Nuclear is Our Future

Nuclear is Our Future Monthly Newsletter

January 2007 Issue

Go Nuclear Women's V-Neck T-Shirt

In This Issue:

1. Introduction
2. January 2007 Archive

1. Introduction

Welcome to our newsletter! Contained here is the January 2007 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 January 2007 online archive at blog.niof.org/2007_01_01_archive.html.

Link: http://blog.niof.org/2007_01_01_archive.html

2. January 2007 Archive

Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"[Cancer deaths are dropping because of a] New government program designed to educate public about dangers of eating uranium"


-The Onion

Yes, I know it's a joke, but that's how a lot of urban myths get started.

Ingesting uranium in high doses causes kidney failure, not cancer. But the quote is actually pretty illustrative of the practical problems involved in studies of the health effects of depleted uranium (especially compared to "clean" alternative bullet materials like lead).
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Environment, Radiation and Health


posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:16 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Discussion Board Overhaul

I first launched the discussion board over eighteen months ago. After about a month, nobody used it any more; I've been scratching my head since, and I think I might have figured it out:

There wasn't a space to actually discuss issues.

Duh.

So I completely overhauled it, with a Nuclear Issues category containing the forums Access to Energy, Alternatives, Economics, Environment, Fuel Cycle (with Fuel Recycling, Source Material, and Dual-Use Facilities sub-forums), How Nukes Work (with a Scientific Method sub-forum), Industry Performance, New Build and Decommissioning, Politics and Regulation, Proliferation (with a redirect to the Dual-Use Facilities sub-forum), Radiation and Health, Safety (with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island sub-forums), Security and Terrorism, and Waste. The Activism&Politics category has been renamed the Activism category, the Questions forum has been moved into its own category (Nuclear Glasnost--at the top of the board), the Studies forum has been moved into the Technical category, the Anecdotes forum has been folded into the Their Actions forum (which has been renamed the Anti-Nuclear Actions forum), and the Tactics forum has been folded into the Our Actions forum (which has been renamed the Pro-Nuclear Actions forum), leaving only the News forum in the News category. The forum descriptions have had some slight edits, and I've moved some topics around to fit the new structure. The categories have been moved around; it's now (top to bottom) Nuclear Glasnost, Nuclear Issues, Activism, Technical, News, and Off-Topic (also with a new Nuclear Humor forum). I can't figure out how to moderate topics and not posts added to those topics, so I can't try this millionth different way to keep the Off-Topic forum's obscene spam under control (this is why registration is required and also why you can't post images). At least the spammers are getting a bit more considerate; they used to put it in the Fission Reactors forum.

If any of the original posters disagree about how their topics were moved, please comment here or on the board and I will move them back.

I've also updated the Board Guidelines:


-Try to keep discussions reasonably on topic. If requested, I (niof) will move them.
-Try to keep discussions in the correct forums. If requested, I will move them.
-I do not delete posts unless they are obviously spam or criminal in nature. My opinions are my opinions and are not reflected on the board. I am not the grammar police, the on-topic police, or your mother. However, if you do spam the board (defined as a post devoid of content but containing only links to non-nuclear-related external sites), I will delete the post and your account. If you don't spam the board (defined as posting actual content, pro-nuclear, anti-nuclear, or anywhere in between), you will be part of an informed discussion of the issues free of censorship.
-If a forum doesn't exist that fits your topic, post in the Site Maintenance forum requesting a new forum (e.g., Questions) or category (e.g., Nuclear Glasnost), give a reason that makes sense, and I will make a new one. I'm human; I'm sure there are things I overlooked.
-This board, as well as blog.niof.org, www.cafepress.com/niof, www.niof.org, and other sites that I admin, reflect the best of my ability. As I am not God, they do not reflect perfection. I cannot do everything right all the time; don't sue me for it.
-All posts are the property of their respective owners, and they are solely responsible for any content.
-If you have any questions or comments about these guidelines, please email me, PM me, or post in the Site Maintenance forum.


Please feel free to use your best judgment about what to post; I'm a strong opponent of zero-tolerance policies of any sort and see my job as a board moderator to be interpreting the guidelines as situations come up. I hope this gives people some "regulatory certainty" and makes it clear that you're free to post what nuclear-related content you wish to share with the online pro-nuclear community.

I would really like feedback on this. Is it useful and/or helpful to you? Are there other things that I should change? Should I shift more blog content into the discussion board a la Kirk Sorensen?
Labels: Site


posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:49 PM | 6 comments links to this post

Site Reorganization Progress Report

Recently, I've been combing the archives, labeling all of the (currently) 1,362 posts so that they can be indexed topically when I switch from template to layout mode (readers shouldn't notice a difference, except there will be two new sections--Recent Comments and Labels--and the Previous section will be down to five posts and will not appear on post pages). I should really also condense the sidebar contents; I've gotten emails from people asking me to link to their site when I already do, and that's a pretty good indication that it's hard to find things.

I'm continuing the topical reorganization although it may not look like it; I'm going through the archives in chronological order, and I'm almost through December 2005 although I haven't done November 2005 yet (sounds like nuclear management, doesn't it?). I've covered most of the things I want to write about (although I obviously haven't written about them yet); most of the rest is FAQs.
As for the navigation of the main site, I was thinking of using the wikipedia-type method where approximately every third word is a link to an article, with the home page broken down into sections, each with a couple of drop-down menus on subtopics (Waste-->Repositories, for example). I would really like feedback on this.

I'm trying to post as much as possible, but I get the idea that topically organizing and indexing the content that I've already posted would better help readers find information. It's supposed to be an informational site with a blog and news services attached, not a blog with an informational site attached and a half-baked news service that doesn't even keep up with NRC press releases. I'm also looking ahead to 2009--the 30th anniversary of Three Mile Island--and how we're going to handle it; I've registered the domains www.tmi30.org/.com/.net/.info and www.tmiplus30.org/.com/.net/.info and hope to launch www.tmi30.org (with redirects for the others) in January 2009, using content from the main site. If we can get our act together, this could be a major PR opportunity--explaining how a reactor works, why defense-in-depth poses problems, the difference between Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, etc.

Other things:
1. The Energy Toolbar--a Google-Toolbar-like service for energy geeks--is currently on hold, but it will eventually be available (I've signed up for the service and arranged most of the buttons, but I haven't collected all the necessary energy information links yet).
2. Somebody should do a website on Whole Ecology; I can't right now, but being able to give a name to the environmental philosophy held by most scientists and some open-minded environmentalists could give us a boost. I suppose that could be the step after TMI+30 awareness, which is the step after writing a book and starting to organize campuses, which is the step after getting this incredibly disorganized site into a reasonably navigable form. So I guess I've got my work cut out for me for the next 5-10 years :).
3. Let's go nuclear!

Comments?
Labels: Activism, Site


posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:34 AM | 0 comments links to this post

TVA to Go Ahead With Bellafonte Redux

The new nuclear power plant--two AP-1000s--would take advantage of some infrastructure built for an 88% complete nuclear power plant that was canceled in 1995. It's been pretty clear that they were going to do this since they had the original construction permits terminated; now, let's see if TVA's management (which couldn't complete it the first time around) is up to the task.

Link.
Labels: Industry Performance, New Build


posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:25 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Iran Update

The US government remains unwilling to compromise on this, which could be easily resolved by requiring them to use the enrichment capacity of their facility to make fuel, while populations on both sides are open to such a compromise.
Labels: Iran, Politics and Regulation, Proliferation


posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:21 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Reopen Kozloduy!

The Bulgarian government is appealing to the EU to allow a restart. Let's hope it works and they don't have to fall back on Soviet coal burners.

Link.
Labels: Decommissioning, Politics and Regulation


posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:16 AM | 0 comments links to this post

McGaffigan on Yucca Mountain

He says it should be placed under the control of a federal corporation instead of the Department of Energy's Office of Perpetual Projects Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, that the current project structure should be thrown out the window and restarted, and that the head of this federal corporation should be a career nuclear industry manager instead of a political appointee.

Sounds sensible to me--I shudder to think of who will replace him, given the current political climate and 30-odd pending reactor license applications.
Labels: Politics and Regulation, Waste


posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:00 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Japanese Town Offers to Host Repository

Link. Why don't we do it like that in this country?

And why shouldn't we separate the long-lived part of the waste (which is still useful) from the short-lived part that is actually waste? The technology has been demonstrated. We're not extracting plutonium; if we did it wouldn't even be bomb-grade. We're not going to be producing liquid waste like the French and British do, either; they use military-surplus plutonium extraction facilities, while we would use a dedicated civilian facility that was (stunningly) actually designed for this purpose. What can we lose by recycling?
Labels: Fuel Cycle, Plutonium, Waste


posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:52 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Nuclear power already delivers less energy globally than renewable energy, and the share will continue to decrease in the coming years."


-Greenpeace

Because:
1. They stand in the way; "we oppose nuclear energy because it has low market share" is circular reasoning at its best.
2. Electricity is a subcategory of energy. Nuclear power delivers only electricity, but renewable energy--defined as resources that are extracted at an equal or lower rate than their production--in the form of biomass (burning dead things) provides space heat as well. So, when comparing electrical output of nuclear power with total energy output of biomass (plus other environmentally-friendly renewable energy sources like big hydro dams), and you include the Third World where there is little to no nuclear power and a lot of biomass, of course biomass is going to win.
Labels: Alternatives, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Fun With Statistics


posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:51 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Monday, January 29, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"In fact, the NRC continues to state that the exact plant conditions during the accident [TMI] are still debated."


-Three Mile Island Alert

The exact plant conditions for any particular point in the accident are debated, but there's no dispute about the basic events: a stuck-open government-mandated "safety valve" drained some of the water coolant from the reactor, the reactor automatically shut down, the operators shut off the emergency cooling system, the rest of the water in the reactor boiled, and some of the fuel overheated and melted. It collected at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel in a puddle and eventually solidified.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Safety, Three Mile Island


posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:35 PM | 2 comments links to this post

Sunday, January 28, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"US War Department’s Manhattan Project considered development of uranium aerosol weapons, as is documented in a 1943 memo to general Groves [www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Groves-Memo-Manhattan30oct43.htm]."


-Depleted Uranium Watch

Click on the link, and it says:


"RESPIRATORY TRACT: Dr. Wollan has estimated that an accumulation of 10-3 curies of high-energy beta-ray active material would produce an exposure of about 100 r/day to the lungs."


That's not uranium; uranium is one of the least radioactive known radioactive materials (it has a 4.4 billion year half-life, and the longer the half-life, the less radioactive a material must be, since approximately the same amount of material must decay over a longer period of time).
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Environment, Fuel Cycle, Radiation and Health


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

Saturday, January 27, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Environmental Justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the containment at the point of production."


-Campus Climate Challenge

Well, everything's toxic, it's just a matter of what dose is involved. Does that excuse deliberately poisoning people? Absolutely not. But it does mean that use of anything should be in line with its intended outcome (benefits) and unintended consequences (risks). Notice how I never said "economic"--the benefits are usually in lives saved by necessary products. It also means that new things that are better than old things shouldn't be held back because they're "toxic"--the old thing is even more toxic, and shifting over is a net improvement. And we've also got to get used to the fact that doing things involves taking risks; we could live in caves and always know what risks we're taking, or we could develop, not knowing what risks we're taking but knowing that wherever we end up is going to be better than where we are now. Try telling someone like me--who would be dead if it weren't for modern medical care--that we're not better off today than we were in the Stone Age.
Notice, also, that the Native American cultures that the anti-nuclear activists identify with did not develop for a reason. It's not that Native Americans are somehow "incapable" of development--that's obviously an incredibly racist idea--but it's a conscious cultural decision to value "sustainability." See how far that got them.

I'd also like to remind these people that, first, we don't really "produce" radioactive materials--all nuclear fuel comes from nature and is radioactive when it's there--and that there's enough unused energy in nuclear waste to last us for the next 500 years if we decided to use it. The technology required has all been developed. If we decided to "cease production" of nuclear waste today, we could still use nuclear power for the next 500 years--and really would have to, since the "waste" we've built up is relatively long-lived only because of the presence of half-used fuel. Fully-used nuclear waste lasts only about 300 years.

And why should there be a distinction between "natural" chemicals and "artificial" chemicals if they are chemically identical? Humans are part of the environment; the only difference between a beaver dam and Hoover Dam is scale. We're not even the first to induce climate change; blue-green algae can claim that (although it didn't turn out too well for them and poses a serious threat to us). I'm not saying that there aren't important environmental problems--there undoubtedly are. However, they are important enough that we need to focus our efforts on the real problems, and for that, we all need to evaluate the evidence scientifically so that we don't overreact--or worse, "misregulate" and work against ourselves.
Labels: Access to Energy, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment, Waste


posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:17 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Friday, January 26, 2007
Belarus Going Nuclear?

It's apparently a reaction to high natural gas and oil prices and Russia's unreliability and hosility. According to WNN, they're planning operation in 2012, which essentially means an order in the next six months. They're talking about two reactors, and following the Eastern European tradition, they'll probably cogenerate, lowering use of gas even more.

It had never really occurred to me before that Russia's hostility was shutting off their foreign reactor markets, but somehow, I doubt that it will be a VVER. Might be an AP-1000, though, which isn't exactly a loss. I would recommend a Super-PRISM as usual--they don't have any reactors currently and could make billions irradiating the world's transuranic waste--but that's unlikely to say the least.
Labels: Economics, New Build


posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:00 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Nuclear power is not the answer to climate change. - in fact, even if we doubled the amount of nuclear power in the UK there would only be an 8% reduction in greenhouse gases."


-Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

So that means that we should build coal plants and cause an increase. I see.

Nuclear power is not going to reduce emissions from cars. It's a good source of electricity and that's it, but there's nothing wrong with that. Solar panels and windmills don't run cars either, but do you see them making the same complaints about "renewables?"

I'd also like to see what was displaced--it's probably gas, not coal--and the way in which it was displaced for the purposes of their study. I doubt that it's their study, since I've heard this number in so many places. Does anyone know where is came from?
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment, Fun With Statistics


posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:12 PM | 2 comments links to this post

Thursday, January 25, 2007
International New Build Developments

Kursk Unit 5, ordered in 1985 and currently 70% complete, will be completed. Unfortunately, it's an RBMK (Chernobyl-style) reactor. The way they're going to be building it, a Chernobyl-style accident will be extremely improbable to the point of being far-fetched, but as pro-nuclear as I am, I can't say I'm thrilled. Note also that "third-generation RBMK" as noted in the link is a misnomer; all RBMKs are second-generation, and this doesn't have anything to do with real third-generation reactors like the AP-1000.

The contract for Flamanville Unit 3's reactor and associated systems has been awarded. I don't really understand why this is big news; nobody else really could have been awarded the contract, but it's a landmark.

Update 1/26/07 1:23 PM: The broken link to the Chernobyl+20 campaign page has been fixed.
Labels: Chernobyl, New Build, Safety


posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:55 PM | 3 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"(The nrc is a government agency with the conflicting dual mission of promoting and regulating nuclear power.)"


-Abalone Alliance

That was the AEC, and that was in fact the specific reason why the AEC was broken up into the NRC (regulation) and the Energy Research and Development Administration, now the Department of Energy (development and promotion).
Furthermore, regulation helps industry when done correctly. Regulators should be there not as adversaries to treat everyone like criminals, but to help industry develop sound plans for development and to constantly check their work--in short, not to drive them into the ground, but to ensure that they don't screw up. Ensuring that basic standards are met also prevents a race to the bottom in which ethical businesses are forced to use the unethical practices of their competitors to stay alive. Good regulation does promote the regulated industry: look at the FAA as an example.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Politics and Regulation


posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:00 PM | 2 comments links to this post

Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Not to mention the ageing 1st unit did not have a valid NRC permit."


-Abalone Alliance

Wrong.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Politics and Regulation


posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:54 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The utility was under intense pressure by the Public Utilities Commission which had done a financial analysis showing that the aging reactor [San Onofre Unit 1] was uneconomical to operate."


-Abalone Alliance

Because Gas Makes Sense!TM
Labels: Alternatives, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Economics


posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:50 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Monday, January 22, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Considering the fact that a nuclear plant houses more than a thousand times the radiation as released in an atomic bomb blast, the magnitude of a single attack could reach beyond 100,000 deaths and the immediate loss of tens of billions of dollars. The land and properties destroyed (your insurance won't cover nuclear disasters) would remain useless for decades and would become a stark monument reminding the world of the terrorists' ideology. With more than 100 reactors in the United States alone, if one is successfully destroyed, just threatening additional attacks could instill the sort of high impact terror which is being sought by a new breed of terrorists."


-Three Mile Island Alert

1. Just because radioactive material is there doesn't mean it can be released. There needs to be a dispersal mechanism. Terrorists couldn't do anything worse to Unit 1 than a combination of operator error and government-mandated "safety systems" did to Unit 2.
2. Nuclear weapons aren't primarily radiological devices. They cause a shock wave and set fires. Implying that an accident involving (not releasing, just involving) more radioactive material is going to cause more damage is at best incredibly misleading.
3. A TMI-style accident--the most severe possible in an American reactor--is not going to cause 100,000 deaths. It has happened and it didn't cause 100,000 deaths. Terrorists, keep in mind, are using the same controls as the operators, and can't deliberately do anything more severe than what the operators did accidentally. Again, why do they talk about the effects without proving that the causes are possible?
4. Your insurance won't cover nuclear disasters--but the plant's will. And again, this doesn't really matter, since the area currently surrounding TMI isn't exactly uninhabitable (an anti-nuclear activist living in the area admitted that the natural radiation from the walls of her house is enough to swamp her radiation monitor).
5. Even at Chernobyl, the land isn't "useless for decades." And Chernobyl was radically different from any actual power plant design; it was a bomb factory.
6. All they can do is threaten attacks; actually carrying one out successfully is impossible.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Chernobyl, Proliferation, Safety, Security and Terrorism, Three Mile Island


posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:11 PM | 2 comments links to this post

Sunday, January 21, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"SMUD raises rates...even though Rancho Seco hasn't produced a single kilowatt-hour of electricity."


-Abalone Alliance

Would you rather they pass on the cost of fuel only, so that they end up building plants that are cheap to build but enormously expensive to operate?
Would you rather they start paying off the plant when it operates by raising rates (for example) 22% all at once instead of 2% a year for 11 years?
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Economics


posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:00 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Saturday, January 20, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Diablo Canyon’s long-expired permit, issued in 1990, allows PG&E to discharge 2.5 billion gallons of hot water, used to cool the plant’s nuclear reactor, into the Pacific Ocean each day. These discharges have caused substantial damage to marine life, wiping out many species of fish and kelp."


-Environmental Wrecking Group

It's not going to acutely kill anything; they're talking about warm water "changing" the species of fish that are present by attracting more warm-weather fish into the area.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment


posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:45 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Friday, January 19, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"For more then 30 years, we have hoped that nuclear power could meet at least some of our energy needs. However, because of concerns about safety, waste disposal, costs, and other matters, this source has not been fully developed."


-American Forum

1. A coal plant, on the other hand, does not concern itself with waste disposal. Coal waste is simply dumped into the air and water, including significant amounts of radioactive material (coal ash was one of the leading candidates for a source of uranium during the Manhattan Project).
2. We have approximately 12,500 reactor-years of experience operating nuclear power plants, with one harebrained stunt conducted at a bomb factory and one meltdown (read: the uranium heated up and melted) caused by a stuck-open government-ordered "safety valve" (TMI). As the anti-nuclear activists say when talking about waste, 12,500 years is a long time. I think we can dispense with the "uncertainty" argument.
3. Costs are the single reason why there hasn't been a nuclear power plant order in the United States since 1978 (it was cancelled; the last successful one was in 1973). High interest rates exploited by anti-nuclear delaying-tactic lawsuits, combined with unnecessary equipment installed as an extra safety factor due to the lack of experience with the technology (but which in fact ended up distracting plant personnel--as hinted at earlier, this was a major contributor to the Three Mile Island accident), caused the cost to skyrocket at a time when, semi-coincidentally, demand was leveling off. See this post from August for more details.
Labels: Alternatives, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Chernobyl, Economics, Safety, Three Mile Island, Waste


posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:42 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Thursday, January 18, 2007
Store Update

I am told that CafePress will soon start offering blue shirts. When that happens, there will be a blue t-shirt with either "Pro-Nuclear Environmentalist" or "Ask me about Whole Ecology" on it, as was requested by a reader a while back.
Labels: Environment, Site


posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:12 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Starting in 2007, the McGuire plants plan to start using MOX (mixed-oxide fuel), which contains surplus weapons-grade plutonium."


-Russell Hoffman

Salt contains deadly chlorine, which was used as a chemical weapon in World War I, and flammable sodium, which can cause deadly and agonizing burns. Chlorine is a weapon of mass destruction; it is incapable of discriminating between civilians and military targets. Since only those with a uterus can truly cherish life, salt is a tool of evil chauvinist pigs who seek to destroy and subjugate women.
The common phrase "rubbing salt in our wounds" thus must refer to pollution of the environment with the most evil substance in the universe. Anyone who uses salt is a cruel corporate profiteer with no regard for the well-being of the Our Lady of the Angels fire victims who lay screaming in pain in burn wards, or the veterans who were maimed serving our country in World War I.
DOWN WITH THE EVIL SCUM!!!

Back in reality...
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Plutonium, Proliferation


posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:00 AM | 3 comments links to this post

Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"We're seeking High Powered PR Firm"


-Rock the Reactors

Well, real people like us can't afford them, don't need them, and don't want them. We don't need anyone to spin inaccurate information; we've got the facts and we know how to use them.
Labels: Activism, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Their Actions


posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:30 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Last month it was a truck load of uranium oxide tipped over on I-95, and two nuclear reactors shutting down for no apparent reason. Now, in January we averted an accident of apolyptic [sic] proportions off the coast of Iran when an American nuclear powered fast-attack USS Newport News submarine RAMMED into A OIL SUPER TANKER! Surely I am not the only one going OH MY FORKING GAWD! Think about it folks...we have a ocean going nuclear reactor ramming into a SUPER TANKER filled with millions of gallons of crude oil! WAKE UP FOLKS...it would not have taken much more of and accident than this one to have wreaked irreparable harm on the world environment, as we watched in horror a combined oil, nuclear explosion of unprecedented magnitude shroud the Middle East in god knows what kind of a fall out as hundreds if not thousands of miles of shore line were destroyed!"


-Green Nuclear Butterfly Blog

1. A truck accident and two reactor scrams (the causes of which are known, BTW) does not translate into a threat to public health and safety. Here we get into the difference between safety and reliability: safety is the quality of the design (e.g., the effects of a failure), whereas reliability is simply the rate of failure. In neither case was an unsafe condition achieved.
2. The author of the post postulates an accident--but doesn't demonstrate how it could actually happen. How is a nuclear explosion going to happen in a reactor? How is all this fallout going to be released? How would it have those effects? Why can't people look at nuclear technology with some common sense?
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment, Safety


posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:18 PM | 6 comments links to this post

Monday, January 15, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"George Bush has given the Nuclear Industry some 8 BILLION plus dollars in subsidies since he took office, and is pushing a DOE initiative called Nuclear 2010 which would eventually site over ONE HUNDRED NEW REACTORS in America, the lion's share of the costs paid for WITH OUR TAXES, though the Utility companies would keep 100 percent of the profits."


-Green Nuclear Butterfly Blog

1. And how much of that is going to get taken back in fees and needless bureaucracy?
2. Actually, they're not pushing Nuclear Power 2010; they're pushing GNEP.
3. There's a 50/50 split only on the first six new nuclear power plants. After that, the utilities are on their own.
4. The utilities would keep the profits--but the system would be set up to prevent them from making profits, so it wouldn't matter.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Economics, New Build, Politics and Regulation


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

Sunday, January 14, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"First, we get the report from the NRC on the Tooth fairy connection to Strontium-90...for those of you that are not familiar with this, it seems that children around Nuclear Power Plants are being found with strontium-90 in their teeth."


-Green Nuclear Butterfly Blog

Yep, we're familiar with it...
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment, Radiation and Health


posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:02 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Saturday, January 13, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The same process used to make reactor fuel can be used to highly enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. This is why nuclear power programs have led to nuclear weapons programs in other countries."


-Energy Justice Network

1. Reactor fuel doesn't necessarily require enrichment, which is the process they're referring to.
2. Producing reactor fuel at an enrichment facility takes up some of the capacity of the enrichment facility. If a country has an enrichment facility, the only way to prevent highly-enriched uranium (HEU) production at that facility is to ensure that the facility is producing low-enriched uranium reactor fuel. Thus, American-style light-water reactors pose a negative proliferation risk.
3. "Nuclear power programs have led to nuclear weapons programs" sounds nice in theory, but there isn't a single country that has used nuclear power to develop nuclear weapons. The US, Britain, and the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons before nuclear power plants were ever developed, France, China, and Pakistan developed nuclear weapons before building their first nuclear power plants, South Africa used an enrichment facility that was not being used to provide reactor fuel, and Israel and North Korea don't have nuclear power plants. And what about all the countries with nuclear power plants that don't have nuclear weapons?
4. The point is not whether or not to trust a country about the development of nuclear weapons; it is possible to independently check whether a national nuclear program will result in proliferation. I am on record as saying that Iraq didn't have one, North Korea's is for weapons production, and Iran's is peaceful. Let's see.
5. Highly-enriched uranium isn't necessarily weapons-grade. HEU is uranium enriched to over 20% uranium-235; weapons-grade uranium is over 93% uranium-235. Furthermore, there are legitimate uses for HEU and ways to make it more proliferation-resistant; it's just a bit more difficult to control and account for.
6. "Military uses" doesn't necessarily mean "nuclear weapons uses." Technically, a nuclear submarine is a military use (it's also a great example of a legitimate use of HEU--all existing nuclear submarines use HEU fuel with some proliferation-resisting chemicals added).
7. They have no idea how difficult it is to design, produce, deliver, and detonate a nuclear weapon. There are pitfalls at every stage, and a nuclear weapon cannot tolerate imperfections. It's unbelievably difficult.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Iran, Proliferation


posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:06 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Friday, January 12, 2007
Weekly Nuclear Poll #6

Who should receive the second annual Dr. John Gofman Nuclear Pseudoscience Award?
Helen Caldicott
Jan Peczkis
Jim Phelps

View Vote Stats
Discuss this Poll
Labels: Activism, Conspiracy, Creationists, Humor


posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:51 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day





-Nuclear Free Vermont

No natural-draft cooling towers? Vermont Yankee doesn't even use them.

Plus, cooling towers are a part of the system that converts the power plant's heat to electricity, whatever is producing the heat in the first place. They're used at some coal plants, too; when regulations were enacted that required them (or strongly suggested that they be used), the majority of power plants under construction were nuclear, so they've become associated with nuclear power plants--even though nuclear power plants that were built before these regulations were enacted did not use cooling towers. Details, details.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment


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

Thursday, January 11, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Consider the amount of heat that is pumped into the Lakes in its effort to cool reactors. And what about the heat that rises out of their enclosures and heat the atmosphere continually? Tell me, is that not part of what we call "Global warming?""


-'Simon Schotsman,' commenter

Global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect: the emission of insulating gases into the atmosphere resulting in increased retention of solar heat. Unfortunately, I've heard people (literally) say that pouring antifreeze into the sewer causes global warming. The words "global warming" are becoming a lightning rod for anything that is said to be environmentally unfavorable, regardless of whether the item being discussed has anything to do with global warming. I recall the time that Patrick Moore pointed out that, well, maybe we shouldn't be saying that old-growth forests mitigate global warming because, well, they don't, since they don't grow as fast as new trees. Of course, he was attacked all over the media, because the average mainstream environmentalist thinks metaphorically--if an association makes sense, they believe it, without checking the factual accuracy of the statement. Now, of course, there are exceptions to that, and everyone's mind works differently, but there's a disturbing amount of group-think in this case.
A couple of points to clarify:
1. There's a difference between people who are dogmatic about denying that global warming is happening and/or caused by humans and those who would rather see the evidence first. I'd rather see the evidence first, I have, and I have concluded that global warming is happening and largely caused by humans--but that it is not the end of the world and there are ways to stop it.
2. The people discussing the issue, their motivations, and their intentions matter much less than the issue itself. Insulting the opposition gives us the appearance that we have no factual basis to stand on. Let's discuss the issue.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment, Strange


posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:16 PM | 3 comments links to this post

Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"In just five days—including Christmas Day!—more than 100 organizations signed the letter urging the new Congress to shift energy funding from nuclear power and fossil fuels to renewable energy and efficiency programs.

This is really a historic coalition, composed of most of the major renewable energy trade associations, safe energy groups, businesses and more."


-Green Nuclear Butterfly Blog

Such a coalition: the windmill and solar panel industries, signing a declaration asking for more government money and to defund their only viable clean competitor.
Labels: Alternatives, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:15 AM | 4 comments links to this post

Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Also included in the bill [H.R. 1] are steps that will help prevent terrorists from acquiring WMD and will also bolster international efforts to stem nuclear weapons proliferation. (So curious here...how does this goal jive with the DOE/NRC plan for wanting to build all those new reactors, which will actually HELP to perpetuate NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION? )"


-Green Nuclear Butterfly Blog

Nuclear proliferation or nuclear weapons proliferation (i.e., technology that is either useless or a hindrance to a bomb program vs. weapons technology)?
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Politics and Regulation, Proliferation


posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:08 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Monday, January 08, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Nuclear reactors, nuclear reprocessing plants and the trains that carry nuclear materials around the country are inviting targets for terrorists (see how a Daily Mirror reporter planted a 'bomb' on a train carrying nuclear waste, July 2006)."


-mng.ork.uk

And if it had been a bomb, and if it had exploded, what would have happened? Nothing.

Skyscrapers are terrorist targets. Important government buildings are terrorist targets. Being a target means that something has value; we must protect targets, not do the terrorists' work for them by shutting down 'targets.' And I'm certainly no neocon.

Furthermore, the only reason a terrorist would attack a nuclear facility is that anti-nuclear groups have scared people into thinking that any terrorist attack on a nuclear facility would DOOM THE PLANET etc. In fact, much more real damage could be done against a chemical plant, or with fertilizer/diesel fuel truck bombs. In other words, a terrorist is trying to terrorize, not simply trying to destroy targets in the conventional sense.

Update 1/12/07 8:00 PM: Josh Baxter has reminded me of his earlier write-up of this incident.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Fuel Cycle, Security and Terrorism, Their Actions


posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:54 AM | 2 comments links to this post

Sunday, January 07, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"There was a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 released large amounts of radioactivity over a very wide area,"


-mng.org.uk

So what is it about TMI that didn't fit the line that nuclear power is dangerous, such that they had to change the subject? Oh, right, nothing actually really happened outside of the plant.

And Chernobyl was a botched test at a Soviet bomb factory, so that doesn't really have anything to do with the way nuclear power was ever done or ever will be done.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Safety


posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:46 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Saturday, January 06, 2007
Weekly Nuclear Poll #5

In the sidebar or here:

Do you have any use for the current content of the Nuclear NewsWire or should I clear it out and start over?
Yes, Save it
No, Clear it out
Either way is fine
Undecided


View Vote Stats
Discuss this Poll
Labels: Site


posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:20 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"With regard to CO2 emissions and the need to reduce them, there is an idea that renewable technologies cannot meet our needs and that, despite its clear disadvantages, nuclear power is a necessary stop-gap. But the truth is quite different: there is more than enough renewable energy to meet our needs and there is no need to tolerate all the many headaches arising from nuclear power."


-mng.org.uk

There's more solar energy than we ever could use--spread out over a larger area than we could ever collect it from.
Labels: Access to Energy, Alternatives, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:42 AM | 4 comments links to this post

Friday, January 05, 2007
Last Call for Gofman Award Nominations

Please post your nominations here.
Labels: Humor, Site


posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:53 PM | 0 comments links to this post

MeetWith?

What do you think about having internet-coordinated meetup-type events solely for information distribution? Open-minded anti-nuclear people and neutral people could sign up to meet in a small group with other anti-nuclear and neutral people and one or two pro-nuclear people to get the pro-nuclear side, ask questions, and generally start a dialogue. This is the kind of really basic outreach that the internet can help with (leveraging the core competencies of computers and people), and AFAIK is not done at all. It really helps to introduce pro-nuclear people to anti-nuclear and neutral people as people, not just 'spokespersons'--several of my strongest allies today are people who were once anti-nuclear, and that happened through solid person-to-person contact over many months. Of course, we would have to be very, very careful about who would do the talking, and we would have to have a website (not a bunch of websites, but one) with links to other information since a given person would probably not show up again but could very well be disposed to look it up, and each pro-nuclear person would probably have a Nuclear Info CD and a laptop, some basic printed information, and a small battery-powered printer. There probably should be "meetwiths" on different issues to break down this enormous issue into human-sized chunks.
My idea of this is that a pro-nuclear engineering/physics/etc. student, one or two civil, thoughtful anti-nuclear activists, and a few neutral people would meet at a restaurant or at someone's house. The pro-nuclear person would use a PowerPoint outline of an issue (say waste) to guide a discussion, but otherwise would just let it flow--there wouldn't be any lecturing, or moving through an agenda point by point, or FAQs read to the group, etc. The goal is that it would turn into a conversation instead of a lecture. When the conversation is over, the pro-nuclear person would offer to print out (or email) any information, and give the people in the group some basic information (consisting essentially of a fact sheet and/or where to get more information) There is an additional bonus in that regular internet users are six to seven times more likely to be "influentials" in their communities--so they would be much more likely to go tell their friends about the issue. Also, this is something that professional engineers and scientists can do without really risking anything--they're not going to get arrested or fired, and it won't monopolize their time.
Of course, this is only a part of a broader activism strategy that involves media PR, legal action, and visibility, and requires that we get the student core organized first. It also wouldn't be done exclusively through the internet; we would also have to use conventional viral advertising.

Comments? Ideas? Derisive Laughter?
Labels: Activism


posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:50 PM | 6 comments links to this post

So Much for Clinton Unit 2

ComEd's rates are up 22% immediately (instead of 2% a year for the last eleven years--because of a rate freeze), unless the socialists-by-any-other-name in the Illinois state legislature reverse it. How dare a company not sell its goods below cost? Here comes conservation and gas turbines (well, they couldn't have built Clinton Unit 2 anyway, since there's a reactor ban in place).

This is one of many unintended consequences of CWIP bans and rate freezes--all of a sudden, a utility is no longer solvent and needs to actually meet costs, so the rates end up spiking instead of gradually increasing. For the umpteenth time, if you're going to deregulate, deregulate. If you're not going to, don't. The worst possible scenario for everyone involved is something in the middle.
Labels: Economics, New Build, Politics and Regulation


posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:45 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Year

From January 15:



"WHAT DOES RELIGION HAVE TO DO WITH THE GLOBAL NUCLEAR INDUSTRY? EVERYTHING.
AMERICAN PHARISEE CAPITALIST JEWS CREATED THE ATOMIC BOMB AND GAVE THE SECRETS TO RUSSIAN SADDUCCEE COMMUNIST JEWS. Without enriched uranium the New World Order could not maintain the military power to keep expanding the Deuteronomy 15:6 IMF/World Bank interest/debt/tax slavery money system."


-Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Conspiracy, Strange


posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:38 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Iran Sanctions

Everybody knows about it by now, and regular readers can predict that I don't like it, and would have preferred a cooperative scientific approach.

There goes another idea, perhaps another country into the new Russian bloc, and hopefully not more American troops for another stupid war for world power induced by radiophobia.

I distinctly recall a New York Times article in the month before the Iraq invasion that parroted a White House line that the Iraqis’ switch from 7075-T3 to 7075-T73 aluminum alloy for a certain shipment of tubes, plus an anodized coating, was a dead giveaway that they were trying to use what they said were artillery rockets for uranium enrichment centrifuge rotors. This is patently wrong—you can’t use just any old tube for a centrifuge (these devices are so precise that fingerprints on the tubes have been known to cause balance problems), the first thing you would have to do if they were suitable (and they aren’t) is to mill off the coating, and you need a lot more than centrifuge rotors to actually enrich uranium. But here’s the kicker: the Iraqis said they had made this substitution to solve problems with stress corrosion in their artillery rockets—and the designers of the Apollo Lunar Module in the 1960s had made precisely the same change for precisely the same reason, as anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Apollo program could tell you. I certainly remembered. I sat there and laughed for about 30 seconds, asking myself how the Newspaper of Record couldn’t find an aerospace engineer to comment on this. Then I realized that the moron who had made that statement in the first place was in charge of our country.
I had hoped—as I do for the current confrontations with Iran and North Korea—that the Left’s peace instincts would override their anti-nuclear instincts, but the government’s tubes claim was never significantly challenged. Perhaps this is also why the peace community is vehemently against MOX. Perhaps this is why it is considered a good idea to import natural gas from Russia to back up unreliable windmills, but not a good idea to import Canadian reactor technology that destroys the most dangerous part of nuclear waste while producing electricity in the process. Perhaps that’s the source of the persistent myths about the 1986 botched test at the Soviet bomb factory known as Chernobyl—which 99 and 44/100 percent of the public believes was a civilian nuclear power plant. But it is certainly the source of something else: George W. Bush had only to use the word "radiation" to co-opt much of the traditional peace community into supporting a war. It taught me that we cannot rely on the peace movement as even temporary allies, for they will stab us in the back at the earliest possible opportunity. And it taught me that some environmentalists are less interested in the environment than in creating an institution from which to exclude people.
Labels: Iran, Politics and Regulation, Proliferation, Their Actions


posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:00 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Weird Al: Virus Alert

Read the lyrics here or listen here.

Sending in the lyrics could have made a fairly sarcastic comment on the NRC's new IT security regulations. Now if only I could write something like that about proliferation...
Labels: Humor, Politics and Regulation, Proliferation, Security and Terrorism


posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:43 PM | 0 comments links to this post

NRCWatch Reorganization

NRCWatch has moved to www.niof.org/campaigns/regs/. The current template will be changed to a photoshopped red version of this template in a few days and the layout changed to be more like an index with a column of news instead of a news page with a column of links.
Labels: Politics and Regulation, Site


posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:07 PM | 0 comments links to this post

NIOF.org Update #53

1. Two new buttons: Add to My MSN and Add to MyFeedster.
2. The campaign buttons are now in the Net.Activism sidebar section, which has been merged with the Campaigns sidebar section.
3. The Second Bandwagon Market Nuclear Proposals page now includes Sizewell C.
4. The December 2006 newsletter is online and the index has been updated to reflect that.
5. The discussion board is now at forums.niof.org/. It currently uses a redirect; I'm working on figuring out how to change something called a CNAME record to make it all actually work. I don't know what a CNAME record is, but I'll try to figure it out. Update 4:00 AM 1/6/07: It now all works without a redirect.
6. I've fixed broken links and a couple of typos in Site History, Site Policies, Contact NIOF, Weekly Nuclear Poll #1, Weekly Nuclear Poll #2, Weekly Nuclear Poll #3, Weekly Nuclear Poll #4, Contributed Articles, NIOF Awards, 401, 403, 404, 500, Support PRISM Licensing, Nuclear News Index, and Nuclear News Feeds.
Labels: Activism, New Build, Site


posted by Stewart Peterson at 2:12 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"At a time when its accumulation is accelerating and no plan for its permanent isolation has been developed anywhere in the world, nuclear waste is an unsolved problem."


-Sierra Club

First, it's not exactly accelerating; six power reactors at three nuclear power plants were shut down at the end of last year (although the coal ash from the plants used to replace them will be radioactive).
And yes, plans have been developed--but not necessarily to permanently isolate it. It doesn't have to be permanently isolated; there is an important difference which they do not make clear: the difference between spent fuel and nuclear waste. Spent fuel from the current generation of reactors is 97% usable fuel that hasn't been used yet, and only 3% waste, with a large amount of usable fuel stored in casks at various points along the fuel cycle. Accordingly, there are different types of plans for how to deal with nuclear waste; some postpone the need to make a decision about the problem, some increase the efficiency of the fuel cycle, some make the problem smaller without solving it, and some solve the problem.
1. The standard method. We could theoretically keep doing what we're doing, mining uranium or precipitating it from water, enriching it to 3%-5% U-235 and leaving the DU in casks at the enrichment plant, then running it through a reactor once and leaving it semi-permanently in an underwater rack or moving it into air-cooled concrete casks. When natural nuclear reactors in Africa stopped working, the reactor's plutonium was released into the groundwater and moved less than ten feet in two billion years. Yucca Mountain would work, and Finland's repository is close to opening with South Korea's in advanced development.
2. PUREX reprocessing. The traditional French method uses an aqueous chemical process originally meant to recover plutonium from Chernobyl-type military reactors for weapons production. There are viable ways to prevent radioactive discharges from these plants, and the non-fissile-activation-product buildup that currently limits reuse to twice-through can be solved by using laser isotope separation or fast-spectrum actinide burners. This traditional way of closing the fuel cycle would also have eventually worked.
3. DUPIC. This is a "twice-through" reuse of American "spent" fuel in more-efficient Canadian reactors. DUPIC certainly works and could be done today.
4. Extracting only fission products (atoms that have already been split) from the fuel using a number of dry physical and/or chemical methods that, unlike PUREX, don't produce any effluents. The fission products are more radioactive but shorter-lived than the rest of the fuel, which would then be reused. There are also a number of useful fission products, chiefly industrial catalysts, heat sources, medical isotopes, and industrial radiation sources. This includes pyroprocessing, a technique developed for the Integral Fast Reactor in the 1980s.
5. There is a slight difference in the physical properties of fluorides that can be exploited to recycle fuel in the traditional sense without using PUREX. A reprocessing plant using this PUREX alternative was built in central Illinois in the 1970s, but was shut down for political purposes.
6. Centralized/regional dry-cask storage. This is essentially collecting all the spent fuel from a country's or area's nuclear power plants and storing it in concrete casks--the same way it is currently being stored at many reactors.
7. UREX+ reprocessing. This is an improvement on PUREX that doesn't separate plutonium and shouldn't produce any effluents.
8. Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). These are basically a tank of molten fluorides (thermal spectrum) or chlorides (fast spectrum) in a mixture that can sustain a reaction. This is an extremely advanced reactor design with a number of unresolved but very resolvable technical problems that has a lot of promise for the future but not much for the short term.
9. Accelerator-driven transmutation. This involves accelerating protons at nuclear waste to change it into shorter-lived materials. Unfortunately, most of these systems don't produce net energy, so they can't recover their costs by selling electricity and are thus very expensive. On a technical level, however, they would work.
10. Ocean disposal. This may seem awful, but the final product is a stable solid (glass, ceramic, or metal), and the ocean is a great heat sink. There's enough uranium naturally dissolved in the oceans from underwater uranium deposits already to give us all of our electricity until the Sun dies. When the spent fuel eventually dissolves, the most dangerous materials would already have decayed, and the remaining material would increase the current radiation level by a few billionths of a percent. However, this assumes that the material isn't useful at all and renders it for all practical purposes permanently unrecoverable.
11. Solar disposal. Essentially, this involves sending waste (processed or not) into the Sun using satellite launchers. While it would probably work, it is not being seriously considered because of political pressure. Given the safety record of containers for radioactive materials (100%), there wouldn't be a safety problem, but the issue is one of cost-effectiveness.

That's eleven ideas, and I'm sure I've forgotten some. Good enough for y'all?

Whatever method is pursued, experience has shown, will depend on finding the path of least resistance.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Fuel Cycle, Waste


posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:31 AM | 6 comments links to this post

Thursday, January 04, 2007
Explanation for Hiatus

I haven't had internet access for the past five days. For the rest of this evening, I'll be working on catching up.
Labels: Site


posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:00 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which licenses power plants, almost all of these plants will reach their capacity for storage before the end of the decade."


-Center for Health, Environment and Justice

That doesn't mean that storage capacity can't be expanded.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, End Times, Waste


posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:14 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"In 1982, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act making DOE responsible for locating, building and operating a permanent underground disposal facility. To pay for the research and siting of this facility, Congress established the Nuclear Waste Fund. Companies who generate nuclear waste pay into the fund. In reality, you and I pay into this fund because utilities that buy electricity from nuclear power plants simply pass this cost on to the consumer."


-Center for Health, Environment and Justice

Where do they expect companies to get money from? Does it come from the sky? Oh, right, they're socialists.

Socialism has a bad name in the US, but anti-corporate activists looking for a name for their movement would find that 'socialism' fits quite well. I truly believe that socialism is very popular in the United States, just by other names, and largely among people who don't vote. The logic is simple self-interest: consumers don't want to pay full cost, and use the vote to enforce their wishes on suppliers, pushing aside "elitist" math, logic, and science. The Democratic party is regularly criticized for not adopting socialist policies, and if people were to know what socialism really is, the mainstream of the Democratic party could very easily be pushed into the Republican party and replaced with socialists.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Economics, Politics and Regulation, Waste


posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:54 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"One by one nuclear power plants in this country are prematurely closing their doors. The reason is simple: it costs less to shut them down then pay enormous repair costs. In January, 1993, the Trojan nuclear power plant in Rainier, Oregon, closed down 18 years ahead of schedule rather than pay $200 million to replace cracked tubes in its steam generator. In November last year, the San Onofre Unit 1 near San Diego closed with 12 years left on its operating license rather than pay $125 million for needed repairs. The oldest power plant in the country, the Yankee Rowe, in Rowe, Massachusetts, closed in 1991 because the owners did not want to spend $23 million to repair its aging reactor. Plants near Suffolk, New York, and Platteville, Colorado all closed in 1989 for similar reasons."


-Center for Health, Environment and Justice

In 1989, the Shoreham nuclear power plant in Long Island (Suffolk County), New York, closed down 40 years ahead of schedule rather than eat $5.3 billion in construction costs that the New York government wouldn't let the utility recover. (Note: there was also a slight issue in that the New York government wouldn't sign off on the NRC-required evacuation plan, which has interestingly become the basis for the official evacuation plan. Perhaps there wasn't so much wrong with it...)
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Decommissioning, Industry Performance


posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:24 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Monday, January 01, 2007
New Year's Resolutions for 2007

OK, so last year's weren't too successful; there hasn't been a post on the Nuclear NewsWire in four months and posting on NRCWatch has been sporadic (I've been focusing on the site and this blog), I've had several inexcusable posting hiatuses (hiati? hiata? hiatae?), the site still isn't up (although I at least now know what I need to work on), the discussion board is stagnant, and I've done very little real activism. I've realized that I need to get my act together before trying to expand, so here are this year's priorities:

1. Not missing anything. A given 2007 news item will certainly be on the Nuclear NewsWire and most probably on this blog, and any regulatory news will be on NRCWatch. I will try not to fall behind.
2. Keeping up the site services. I've signed up for so many web doodads that I don't even remember what they all are, but they mostly take care of themselves. (I don't remember if I've announced the Energy Toolbar, but I've got to get that up, as well.)
3. Getting the site up. This won't be done before next January and probably won't be done until June 2008 (depending on some work issues). The comprehensive worldwide reactor database that I've always wanted to do probably won't be up until the end of summer 2008.
4. Developing a comprehensive plan to organize college campuses. This won't be done until the end of the year if that. However, as I see it now, implementing that plan will be the main focus of the second half of 2008.

I'll do my best--for you, for the environment, and for future generations.
Labels: Activism, Site


posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:00 PM | 3 comments links to this post

Shutdowns

Goodbye to Kozloduy 3 and 4, Dungeness A, and Sizewell A (two VVER-440s and four MAGNOX).

Let's hope we see the first COL applications this year--and that Sizewell C goes through.
Labels: Decommissioning, New Build


posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:52 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Beware, low-level does not mean low hazard. Low level waste is highly radioactive and will remain so for thousands of years."


-Center for Health, Environment and Justice

That is precisely what it means. Somebody's used rubber gloves aren't going to make your face melt and give you six types of cancer (remember, somebody's used rubber gloves were once directly attached to somebody's hands).

And again, if something is highly radioactive, it decays quickly. If something is long-lived, it can't emit radiation as quickly and thus isn't highly radioactive.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Waste


posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:07 PM | 0 comments links to this post

Link: http://blog.niof.org/2007_01_01_archive.html