Nuclear is Our Future

Nuclear is Our Future Monthly Newsletter

October 2006 Issue

Go Nuclear Infant Creeper

In This Issue:

1. Introduction
2. October 2006 Archive

1. Introduction

Welcome to our newsletter! Contained here is the October 2006 Nuclear is Our Future weblog archive. Given that it is in plain text format, the HTML has been removed and thus many posts do not look the same as when they were posted. If you want more information, please check the October 2006 online archive at blog.niof.org/2006_10_01_archive.html.

Link: http://blog.niof.org/2006_10_01_archive.html

2. October 2006 Archive

Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"MORE NEW WIND GENERATING CAPACITY THAN NUCLEAR INSTALLED WORLDWIDE FOR SECOND YEAR IN A ROW"


-American Wind Energy Association

A nuclear power plant hasn't been ordered successfully since 1973 and none have gone online since 1996, and recent capacity additions have simply been installation of more efficient equipment at power plants. So windmill companies have built more than nothing.

Congratulations to them. Meanwhile, back in reality...

posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:37 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Monday, October 30, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The fuel rods, full of enriched uranium, are packed together in the core of the reactor"


-The Birth of Europe (BBC, 1991)

As the narrator said this, they showed a picture of the storage rack in the spent fuel pool. Classic. (See also the August 3, 2006 Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day.)

Oh, and they're not "full of enriched uranium." They are 3%-5% enriched uranium, and given that they are uranium rods, that's like saying "the I-beams, full of enriched iron, are packed together in the wall of the building."

posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:08 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, October 29, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Exponential functions are used to model situations in which growth or decay change dramatically. Such situations are found in nuclear power plants, which contain rods of plutonium-239, an extremely toxic radioactive isotope.

Operating at full capacity for one year, a 1,000-megawatt power plant discharges about 435 lb of plutonium-239."


-Finney, et al, Calculus

The plutonium-239 is mixed in with other plutonium isotopes. This is important because plutonium-239 can be used in atomic bombs and the mixture found in a nuclear power plant cannot.
Nor are there "rods of plutonium" at a nuclear power plant. Fuel rods are never more than 2% plutonium (a "dramatic change"). The rest is uranium and waste.
The word "discharge" is sometimes used to mean "taken out of the reactor." Such is the case here; it does not mean that the rods are allowed to leave the plant in any way. They are stored in an underwater rack. Also, the rods are not taken out every year; they are taken out every six years (one-third of the rods are taken out every two years for a total of six years in the reactor), and since only one-third of the rods are taken out at a time, it's not 435x6=2,610 pounds either. And, obviously, the figure they give is for total plutonium in the rods, not total plutonium-239 in the rods.
Plutonium is also not "extremely toxic." It's about as toxic as caffeine, not very mobile, and completely harmless outside the body. The only place where it can really do harm is in the lungs, and in fairly high amounts at that.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:00 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Saturday, October 28, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"One concern is that a boat could ram the plant and spill waste into the water. An even bigger fear is that a nasty storm could cut the plant off from the land-based power supply required to run plant operations. Should emergency generators fail, says David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Chernobyl-like disaster could ensue. In a worst-case scenario, an overheated core could melt through the bottom of the barge and drop into the water, creating a radioactive steam explosion. Such a cloud could do far more damage than the plume of nuclear fallout kicked up by the 1986 explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former U.S.S.R., Lochbaum notes, because the human body absorbs radioactive water droplets more easily than it does radioactive ash."


-Popular Science

1. Spent fuel ("waste" even though it's only 3% waste) consists of ceramic fuel rods stored in an underwater rack. A collision with a boat could release water from the spent fuel pool if the spent fuel pool is above the waterline. If it were below the waterline, water is water and it's not going to flow up. But the waste isn't something that can be spilled; it's all solid. The other practical alternative--fuel oil--can be spilled, however, and routinely is.
2. External power is not necessarily required. All reactors have emergency generators, and many can operate at low power while disconnected from the grid.
3. In meltdowns of this type of plant, the core settles to the bottom of the pressure vessel in a puddle. It does not melt through because it can't.
4. It's not necessarily a given that radioactive material will come off in large amounts due to a steam explosion even if it did reach the water. Even so, the water itself wouldn't be radioactive--just the material that it carries along--and any radioactive material that is ejected would settle out.
5. It's rather interesting to say something will be worse than Chernobyl when there is no dispersal mechanism.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:02 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Friday, October 27, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Although the technology exists to contain a burning core, Rosenergoatom won’t say if the plant--which was designed a decade ago--will include the most modern safety measures."


-Popular Science

Cores don't burn.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:23 PM | 2 comments links to this post

Thursday, October 26, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"CHERNOBYL REMEMBERED

20 Years Since the World's Worst Civil Nuclear Disaster"


-Abolition 2000

How ironic that this particular anti-nuclear group does not recognize that the only reason anybody would ever build a Chernobyl-type reactor is weapons production. It would be such a strong argument for them.

But it would undercut their efforts to get rid of the only effective devices to consume bomb materials--reactors.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:05 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"To be logically consistent, [nuclear advocate Patrick] Moore would also have to believe that buying a house is always cheaper than renting (because property taxes and maintenance cost less than rent) and that owning a car is always cheaper than riding a bus (because gas costs less than bus fare)."


-Council on Foreign Relations

Uh, mostly, yes, they are. Even if you include mortgage payments, buying is usually cheaper than renting. And an ESBWR is cheaper than a coal plant that meets emissions standards.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:29 AM | 2 comments links to this post

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The NRC defends the poor state of security at nuclear reactors by saying that a force as large as the 9/11 team constitutes an enemy of the state, rendering the protection of nuclear power plants the job of the Pentagon and the federal government (who would never get to the reactor in time)."


-Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, p.91

Well, it is. That's rather like the Southern governments that "couldn't guarantee" the safety of the Freedom Riders--that's their job.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 2:08 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Monday, October 23, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"I am delighted to serve as the Honorary Chairman for Beyond Nuclear. It represents a wonderful and timely opportunity to shatter the myth of the "peaceful atom" forever."


-Ed Asner, as quoted by NIRS

Do you want to shatter things or do you want to make them work?

Yeah, and math is relative. I know it's true because Jan Peczkis told me so.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:46 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, October 22, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"GNEP may as well stand for giving Nevada everyone else’s problem, because that is precisely what will happen if this plan moves ahead."


-Rep. Shelley Berkley

It specifically involves reprocessing, so that Yucca Mountain is less needed, if at all.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:18 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Saturday, October 21, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"There are 32 nuclear reactors in this country that have their "used" fuel pools on the top storey of the reactor building."


-Beyond Nuclear

The "reactor building" is the containment. Those are the plants whose pools aren't below ground.

And I'm glad that whichever NIRS PR flack is writing that post recognizes that we could be using uranium a lot more efficiently than we're doing. Somehow, though, I don't think they'll support efforts to increase that efficiency.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:49 PM | 1 comments links to this post

Friday, October 20, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Wind power, already used extensively in Europe, is rapidly becoming the energy of the future."


-Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, p.167

We're just going to have to replace these old, outdated nuclear power plants from the 50s with some ultra-modern technology from the 13th century.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 2:43 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Thursday, October 19, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"So, if for whatever reason our government won't pay for or fund serious, scientifically valid investigations of the health issues surrounding nuclear power, what can we do? We have to study matters ourselves, a process we call "Citizen Epidemiology"."


-Nuclear Energy Information Service

I think I'll start "Citizen Physics." The government won't fund studies of the probability of slipping while walking on the ceiling without special equipment--ceilings that were not designed for human locomotion. The effects of such an incident are uncertain.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:56 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Tritium is a radioactive form of Hydrogen, most often created when water is subjected to neutrons in a reactor core. Exelon regularly discharges Tritium (legally, even though it is not safe). Apparently there were unnoticed pipeline failures that went on for years - so instead of diluting this radioactive material in the Kankakee and Illinois rivers, thousands of gallons were spilled directly into the water supply of nearby towns like Braidwood and Godley."


-Nuclear Energy Information Service

1. Tritium is most often produced by neutron absorption in control rods.

2. Tritiated water is 60 times less radioactive than orange juice and completely chemically identical to water. Discharging it isn't good in the abstract, but it obviously also isn't dangerous. Plus we don't live in the abstract: real people are really dying from real coal fumes. What's better for the environment--something that's toxic and infinitely long-lived, or something that's nontoxic and short-lived (and which decays into nontoxic helium)? In fact, what would be even better for the environment is to let it seep into the groundwater--tritiated water returns to natural levels in about 50 years and it will take more than 50 years to leave the plant property. And don't tell me that something that doesn't leave plant property is a pollutant.

3. If these failures were a major problem, they would have been detected.

4. If it didn't get off plant property, how is it in their water supply?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:15 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"But nuclear power plant licenses are being extended, largely in response to the congressional approval of Yucca Mountain, and they are being extended for longer than DOE has ever predicted in any of their analyses of Yucca's overall capacity."


-Environmental Wrecking Group

Does that mean it won't work?

Yes, they actually are supposed to explain why they're right instead of simply why others are wrong.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:35 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Monday, October 16, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The Environment Department has cited the presence of perchlorate in similar springs along the Rio Grande as possible evidence that groundwater could move much faster than predicted by lab models."


-Amigos Bravos

The issue is over the migration of the chemical through the groundwater, not the migration of the groundwater through the ground.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:46 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, October 15, 2006
We Support Lee on Activism Strategy

A little late, but here it is: Link.

How can we organize in the South?

In fact, should we organize in the South? Operating from the assumption that everyone is anti-nuclear, which is basically true for baby boomers and Gen-Xers, siting has been based on finding the largest concentration of people who don't care. In the South, people basically don't care, at least compared to California and the Northeast. Will we end up organizing people who are anti-nuclear?
We can't make people care who otherwise would not. We could, I suppose, give people who are already anti-nuclear a sense of urgency. If we make it clear what our actual agenda is--promoting secular science and the analysis of the dynamics of systems in place of superstition--we certainly will alienate Southerners. And it really is too late now to have much of an effect on the currently planned plants.
I have said before that of the 27-odd plants currently planned (almost all in the South), I think one will get through and a second is a definite possibility. North Anna 3 is already in the sights of the wackos and will be sued into oblivion. Bellafonte is run by TVA and who knows what their management is capable of doing. Grand Gulf 2 will be canceled as a victim of a lack of demand; so probably will River Bend. Exelon will receive an ESP for Clinton 2--but have to hold it until it expires, since Illinois has a reactor ban. The Amarillo Power project is going to get canceled in about 15 seconds. Constellation is ordering hardware for a French reactor, but could easily sell it to EdF if Nine Mile Point or Calvert Cliffs fall through (which is more than likely to happen, given Eliot Spitzer's anti-nuclear stance and Calvert Cliffs' proximity to political opposition). Exelon has no experience with construction, even though they have quite a bit of experience in operation, so I doubt their Texas proposal is going anywhere. TXU management's ability to hold to a schedule or budget is dubious. STP 3-4 could go through if the proposed lignite plants in Texas are held up. Vogtle 3-4 could go through if the project management and economics work out. Harris 2-3 could go through if the no-nukes-kooks don't get their way about the fire code. Progress Energy's site in Florida could very well go through (Florida has recently legalized CWIP, making this a lot easier), as could Summer 2-3, Lee, FPL's proposal, Davie County, and Oconee County. Notice how, with the exception of STP 3-4, these are all in the Southeast. Narrowing down the list to those which have a chance:
STP 3-4 (iffy)
Harris 2-3 (iffy)
Vogtle 3-4
Summer 2-3
Lee
Progress Energy--Florida
FPL's Proposal
Davie County
Oconee County
The new plants are recognized to have less of a chance than the additional units. That probably also neutralizes the advantage that Florida has in being a better business environment. It looks to me like it's going to be Summer 2 or 3 or Vogtle 3 or 4. Obviously, I can't really predict that, and trying to do so is pointless, but my point is that the one plant that gets through will be in the South and probably the Southeast and all the possible candidates have uncertainties. Notice as well how none of those uncertainties are "if we go out and do x/y/z." It would take such a long time to set up a network that such a network would be irrelevant once it was ready. We have to face reality: abandon the currently planned plants. We must think 15-20 years into the future. And we cannot afford to waste any more time.
In retrospect, we needed to have started a lot earlier. We didn't need Watts Bar as a spark; we needed Seabrook or Shoreham. We should have set up a student activist network in the early 90s, with the objective of being a national force by 2000 to push through significant regulatory reform by now. But we didn't do that, and now we have to figure out how to salvage this lost opportunity. Regarding the currently planned plants, I don't see a way to mobilize quickly enough. I know I've said that about six times, but we need to get going on campus activism immediately with the objective of being ready by 2020.
It is also important to remember that activism fundamentally opposes things. "Pro-nuclear activist" is thusly a bit of a misnomer; people who are in favor of things need to either find ways to inhibit effective activism by the other side or find something to be against. This can be as easy for us as opposing anti-nuclear statutes, but we need to make sure that we are always opposing something. Jumping up and down about how good something is does not work. That is well-established.
And in the words of a British MP whose name I forget, being pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear makes about as much sense as being pro-airplanes or anti-silicon-chips. It needs to be used where appropriate, and it's hard for anyone on either side to disagree with such a statement. In one sense, such philosophizing about the semantics surrounding the debate is pointless, but in one sense, we need to avoid framing the debate around things that we don't need to argue about.
This is why I have suggested modification of reactor statutes to allow waste-eating reactors as a good starting point for activism. It opposes something, it involves people, it picks a fight, it makes as much use of existing infrastructure as possible, it's a fairly common-ground issue, and it's a great way to spark a student activist network.
So what should we do with the South? Ignore it? Clearly, we have to do something. On the other hand, if we try anything, we're going to lose and lose badly. So here's my tactical idea: we put up as strong a resistance as possible against the anti-nuclear activists and their lawyers in the South, all purely experimental. One plant, perhaps two, will go up. We're not going to change that. We might as well learn what works and what doesn't for the real fights in California and the Northeast. We'll also benefit by being able to quote local organizations--this may seem trivial, but if a Southern anti-nuclear organization says something really stupid a la CNIC, it could become a running theme. If we could go to a place like California and associate anti-nuclear activists with Confederate-flag-waving creationist anti-semites, it could be a surprisingly powerful argument.

Enough with the tactics talk! To discuss the points made in the post:
1. How can we involve regular Southerners? I don't know if we can, outside of establishing a student activist network and telling those people to go home and start grassroots organizations, assuming some of those people wil be from the South. First, obviously, we have to establish a moral high ground to attract people. This will be extremely difficult, given that the South is probably not very receptive to secularism. I don't see how we can get past that point.
I tend to dislike gimmicks, and also tend to doubt how we can overcome personal associations with the strength of an argument when we can't even do that among those who aren't diametrically opposed to most of our views. The NIOF store is an example; I can't think of something that's sold there that wouldn't make a stock environmentalist laugh at the wearer. "Viral marketing" in this sense doesn't work as an activism strategy, but may work for other purposes if we do it right. I have not. So far we've made 31 sales, 18 of which were (a) not sold to me or my immediate family (10), (b) not returned (2), and (c) actually from the NIOF store (I set up another one to voice my irritation at the UNIX operating system, which so far has sold one shirt). The store is entirely nonprofit--CafePress has a base price for every item with markups applied by the store owner; NIOF store items are all at the base price. I've found that any kind of markup makes CafePress-manufactured items too expensive for anyone to want to buy--I tried markups before, until I realized that nobody was buying the items, and I wasn't really doing anything that required fundraising. This realization was cemented by a write-up on the Guardian website that (kinda) agreed with my strategy but made fun of the prices, especially the $14 teddy bear and the $19 hoodie. So now it's nonprofit, and no, it would probably not be useful for fundraising.
Another reason that nobody buys the items is that the designs are awful--I did them in Paint. The Go Nuclear Top 10 really needs work, and since it's on a good 80% of the items, it's probably crimping sales somewhat. Blocks of text do not good shirts make, and more than one design per item needs to be offered (unfortunately, the free version of the CafePress service does not allow this). I need to add some different (hopefully better) items, as well. In short, I think it probably works with quality designs--but only to send a message, not for fundraising.
CafePress obviously is also a print-on-demand service--they don't and obviously can't keep an inventory, so I have no experience with keeping an inventory and won't get it there. This would be required to sell items at events.

2. How can we get the word out? Writing letters to and columns in papers would work up to the point where people start impugning the authors' character (e.g., so-an-so is an atheist, they believe in evolution, he/she is from back East, etc.). It becomes effective only when respected members of the community are doing it. For that, we need to reach community leaders; i.e., we need to find people who are local, influential, and rational. We can't do that by leafleting alone, or via the internet, or any other one-size-fits-all strategy. The best way to do this is word-of-mouth, either person-to-person or in small groups, out on the ground. Trying to stuff information down people's throats (advertising) will go nowhere. We need simply a compelling case with good communicators using good techniques. Any speakers should cover their own expenses; we can't expect people to pay, no matter how indirectly, to have someone come to talk to them. That money is going to have to come from somewhere, though, perhaps a foundation? (I also have no experience in this area.) As for who the speakers are, we need to avoid the industry like the plague. Creating a semi-professional activist speaker/think-tank-head troupe in the style of the 70s should be our goal. When was the last time John Gofman or Helen Caldicott practiced medicine, or Bruce Gagnon was gainfully employed? Angry plant employees can help, but in a lesser role. Others, such as musicians, will come as people come, although I grant the art community will be a hard sell.
Ubiquitous products with information have a tendency to turn into AOL CDs. We don't want to become running jokes; we must be careful not to get a reputation even if the object is not to win in the South. We're not LaRouchies, we're not unending-smile-types hanging around airports, we're not corporate flacks, we're not right-wing extremists, we're not tech weenies, we're not drunk on metaphors, yet we have a strange reputation as a mix of those characteristics. Fortunately, most of the current student generation has never seen that, and we cannot squander this second chance to make a good first impression. We are science-minded butt-kickers, common-sense people who happen to be informed and have a sense of consequences. We are productive people, hardworking people, humble people, patient teachers, people with a sense of service. Make your outward face represent your best effort.

3. I think that organizing campus engineering clubs is a wonderful idea. Those people have friends, too, and can bring a wider audience to other talks. The internet has the capacity to allow the sharing of successful tactics and presentations. I also agree that the engineering club talks must be separate from the general population talks--"they're out to get your job" doesn't quite have the same effect on a business major. Yet these need to be kept separate from efforts to organize the community--I believe the movement will come out of the nation's colleges and into the streets, not the other way around, or even simultaneously. Furthermore, campus activism can educate real world activists; it causes this community action, not simply cooperating with it.
We absolutely need a student pro-nuclear advocacy network, and we need it as soon as possible. Being seen as a student movement will be a great help, the single biggest perception advantage possible. This should be our number one priority and the single goal of campus activism for the next four to six years. This has never been done in the Information Age before; it might be very quick, but on the other hand, we need to watch out for overreliance on net.activism that often results in Howard-Dean-style flameouts. In other words, a computer is a tool, not a method, and is in no way indicative of real-life turnout. If all we listened to was our little blogosphere echo-chamber world, we'd think that everybody supports nuclear power and that the anti-nuclear movement is a couple of guys from Berkeley.

4. Leafleting is a fine line. There's a guy, for example, who stands next to the entrance of a local train station with a dumb grin on his face holding leaflets of the Seattle protests and a poster that says "WE NEED A REVOLUTION." He literally doesn't say a word to passersby, and has become a running joke (along with another guy who passes out copies of the New Testament). Standing out on the sidewalk at seemingly random times and locations looks bad; so does not walking the fine line regarding aggressiveness (hints: be open with your information but don't push it on people, act like your audience--urban when necessary; suburban when necessary; rural when necessary; liberal when necessary; conservative when necessary, if people ask for all your fliers, tell them that you have a bunch of people coming by that you need to reach and give them the contact info for an area organizer, etc., etc.) and a million other things. When socially appropriate, it is an excellent tool--at the entrance to talks, at campus engineering club meetings, at permitting hearings (if allowed), and in other situations and places where people would logically be looking for more information. I even leafleted outside a science classroom once. In fact, that general principle could apply to all of these tactics: when socially appropriate, use a tactic. When socially appropriate.

5. Investing in the project while proceeding to promote it is a supreme financial conflict of interest and a great way to lose a lot of money very quickly. It's hard for me to think of something with the potential of worse PR; this is the reputation we're trying to throw off. I specifically recall an Onion article on this topic.

Ideas? Thoughts? Ridicule?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:41 PM | 6 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Blogger Endorses DUPIC

The anti-nuclear blogger 'amazngdrx' has endorsed (and is actively promoting) amendments to reactor statutes to allow construction of waste-eating reactors. Today, this basically means DUPIC or the IFR. He/she terms it a compromise, but it's what we've wanted all along.

This has been going on for a while, but I urge you to read a recent discussion at his/her blog. (Other discussions in the past included this one, this one, and this one.)

The amendment would contain the following language:


"New reactor construction is allowed only if
(a) the radioactivity of said reactor's spent fuel is equal to that of natural uranium, or
(b) said reactor does not increase the total volume of spent fuel."



Don't worry; they're not all like this. There are plenty of people who aren't interested in solutions and will oppose it.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:05 PM | 0 comments links to this post

North Korea Update

Observations of the test site are suggesting that the bomb fizzled and was much closer to the South Koreans' 0.55 kiloton figure than the Russians' 15 kiloton estimate.

Some people have been suggesting that the North Koreans are especially inept. In fact, this is yet another testament to how difficult it is to build an atomic bomb, especially one using plutonium. Those who suggest otherwise (e.g., Mr. Ed) are either uninformed or irresponsible.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:31 PM | 2 comments links to this post

Update on Reduced Posting

OK, so it's two weeks late, but here it is:

I'm obviously still working on reorganizing the site; the earliest possible resumption of December-2005-style posting would be in January 2008 and probably later. I had thought that I might have slightly more time starting this month, but that did not prove to be the case.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:37 PM | 0 comments links to this post

NIOF.org Update #42

I've updated the Nuclear Advocacy Webring code to fix a bug in hit tracking. Any Nuclear Advocacy Webring members out there who have not yet installed the code:
I am currently unable to send email for some reason. Since I can't send you your code, follow these steps to install the code:
1. Assuming you're using Internet Explorer, go to the NIOF home page, click View on the toolbar, then Source.
2. Scroll down to near the bottom and copy the code from "Begin Bravenet.com Sitering Panel Code" to "End Bravenet.com Sitering Panel Code." Include everything on those two lines as well (the arrows and exclamation points; I can't include them here because they're HTML code comments, and they make all the text after them disappear).
3. Paste your five-digit code in where it says '54222' (this should happen five times). We Support Lee=54404; Atomic Insights=54649; Freedom for Fission=54745; NEI=55262; others have not yet joined (hint hint).
4. Paste the resulting code into your page. I suggest the footer; Ruth Sponsler had big formatting problems when she tried using the sidebar. The footer is found right before the code for the sidebar; look for something like 'id="footer"' or 'hr' if you've never used it before. If you want to change the color of the code (white background, black text), I suggest this site for a color code selector. I don't know how to change the size, but if anyone wants me to figure out how to do this, I will. I can also post the code in the discussion board.
Please comment here if you have any problems. I'm sorry if this seems basic to you; you probably know HTML and CSS well enough to figure it out, but I didn't want to skip any steps.

I also added a number of new links to pro-nuclear organizations and blogs (see sidebar). I hadn't updated it in a while and things have changed. I will eventually update the links pages, too.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:25 PM | 2 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The Boston Globe ran a Whitman/Moore op-ed on May 15, identifying them as “co-chairs of the Clean and Safe Industry Coalition” without giving readers a clue to what that coalition is."


-Columbia Journalism Review

Bit of a Freudian slip there, eh?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:52 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Saturday, October 14, 2006
They Said It, Not Me

While I was proofreading today's Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, I requested some assistance from the Blogger automatic spellcheck feature. I swear I didn't do anything to this picture and I have to say I never expected this:



posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:58 PM | 1 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The hot weather and lack of rainfall severely reduced supplies of cold river water, and when the river levels fell, the French power company, Electricite de France, resorted to cooling its nuclear power plants by hosing down their outsides with garden sprinklers supplied by reservoirs."


-Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, p.86

posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:51 PM | 1 comments links to this post

Friday, October 13, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The average efficiency of electric lighting systems is about one percent - that is, only about one percent of the energy in the fuel used to generate the electricity comes out as visible light energy. The rest is wasted as heat either at the power plant or in the light bulb."


-UNPLUG Salem

Is visible light energy the only consideration? Is it not worth an expenditure of energy (in the form of line losses) to have a dependable supply of electricity?

Need I also note that an internal combustion engine used in a home generator is about 15% efficient, while a modern nuclear power plant is 40%-45% efficient? You could say that the waste heat from the home generator could be used for district heating, but what if you don't need heat at the same time you need electricity? Do you turn off the computer if it's too hot in the room? Plus, you could also use the nuclear power plant for district heating.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:02 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Thursday, October 12, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Energy, other than in the forms of sunshine and food, is not a need in itself."


-UNPLUG Salem

Ah. Let's just live in caves.

Without modern medical care, which uses energy, I and many others would be dead. That's a need.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:24 PM | 2 comments links to this post

Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The figure of twenty cubic meters for nuclear power plant waste completely ignores the largest volume of waste, which is generated at uranium mines and mills. When that component is taken into account, the waste associated with coal is typically only about five or ten times that of nuclear power-related waste, a far cry from ratio of about ten thousand implicit in the Rhodes and Beller article. Rhodes and Beller therefore have exaggerated the volume of waste produced by coal relative to nuclear power by roughly one thousand times."


-UNPLUG Salem

Ignoring the fact that only 3%-5% of the twenty cubic meters figure is actually waste, and ignoring waste from coal mines and coking...

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:26 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"From 6-7 pm, there is an informal meet and greet hour, then formal testimony and questions from the public at 7:00 PM. If you live near Salem, come on out and ask how in the world they can evacuate in time if a real disaster occurred."


-UNPLUG Salem

Since it's very important to evacuate from something that's physically impossible.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:05 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Monday, October 09, 2006
North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapon

Few details are available, but it apparently had a yield between 0.55 and 15 kilotons. It was an underground test, and no fallout has been detected.

And no, nuclear power plants were not involved. North Korea doesn't have any.

Link.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:54 AM | 5 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Because hydrogen bombs need tritium--radioactive hydrogen--for their fusion mechanism, the United States is now proceeding to manufacture tritium at the Tennessee Valley Authority Watts Barr [sic] commercial nuclear power plant in Tennessee, which is then sent to the Savannah River site [sic] in South Carolina to be extracted by a new Tritium Extraction Facility."


-Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, p.139

The tritium in hydrogen bombs is produced from lithium during the detonation because tritium isn't storable--it's a gas and it would decay before the bomb would go off. For that reason, no hydrogen bomb anywhere uses stored tritium, so there's no real use for it if it were produced.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:53 AM | 13 comments links to this post

Sunday, October 08, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Canadian uranium miners have died from lung cancer at a rate many times higher than non-miners. Ottawa knew of the health dangers of uranium and radium as early as 1932, but did not begin to inform workers or compensate their widows until 1973."


-Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility

Unsafe working conditions in mines 75 years ago that produced uranium to color glass now condemns nuclear power?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:36 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Saturday, October 07, 2006
CASEnergy Releases Survey Results

Link.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:25 PM | 0 comments links to this post

September 2006 Newsletter

I have just submitted it. I am told that it will be sent at around 3:00 AM, although I have no control over when it is in fact sent. If you have not subscribed, you can find it on the internet here, and/or subscribe using the box in the top right corner of this page.

The line breaks are back, but for some reason the last half of the text is bold. I have no clue why; I didn't do anything other than what I've been doing for the past 15-odd months.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:23 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Nuclear power is exorbitantly expensive, and notoriously unreliable."


-Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, p.viii

1. Nuclear power plants that were built during the 1980s were exorbitantly expensive because anti-nuclear activists sued to induce delays, which combined with 20%+ interest rates and the capital-intensive nature of nuclear power to greatly inflate capital costs that are about the same as a coal plant.
2. Nuclear power plants are the most reliable electrical generators in the world. Nuclear power plants are online about 90% of the time; other steam-cycle plants about 75%, geothermal plants and gas turbines about 60%, and windmills about 30%. This 90% reliability isn't really necessary; 70%-75% is plenty, and any extra effort spent to increase reliability past this point is a waste of money.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:18 PM | 2 comments links to this post

Friday, October 06, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"An accident at a US nuclear power plant could kill more people than were killed by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.[1] The financial repercussions could also be catastrophic. The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant cost the former Soviet Union more than three times the economical benefits accrued from the operation of every other Soviet nuclear power plant operated between 1954 and 1990.[2]
...
1 US House of Representatives, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, "Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences (CRAC2) for US Nuclear Power Plants (Health Effects and Costs) Conditional on an 'SST1' Release," November 1, 1982; and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "A Safety and Regulatory Assessment of Generic BWR and PWR Permanently Shutdown Nuclear Power Plants," NUREG/CR-6451, Washington, D.C., August 1997.

2 Richard L. Hudson, "Cost of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Soars in New Study," Wall Street Journal, March 29, 1990."


-Union of Concerned Scientists

1. An accident which happens to be physically impossible (a fact that the US House of Representatives is certain to know).
2. Chernobyl was a botched test at a Soviet bomb factory, and doesn't really apply to civilian nuclear power plants (even in Russia).

posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:29 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Thursday, October 05, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The results from these unrealistic [reactor PRA] calculations are therefore overly optimistic."


-Union of Concerned Scientists

Assuming that there aren't any other factors in those calculations, and assuming that calculation is valid...

posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:49 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The risk assessments consider only the threat from damage to the reactor core despite the fact that irradiated fuel in the spent fuel pools represents a serious health hazard."


-Union of Concerned Scientists

The reactor safety risk assessments consider only reactor safety.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:30 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Reactor pressure vessels are assumed to be fail-proof, even though embrittlement forced the Yankee Rowe nuclear plant to shut down."


-Union of Concerned Scientists

But it didn't fail.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:26 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Monday, October 02, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Plants are assumed to have no design problems even though hundreds are reported every year."


-Union of Concerned Scientists

Plants are assumed to have been designed as designed. Their opinions about improvements to the designs thirty and sometimes forty years after the fact don't have anything to do with inconsistencies between the design and construction.

In short, those "design problems" are factored into the safety estimates.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:31 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, October 01, 2006
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Our planet is desperately ill and must be healed. If the human race does not change its present behavior, the ecosphere may be doomed within the next ten years."


-Helen Caldicott, 1992

posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:53 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Link: http://blog.niof.org/2006_10_01_archive.html