Nuclear is Our Future Pro-nuclear activist group

I’ve updated the Nuclear NewsWire News Box page to correct a coding error that was preventing anyone from using the News Boxes unless they had FTP, to move the sample News Box over to the right, to show the code (as the Nuclear Advocacy Webring page does), and to describe how to customize the code. (Note: the different color scheme is from the Nuclear NewsWire; I’ve been better at updating it lately, and if you need a quick news source, I might modestly suggest a News Box.)

As we head into September, I’m going to try to have a site update every day–hopefully with a good mix of content and infrastructure.

Filed under Site

Posted on August 31, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

It’s essential for us to look long-term and not waste our efforts on campaigns that will not promote new build. I put this proposition to you:

Nuclear power is better than chemical power.

This does not mean “follow me” but it is rather a respectful suggestion that we should consider long-term new build when we decide to do something. We should be promoting new build and keeping current reactors online, not our cleanup businesses, or our new reactor businesses, etc. I would even go so far as to say that someone who trashes light-water reactors (or anything else) to promote their personal favorite design is not pro-nuclear. They are simply an industrial opportunist, and it is important to recognize the distinction. Coal kills 30,000 people every year in the US, for a total over a million since the last successful reactor order. Remember those people.
Nuclear power, even imperfect nuclear power, even bad nuclear power, is better than the best chemical power. It’s a choice: one or the other; even windmills require gas turbines to back them up. Pro-nuclear activists recognize this and apply it to their public actions.

In short, anything preventing new build needs to go. Bad NRC regulations need to be fixed. The rate structure needs reform. Reactor bans, though, are the clearest legal block to construction. They need to be repealed as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to pursue this–yet. We don’t need to start small as much as start obvious. Let’s lay the groundwork. If the political climate doesn’t change drastically, that will probably mean getting exceptions written into state reactor ban clauses to allow waste-eating reactors (See Support DUPIC). Once we have a voice, we can push to repeal reactor bans. It will take a while–the anti-nuclear movement began in the early 1960s and didn’t get reactor bans on the ballot until the late 1970s. Think long-term, act short-term: the ultimate goal is new build.

Individually, let’s do what we need to do in our corners of the world. People are open to DUPIC, and I believe we should start there. But never forget:

Nuclear power is better than chemical power. Our goal is new build.

Filed under Activism, Alternatives, New Build, Politics and Regulation

Posted on August 31, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 5 Comments »

“But, nuclear plants are expensive to build and their radioactive by-products constitute both a security and health risk. Storage of spent fuel from reactors is a continuing source of controversy and conflict.”

-Resources for the Future

1. It’s not expense as much as the distribution of costs: nuclear power plants are heavy initial investments with almost no fuel costs. The overall cost is very low, but a rate structure that allows utilities to pass on fuel costs and does not allow them to pass on initial investments (Surprise!) discourages initial investment, even if the overall cost of the plant with a heavy initial investment is lower. The result of this rate structure is plants that run on natural gas, because natural gas plants are cheap to build. The gas itself is incredibly expensive, but that doesn’t matter to the utility, since it’s passed on to the consumers.
This doesn’t affect only nuclear power–it affects everything that uses less fuel at the cost of a higher initial investment, meaning clean energy sources.

2. People tend to spend quite a lot of time coming up with absurd scenarios for terrorist attacks on and accidents at spent fuel storage locations, even if these ideas have serious practical problems or are even physically impossible to execute, and use them to argue against new build. There are two main problems with this line of reasoning:
-Nuclear power plants have a waste problem because they are socially responsible. Coal-fired plants produce just as much radioactive waste and use the sky as a sewer. Thus, even though they produce ten million times more waste, they don’t have a waste problem–if you don’t count the 30,000 people who die every year in this country inhaling it.
-The “waste” stored at nuclear power plants isn’t really waste. Canadian reactors are more efficient than American ones and can use this “waste” directly as fuel. In fact, 95%-97% of each “waste” fuel rod is still perfectly good fuel.

Filed under Alternatives, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Economics, Health, Security and Terrorism, Waste

Posted on August 31, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 3 Comments »

“The facility is controversial for several reasons. First, from worker safety and environmental perspectives, the existing uranium enrichment facilities at Piketon, Ohio and Paducah, Kentucky are disasters.”

-Southwest Research and Information Center

Which were built with 1940s technology and have no bearing on modern facilities.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment, Fuel Cycle, New Build, Safety

Posted on August 30, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

The Nuclear Advocacy Webring page has been updated to show the code that can be used to link to it instead of just displaying the resulting button.

There are currently four members: NIOF, We Support Lee, Atomic Insights, and Freedom for Fission. Submit your pro-nuclear site here.

Filed under Activism, Site

Posted on August 29, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 2 Comments »

The NRC has terminated Bellafonte’s construction permits.

In other words, the last surviving nuclear power plant from the Great Bandwagon Market has now officially been canceled–32 years later. The plant was approved on May 24, 1974 and as of August 22, 2006 is now dead.

Watts Bar Unit 2 still holds a valid construction permit, but it is an additional unit and is not likely to be completed.

Filed under Decommissioning, Industry Performance, New Build

Posted on August 29, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 5 Comments »

It has been at 2/3 power since Thursday for steam generator repairs.

via ITAR-TASS.

Filed under Fuel Cycle, Industry Performance

Posted on August 29, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Iran opened a heavy-water production plant, not a nuclear reactor, and the reactor wouldn’t necessarily be a proliferation hazard even if it existed. That requires a particular plutonium-separation technology called PUREX plus a reactor that can produce weapons-grade plutonium, and production capabilities depend on the reactor’s design.

And if they try to make a plutonium bomb, assuming they have separated weapons-grade plutonium? Well, it’s extremely difficult to say the least. You could almost say that plutonium doesn’t want to explode and you have to go to great lengths to force it to harm people.

This is directed at:
The New York Times
The Guardian

Filed under Fuel Cycle, International, Iran, Plutonium, Proliferation, Security and Terrorism

Posted on August 29, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 1 Comment »

It’s not going to be ready for a while.

I apologize.

Filed under Site

Posted on August 29, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

“CBG won a lawsuit and an executive branch moratorium on dumping radwaste in California landfills. It has now been revealed that Rancho Seco is trying to get around these prohibitions by shipping its radwaste to Tennessee to be dumped in regular garbage dumps there.”

-Committee to Blow the Bridge

So what?

Notice how they can only say that it doesn’t meet California regulations and the landfills weren’t designed specifically for nuclear waste (not mentioning how radioactive this “nuclear waste” actually is–less than or equal to other materials that are placed in those dumps and not considered nuclear waste). They do not actually talk about what’s wrong with the concept.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Politics and Regulation, Waste

Posted on August 29, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »