Ralph Nader on The Nuclear Power Nightmare'

[rwguinn]

People purchase helium from people other than the US goverment? Quite a few things in the chemical industry where your supply options are limited (oh and you risk getting investigated for breaching the chemical weapons conventions).

I can go to the welding store and buy a huge cylinder of Helium.
Walmart and the Party Store sell it, in a package with a bunch of balloons

If there was any reason to do so I can't see the nuclear industry having any problems being able to purchase from whatever supplier they like.

Dream on...

Perhaps having an inkling of what you are talking about would help...

 

[MG1962]

Ralph has been saying the same things since the 70's.

And given all American nuclear reactors date from the same time it seems a perfect fit to me

 

[Beerina]

If we're serious about lowering greenhouse gases

I'll summarize a conversation I had on these very fora about 5 years ago:


Greenie: We need to lower CO2.

Me: If we were serious about getting rid of CO2 in the atmosphere, then the stupid laws against yard waste in landfills, owing to innumeracy in people thinking we're running out of landfill space, should be repealed. It's an easy, ready-made solution.

Greenie: Well, CO2 isn't really a very important greenhouse gas, anyway.

WTF




In any case, it's economic case is falling even as we speak as (1980s ZOMG can't get it low hanging fruit gone oh noes!) shale natural gas is being produced ever more efficiently as capitalism kicks its ass, like $4 per whatever (needs to be $8 to make nuclear competitive) and dropping, exactly per Julian Simon's proven theory, that half of you don't believe in. BTW, a big chunk of nuclear's cost is the involvement of government, also exactly according to Julian Simon's theory. (This may be necessary, for the sake of argument, but the economics don't care.)


Summary, which some of you won't pay attention to as it doesn't fit with your disproven memetic worldviews
Julian Simon: 2
ZOMG low hanging fruit is gone, running out of resources: 0

 

[geni]

I can go to the welding store and buy a huge cylinder of Helium.
Walmart and the Party Store sell it, in a package with a bunch of balloons
Dream on...

Sourced from the US gov. If you think adding middle men to the process of nuclear fuel aquisition would help I'm sure it could be arranged

Perhaps having an inkling of what you are talking about would help...

There are a number of supliers of nuclear fuel around the world. Assuming that the nuclear industry is not entirely populated by the brain dead it seems unlikely they would not be able get whatever regulations may exist changed in order to purchase from those suppliers if they wanted to.

 

[geni]

It's interesting that it's "too risky" since there are so few accidents. You'd think car insurance would be non-existent, too.

It's quite hard to do more than £100 million or so (someone managed to drive their car onto a railway and derail a train) damage with a car. With a nuclear power plant the upper limit is less clear.

 

[qayak]

WARNING: Ralph Nader rhymes with Darth Vader!



Just sayin'!

 

[catsmate]

I'll listen to Nader after he eats the 13g of caffeine.................












For those of you who don't get the reference, back in the eighties when Nader was mouthing off about Plutonium being the most toxic substance in existence Bernie Cohen (a actual physicist) challenged him to eat 13 grammes of caffeine while he (Cohen) would swallow a similar mass of Plutonium. Unsurprisingly Nader didn't take the offer.......

 

[lomiller]

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.

Some of this is caused by regulatory burden and NIMBY, but even with a smarter regulatory structure it doesn't seem the economics of nuclear power are as rosy as some people want to believe.

The real solution is to fix the regulatory structure and let investors decide if their money is well spent

# 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.

So recycle it on site. This is an artificial problem caused by restrictions against recycling spent fuel.

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.[/I]

Nuclear doesn't need to compete against wind/solar it needs to compete first against coal and diesel/petroleum, and later on natural gas. Nuclear does make a reasonable complement to renewable and it’s far better then fossil fuels , especially coal.

 

[lomiller]

There are plently of highly regulated activities that are privately funded.

Highly regulated isn’t the same as badly regulated. Nuclear power should remain highly regulated, but currently it’s regulation isn’t just high it’s poorly thought out and poorly designed.

 

[lomiller]

I'll summarize a conversation I had on these very fora about 5 years ago:


Greenie: We need to lower CO2.

Me: If we were serious about getting rid of CO2 in the atmosphere, then the stupid laws against yard waste in landfills, owing to innumeracy in people thinking we're running out of landfill space, should be repealed. It's an easy, ready-made solution.

Greenie: Well, CO2 isn't really a very important greenhouse gas, anyway.

WTF

Bzzzt you are caught making stuff up!

Almost all the people who argue against greenhouse gas emissions on these forums are pro-nuclear to one degree or another. Even those who are not base their argument on others sources being the preferred choice to replace fossil fuels.

The same is largely true in the wider global warming “debate” (No much of a debate really because the scientists are all on one side), the most active voices against greenhouse gasses are usually pro-nuclear to at least some degree.

 

[bikerdruid]

Come back to us when you have it. In the meantime we need electricity.

...speak for your self.
i produce my own.

 

[theprestige]

Isn't there supposed to be a move away from Nuclear Weapons with a Non-proliferation treaty? How is having more plutonium producing reactors a good thing for this? PBRs and TWRs don't produce plutonium that can be used in weapons, so isn't this a good thing?

Which doesn't explain why having reactors that don't is a bad thing. Surely anything that prevents people using the products of the reactors for weapons is a good thing.

And surely anything that prevents people using the products of the reactors for science is a bad thing.

Swords and plowshares, remember?

Also, having less swords lying around is always a good thing, right up until the moment you find you need a sword, and then they become quite handy. I don't think we need a lot of plutonium bombs, and I'm definitely against proliferation. But I do think it'd be nice to have some plutonium bombs, and I think it'd be nice to keep open the option to build more. Meanwhile, plutonium can be used for science and technology.

 

[dudalb]

...speak for your self.
i produce my own.

You are in unique circumstances which are simply not feasible for the majority of the population.

 

[bikerdruid]

Swords and plowshares, remember?

please explain the utility of plutonium for 'swords and plowshares'

 

[Arkayik]

I'm unclear on why Nuclear is thought to only be government operated. In Canada most of the Nuclear plants are private (Crown Corps), as are the now infamous Fukushima reactors. So, Nuclear has already gone private...

Fukushima I was the first nuclear plant to be constructed and run entirely by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)

Wiki on TepCo

It seems rather convenient for the Japanese gov't to not get involved in Nuclear. There appear to be a number of unreported incidences at the Tepco Nukular reactors. I suspect the reason for non-insurability is likely related to risk...

While anything is insurable there is, clearly, a point at which insurance is not worth the price...

I'm not really opposed to Nuclear power per se, but I second the comment that at this point, other sources can be harnessed quicker and cleaner. Nuclear can be held in abeyance until other valid (ie. natural gas) sources of energy are tapped out. It could be hoped that by then technology will allow us to skip the nuclear and go direct to cold fusion... ;-).

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

please explain the utility of plutonium for 'swords and plowshares'

Plutonium atoms release energy when split.

 

[bikerdruid]

Plutonium atoms release energy when split.

wow...really?

i was questioning the plowshares bit...

 

[qayak]

I'm unclear on why Nuclear is thought to only be government operated. In Canada most of the Nuclear plants are private (Crown Corps), as are the now infamous Fukushima reactors. So, Nuclear has already gone private...

Ummmmm... Crown corporations are not private, they are government owned. We have insurance companies that are crown corporations too.

 

[theprestige]

please explain the utility of plutonium for 'swords and plowshares'

Plutonium is an excellent power source for deep space probes.

Oh, and it's also an optimal material for manufacturing earth-tilling blades.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

wow...really?

i was questioning the plowshares bit...

If all you can think of to do with the energy of fissioning plutonium is to turn cities to ash, then you should be allowed access to any plutonium.

Those of us who are not fixated on fire and destruction are capable of coming up with more creative uses for this power source.