Nuclear is Our Future Pro-nuclear activist group

“A problem arises with the treaty because it also promotes peaceful nuclear technology–which is inherently dual-purpose, capable of being used for peaceful or warlike purposes–as an “inalienable right” for all nations.”

-Peace Action

The only thing that civilian nuclear technology can do is render bomb material useless. No nation, including India (see link), ever used a civilian reactor to produce bomb material.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Plutonium, Proliferation

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

“Improvements in automobile efficiency since 1973 are saving consumers $177 billion in 2005 alone – more than twice as much as the federal government spends each year on education”

-Alliance to Save Energy

Every single research program that somebody doesn’t like is compared to federal funding for education–because the overwhelming source of funding for education is the states!

And I’ve said this a million times, but improving efficiency and reducing use of things we need assumes (quite arrogantly) that we’ve discovered everything, and that our efforts are better spent at making fossil fuels work longer instead of developing alternative sources.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Economics, End Times, Energy

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

“If all U.S. households used ENERGY STAR refrigerators, the electricity saved could eliminate the need for about 3 nuclear power plants.”

-Alliance to Save Energy

Or a few thousand windmills, or a large hydro dam, or six coal plants…

Great idea. Let’s eliminate any need for new technology. This is why the oil and coal interests love conservation–it obviates competitors’ products.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Economics, Energy, Fun With Statistics

Posted on September 28, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

“Our research shows that the U.S. Army at Fort Greely is responsible for extensive radioactive contamination through: 1) control rod accident—a near melt-down event in 1967 exposed workers to harmful levels of radiation; 2) radioactive steam heat to the post; 3) liquid radioactive waste discharged to groundwater and Jarvis Creek; 4) radioactive fallout; 5) solid radioactive waste disposal; and 6) long-lived radioactivity in the reactor still remaining on Fort Greely.”

-Alaska Community Action on Toxics

1. How does a part failure that they admit had no effect on the environment have an effect on the environment?
2. The steam was produced by passing water over a heat exchanger. That water never had anything to do with the reactor and was consequently (guess what) not radioactive.
3. I assume that by “liquid radioactive waste” they mean tritiated water, which is approximately sixty times less radioactive than orange juice. Nuclear power plants do not produce liquid nuclear waste; nuclear waste is ceramic or metal pellets.
4. Fallout from what? Are they detonating nuclear bombs at this site?
5. The aforementioned pellets are stored onsite. They haven’t been “disposed” anywhere.
6. If it’s inside the reactor, it’s not outside, is it? And if it’s not outside, how is it contaminating anything?

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment, Safety, Waste

Posted on September 27, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

“The design for an atomic bomb can easily be found on the Internet; some basic materials purchased at the local hardware shop will complete production.”

-Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, p.62

Link? Details, details.

And a plutonium bomb is extremely difficult to make, even if you have the material.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Plutonium, Proliferation, Security and Terrorism

Posted on September 26, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 5 Comments »

“The radioactive sludge left over from the making of the first atomic bombs is now leaking out of its waste tanks seven miles from the Columbia River. Current estimates suggest that it will take between $50 and $100 billion of taxpayer dollars to encapsulate the nuke glop into some form of glass bricks for permanent storage. And, there are serious doubts as to whether even this very expensive plan will work. [Web Site Editor's note: Nuclear power looks competitive with other power sources only because the waste disposal costs, which will go on for many centuries, are not included in the calculations. Instead, the waste disposal costs have been shifted to the taxpayers of this and future generations.]“

-nonukes.org

That’s not nuclear power, though. That’s bomb manufacturing.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Economics, Environment, Proliferation, Waste

Posted on September 25, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 3 Comments »

“Plutonium is so carcinogenic that the half-ton of plutonium released from the Chernobyl meltdown is theoretically enough to kill everyone on earth with lung cancer 1,100 times if it were to be uniformly distributed into the lung of every human being.”

-Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, p.62

Then why hasn’t it?

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Chernobyl, Health, International, Plutonium, Safety

Posted on September 24, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

“Before the Chernobyl meltdown, the nuclear industry assumed that, in the event of an accident at a nuclear power plant, only a tiny percentage of the radioactive inventory of the reactor core would escape from the containment into the environment. On April 26, 1986, when Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, however, almost all the contents of the deadly radioactive fission products were spewed into the environment.”

-Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, pp.74-75

Before I address the central argument, there are two other more minor false statements and a key omission:
1. Chernobyl is called both a meltdown and an explosion. It was in fact a steam explosion–a meltdown is simply the melting of fuel.
2. “Contents of the fission products?” Fission products are the contents–that’s like saying “contents of the metal ingot” or “contents of the electrical plug.”
3. Chernobyl had no containment to hold anything in. If it had, next to nothing would have gotten out.

Now, the real part:
On the contrary, industry and government alike assumed that a worst-case scenario accident would release all of the fuel and fission products–but that it would be extremely improbable. However, such an accident was later found to be physically impossible–the fission products (since they are obviously lighter) escape more easily than the fuel, which in a full meltdown congeals into a puddle in the bottom of the reactor vessel. Furthermore, fission products are only around 3% of the fuel–and in a bomb factory like Chernobyl, even less (and if it had been a civilian nuclear power plant, the design compromises that led to the accident would never have been made, but that’s another post). In total, even in a worst-case reactor accident like Chernobyl, where all of the material was supposed to be released, only about 5% of the total was released. This included all of the krypton and xenon, most of the other fission products, and very little else. Chernobyl demonstrated that previous nuclear safety studies were fatally flawed: they were far too conservative.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Chernobyl, International, Physics, Safety

Posted on September 23, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 1 Comment »

“Each of the 100,000 casks would carry the long-term radiological equivalent of some 40 to 200 Hiroshima bombs. [RWMA] Government studies show HLRW shipments would experience similar rates and types of accidents as other types of hazardous materials shipments; DOE estimates that 8 to 66 accidents would occur during HLRW transport to Yucca Mt. [DOE EIS] Therefore, the question is not if an accident will occur—but when and where. The steel shipping containers could release catastrophic amounts of radiation in a severe accident or terrorist attack, but the federal government has refused to perform adequate full-scale physical safety tests to see how they would hold up.”

-BE SAFE Precautionary Campaign

1. Nuclear weapons aren’t intended as radiological devices. In fact, they primarily set fires–reinforced concrete buildings in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki survived the bombings, including the building directly below the explosion in Nagasaki.
2. Types of accidents, meaning types of accidents or types of accident consequences? A thin metal tank full of hydrochloric acid and a concrete cask full of solid fuel rods can experience the same type of accident, and the concrete cask will come out in one piece while the tank breaks open.
3. Will these 8 to 66 accidents be severe enough to release radioactive materials? Is such an accident physically possible?
4. “Full-scale physical safety tests” have in fact been conducted.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment, Proliferation, Radiation, Safety, Security and Terrorism, Waste

Posted on September 22, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

“HLRW is dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands to millions of years.”

-BE SAFE Precautionary Campaign

Not if it’s reused, and not if you measure “dangerous radioactivity” as higher-than-natural levels instead of some arbitrary number that is lower than natural radiation.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Physics, Waste

Posted on September 21, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »