On the New Global Warming Proposals

George Bush has proposed a series of international meetings on how to replace the Kyoto Protocol with something that works. At this point, I think it's fairly evident that:
1. The Kyoto Protocol doesn't go far enough and has set up a system which has been manipulated to obstruct real progress.
2. Global warming as a result of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere beyond the capability of natural systems to absorb it is a fact of physics.
3. We need a concrete procedure in place for an orderly, face-saving transition from the combustion era instead of more meetings and non-binding agreements.

Count me skeptical. I don't see anything here that satisfies the third point, but perhaps George Bush knows by now that any proposal of his will be rejected simply because it came from him (which is wrong, even though I don't agree with him on much), and is trying to set up an international conference where Obama or Hillary will present something nearly identical to what he would have.
Let's just hope that successor doesn't drop the ball.

Link.

GNEP Environmental Impact Statement Comments

I recently got my hands on an anti-nuclear activist's comment submitted to the Department of Energy on GNEP's environmental impact statement. It serves as an example of a few things to do when writing public comments, as well as some things not to do.

First, don't talk about morals and ethics; talk about the legal and public relations implications of the proposed action. Morals and ethics are nice, but being immoral or unethical doesn't have an immediate negative effect on the decision-makers. Being sued or inciting a riot does, and a comment must make clear that the proposed action is either illegal or will result in negative political consequences.
If the proposed action is legal and you still don't like it, you have two options. If you have enough money, lawyers are extremely creative and can concoct an admissible contention from almost anything, and trials/settlements cost the opponents money even if you lose. If you have no money and a lot of people, get about 1,000-1,500 of them to submit near-identical comments threatening protests and media activity. And above all, be prepared to follow through if they go ahead with the proposed action; you can't be caught bluffing. If you are, that's the end of your credibility.

Do not assume that they have received "expert analyses" and that you only have to second them. Know the most important points of those analyses and echo them as though you didn't know about the expert analyses--it's much more impressive to whatever bureaucrat reads the comment if they think that there's a huge groundswell of opposition for diverse, original reasons instead of three guys and their 1,500 foot soldiers.

Don't ask them to follow the procedure. They either will follow the procedure or won't, and the only thing you can do is threaten negative consequences if they don't (or do, if you don't want them to follow the procedure).

Don't include conspiracy theories. Preferably, don't originate them or subscribe to them, but don't try to analyze people's motives or do a power structure analysis, either. They don't care about that. Again, they care only about negative consequences to them politically, legally, and financially if they proceed. If you don't want them to do whatever they're doing, make it clear that your organization will inflict those negative consequences.

There are more subtle ways to threaten the DOE with legal action than to say "if you proceed with this program, we will be forced to pursue legal action." State what exactly is not legal about what they are proposing--they'll fill in the rather obvious blank if you identify yourself as a member of an organization explicitly formed to oppose the proposal. Likewise with publicity campaigns. This is only credible, however, if a large number of people from that organization write in and identify themselves as such, and it really works when that organization has an ongoing publicity campaign that has reached the decision-makers.
This is also different from the standard protest letter or letter to the editor in that the decision-makers actually receive the letter or a summary and are obligated to at least publish it. As such, speak as a negotiator and use negotiating tactics; this is not a place to do general-public-type PR.
Likewise, don't use personal attacks and don't try to tell them about what they've done. They know what they've done and using personal attacks lessens the probability that they'll accept a face-saving compromise. I'm not advocating for the further wussification of society, just differentiating between the approach needed for PR and the approach needed for negotiation. It is in fact fatal to weasel out, or to suggest solutions that don't involve the agency you're complaining about (like legislation).

Oh, and don't make grammatical and spelling errors, or do anything else that undermines your credibility. Do not feed the 'allegators'.

What About All Those Indigenous Populations That Are Being Used as a Dumping Ground?

An Australian indigenous group has volunteered a part of their land as a low- and intermediate-level waste repository (read: for rubber gloves and used reactor parts, respectively).

Do you think they'll stop using the "environmental racism" argument? Don't hold your breath.

Link.

Hungarian Uprate, Possible New Build

They're proceeding with an 8% uprate to their four Soviet-era reactors, and are looking for up to six gigawatts of new capacity beyond that. Nuclear power is under consideration for at least some of that; the rest will probably be coal.

Will they burn lignite, walking the fine line between coal and combustible dirt? Perhaps.

Either way, coal kills. It is an ethical imperative to keep coal fumes out of our air, coal ash out of our water, and coal dust out of the lungs of miners. I hope they build six nice, big, new nukes.

Link.

Uranium from European Coal Ash

It is "being studied."

This is in addition to and in cooperation with the Chinese project from a while back. It is also made significantly easier by the dirty brown coal burned in many places in Europe, which contains more uranium (as well as other radioactive material) that would otherwise end up in the environment.

Link.

"Nuclear Waste Per Capita"

I didn't know it was this easy to get press. Maybe we should pour orange juice into a vacuum breaker and get the NRC's response on video, or make an inflatable of a polar bear hugging a containment structure, or something like that.

How to turn a five-minute calculation into a "major, startling new report":

1. Figure out how much nuclear waste was produced by nuclear power plants in each state from publicly-available numbers. Inflate this figure by a factor of 20-30 by ignoring the unused fuel still left in the fuel rods that are in storage.
2. Get population data.
3. Divide.
4. Give it to your state groups to make a hullabaloo, even if the number is all of two pounds.

That's right. The most nuclear waste that anyone has accumulated per capita around the country is 2.15 pounds. That's something to be proud of--how much carbon dioxide has accumulated in the atmosphere from coal burning, per capita, and how much particulate matter is in people's lungs from coal burning, per capita? And how much of that nuclear waste is in the environment?

Zero.

Perversely, this is being used to justify a subsidy for fossil fuels, paid for by the operators of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. In Anti-Nuke World, climate scientists have it all wrong: carbon dioxide doesn't cause global warming; nuclear power plants do. Sure.

Talk about social responsibility. Yes, nuclear waste is going to be around for a while; a lot longer if we don't reuse the half-used fuel that poses the biggest part of the waste problem. But so are the Pyramids; the Pyramids have no conceivable use to the generations that have had to live alongside them. Like the Pyramids, there's no way for it to magically disperse itself into the environment. Like the Pyramids, it doesn't require any nannying. Like the Pyramids--and unlike chemical toxins from coal burners--it has a finite lifetime. Like the Pyramids, people regard it as magical and not the physical entity that it is.

Let's cite this study in the future. It looks very useful, not just from the data, but from the source.

More from We Support Lee (plus background on the subsidy here).

Link.

Biblis A Saga Continues

Under Germany's nuclear phaseout law, each nuclear power plant is allotted a certain number of kilowatt-hours; this obviously is a strong disincentive to improvements in these plants' fuel efficiency and can be manipulated in a number of ways, including temporarily suspending electricity generation until a more favorable government comes in. That is precisely what RWE should do in this case IMO; their administrative challenge to the original rejection of a completely legal proposal to transfer production allotments from another plant to the Biblis A plant has been rejected, like everyone knew it would. They are considering a legal challenge next, which will also be rejected.

However, there are risks: if these plants are all shut down before their allotments are up, a new government might just order them all decommissioned, reasoning that they evidently aren't needed. There's no doubt about it: nuclear power is not necessary to keep the lights on. Every nuclear power plant in the world could be shut down, some places (like France) requiring two or three years' notice. But nuclear power is desirable; it's a matter of what shape the environment will be in when we get done pumping coal fumes into it.

Link.

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day

"The suit was filed over the inadequate cleanup of the contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory, site of one of the only reactor meltdowns in the world. Judge Samuel Conti declared that the DOE has violated and continues to violate the National Environmental Policy Act and permanently enjoined DOE from transferring ownership or possession, or otherwise relinquishing control over any portion of the nuclear area at SSFL until an Environmental Impact Statement has been completed.

This is a huge victory for the environment."

-Committee to Blow the Bridge

Amazing how it didn't kill anybody, and how they don't exactly mention that the meltdown wasn't the cause of the contamination.

And having a land sale overturned on a technicality is a huge victory for the environment. Sure.

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day

"Seems that the Ossining Chamber of Commerce is having a one sided presentation on "Where Electricity Comes From" with the primary guest speaker Entergy's own societal misfit, Jim Steets (new nick name is poop drinker). For those not familair with this Indian Point mouth piece and his work, when the news about tritium leaking into Buchanans sewer system went public, he quipped to a reporter, well, if it were not for the other stuff in the sewage, its clean enough to drink. What a guy."

-'Porgie Tirebiter, Royce Penstinger and Pinto Bean'

Way to elevate the discourse. And yes, 60 times less radiation than orange juice is safe to drink. It's not going to make sewage clean, but it doesn't make it dirty, either.

Braidwood Tritium Update

Sen. Dick Durbin requested that an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services perform an independent study of the health effects of not being exposed to a material that's 60 times less radioactive than orange juice and chemically identical to water.

They've concluded that there is no effect.

What a shocker.

Link. (hat tip: Know_Nukes)

Coal Power Restrictions?

John Kerry has introduced a bill to require all new coal burners to have state of the art pollution controls as determined by the head of the EPA.

I'll never forgive him for what he did to the IFR, single-handedly spreading lies about the most successful reactor research and development program anywhere, ever, that was 40 years ahead of its time, but this is something to support.

NNadir is against it because he wants coal banned. Hey, I want coal banned, too; most of us do. Anything to make killing people with coal fumes more expensive is a good thing. If sequestration were required, utilities would run to nukes faster than the winds of a global-warming-enhanced hurricane. And when one of those carbon dioxide reservoirs goes Lake Nyos on an American city, the outrage will be more than the coal industry can smother away. We need every restriction possible on coal, oil, and gas, so that as few new ones are built as possible (given that they will probably be grandfathered into any CO2 regulations).

Now, there are places for combustion. If it's a choice between venting methane (natural gas) to the atmosphere or burning it, burn it--the global warming impact of the combustion products is lower than the methane. And it has been known for 100 years how much energy density in batteries will be required to have a viable electric car; we aren't there yet, so let's get fossil fuels out of places where there are alternatives to them (electricity), make as many things electric as possible, and start developing electric cars (at first, plug-in hybrids). There are problems with plug-in hybrids--mainly political problems with seasonal gasoline blends that can be fixed with a national standard--but they would also benefit most from electricity that doesn't need to be metered. That doesn't mean nuclear electricity is free, but only that it can be paid for by a flat fee (long story short: nuclear power plants are just as expensive to keep shut down as they are to operate; thus, it makes no sense to pay for the amount of electricity that you use instead of for the guarantee of always having a certain amount on hand).

Link.

CFL Mercury Update

A reader refers us to a better article than the one I linked to on Friday; many thanks.

Obviously, the mercury vapor from the broken CFL wasn't really dangerous. Friday's article simply pointed out the hypocrisy in calling manufacturers of mercury thermometers genocidal psychopaths and the while peddling CFLs.

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day

"The toxic wastes from atomic power systems will poison planet Earth for thousands of years to come. Our soil and water are being poisoned by the widespread burying of nuclear waste on land and sea! Atomic energy is always in conflict with all Life, because the very nature of 'atom-splitting' is destruction not construction. For this reason, it can never be used for peace or peaceful activities. How can peace be achieved by that which is by nature unpeaceful? Splitting atoms disrupts the flow of force through them."

-'infinity2' (hat tip: Freedom for Fission)

Wow.

You know, I'd rather not swing in a tree. But nuclear power sure has a knack for ticking off anti-science crackpots.

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day

"People living near reactors have higher levels of cancer and other illnesses, especially children. All radiation released into the environment will harm living organisms. Omissions [sic] are released every step of the way."

-Mary Madigan, President, Western Port Action Group (Australia) (hat tip: Ed of Nuclear Australia)

1. I thought news organizations were supposed to be above printing special interest groups' press releases.
2. They come up with the first statement by looking at cancer rates in counties that they cherry-pick to be "near" reactors, or worse, collecting baby teeth and analyzing them for fallout (which obviously could have come from atomic bomb detonations). And why would they compare, say, Cook County, IL (population 5,288,655 over 946 square miles) with Garfield County, MT (population 1,279 over 4,848 square miles)?
3. If all radiation harmed organisms, why have they been living with it for billions of years, at literally hundreds of times higher levels? Why is going from 90 millirem (pre-industrial, zero cancers) to 90.02 millirem (nuclear power plant) dangerous?
4. Nuclear facilities basically run on electricity or things that could be substituted with electricity. That electricity comes from fossil fuels when nuclear power isn't used--is nuclear power not nuclear enough? And no, the radiation that comes from nuclear facilities is not in the form of radioactive materials that leak out--said radiation is the small amount that "shines" through the facilities' shielding. There isn't any substance leaking; it's light, literally.

They sure do release omissions, don't they?

Alberta Going Nuclear?

via CBC.

1. The article says that the plant will be a two-unit 2200-megawatt CANDU, which almost certainly means an ACR-1000.
2. Chernobyl did of course melt down, but the meltdown was incidental to the major accident, which was a burst cooling system caused by a power spike. The heat produced by the power spike burst the metal cladding around Chernobyl's fuel rods, allowing some of the lighter already-split atoms to get into the destroyed cooling system and out into the environment. As that power spike is impossible (not improbable, but actually physically impossible) in an ACR-1000, Chernobyl isn't relevant to the discussion.
Also not mentioned in the article is the fact that Chernobyl was designed to produce weapons-grade plutonium; no civilian reactor would be designed like that. The Chernobyl-type reactors weren't even a "thing of the past;" they don't belong lumped in with nuclear power plants. In most places (read: everywhere but the Soviet Union) building them was never allowed--for example, they were banned in the United States in 1950, when the first American nuclear power plant started up in 1957.
3. It really should not cost $6.2 billion. They should be able to get 12 units for that amount of money, and would be able to if someone would get going on an IFR or MSR.
4. "Nuclear has been around" for 50 years, not 30. The excellent safety record mentioned in the article also applies for 50 years, as well.
5. The Chernobyl accident killed not "countless" people, but between 50 and 4,000, according to the UN. Greenpeace's estimate of 250,000 was obtained by drawing a line on a graph from the Japanese atomic bomb survivors' radiation exposure and cancer rate down to zero, taking the amount of radioactive material in the reactor and, assuming that it all got out (which it didn't) and all got to people (which it most certainly didn't), finding that amount of radiation exposure on their graph. Voila: 250,000 deaths--which is more than the total number of people who have died in the area since, of all causes.
6. They will be applying for the Canadian equivalent of a construction permit on June 15.
7. Why the Sierra Club needs to worry about how much environmental protection will cost--and how much not killing people with coal fumes cost Ontario in terms of nuclear power plant construction costs--is beyond me.
8. Nuclear waste does not have a half-life of 50,000 years. The actual waste decays to the radioactivity of the original uranium in about 500 years; that assumes an intelligent waste policy that separates the waste from unused and half-used fuel--the half-used fuel posing the greatest long-term threat. Plus, the term "half-life" is meaningless in this context: since it is a combination of many different radioactive materials, each with its own half-life (that combination depending on the composition of the fuel and the amount of time it spends in the reactor), it can't really be said that nuclear waste has one definite half-life.
9. No, it's not a "quick fix" (their term). Would you rather have a quick fix or something that works? And dare I mention that suing to stop the project sort of disqualifies one from complaining about how long the project is taking?

More from Rod Adams.

CFL Mercury Horror Stories

More very old news, but a minor detail is upsetting a few people in that CFLs contain mercury, which is awful and terrible for the environment and should be banned, because the solution is always to ban everything, as technology is something that was dropped from the sky on an unsuspecting public as a way to exploit them by the evil, evil corporations.

Global-warming-denier crackpot Steven Milloy wrote what is actually is a very reasonable article on April 28, which was posted to Know_Nukes. Go read it if you haven't, and if you have, keep it in the arsenal for whenever someone presents CFLs as the ultimate solution for everything.

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day

"Nuclear power would actually contribute to global warming. It uses a lot of fossil fuels to mine uranium."

-Diane Beeny, Union County New Jersey Peace Council

...when nuclear energy is not available to do those same functions. Are they saying that nuclear power isn't nuclear enough?

And who says we have to mine uranium to use nuclear power? We have huge stockpiles of it, mainly the unused uranium in nuclear waste.

IPCC Quasi-Endorsement Implications

Late news, but I've been thinking about what the IPCC's "endorsement" of nuclear power means to efforts to organize a pro-nuclear activist movement.

Compared to some early projections of the political fallout, the text was very mild and had next to no effect on public opinion. Few people apparently read the stories about it, and many of those stories (Financial Times, for instance) did not include the nuclear angle: they said that the answer that the IPCC had found was renewables. Friends of the Earth noticed, however--and sent out a press release condemning the IPCC report for this exceedingly mild endorsement of nuclear power. I get the feeling that the general public is thinking something along the lines of "oh, those goofy little eggheads--they don't know that nuclear power causes global warming." Obviously, it doesn't, but the fact that it is apparently being received that way raises some concerns for me.

1. Is that really what people think?
2. Would this have been solved by a prominent pro-nuclear organization that was not connected to the industry and which could have been more pro-active in sending out press releases etc. or is this a signal to change something?

My gut feeling tells me that this means we should change something, but I can't figure out what we're doing wrong. Should we try to force the issue of global warming being caused by a well-understood physical phenomenon instead of the impact of humans per se, hoping that the environmental movement will react and alienate those in the climate science community who have warmed up to allowing them to promote their findings? Is DUPIC worth it any more, given that it's a way to start a debate that apparently already has moved on? Has the debate started yet?

To be perfectly frank, I'm lost. I don't have a clue about where this fits into a general strategy, other than as an amusing little footnote somewhere. In the 70s, we did tend to use these things as amusing little footnotes, and with a tone that made us sound more like bitter right-wingers instead of environmentalists. You can see how far that got us. What do we do with this, and how, and where? Can we do anything with it now, or has its soundbite value passed?

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day

"The bill claims that nuclear power is "essentially" emissions-free by ignoring the significant carbon emissions from uranium mining, milling, enrichment and nuclear fuel fabrication."

-Nuclear Information and Resource Service

...which wouldn't be there if nuclear-generated electricity were used to power those facilities.

Are they saying that nuclear power is not nuclear enough?

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day

"In a deregulated market, nuclear plants will have to run at record availability levels to be competitive, possibly jeopardizing safety."

-Citizen Power

1. Only if you don't require their competitors to do something with their waste.
2. They're assuming cheap gas. It's not a good idea to assume cheap gas.
3. Why should it necessarily compromise safety? Steam systems and high-temperature hydraulic systems that are found in the second-generation reactors that operate today break when they're rapidly cycled through shutdown after shutdown, so even if you subscribe to the "part failures are indicative of safety" notion (which is not correct), keeping a second-generation reactor on longer doesn't introduce new safety problems.

Earth Day

What should it mean to us?

Well, not what Russell Hoffman thinks it should. I just have to laugh at his moon-hoax-theorist-like idea that pro-nuclear activism is "glamorous" or that it makes its participants wealthy. For instance, I sit in front of my computer writing this in a shirt with several holes in it and one inch-wide ink stain from when I fell asleep over my desk, exhausted, on a pen. Our opponents outspend our annual budget several times an hour. I wish I was being paid for this :).

Earth Day should make us remember the environmental impact of nuclear power, and its alternatives. I certainly do. I ask pro-nuclear people to fight coal plants--new and existing--and fight for nukes to be built in their place. It's beyond time to get going; I'm trying to do what I can and I urge you to do the same.

No cokes!

Study: Ethanol Burning Emits Formaldehyde

This actually looks credible to me; of course, the results are preliminary and follow-ups must be carefully monitored.

Healthy, clean biofuels, eh?

Link.

When an Established Environmental Group Backs Nukes...

...every single supposed transgression from the extreme ideal, including compromises that advanced their cause (a little is better than nothing) is recalled. Environmental Defense and NRDC participated in the TXU deal, and they're getting it on an anti-nuclear mailing list. To wit:

"* NRDC cut a deal with the Carter administration not to oppose his
light water reactor program in exchange for political appointments.
* NRDC was a lead supporter of NAFTA, bragging that they "broke the
back of the environmental opposition to NAFTA" for Clinton. NAFTA
paved the way for GATT and other trade agreements which benefit the
nuclear industry, among it's many other problems.
* NRDC has supported the multi-billion dollar bailouts of the nuclear
utility industry's stranded costs.
* NRDC has advocating sending nuclear waste to Russia.
* NRDC has held onto close ties to Enron, even after the scandal,
testifying in favor of their acquisition of Portland General
Electric, Oregon's largest public utility
* NRDC supported federal research funding for new nuclear reactors.
* NRDC is currently involved with a deal with the TXU merger, to
greenwash the building of (supposedly fewer) new coal power plants as
a major environmental victory
* NRDC signed on in support of the COMPETE Coalition, a new industry
coalition promoting electric utility deregulation, which is the
driver for running nukes harder and making their operation riskier.
* NRDC also recently played a leading role in the pro-nuke, pro-coal
corporate coalition on global warming (US-CAP)
* NRDC was sitting at the table with TXU folks when nuclear options
were "on the table" according to the recent interview, which stated
the following: "But TXU's plan for more nukes was the elephant in the
room.... Nuclear power has always been on the table."

So yes... NRDC does some good work against coal and nukes. They also
do some very shady, compromised stuff on these issues.

---

1. In the late 1980's NRDC played a key role in killing the grassroots
led renewable energy movement in California by siding with Pacific Gas &
Electric's counter plans, which were organized to fund the company's
version of energy efficiency and renewables... (The original Energy Net
in California was a statewide grassroots campaign to develop renewables
and conservation)..

2. Where was NRDC when PG&E and SoCal Edison killed off California's
innovative renewable energy development program (PURPA) in 1994?

3. NRDC, along with the Energy Foundation played a major role in
promoting the electric deregulation disaster in California. The
Greenwashing that took place left the state raped when PUHCA free Enron,
Bush and allies robbed over $10 billion from the state's ratepayers.
The media used NRDC's role in promoting deregulation, in claiming that
everyone was to blame, including environmentalists for the disasterous
2001 energy crisis.

4. In California, where the media love to interview NRDC spokespeople,
like Kavanagh or Cochran, all other opposition voices dissappear. These
anti-nuclear experts appeared on PBS and ABC radio talk shows in
Northern California as the attempt to reopen nuclear power came up
legislatively (it was killed). The media has been using this tactic for
decades to make sure nobody ever hears from a real local antinuclear
group. A great way to keep the public from knowing who we were, or
supporting us.

NRDC is currently pushing their corporate argument that we should stop
subsidizing all energy sources and let the market sort things out. They
did this as their primary thesis in both radio shows here in the bay
area! LET THE MARKET SOLVE OUR ENERGY PROBLEM!!!! The rest of their
presentation seemed quite reasonable, in terms of opposing nuclear power.

Everything except for the market idea, which they were allowed to focuss
on, without the usual pressure from the commentator to shift away onto
some other nuclear frame.

So what is this argument about letting all power sources live on their
own economic grounds?? Hmm... Do you think for a minute America's
politicians are going to all of a sudden not give another penny of
subsidy to oil, coal, nuclear etc? This is so laughable, if not a
completely disgustingly insidious way to kill probably the most
important economic argument against nuclear power we have! Does anyone
remember Forbes magazine calling nuclear power the greatest economic
disaster in U.S. history back in 1985 [they didn't--ed.]? Would you buy a car (nuclear power) from George Bush after the greate deal we got with his Iraqi
invasion sale? Apparently the public wants to or are we about the most
stupid bunch of idiots advertisers can buy?

Why would this country that has been the home of political pork for over
a century ban energy subsidies? Could it work at the state level?
Possibly. But the real issue behind this fake argument how we actually
fund energy. In one of the most important articles to appear on energy
policy to ever appear, at the peak of California's energy crisis, a
reporter documented the private utility company's (PG&E and SoCal
Edison) hatred and organized opposition to renewables and conservation.
You can still see the article here.
..


The people who sell us electricity in this country could have changed
the way we use energy but have done everything in their power to kill
these programs.! Read the article! How much you wanna bet this is the
same agenda across the U.S. energy industry?

Nuclear power received most of its funding from govenment prior to the
1980's, the date when the Energy Information Agency starts covering
subidies. How would the socalled "tech savy" youngsters who are buying
this new pitch for nuclear be able to find out the full story of
government support for nuclear power?

It should be clear that we are being set up across the country and the
NRDC are playing a key role in how the media is framing the issue to the
public. First we're being told that environmentalists like the founder
of Greenpeace has come out for nuclear, then we get corporate friendly
ecowashing groups like NRDC to soften our side of debate or what we
really want to focus on.

Now why was only NRDC people given the slot to oppose nuclear power here
in the SF bay area? The ultra savy media establishment here has never,
ever allowed a real antinuclear power spokesperson ever go live here. Why?

Would it be, that in the area of the country that first started opposing
nuclear power in 1958, that we now have generations of scandals to chose
from, almost all of which magically don't exist to most americans, or
local residents, thanks to the strategic tactics of the media?

California's nuclear industry, the home of General Electric's nuclear
division wanted to build over 60 reactors and activists stopped all but
Diablo Canyon, which was only saved when Reagan gave PG&E $2.5 billion
in EPA funds to rebuild it in 1981 after discovering they had built its
seismic supports backwards. No, activists didn't stop Diablo in what was
a 25 year battle. But we scared the [expletive deleted] out of them!"

Nuclear Waste From Oil?

Turns out that geological formations that are stable enough to trap oil and natural gas are stable enough to trap radon. It also turns out that since radon is inert, when it is found with gas it can't be trapped by chemicals. Thus it tends to be emitted from oil rigs at a decent rate.

Why is this coming up? Well, NIRS has decided to ignore the fact that the oil industry's nuclear waste is dumped into the environment, and their meaningless (and incorrect) soundbite that they "estimate that the reprocessing plants at La Hague and BNFL’s Sellafield release up to 90% of the world’s artificial aerial radioactivity" has come up in a discussion at Know_Nukes. Take note; it sounds like a useful response.

Bill Maher on Nuclear Power

Some anti-nuclear activists are starting an email campaign to pepper Bill Maher with complaints about his outrageously radical statements about nuclear power last Friday. They give the email address billmaherfanmail@safesearching.com as a point of contact; if you wish to write and voice your support for his comments, here are some things that they're talking about and that we should probably include:

1. If a nuclear power plant is clean, there's no problem with it being near drinking water or people's houses. I would gladly live next to one.
2. If they really think that nuclear power is so expensive that any utility that starts will end up in a financial morass, why are they trying to stop those utilities from starting construction?
3. It would take decades to build enough nukes to replace cokes--but only if they stand in the way, as they boast of doing. You can't have it both ways--complaining about ineffectiveness at the same time as boasting of your accomplishments in stopping these projects.
4. While it would certainly take about a decade at the earliest to replace coal power with nuclear power, it is not possible to replace coal power with back-to-the-land solar energy, windmills, burning crop waste, and wood. Those technologies have all been available for hundreds to thousands of years, and were abandoned in the 17th Century because they simply didn't work. Unlike the anti-nuclear activists, we're confident in our projections and don't seek to ban them--but we would also greatly appreciate not banning other things that will actually work.
5. Energy efficiency, paradoxically, results in the entrenching of old fossil fuel systems--it reduces demand, which lowers prices, and makes depleting fossil fuels more economically viable. Pushing energy efficiency and conservation instead of increased demand for clean energy does nothing but entrench the status quo.
6. Foreign oil dependence in and of itself has little to do with global warming and nothing to do with nuclear power. The problem of foreign oil dependence can be solved without reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the problem of greenhouse gas emissions can be greatly reduced without solving foreign oil dependence. Nuclear power can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing coal, but can't reduce foreign oil dependence simply because we don't burn oil for electricity.
7. Some might ask why there isn't a law that requires all future coal plants to sequester their waste, if nuclear power is to replace coal. We ask why there isn't a total ban on new coal plants and a phaseout starting.
8. Nuclear power plants release exactly two radiaoctive materials, both of which are inert noble gases and decay within a short period. Examples from e.g. the Indian Point reactor find equal amounts upstream of other materials that anti-nukes say leak from the plant; they have been traced to an old research reactor and fallout from atomic bomb testing. That said, the NRC should require all nuclear power plants to sequester those gases.
9. Every example that they can give of carbon dioxide production from fuel cycle facilities is from a situation in which nuclear power is not used to run them. Apparently, nuclear power isn't nuclear enough.
10. Tritium is of no more value to an atomic bomb than copper or steel. While it is used in atomic bombs, it's not what makes them atomic.
11. Nuclear power plants produce the wrong kind of plutonium to be used in a bomb. This type of plutonium melts instead of exploding. There was one exception to this rule--Chernobyl's unique design was an attempt to fuse these two incompatible aims.
12. The type of reprocessing that they're referring to (that used at West Valley) is a military-surplus process used to extract plutonium. Since nuclear power plants don't run on pure plutonium of any type, they don't need this process. However, more modern technology has been developed to make recycling used fuel practical; these methods include using it directly in more-efficient Canadian reactors and simply distilling the used fuel to separate heavy fuel from light waste. Incidentally, the French and British (which also use the old method) do not in fact "pipe their waste into the ocean" but carefully separate it from the water used in the process, which is then piped back into the ocean from whence it came.
13. Joseph Mangano's method is not recognized by any professional scientific or public health organization. It consists of asking people to ship in baby teeth for "analysis," with no regard for where they actually came from or any control subjects.
14. George Bush's IQ or lack thereof and intentions to design new atomic bombs is irrelevant. We hope that an intelligent person can see past the anti-nuclear misinformation that was used to co-opt even some liberals to support the war in Iraq and is currently being used to drive them away from the world's cleanest energy source: nuclear.

More About Nuclear Power and Global Warming

It has appeared in the LA Times (and has previously appeared on this blog here and here).

This really highlights the importance of having a media-friendly (not incorrect or oversimplified, but just media-friendly) response to every anti-nuclear argument we can find--the media is not out to get us and does not have an agenda most of the time, but is rather simply interested in ratings. In other words, t