Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Greenpeace.org nominated for Webby-Awards
If the US recinded a 1978 executive order and allowed for waster refinement once again, there would be substantially less waste. How much less? 10 000 tonnes a year less? What about the stockpiles of waste from the last couple of decades? And are you only talking about US waste? What about the rest of the world? And what part should the industry play in regulating its own waste and taking responsibility for its actions? I guess its ok to have, say 5 thousand tonnes instead of ten. A year.
Then you go on to say "consumer waste is also bad". Yes, I agree. Still doesn't excuse nuclear waste. I also agree everything we do creates waste; waste exists, it always has, so nuclear waste is ok? No. The answer is that as a society we must take responsibility for the practices and processes that produce waste. This has started to happen for consumer waste, and its a good sign. But you CAN'T get rid of nuclear waste.
The Chernobyl crap... ah this was my favourite bit. The USA is more accountable. Good. Hope it's still accountable in 25 thousand years. Even the mighty USA can't get rid of nuclear waste safely. But I'm not attacking the USA. I disagree with the entire nuclear industry. Which is, by the way, unbelievably subsidized. Chronic escalation of construction costs coupled with high operation and maintenance costs have meant cost overruns of 100 billion dollars in the United States alone. (Figures released by the U.S. Department of Energy). This is not 'power too cheap to meter'. It has real costs for the whole community. And let's just say that even first world countries are not invulnerable. The last big publicaly known accident happened in Tokaimura/Japan, 30 September 1999.
In a fuel fabrication plant, two workers mixed too large an amount of liquid uranium solution in a container, violating elementary safety regulations. A nuclear chain reaction started, highly radioactive fission products were released. Two of the three workers that received very high radiation doses died after months of radiation sickness. Over 400 local people were exposed to high levels of radiation.
And then you go on to say "Well, other people do it,"; the French and the Belgium. Erhmmm.... And a few taunts of 'most of you guys don't have college physics'.
Let me reply by quoting Dr. John Gofman , Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology in the University of California at Berkeley, and Lecturer at the Department of Medicine, University of California School of Medicine at San Francisco:
"The ordinary man-in-the-street can look at the amount of radioactivity that would be produced in a full-scale nuclear industry and realize that containing such toxins to 99.9999% perfection day in, day out, year in, and year out - when one considers all the possible human and machine fallibilities - is impossible"
Do I really need a college physics to do a bit of thinking and come to the conclusion that the sweet promise of nuclear energy leaves a really sour aftertaste, and all things considered, it's a fruit better left unpicked?
So, Danielle proved to a certain degree that nuclear power has a lot of hazardeous risks involved and most people are able to see them. I agree with the risks part. What I don't understand though is how some environmentalists, that should be knowledgable about the risks involved with nuclear power, try to sabotage the transportation of this high risk material in order to make a point. I mean, what happens, if they damage the train track (which they do), the train derails, many more things happen to actually break the containers (as stated before, there is no guarantee). Luckily they seem to be smart enough not to break into a nuclear power plant and try to shut it down (scary idea....).
One further notion I found interesting. When asked, where most of the environmentalist demonstrating against nuclear power got their energy from it was most of the time the cheapest provider for energy, that (naturally) relied on nearly 100% nuclear power. Let me state that at least in Germany you can choose your energy source and a lot of "environmental friendly" tariffs are offered as well.
What are alternatives (as switiching off the nuclear power plants would leave Europe in a considerably worse condition than India is at the moment, with it's frequent power cuts in the summer).
- Solar energy at the moment involves a lot of power in generating the solar panels so, unless there is a major breakthrough, the total impact on the environment is still not good.
- Offshore wind mills. According to a study I read, one park (I think it was 250) of these mills could replace a small power plant. Though I have no idea about the impact of these on the ecosystem of the region installed and how this compares to other forms of energy.
- Water dams. From an environmental point of view, bad as it floods the land upriver, from a sailors point of view, great. Switzerland relies mainly on hydro power. Maybe that's why the America's cup is in Geneva now :).
- Use less energy.
- Find new techologies.
IMHO, the best shot we have are the last two. Countries need to investigate how to safe energy without reducing the standards of living. And please do it fast, I don't want to imagine second and third world countries energy needs in the future (with a roughly equal amount of living standard). And as Todd pointed the alternatives are knocking at the door.
Til that day we will see discussions and demonstrations and quite a lot of money beeing spend on complaining about nuclear power. I wonder how much money is spend on this (starting with the money GP is investing into this campaign and stopping at the money involved to securely transport the nuclear wast across Europe due to these demonstrations). Wouldn't that money easily finance research in the area of lower power consumption and search for new energies, instead of beeing burned away?
