Atom And Yves
Roger Cohen writes in The New York Times about one area French industry exceeds ours -- in nuclear power. The French nuclear energy company Areva "provides about 80 percent of the country’s electricity from 58 nuclear power plants" and "is building a new generation of reactor that will come on line at Flamanville in 2012, and is exporting its expertise to countries from China to the United Arab Emirates":
Contrast that with the United States, where just 20 percent of electricity comes from nuclear plants, no commercial reactor has come on line since 1996, no new reactor has been ordered for decades, and debate about nuclear power remains paralyzing despite its clean-air electricity generation in the age of global warming....I know, that word “nuclear” still sends a frisson. Images multiply of Hiroshima and Chernobyl and the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 and waste in dangerous perpetuity, not to mention proliferation and dirty bombs.
But the lesson of the post-9/11 world is that we have to get over our fears, especially irrational ones.
Nuclear power has proved safe in both France and America — not one radiation-related death has occurred in the history of U.S. commercial nuclear power. It constitutes a vital alternative to the greenhouse-gas spewing coal-power plants that account for over 50 percent of U.S. electricity generation. Thousands of people die annually breathing the noxious particles of coal-fire installations.
Of course, wind and solar power should be developed, but even by mid-century they will satisfy only a fraction of U.S. energy needs, however much those needs are cut. Hundreds of square miles of eyesore wind farms barely produce the electricity you get from a nuclear plant on less than a square mile.
“Nuclear power is the most efficient energy source we have,” said Gwyneth Cravens, author of Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy. “Uranium is energy-dense. If you got all your electricity from nuclear for your lifetime, your share of the waste would fit in a soda can.”
Cravens once feared this waste so much that she demonstrated against nuclear power plants, but she’s come around. Like Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace who once lambasted nuclear power as “criminal” and now advocates its use, she’s been convinced by the evidence. That’s called growing up.
UPDATE: Another surprise from France, via Instapundit, from The Foundry, "When Did the French Become Better Adherents To Limited Government Than the GOP?"
Today’s Financial Times reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration plans to freeze public spending for five years “to eliminate its deficit and reduce spending as a share of national output.” While Congress figures out the fastest way possible to deficit spend $150 billion on a stimulus package that history suggests will do nothing, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon told FT a global downturn would only “reinforce the goverment’s determination to move swiftly and far with structural reforms.”...Maybe France’s new leadership can drop by to remind wayward appropriators in the [GOP] caucus what real fiscal discipline looks like.
> not one radiation-related death
> has occurred in the history of
> U.S. commercial nuclear power.
I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I don't believe it.
Maybe zero have been attributed to radiation, in some official accounting scheme of psychedelic origin. But can you read the quote listed above without snickering in bitterness?
Puh-leeze.
Crid at January 25, 2008 1:39 AM
"Atom And Yves" -? You're making me think! Oww!
Norman at January 25, 2008 3:29 AM
"not one radiation-related death has occurred in the history of U.S. commercial nuclear power."
It's true, brother. More people have died in the back seat of Ted Kennedy's car than have died from commericial U.S. nuclear power.
How many people die in coal mines & refinery accidents every year? Not to mention from the effects of petrol-based pollution.
Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg at January 25, 2008 6:01 AM
There's all the hysteria that it causes cancer, etc. but even if they are founded (I've seen no real evidence that they are) it's washed out by the deaths due to current air pollution. That's what kills me about the second hand smoke hysteria. How can they so accurately pin it on second hand smoke rather than other forms of air pollution? I don't know how I feel about nuclear power. On the one hand, it is one hell of a lot cleaner; on the other, even one meltdown can be devastating. It's worth looking at, in any case.
Donna at January 25, 2008 6:21 AM
It's just so hard to say you were wrong. Is that the definition of maturity - the ability to admit that you didn't really know everything?
Jennifer at January 25, 2008 6:48 AM
Well, maybe it's part of being wise.
Amy Alkon at January 25, 2008 6:49 AM
I still call bullsh!t on nuclear!!!
The containers that irradiated reactor fuel is shipped out in are said to be safe for hundreds of years. The half-life exceeds a million years. You do the math.
Hatch’s safety record is hardly "sound". (Southern Co.’s Edwin I. Hatch [reactor] along the Altamaha River near Baxley) In 1984, cracks in the containment system were discovered. Hatch is also on record for one of the largest releases of radioactive water into our environment. In 1986, human error and equipment failure led to the release of 84,000 gallons of radioactive water into a wetlands area.
Is it safe from terrorist attack?
Not according to the FBI Director who testified to Congress in February.
Politicians and business men are trying to fool Americans into being sold "clean, independent fuel" because there is a holy-crap-load of money to make, completely at your expense (ever heard of a bailout). Imagine a new age of "Nuclear Rockefellars" and you might get the point.
Understand this with all your heart-
"Anyone who raises concerns about nuclear power safety gets branded as a fearmonger. Were the writers at the Times-Picayune labeled that when as early as 1998 they predicted a Category 3 hurricane could breach the levees and flood New Orleans? But even when fearmongers turn out to be right, why should we worry? Haven’t we all seen how swiftly and judiciously the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security respond to catastrophe!"
Aside from any evidence for or against, how about you (pro-nuclear people) invest in some real estate near a reactor and live out a great life with your happy "nuclear" family! Here is what you can expect in your future. happy, happy, joy, joy
kbling at January 25, 2008 7:20 AM
Oil and coal are the feedstocks for organic chemicals-plastics, dyes, drugs, etc. Electricity can be produced in other ways, but no other source of organic chemicals is really practical at the moment.
Are any other former Detroiters following the unfolding mayor scandal? Takes your mind off the latest Ford layoffs.
Ruth at January 25, 2008 7:30 AM
Were the writers at the Times-Picayune labeled that when as early as 1998 they predicted a Category 3 hurricane could breach the levees and flood New Orleans?
As early as 1998? Wow, that's an eye-opener... particularly since the disaster that befell New Orleans has been predicted since the 1940's (if not earlier).
Oh, and BTW, the levees weren't breached, they were broached -- they were overtopped with water and then subsequently failed. Had they been breached it would indicate that they were not strong enough to hold back the water, being broached says they were not tall enough to contain the storm surge. There's a significant difference in the two. A breached levee suggests a design or construction flaw, a broached levee suggests events exceeded the design capacity.
It's not enough to predict disaster, you need to assess the probability of the event and determine the potential consequences. Once that's done, you can implement steps to either prevent the disaster or to mitigate the consequences.
FWIW kbling, I live 15 miles from a nuclear power plant and I'd be happy to have them expand or build one across the road from me. Steady, reliable power for me... brownouts for you.
Curly Smith at January 25, 2008 8:24 AM
Nice of you folks to weigh in - sort of - on my profession. Along with about 9000 other people, I process radioactive waste at Savannah River Site. As you may find from looking at their Web site (www.srs.gov), SRS opened to build nuclear weapons materials - as did a few other sites around the country.
About the death rate: think about this carefully, and you will see that the allegation is correct. Real life is not a "China Syndrome" movie and its hype. Operating a nuke plant, while not easy, is low-risk because of the amount of monitoring going on. It's overhaul, refueling and/or defueling that's the rub. At SRS, building the fuel in the first place (which generates chemical waste), then dealing with the fission product decay daughters of spent fuel is where risk increases - because of handling, outside of heavily armored containment. This is compensated for by increasing handling safeguards. One of the things that may shock you if you look carefully at SRS is our safety record. We routinely go tens of millions of man-hours between lost-work incidents. My company, Washington Savannah River Company (Disclaimer: I am not speaking officially) is so anal about protecting that safety record that a VP of the company must see you if you are hurt. This makes working at another company a lot like being in "A Nightmare on Elm Street".
Lots of people have difficulty with the nature of death statistics. When you have a general population exposed to about 250 millirem per year from natural sources and an unknown amount of exposure to household chemicals, it is literally impossible to state that exposure to man-made radiation "caused" a death. ALL of the nation's radiological workers are monitored, both in and out of work areas and with a Whole Body Count once a year. So it's easy to prove that while people employed in the nuclear industry in the US do die, they don't die because of work.
At SRS, we have 30+ million gallons of nuclear waste to dispose. In several seperations processes, we pull the radionuclides out according to their nature and fix them in either concrete, or a borosilicate glass in stainless steel containers. These containers are bound for the Yucca Mountain facility you have probably heard of. The controversy around that facility is hilarious - it's right next to Frenchman's Flat, the site of hundreds of A-bomb explosions in the '50s and '60s. To hear the protests, you'd think we were dumping sewage in the flowers... Anyway. The containment will last considerably longer than a) has been asserted here, b) you and your descendants will, or c) the global oil supply will. People fret about this stuff "getting loose" because there is only the scientists' perpetual acknowledgement of uncertainty in honest discussion of release terms.
-----
Generally speaking, there's a great way to show just how inane things like kbling's last sentence is: look at the Navy. In port right now, in San Diego, Norfolk, Bremerton, King's Bay and wherever a Navy nuclear-powered vessel goes, there is no concern whatsoever. That's dozens of nuclear plants.
So hysteria is not the answer - it never was, of course. Study, and improvement, is. Reducing energy demand is. Being smart about what you buy is.
Radwaste at January 25, 2008 9:05 AM
> When you have a general population
> exposed to about 250 millirem per
> year from natural sources and an
> unknown amount of exposure to household
> chemicals, it is literally impossible
> to state that exposure to man-made
> radiation "caused" a death
Exactly. To believe it's literally true that "not one radiation-related death has occurred in the history of U.S. commercial nuclear power" is like thinking maybe evolution didn't happen because it's always called a "theory".
Crid at January 25, 2008 9:18 AM
Hmm. I forgot something. Even though two wrongs don't make a right, you had probably better think about the other risks you face directly. The most dangerous thing I do, literally, is drive to work. If you live next to a chemical plant, you might wonder if they inspect their pressure vessels as well as the nuclear industry - and if they have to be designed against aircraft, etc., impact and single acts of sabotage. If you live in California, you have a better chance of dying in The Big One than I do standing on one of our waste tanks for the next hundred years. Continuously!
Choose wisely...
Radwaste at January 25, 2008 9:20 AM
Um, Amy? The so-called stimulus package is definitely a farce and blatant vote-pandering, but unless you can provide evidence that a significant proportion of Democrat congressmen are against it, your little [GOP] tag is a misleading cheap shot.
From everything I read, (for instance, this), the Dems are just as desperate for good PR as the Repubs are. There are a few Dems and a few Repubs calling BS, but not enough to matter, unfortunately.
Splashman at January 25, 2008 9:20 AM
Thanks, Rad -- I knew you'd come talk some sense into them.
Amy Alkon at January 25, 2008 9:27 AM
Very well put, Radwaste.
As I said earlier: more people have died in the back seat of Ted Kennedy's car than have died from commericial U.S. nuclear power.
Snoop Diggity-DANG-Dawg at January 25, 2008 9:36 AM
The nuclear thing is so simple even politicians should be able to understand it:
1. We need to produce a lot of electricity.
2. There are only two ways to make enough, fossil fuel plants or nuclear plants.
3. A nuclear plant may cause environmental problems.
4. A coal or oil plant will cause environmental problems.
My house is 20 miles from a nuclear plant, kbling. I have no concerns about it whatsoever.
SeanH at January 25, 2008 9:40 AM
Thanks for the clarification Curly, the citizens of New Orleans would be relieved to know about the "significant difference" between breached and broached. The heart of the matter is the inevitability of the inept government system failing us for the sake of "reliable power".
Apply broach/breach to a "nuclear levee". What would the difference be between screwed and f*cked?
I respect you for walking the talk; that is all I'm asking. When my decision is made, as to where I'm settling down, it will include very extensive research ensuring I am out of the kill zone of [plausible] destruction.
kbling at January 25, 2008 10:00 AM
Crid, hey, go ahead and beg the question. I had a nuclear stress test. The isotopes I got for the scanner exposed me more than I have been in 6 years on nuke subs and 16 years at SRS, feet from our waste. If you can't say, then you can't say. Since all ionizing radiation works the same, and the exposure to ionizing radiation from work is monitored, the one thing you CANNOT show is that a cancer case was due to a gamma from the plant, rather than one you got flying to Paris on vacation. You CAN show that the risk from working with a given isotope or at a given job is less than other risks. Making this happen is the whole goal of the safety workforce.
Again - there is a very low level of understanding about risk, and injury and death statistics. Some outright facts are unknown, which make things worse when someone tries to explain things. Here's the deal: if I opened a nerve gas plant in your town and I deliberately released some of it to your neighborhood, it still wouldn't be the cause of death and injury to everybody. Some will be at work. Some will be resistant. Some will die from other causes - and these will be removed from the "roster" of "who died because of that nerve gas plant". You want a case where, "nuclear plant shine = death by nuclear plant" but you can't have that; you can't blame the plant for the case where a guy made a bunch of money, bought a fast car and killed himself in it, either. So you repeat that you just can't believe it.
You know, farmers die of cancer, even in nations with no nuclear anything. I guess you'll just have to keep looking.
Radwaste at January 25, 2008 10:00 AM
Wow Radwaste, I can take a jab but, I'm sure the workers like yourself (from the link I doubt you read) would consider it harsh to call their situation inane.
kbling at January 25, 2008 10:17 AM
Kbling, you'll never be out of a "kill zone", and it's not the government's responsibility to keep you out of one.
The government didn't force people to live in a city deliberately built below sea level; they chose to. 39 million people choose live in California, despite a lifetime of warnings about "the big one". Now when it DOES happen, it'll be the government's fault, won't it?
Personnally I rather live under the minuscule threat of a nuclear accident, rather than the very real threat of petro-dollar-fueled radical Islamic jerks ass-ploding themselves in our country.
Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg at January 25, 2008 10:23 AM
Is there a different version of my posts on here? I know catastrophes are not the fault of government, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's handling of it is. FEMA WTF! Of course those folks screwed themselves (consciously or not) for being there - given the possible consequences. I did mention I would do my own research because I am not expecting Big Daddy Gov to help. It is great to see all the nuclear-is-safe advocates but, I don't want to be close when your "safety record" takes a hit.
kbling at January 25, 2008 10:59 AM
Hey SeanH, way to chime in and completely drop off the point about the governments handling of the situation.
You did make a great statement, "...it would sure be nice if we could perfectly protect..." That is what I am getting at. You are actually betting your life on the notion that nuclear plants will maintain a perfect record?
kbling at January 25, 2008 11:27 AM
Fine, kbling, but do you have ANY data points to support the overwhelming dangers posed by civil nuclear power?
I respectfully submit all this fear is just left-over ghost-angst of the 60s.
All together now, "Hey hey. Ho, ho. *[Insert gripe here] has got to go." Hey hey...
Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg at January 25, 2008 11:32 AM
"Atom and Yves." Heh. Brilliant title.
Jeff at January 25, 2008 11:48 AM
Are you kidding me Snoop?
http://www.rense.com/health3/radiation3.htm
US Admits Radiation Sickened Workers
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000129/ts/health_radiation_2.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In an about-face, U.S. officials confirmed on Saturday that nuclear weapons workers exposed to radiation and chemicals experienced higher-than-expected cancer rates.
The admission was contained in a draft report by the Energy Department and the White House. It comes after the U.S. government spent years minimizing the dangers of exposure to radiation and defending itself against charges that nuclear bomb plants had sickened workers.
The findings, first reported by The New York Times and confirmed by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, could lead to negotiations over a package to compensate sick workers and their families.
Richardson, attending an economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, said on Saturday, ``We should take care of our workers'' if a final report due out in March confirms a linkage between exposure to radiation and health problems.
The draft report says workers exposed to radiation and chemicals at 14 U.S. nuclear weapons plants had elevated rates of 22 categories of cancer ranging from leukemia to lung cancer, according to the Times.
A nuclear weapons expert cited by the paper said hundreds of people may have been sickened since nuclear weapons production began during the Second World War. That number could rise to the thousands if radiation-linked diseases other than cancer were counted.
The Times said compensation for the group could add up to tens of millions of dollars.
Google much?
kbling at January 25, 2008 11:53 AM
"nuclear weapons workers exposed to radiation and chemicals experienced higher-than-expected cancer rates."
No, I'm not kidding, kbling. Your report refers to nuclear weapons workers. Since when are nuclear bombs used in civil nuclear power plants?
Stay on topic much?
Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg at January 25, 2008 12:11 PM
I'm not entirely against Nuke power but one thing troubles me...
"The containers that irradiated reactor fuel is shipped out in are said to be safe for hundreds of years. The half-life exceeds a million years. You do the math."
"The containment will last considerably longer than a) has been asserted here, b) you and your descendants will,..."
Will the containment oulast the danger posed by its contents? I don't know, I'm asking. You say the containment will last longer than our descendents. What kind of time are we talking about? We don't know how long humans will last on Earth.
How do we warn people in the distant future to avoid this stuff? They may not be able to decipher our current language. They may have a level of technology that is below what we have at the present. (It is often assumed that people of the far future will be technologically advanced compared to the present, but this is not an inevitability). Wars, disasters and other upheavels can destroy records.
I know I sound like a Sci-Fi writer but we need to look into the far future when considering the creation of substances that will be dangerous for such a long time.
winston at January 25, 2008 12:13 PM
> the one thing you CANNOT
> show is that a cancer case
> was due to a gamma from
> the plant
Precisely correct. I could smoke three packs a day for another twenty years and die of lung cancer, but you couldn't prove that the smoking caused that unpleasant death. You're using technical wording for a political purpose: "Trust the industry! We're good guys! Also, the government is here to help us!"
Riiiiiiiiiiiiigght.....
Crid at January 25, 2008 12:24 PM
Since when are nuclear bombs used in civil nuclear power plants? Glad you asked Snoop...
As I have seen so far in my search, government and private industry are bedfellows. Under a US-Russian agreement reached in 1993, Russia is removing 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium from old weapons and diluting it into the low levels of enrichment that can fuel power plants. In fact, the United States has been buying large amounts of material for a decade and destroying it by using it as fuel in nuclear reactors. But Russia has far more nuclear material than we have been willing to buy.
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Northeast Utilities said it has agreed to pay $10 million in penalties and plead guilty to 25 federal felony counts for lying to nuclear regulators and polluting water near its Millstone nuclear station in Waterford, Conn. The guilty plea is the latest fallout from the 1996 shutdown of the Millstone plant, one of the most damaging blows to the U.S. nuclear industry. Millstone was shut after whistle-blowers came forward to expose how Northeast was overloading a cooling reservoir with highly radioactive fuel rods to save time and money.
kbling at January 25, 2008 1:44 PM
Thanks for the clarification Curly, the citizens of New Orleans would be relieved to know about the "significant difference" between breached and broached.
Apply broach/breach to a "nuclear levee". What would the difference be between screwed and f*cked?
A breached levee can be interpreted as an industrial failure. A broached levee can be interpreted as a Political Failure... the politicians selected the wrong design. It's an important distinction because the levee in New Orleans did what it was designed to do. It simply couldn't do more than it was designed to do and failed when the storm surge overtopped it.
What I'm reading, kbling, is that you have little to no confidence that the government will keep you safe. I don't disagree, but there's a big difference in the government which is never accountable and private industry which is accountable. Any new nuclear facility will be built and run by private industry which has a strong vested interest in safety -- the people that run the plant have families that live next door, the NRC would strip the company of its Operating License if it found serious safety violations, and the company would go out of business if it had a major incident. Did you see any accountability in New Orleans? Did you hear politicians say "we should have built the levees higher? Nope, they all blamed FEMA and Bush. Did you hear any accountability in Congress following 9/11? Nope, they all blamed Bush for "not connecting the dots". Did you hear any accountability for the bridge that collapsed on I-35 in Minnesota? Did you hear the experts say "we accepted a bridge with a design flaw"? Nope, they blamed Bush and his tax cuts.
Private industry and individuals are accountable. Government and politicians are never accountable.
Curly Smith at January 25, 2008 3:22 PM
Say you need cardboard ash for some reason, and you have a stockpile of fireworks that you need to get rid of anyway. You can burn the fireworks, and get the cardboard ash that way. But only someone being disingenuous would talk about fatalities from explosions at firework factories as if they were a normal part of producing cardboard ash. The fatalities were from producing fireworks for a purpose other than making cardboard ash.
Lunatic at January 25, 2008 3:25 PM
Apologies for not making my sarcasm apparent Curly. To lay it all out I'll say -
what the hell do those people care about breach/broach because dead = dead especially if a reactor has a breach/broach. Humans are way to infantile to be manipulating such dangerous substances. No one knows the long term effects only the short term gain. If it is a safe energy, why does it require such hardcore containment?
Private industry and individuals are accountable - after their caught.
Does this group of nukers also view microwave food as healthy?
kbling at January 25, 2008 7:07 PM
kbling,
I didn't think the Amish used computers...
And computers that are vastly more complicated than a nuclear reactor...
Don't fear the nuclear power plant, fear the singularity because Judgment Day is approaching...
Curly Smith at January 26, 2008 6:05 AM
Just who do you think is in charge of worker safety? The safety measures in place at SRS are put there and monitored by the workers themselves. They are not having things "done to them" by some mysterious, evil force in the military-industrial complex.
What, now the microwave is related to the nuclear power issue in some way? Maybe it's time to mention that the human body has about 3000ppm formaldehyde in it, so we can all fear being alive through natural processes.
"Humans are way to infantile to be manipulating such dangerous substances." --- Some of them are. Your choice is simple if you are serious: turn off your computer now, disconnect the power from your house and do without. Get millions of people you know to do the same thing. There's no "magic" to this. That is the only way you're making this go away. The electrical grid is tied together. When you turn on an appliance, you can, even in the US, because a nuke plant generated that power. Bye!
"No one knows the long term effects only the short term gain."--- Well, here we are with the fear goad; that can be said about everything you do. But I'm not going to assert a "two wrongs make a right" fallacy. If you want a hint about things, starting with the core of the problem - ionizing radiation and its sources - you may start with something like Nuclides and Isotopes by GE Nuclear Energy, at about 723 on the shelf at your library.
"If it is a safe energy, why does it require such hardcore containment?"--- Because we know what happens when the core material gets loose. This is specious. It's like asking why we insulate wire.
Nuclear effects, both in weapons and reactor systems, are possibly the most intently studied things on Earth. You aren't going to change your opinion with a few minutes' reading; I doubt that many people can even tell the difference between editorials and source material on the subject and select factual material in that short a time. This isn't something I can explain on a blog, since I apparently have to go through the physics and chemistry fields before getting to acute and heritable effects. NPR even babbled about nuke plants having to cut power in the Southeast because of the drought reducing their cooling-water supply; they didn't bother to notice that the coal and oil plants have to do that, too, fixating on a sure thing - fear of nuke plants.
The American public must have electrical power, and lots of it; this power must not come from fossil fuels, which will be depleted, and which puts out nasty exhaust gases with more immediate effects. Tell me: what are you going to do?
Radwaste at January 26, 2008 7:14 AM
Umm. Sam Bodman is the Energy Secretary. On worker compensation for exposure, please note that the fund hinted at in kbling's post was established, but workers will still have to prove that their illness was caused by exposure at work.
See www.doe.gov/safetyhealth/index.htm for reports on what the agency has really done. Note a few things as you read the reports of violations: 1) misconduct of a contractor is a matter of public record, 2) the fine amounts come out of the contract fee, reducing the unit's profitability, 3) "worker contamination" in these summary reports does not note the extent of contamination, whether it is internal or external, or whether it results in continued exposure to the involved persons, but detail reports are available which do show that, 4) the contractor is cited and fined even if workers are contaminated as a result of their own misconduct, as in violating procedure.
Keep in mind that Hanford, like SRS, is a repository for waste generated in the manufacture of weapons, and that this waste remains to be processed by someone, no matter what happens today. It cannot be wished out of existence, only minimized, stabilized and stored.
Radwaste at January 26, 2008 7:53 AM
kbling - I live in CT. The whole fiasco with NU happened when the lawyers for the shareholders made it clear that a failure to keep the stock prices up and dividends being paid would result in lawsuits. The people running NU decided it was cheaper to bribe the NRC inspector than it was to do maintenance. When someone finally blew the whistle, all hell broke loose.
Because of those shysters, and the craven board of NU, I now pay three times what I should for electricity, the Haddam Neck Nuclear Facility (Connecticut Yankee) is being capped, none of the Millstones are running at full capacity (millstone around the neck indeed), and we are importing most of our power from out of state.
Nuclear power is safe. Lawyers and bureaucrats, however, are not.
And anyone who is going to argue for "perfectly safe" may as well just bury themselves in concrete now. Because there is no such thing. You could get hit by a car in your sleep tonight. You could trip over your dog and smash your head on the floor. There's any number of things that will kill you that you can't control, can't see, and can't defend against.
Life is risk. You don't want to live near a nuclear power plant? Fine. Move. Because a coal, oil, or nat gas plant could explode and do a lot of damage too. Hell, when the BP refinery blew up in Texas the shockwave did damage for miles around.
brian at January 27, 2008 6:36 PM
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