Ralph Nader on The Nuclear Power Nightmare'

bikerdruid

Philosopher
B
Joined
Aug 12, 2010
Messages
7,361
Location
North Peace Bioregion of theGreat Boreal Forest
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/303-211/5337-nuclear-nightmare

ralph nader has a sobering view on thew matter of nuclear power.
here are some facts you may not know about nuke power in the states.

1. Wall Street will not finance new nuclear plants without a 100% taxpayer loan guarantee.

2. Nuclear power is uninsurable in the private insurance market - too risky. Under the Price-Anderson Act, taxpayers pay the greatest cost of a meltdown's devastation.

# 3. Nuclear power plants and transports of radioactive wastes are a national security nightmare for the Department of Homeland Security. Imagine the target that thousands of vulnerable spent fuel rods present for sabotage.

4. Guess who pays for whatever final waste repositories are licensed? You the taxpayer and your descendants as far as your gene line persists. Huge decommissioning costs, at the end of a nuclear plant's existence come from the ratepayers' pockets.

5. Nuclear plant disasters present impossible evacuation burdens for those living anywhere near a plant, especially if time is short.

6. Nuclear power is both uneconomical and unnecessary. It can't compete against energy conservation, including cogeneration, windpower and ever more efficient, quicker, safer, renewable forms of providing electricity.
 
Jonathan Chait of the American Prospect said this of Nader's 2000 campaign:
So it [is] particularly damning that Nader fails to clear even this low threshold [of honesty]. His public appearances during the campaign, far from brutally honest, were larded with dissembling, prevarication and demagoguery, empty catchphrases and scripted one-liners. Perhaps you think this was an unavoidable response to the constraints of campaign sound-bite journalism. But when given more than 300 pages to explain his case in depth, Nader merely repeats his tired aphorisms.

So we are hearing more of his empty catch phrases and scripted one liners.
​
 
4. Guess who pays for whatever final waste repositories are licensed?
Click to expand...
What's new ?

6. Nuclear power is both uneconomical and unnecessary. It can't compete against energy conservation, including cogeneration, windpower and ever more efficient, quicker, safer, renewable forms of providing electricity.
Click to expand...

What "... ever more efficient, quicker, safer, renewable forms of providing electricity. " are we speaking of here ?
 
Last edited:
1. Wall Street will not finance new nuclear plants without a 100% taxpayer loan guarantee.
Click to expand...
Considering the fact that nuclear power is under so many regulations that any power plant is de facto owned by the government, this is perfectly reasonable. (Please note: I'm not discussing whether or not government regulation is a good thing here. I'm just saying that when the government controls this much of an industry calling it private is dishonest and expecting the private sector to finance it is absurd.)

2. Nuclear power is uninsurable in the private insurance market - too risky. Under the Price-Anderson Act, taxpayers pay the greatest cost of a meltdown's devastation.
Click to expand...
Considering the fact that nuclear power is under so many regulations that any power plant is de facto owned by the government, this is perfectly reasonable.

# 3. Nuclear power plants and transports of radioactive wastes are a national security nightmare for the Department of Homeland Security. Imagine the target that thousands of vulnerable spent fuel rods present for sabotage.
Click to expand...
This is not a fact, it is an opinion. Besides, there are several ways around this. First and foremost, don't make nuclear waste containers look different. If the terrorists can't ID the containers they can't attack them. Second, recycle and refine used fuel rods. The whole risk is in radioactivity--exactly the thing we build reactors to harness. Odd, isn't that?

4. Guess who pays for whatever final waste repositories are licensed? You the taxpayer and your descendants as far as your gene line persists. Huge decommissioning costs, at the end of a nuclear plant's existence come from the ratepayers' pockets.
Click to expand...
Considering the fact that nuclear power is under so many regulations that any power plant is de facto owned by the government, this is perfectly reasonable.

5. Nuclear plant disasters present impossible evacuation burdens for those living anywhere near a plant, especially if time is short.
Click to expand...
I used to live by a BP refinery. My dad was chief of the fire department. He was told that if the refinery ever caught fire don't even bother to put it out. Just run. It won't WORK--we'd still have died--but at least it'll make us feel like we're accomplishing something in our final minutes.

How is a nuclear reactor any different?

Besides, this plays on people's ignorance of nuclear power. People think that a nuclear reactor problem=nuclear bomb. It doesn't. Meltdown is an entirely different process, much slower and much more long-term, and which presents different threats. The wording of this statement is a cowardly refusal to address those issues, preferring instead to hide behind vague generalities meant to imply, but not state, that nuclear reactors are the equivalent of nuclear bombs.

6. Nuclear power is both uneconomical and unnecessary. It can't compete against energy conservation, including cogeneration, windpower and ever more efficient, quicker, safer, renewable forms of providing electricity.
Click to expand...
The highlighted part illustrates how poorly thought-out this point is. Generation of any kind is NOT energy conservation, and thus cannot be included in that heading. As for the bits after it, windpower cannot supply us with sufficient electricity (it would take more land than the USA has to power the USA via wind turbines) and until you define the rest this is the same cowardly evasion of the issue we saw in the last point. No one can critique this point because it DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING.
 
Skwinty said:
Jonathan Chait of the American Prospect said this of Nader's 2000 campaign:
So it [is] particularly damning that Nader fails to clear even this low threshold [of honesty]. His public appearances during the campaign, far from brutally honest, were larded with dissembling, prevarication and demagoguery, empty catchphrases and scripted one-liners. Perhaps you think this was an unavoidable response to the constraints of campaign sound-bite journalism. But when given more than 300 pages to explain his case in depth, Nader merely repeats his tired aphorisms.

So we are hearing more of his empty catch phrases and scripted one liners.
​
Click to expand...

You beat me to it, but Nadir has nothing to say to me ever again. That would-be emperor is naked and dead. If there is info from a source I can trust I will happily look it over. This is not that choice.
 
Dinwar said:
Considering the fact that nuclear power is under so many regulations that any power plant is de facto owned by the government, this is perfectly reasonable. (Please note: I'm not discussing whether or not government regulation is a good thing here. I'm just saying that when the government controls this much of an industry calling it private is dishonest and expecting the private sector to finance it is absurd.)
Click to expand...

There are plently of highly regulated activities that are privately funded. Historicaly various river navigations would count but there are certianly areas of the modern chemical industry with simular issues.

If the free market is not prepared to fund it that means they think it isn't financialy viable. Which is entirely true given the current and predicted prices of coal.

Considering the fact that nuclear power is under so many regulations that any power plant is de facto owned by the government, this is perfectly reasonable.
Click to expand...

Not really. Even if we were to accept your goverment ownership claim it is entirely possible for goverments to take out insurence on things they own.

The inability to find market insurence is simply as a result of how bad things could go. No insurence company wants that kind of business.

This is not a fact, it is an opinion. Besides, there are several ways around this. First and foremost, don't make nuclear waste containers look different. If the terrorists can't ID the containers they can't attack them.
Click to expand...

Not really practical. There is nothing else that is moved around that has the kind of container requirements that nuclear waste has and at a pinch you can always just see which trains leave the nuclear plant.

In practice it's not much of an issue since nuclear waste containers weigh in at around 50 tons and if you've got someone running around your country who can steal that nuclear stuff is probably not that high on your list of worries any more.

Second, recycle and refine used fuel rods.
Click to expand...

Which is the main thing that results in the spent fuel being moved around in the first place.

The whole risk is in radioactivity--exactly the thing we build reactors to harness. Odd, isn't that?
Um no reactors harness energy released through the splitting of U-235. Most forms of radioactivity are of little use.

Considering the fact that nuclear power is under so many regulations that any power plant is de facto owned by the government, this is perfectly reasonable.
Click to expand...

Are you suggesting that the goverment should pay Pfizer's expenses?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Dinwar said:
Considering the fact that nuclear power is under so many regulations that any power plant is de facto owned by the government, this is perfectly reasonable. (Please note: I'm not discussing whether or not government regulation is a good thing here. I'm just saying that when the government controls this much of an industry calling it private is dishonest and expecting the private sector to finance it is absurd.)
Click to expand...

Not as absurd as financing it, training the employees and then virtually managing and running the facility while turning all the profits over to nominal share-holders.

Put backbone base-line power under the direct auspices of government control and put the corps of engineers, the Navy and the NRC in charge of building and bringing 100 new reactors online over the next 2 decades.
 
TShaitanaku said:
Not as absurd as financing it, training the employees and then virtually managing and running the facility while turning all the profits over to nominal share-holders.

Put backbone base-line power under the direct auspices of government control and put the corps of engineers, the Navy and the NRC in charge of building and bringing 100 new reactors online over the next 2 decades.
Click to expand...

OMG....but that would be.......communism......:jaw-dropp
 
bikerdruid said:
OMG....but that would be.......communism......:jaw-dropp
Click to expand...

Nah, just an appropriate adjustment of our mixed economic system. Communism, socialism and capitalism as purist forms are historically demonstrated failures. Only mixed systems that that pick and choose economic elements as needed per situation have proven to have sustainable potential.
 
geni said:
There are plently of highly regulated activities that are privately funded. Historicaly various river navigations would count but there are certianly areas of the modern chemical industry with simular issues.
Click to expand...
Amazingly enough, the industries you use as examples don't require that you buy your fuel from a government agency...
If the free market is not prepared to fund it that means they think it isn't financialy viable. Which is entirely true given the current and predicted prices of coal.
Click to expand...
or they figure the baggage it carries and the delays that obtaining permits from everybody from the county to the Fed isn't worth it--not to mention that more than one plant has been at completion and permits withdrawn in the past.
Not really. Even if we were to accept your goverment ownership claim it is entirely possible for goverments to take out insurence on things they own.
Click to expand...
Most are self insured, using a company as administrator
The inability to find market insurence is simply as a result of how bad things could go. No insurence company wants that kind of business.



Not really practical. There is nothing else that is moved around that has the kind of container requirements that nuclear waste has and at a pinch you can always just see which trains leave the nuclear plant.

In practice it's not much of an issue since nuclear waste containers weigh in at around 50 tons and if you've got someone running around your country who can steal that nuclear stuff is probably not that high on your list of worries any more.



Which is the main thing that results in the spent fuel being moved around in the first place.

The whole risk is in radioactivity--exactly the thing we build reactors to harness. Odd, isn't that?
Click to expand...
Um no reactors harness energy released through the splitting of U-235. Most forms of radioactivity are of little use.



Are you suggesting that the goverment should pay Pfizer's expenses?
Click to expand...
 
LMFR FTW!

PBR is a poor substitute 'cos you can't make enough weapons grade out of them.
 
bikerdruid said:
huh???
Click to expand...

Liquified Metal Fast (Breeder) Reactor

vs

Pebble Bed Reactor.

LMFR uses liquid Sodium. PBR uses Helium (or other noble gas). PBR is automatically safe, efficient, without any need for external "fail safes", but sadly can't make proper H-bomb plutonium in decent amounts.
 
geni said:
The inability to find market insurence...
Click to expand...
...if it's even really the case...
geni said:
...is simply as a result of how bad things could go.
Click to expand...
Not really. Insurance people are just as capable as any other humans of misjudging risks, particularly in areas where there isn't a large amount of historical data to base conclusions on. (How many nuclear power plants have ever been built, especially how many that were already of the newer types of technology that a new plant now would be, if it were made? And how long have they run, how many "failures" of any kind have there been, how can they be categorized and described to distinguish those that are likely to have problems form those that aren't... compared to how much history there is with different kinds of vehicles, houses, and businesses containing other kinds of businesses, as well as different categories of people owning/operating them?) Without the kind of huge data base they're used to working with for other things, they might simply hesitate due to lack of confidence in any particular prediction. For them, the danger of over-insuring is greater than the danger of under-insuring, so when in doubt, they're sure to err on the side of doing less.

Also, even if they are confident that the risks are simply too huge to touch, there's another factor they'd be considering in reaching that conclusion which is not an indicator of nuclear power's inherent benefits or drawbacks: the odds of attack by some anti-nuke group. If those odds are indeed higher than for other large industrial facilities, then it's a real-world factor that insurance companies would need to consider (if they had enough historical data to calculate the odds from), just like they consider whether a house is in a bad neighborhood along with the qualities of the house itself. But that doesn't make a valid argument against nuclear power itself, any more than the Creationists' creating of their own "controversy" makes a valid argument for "teaching the controversy".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom