-trillion dollar failure of atomic
energy has resumed its lemming-like march to madness.
Why?
Isn't the definition of insanity the belief that if you do the same
thing again and again you'll somehow get a different result?
The first commercial reactor opened in Shippingport, Pennsylvania in
1957. America was promised electricity "too cheap to meter."
That was a lie.
OK, let's take a look at this claim, now that we know where you got
it. A quick google search turns up that the claim this alleged
"promise" is based on one line from a speech made to a group of
scientific writers by the head of the Atomic Energy Commission in
1954, as reported by the NY Times. This link will put it all into
perspective for you.
http://www.cns-snc.ca/media/toocheap/toocheap.html
In the speech he gave, he said:
"Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to
meter," he declared. ... "It is not too much to expect that our
children will know of great periodic regional famines in the world
only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and
under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great
speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as
disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age."
If you take that in context, it's far from clear that he was even
speaking specifically about nuclear power, unless you believe he also
meant nuclear power was going to extend human lifespan, end famine and
make air travel effortless.
Take a look at all the other contemporary speeches made in that time-
frame, that made it clear that no one seriously thought nuclear power
was anywhere close to being free.
But this does show how loons seek to take ANYTHING out of context and
blow it all out of proportion to reality to support their cause.
America was promised there'd soon be consensus on a safe way to
dispose of high-level radioactive waste.
That was a lie.
America was promised private insurance companies would soon indemnify
reactor owners--and the public--against the consequences of a
catastrophic meltdown.
That was a lie.
America was promised these reactors were "inherently safe."
Then America was told no fuel had melted at Three Mile Island.
Lie and lie.
Then they said nobody was killed at Three Mile Island
Another lie.
What is actually the lie is that someone was killed. Maybe H here
can explain exactly who it was.
They said it took six years for acid to eat through to a fraction of
an inch of the steel protecting the Great Lakes from a Chernobyl at
Davis-Besse, Ohio. That's a lie too.
Now they say they say nukes are economically self-sustaining.
Only because they are, as has been proven for 40 years around the
world.
But de-regulation stuck the public with the capital costs, and hid the
true amortization for the long-term expenses of rad waste disposal,
plant decommissioning, on-going health impacts and likely melt-downs
by terror and error.
And now through the socialist rant against "de-regulation" into the
mix too. As if anyone can build a nuke today that is not highly
regulated? Good grief.
Now they say nukes can fight global warming. But they ignore huge
radon emissions from uranium mill tailings,
The loons actually think radon causes global warming?
huge CO2 emissions from
fuel enrichment, and huge direct heat that results from nuke fission
itself,
Here's a clue. Whether we generate large volumes of electric power
from oil, natural gas, coal or farts, the process involves the same
generation of heat. Why don't the loons tell us the right way to do
it? Could it be that's it's easier to just rail against everything,
without being in favor of any solution?
not to mention the long-term energy costs of decommissioning
and waste handling.
The industry will pay for it.
All reactors are pre-deployed weapons of mass radioactive destruction
for any willing terrorist. Had the jets that hit the World Trade
Center on 9/11/2001 hit nukes instead, the death toll and the
(uninsured) economic losses would be beyond calculation.
No because the concrete and steel containment buildings were designed
to withstand the impact of a jet liner and jet fuel burning outside a
plant isn't going to get through many feet of concrete.
It could be happening as you read this.
They say a new generation of nukes will be "inherently safe," which is
exactly what they said about the last one. Limited construction
experience with this "new generation" already shows massive cost
overruns. There is no reason to believe these will be any safer,
cheaper, cleaner or more reliable than the last sorry batch.
You mean the sorry batch that have been operating here for the last 40
years, with no fatalities or serious injury to anyone from the
nuclear power?
They say more reactors won't be a proliferation problem. But they want
war on Iran which wants the Peaceful Atom to give it nuke weapons like
those in India and Pakistan.
The countries most interested in proliferating or acquiring nuclear
weapons don't give a damn whether we have more reactors here or not.
They are gonna do what they want anyway.
They say the green alternatives won't work, but wind power is the
cheapest form of new generation now being built. The Solartopian array
of wind, solar, bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal and increased
conservation and efficiency are attracting billions in investments all
over the world. The immensely profitable green energy industry is
growing at rates of 25-35%.
Yeah, it's profitable because it's heavily subsidized by the govt.
Here in the people republic of NJ, if you want a solar electric system
for your house, it's about $50K. But the state will pick up about
$30K of that with a tax paid by everyone who uses electricity, rich
and poor a like. Sounds like a flat tax that the libs hate. But it
helps the greenies feel good about having an electric system that only
cost $20K. And it will pay for the $20L portion of it over the next
10 years or so, assuming it lasts that long. The other $30K, well
that's another story.
Meanwhile, "there isn't enough money in the federal till to change
Wall Street's calculation of the financial risks" for new nukes, says
Philip Clapp of the National Environmental Trust.
It is impossible to embrace both nuclear power and a free market
economy.
Yep, cause the loons don't know squat about or like either one. If
you had a streamlined and reasonable licensing program, the free
market would be building nukes right and left.
Nuke power cannot exist without massive government subsidies,
government insurance, government promises to deal with radioactive
waste, government security, government blind eyes to basic safety and
environmental standards.
Same could be said about social security and Amtrak.
A terrorist reactor attack would mean the end of our political rights
and the beginning of martial law, killing all the basic freedoms which
have defined the best of this country.
And even more lunacy.
America is again being told this can't happen here. It is another lie.
Yet Clinton, Obama, Pelosi, McCain, Lieberman and other mainstreamers
flock to the nuke madhouse. Al Gore says new nukes must prove
themselves economically (they can't) but that there'll be a "small
part" for reactors in the future, and that the waste problem will be
solved.
There's a move to reverse California's ban on nuke construction
pending a solution to the waste problem. (California has four active
reactors near major earthquake faults).
Environmental Defense doesn't think "any options should be taken off
the table."
But in 1952 a Blue Ribbon Commission told Harry Truman the future of
America was with solar power.
Then Dwight Eisenhower embraced the "Peaceful Atom", sinking America
in the most expensive technological failure in human history.
In 1974 Richard Nixon responded to the Arab Oil Embargo by promising a
thousand US reactors by the year 2000. The No Nukes movement and
soaring oil prices kicked in, and the industry tanked.
So Jimmy Carter started us up the road to Solartopia ... until Ronald
Reagan ripped the solar panels off the White House roof and forced us
into Death Valley.
Now Gore has sold the world on the dangers of global warming. But will
it just be another excuse to throw more good money at more bad
reactors?
Clearly, there will be no easy end to this madness. But atomic
energy's bio-economic clock has clearly run out.
Basic sanity, ecological truth and the smart green money are all on
our side.
Our challenge is to put them in charge before more Three Mile Islands
or Chernobyls--or a nuclear 9/11--irradiate the asylum.
And then it ends where it began, with a lot of political rant that
makes no sense.