73 Comments

  1. There are a number of investments that could be made in road safety that would reduce the annual death toll from car crashes, but we choose not to make them, often due to a limitation on the amount of available money.

    Dollars per death averted; isn’t that what this comes down to? A while back I was reading a chapter out of “Environmental Radioactivity from Natural, Industrial & Military Sources,” M. Eisenbud and in that chapter he wrote about the amount we spend on safety and the numbers of dollars per death averted. He showed that we spend several orders of magnitude more money avoiding death due to radiation than just about any other method. He even used guard rails (road safety) as an example. If the goal is to avoid death and prevent illness, then clearly there are much cheaper and simpler areas that we can spend our limited money. How much would a little preventive education on eating healthy foods costs? I bet the results would much greater than spending money on prolonging the licensing process for new nuclear power plants.

    1. We’ve all heard the mantra “speed kills.” Thus, the only rational course of action is to limit the speed of automobiles to As Low As Reasonable Achievable (ALARA).

      A (rigorously enforced) universal speed limit of 5 mph (8 kph) should do the trick.

      1. That is an absolutely brilliant analogy, Brian.

        I personally feel much more safe traveling slightly above posted speed limits, but making a concerted effort to minimize lane changes and being diligent to check my mirrors and blind spots prior to changing lanes. Those actions could be analogous to radiation protection measures that are practically routine at operating nuclear facilities.

      2. You are close in your analogy, Brian. However, given the safety devices contained in cars you could make an argument that 25 mph is a good optimum between time required to cover distance and safe speed. However due to excessive fear and the ALARA principle, even though the speed limits are posted at 25 mph there are regulations that limit cars to 15 hp to ensure that no one ever comes close to the 25 mph speed limit.

  2. The whole situation is ridiculously disheartening. I have looked at it from the radiation safety viewpoint for a long time. I see the tremendous efforts and costs expended to avoid exposures in the millirem-person range, exposures for which there is absolutely no scientific evidence of harm on an individual exposure basis, and compare that to the verifiable, known benefits that would result from applying those resources in other ways (for example, establishing some kind of voucher program to provide medical coverage for uninsured persons – just an example). I have often thought this whole insane situation is a reflection of the gullibility and intellectual laziness of the public in being manipulated by the purveyors of FUD and actualizing the fantasy of Hollywood wrt radiation effects.

  3. Rod — or anyone here.

    Take the dare. E-mail this very column to Boxer and every other Hills’s congressional e-mail address — pronto!

    James Greenidge

  4. In the video, Senator Boxer quoted from the legislation establishing the NRC that the goal of the NRC is to “…license and regulate the nation’s civilian use of…nuclear materials to protect public health and safety, promote the common defense and security, and protect the environment.” NCR Chairman Jaczo stated that the charter of the NRC is to provide a “reasonable assurance of public health and safety.”

    The main competition for nuclear power, fossil fuel powered electrical generation, is clearly more dangerous to public health and safety, and has much greater environmental impact. All renewable sources of power generation are demonstrably more dangerous and arguably have greater impact on the environment.

    The actions of the NRC have caused nuclear power plants to be delayed and cancelled. As a consequence, power is being generated using more dangerous technologies.

    I submit that the NRC has failed miserably to meet its charter of protecting health and safety, promoting defense and security, and protecting the environment.

    Petr Beckmann wrote a book 35 years ago titled “The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear.” I suggest that Senator Boxer and Chaiman Jaczo read it.

    1. donb – Your comment is important (and insightful). If the regulating agency (NRC) tasked with the job of protecting the public’s safety raises regulatory obstacles on the nuclear technology it regulates to the point the technology is no longer built and more dangerous alternative fossil fuel technology is built in its place, then that regulatory agency has failed in its fundamental task (protection of public safety).
      I would like to thank you for clearly making this significant point.

  5. I’m not sure that the traffic death analogy fits. There is no alternative to the use of cars when living in a modern world, but many would argue that there are reliable alternatives to nuclear power. Whether or not they are correct is a different issue.

    1. While there are reliable alternatives to nuclear power, they are all more dangerous. So the NRC fails in its mission to protect public health and safety when its actions cause nuclear power plants to be delayed or not be built at all.

      1. I agree with you, but my point is that opponents of nuclear power think that there are safe alternatives of energy production, but they don’t see an alternative to using cars. So I think the analogy will fail to convince.

        1. @cpragman:

          I would love to hear the Chairman both articulate that policy and act as if he truly believed it.

          There is nothing about the Fukushima situation that would lead anyone to believe that nuclear, as regulated before Fukushima, is a significant addition to other societal risks. In fact, a rational, honest look would indicate that there are probably places where current regulations and policies can be streamlined to allow more cost effective, timely construction and operation without any increase in risk.

          It is interesting to note that Chairman Jaczko is confident that he and his fellow commissioners can act decisively to make decision on implementing 12 recommendations of various complexity. Can anyone recall how long it has been since the voting began on the ASLB decision that the DOE does not have the authority to withdraw its license application? I think that the clock (calendar) is still running (turning) on that voting process after about 14 months.

          http://www.nucleartownhall.com/blog/tag/aslb/

  6. If you vote for Democrats you will get people like Boxer as the chair of this committee. Hopefully the Republicans take over in two years and we can have someone like Lamar Alexander leading the discussion. Please vote Republican in 2012.

        1. Don’t forget also Vice President Cheney was from Wyoming; A state that is heavily underlain with Coal.

          That administration leaves office, and the next one installs the likes of Jaczko to chair the NRC. Does political party really matter?

          I live in New York State. Once they close Indian Point on the Hudson, I’ll wait patiently for the first power emergency: It’ll be a hot summer day, the Windmills on the once pristine Adirondack and Catskill Ridge lines will be still, and the Power Authority of the State of NY will call for conservation. At that time all my lights will be lit and my Air Conditioners will be turned to “hi cool’ (sic)…..

      1. Daniel – You are clearly not aware of or don’t remember how bad things were for nuclear during the Clinton/Gore years. Within two years of Clinton taking office, the Integral Fast Reactor project had been canceled. By FY 1998, nuclear energy R&D had been completely zeroed out of the DOE budget. Also, in 1998, the Yucca Mountain project failed to meet the deadline established by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act for accepting new nuclear fuel.

        By the late nineties, the only expected growth sector in the nuclear industry was Decontamination and Decommissioning.

        Compare that to the Bush/Cheney years.

        By August 2001 — just before the attacks of 9/11 distracted the entire country — anti-nuclear groups were complaining bitterly in the press about how quickly the new administration was working to revive the floundering Yucca Mountain project, which had languished during the previous decade. By mid-2002, the Yucca Mountain site had been recommended by the President and approved by Congress.

        By the end of 2003, only two years into the administration, three utilities had applied for Early Site Permits for new nuclear reactors. By the spring of 2004, not one, but two industry consortiums had formed to explore the possibility of licensing a new nuclear reactor. This is something that would have been unthinkable only five years earlier.

        In Bush’s second term, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which extended the Price-Anderson Act and, more importantly, authorized loan guarantees for new nuclear plants. By 2008, funding for nuclear energy R&D in the DOE’s budget had returned to a level that had not been seen since the mid-eighties. By the time Bush left office, the utilities had submitted 17 license applications to the NRC for a total of 26 new reactors.

        Bush’s biggest, most lasting mistake when it comes to nuclear power was to appoint Jaczko to the NRC as part of a deal to appease Senator Reid.

        Now compare that to the Obama/Biden administration.

        Within months of being inaugurated, Obama had begun the process to kill the Yucca Mountain Project (just as the license application was being finalized), adopting instead a kick-the-can-down-the-road approach of appointing a Blue Ribbon Commission to recommend anything but Yucca Mountain for the disposal of nuclear “waste.” On the bright side, however, this has meant plenty of job opportunities for ambitious young lawyers in the Justice Department, which has grown in anticipation of law suits brought by the utilities because the Federal Government is now in deliberate violation of its own laws.

        Obama’s support for nuclear energy can best be described as schizophrenic. For example, he proposed to increase the loan guarantees for nuclear that were established in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, but only after he failed to support a Republican-led initiative to do the exact same thing a year earlier. Note that neither initiative was successful, which shows how much real effort Obama is willing put behind supporting nuclear power.

        Obama’s idea of federal support for nuclear power looks more like a make-work program for the DOE labs, which is not surprising considering that Obama’s Secretary of Energy comes from a DOE lab. Meanwhile, Obama has doubled down on Bush’s mistake by appointing Jaczko as Chairman of the NRC, a position for which he has demonstrated himself to be highly unqualified. Whether Jaczko’s recent actions are the result of sheer incompetence or deliberate maliciousness is a matter of debate, but either way, things do not bode well for the nuclear industry under his watch.

        Since Obama’s term started, only one license application has been received by the NRC, but this is offset by the withdrawal of a license application that was submitted during the previous administration. The reviews of several more applications have been suspended by the NRC at the applicant’s request.

        I, for one, would much rather return to the Bush/Cheney years, when real progress was being made. Today, we’re going backward.

        1. This is from President Obama’s inauguration speech:

          As president, as president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America…And I’ll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy — wind power, and solar power

          I believe the use of the word safely was a nod to his constituents who believed that there’s no such thing as safe nuclear power.

        2. @ Brian

          Point well taken. Maybe things are slow by design in the nuclear industry.

          I just know that Bush was a master in imposing his will. With both houses under his wing, imagine where we could be today if he had made nuclear one of his most pressing priority.

        3. Daniel – Well, Bush allowed himself to become distracted — most obviously by starting two wars. Later on, he allowed himself and his administration to be distracted by projects like GNEP, instead of focusing on getting something built in the near term.

          Of course, the government bureaucracy hasn’t helped. The DOE has been equally as sluggish in handling the loan guarantees in both the Bush and Obama administrations.

        4. Nice summary of where we have come from Brian.

          My summary of our future – without changes of leadership at NRC, the Senate, and, yes, the White House, the American Nuclear Renaissance is on life support.

        5. @Brian

          Excellent summary. My charge to you and others is to help me figure out how to turn support of nuclear energy into an issue where both parties recognize its value and stop the destructive policy changes.

          Nuclear energy development is a long term proposition. If it is tied to one party, it will never flourish because it is unlikely that the US will ever keep one party in power long enough to get things really moving again. As you rightly point out, things were pretty awful when Bush took over. It does take a long time to reverse the momentum established during an eight year period of leadership by a group of natural gas promoters who articulated and acted on a belief that nuclear energy was unnecessary and should be pushed out of the market.

          How do we help people understand that no matter what side of the aisle you come from politically, if you like America and Americans, you should like nuclear energy. Of course, if you are a fossil fuel pusher, it does not matter what side you sit on – you still do not like trying to compete against a superior product.

          By the way, do you have any feel for what the newly influential arm of the Republican Party thinks about enabling nuclear energy?

        6. Right on, Rod. For the foreseeable future, even an absolute world-class-managed nuclear project will have a timeline that far exceeds the American political cycle.

          Nuclear energy should not at all be considered a partisan issue.

        7. @ Rod

          “How do we help people understand that no matter what side of the aisle you come from politically, if you like America and Americans, you should like nuclear energy”

          I think one of the big problems that the nuclear industry is fighting is scientific illiteracy. How many people have a sound, basic understanding of the physical sciences. Nukes like to make the case that we have science on our side, but if people don’t understand the science then what we say sounds no different than propaganda and no more/less credible than what the anti-nukes are saying.

          As much as I hate the “think of the children” excuse that gets overused in politics this is one of the few times that I think it is the answer. I think that we need to educate the youth about nuclear power. They need to get a good helping of the fundamental sciences in school so that they can understand the issues. If we cannot get the science into school maybe we need to develop an education program targeted at kids. Come up with some Schoolhouse Rock type format that teaches the basic science and then applies it to nuclear energy. It would be good for adults and kids to watch it, but kids tend to have more time.

          Youth are also important educate because they are more likely to participate in rallies and letter campaigns to Congress. If a large collection of America’s use are telling our elected officials to think of the children and use nuclear power, then there may be progress.

          It has been my unfortunate experience to find that there is little to be gained by arguing those who are of the older generations about nuclear energy. There may be some of the older generation who want to learn about nuclear energy. It may be worth trying to set up a series of multimedia based online classes that explain the basic science behind nuclear energy and health physics, but I still see the target demographic as the youth.

        8. JBW, I think you’re right on in a lot of ways, both on the science illiteracy issue and the need to educate young people.

          The need to shift older people to the “proper” side cannot be ignored, however, since almost all major decision makers would fall into the “older” crowd. Sadly, many, many “older” people have entrenched worldviews and are unwilling to invest in re-examining those entrenched views (with several notable exceptions of recent years including the likes of Patrick Moore, Gwyneth Cravens, George Monbiot, etc.).

        9. Joel – You are correct that the older generation has the most influence and needs to be educated also. I am pointing out that it is a mistake for us to focus on educating just the older generation since they are the ones that currently hold office. The younger generation is often more open to new ideas. There may be cries of propaganda if we produce pro-nuclear cartoons aimed at educating kids, but Captain Planet et al. have been vilifying it for too long.

          Besides, we should never underestimate the influence of the younger generation. Look at the 60s and 70s.

        10. How do we help people understand that no matter what side of the aisle you come from politically, if you like America and Americans, you should like nuclear energy.

          Rod – If I knew that, all the PR problems would be solved.

          Ultimately, I think that one’s best bang for the buck (so to speak) is to focus on the fence-sitters, while ignoring those anti-nukes who have made up their mind. Fortunately, many people simply have not put much thought into energy and energy policy, including nuclear power. This is why stupid Scientific American articles on Grand Solar Plans are so popular. If you know nothing about how energy is generated, distributed, and used, it all sounds good. I say “fortunately,” because typically these people have not yet made up their minds; they are simply reacting from ignorance.

          Thus, the best bet is education campaigns. The more people learn and know, the more that they are likely to support nuclear energy, and various polls have confirmed this.

          In any case, one will still encounter the anti-nukes, including the lifetime professional activists, and I think the best policy is to ignore them, while effectively countering their misinformation with real facts. They’re like those people who dance with snakes; you’ll never convince them to think otherwise, so there is no point in wasting time trying. Unfortunately, this means writing off much of the far left — particularly the deep Greens — but so be it.

          By the way, do you have any feel for what the newly influential arm of the Republican Party thinks about enabling nuclear energy?

          Not really. If I were to guess, however, I suspect that their take is pretty close to the position of the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank. That is, they are probably supportive of the technology in general, but object to most government subsidies and would prefer that the industry were not so bogged down in regulation and bureaucratic red tape.

    1. Do you want Boxer or Lamar in charge of the NRC? It is not universal but I find Republicans far more friendly to nuclear power.

      1. Neither Boxer nor Alexander would technically be in charge of the NRC, but I would be glad to see Alexander in the position of Senate Majority Leader.

        And yes, the wheels of the hoped-for US Nuclear Renaissance did actually start spinning under Bush’s administration, but it is apparent that those wheels have a tremendous, tremendous amount of mass and thus inertia.

  7. George W Bush repeatedly said we need more nuclear power and the stalled nuclear renascence gained much ground during the Bush admin.

  8. The NEI should analyze politicians’ voting records, speeches, and statements and publish a “Nuclear Politics Report Card”, so we can see clearly who the friends and foes are.

    It’s possible they already do this internally, but it would be interesting to see it on record. Maybe they are afraid of antagonizing any of these strutting little Caesars on Capitol Hill like Boxer.

  9. @Brian Mays

    Its not spam(Well it depends). Its an english interpretation of a real event. I could of linked the video but its in Japanese. I could of linked articles but they don’t cover the whole speech. If Rod wants to remove it as spam well go ahead. As I said a while back I just want to give you guys something to think about from time to time. Yes I put that on the latest article and Rod may deem it is not relevant or even spam. I don’t do this everyday. Once in a while I try to enlighten you all. I didn’t put it as the first comment to the article. You all need to understand what is happening on the other side of the Pacific. You know I was thinking Rod could even write an article about this speech.

    Kodama, head of the Radioisotope Center at the University of Tokyo vs Rod Adams.

    I respect Rod has some knowledge but not at the same level of Kodama. If one person on here claims to have that level of knowledge or experience I’d be very surprised. Now on another topic seems the NISA head is being fired. Also seems Japan is ditching nuclear. I know its alot to stomach. Sad it took such a disater.

    1. @Luke – I am going to remove your copy and paste comment. This is a discussion thread where the people involved are expected to share their own thoughts, not to copy and insert lengthy articles from other sources.

    2. “Sad it took such a disater.”

      You have an awfully odd concept of what a “disaster” is. They’re legions of graves from oil to aircraft that wish they endured such a “disaster”.

      James Greenidge

    3. At the time the Fukushima plants were built, the only other choice was coal. Thousands of deaths were avoided by building nuclear power plants instead. Coal-fired power plants instead of the Fukushima nuclear plants would have been the real disaster.

  10. @Daniel You must hold a position higher than Kodama who is head of the Radioisotope Center at the University of Tokyo because your questioning his speech not my words. I work in IT so I’m not 100 percent sure of everything except Kodama knows more than me.

    1. @ Luke

      Brief visits are now allowed starting today in zones 3KM to 20KM from the plant as radiation levels are acceptable. It is on NHK World News.

      It is only a matter of weeks before citizens are allowed back. The 3KM radius may remain for a while longer.

      Now, I can’t wait to hear the explanations as to why people were evacuated in the first place.

  11. @Daniel – Actually I’d be vey surprised if they go ahead with that. Yes I’ve seen it written but I’d be very surprised. Lets wait and see.

  12. Help needed !

    Here are the names of the 4 NRC commissioners:
    Svinicki, Apostolakis, Magwood and Ostendorff.

    We know were Chairman Jaczko stands.

    Can someone tell us who’s pro nuclear ?

  13. Energy and World Wide Food Crisis

    I know I have not skipped a meal involuntarily in all my life. But the situation is becoming serious as the US, Thailand, Brazil and many other countries are now growing low grade crops so that we can produce ethanol.

    I rank this on top of the stupid list as the United Nations decries those practices as the poor get hungrier and the food gets scarcer and more expensive.

    Energy policy in the Western World has to stop this nonsense of growing food to run our cars while the planet is starving.

    I know this topic is not directly connected to nuclear but it is definitely related to energy policies.

    1. Daniel – there is an important relationship between food, fear of radiation, and energy policy. Not only are many countries stupidly using land, water and other scarce resources to grow ethanol, but we are still allowing a great deal of spoilage that could be reduced through the intelligent use of irradiation.

      We are also risking serious changes in weather and climate that may alter rain distribution and the fertility of productive areas by continuing to dump billions of extra tons of CO2 from coal, gas, and oil fired power plants that could be replaced by nuclear energy facilities.

      1. I often tell my students there are three things that could be done which would eliminate 90% of the diseases affecting less developed countries today:

        1. Assure a safe water supply.
        2. Provide adequate sanitation.
        3. Assure a safe food supply.

        Of those, the latter could be very readily addressed by food irradiation. Like the first two, it would require some measure of technology infrastructure and social/political stability (which is the real trick). But it is a lot easier to prevent illness than cure it.

        And Rod is correct about the ethanol situation. In a world staving for protein and adequate foodstuffs, it makes no sense to me to be burning our food supply, which is basically what ethanol prodution from edible grains does.

        1. @ Waybe

          I predict that nuclear water desalination plants will take a bigger place in the future.

          I heard once that the WW III would be fought over water supplies. It may be fiction, but this planet is getting hungrier and thirstier.

          My question is : Can a nuclear water desalination plant produce both water and electricity at the same time ?

        2. Many modern desalination plants use reverse osmosis which is usually more energy efficient than thermal desalination. (Example – Aruba’s conversion from thermal to RO). So yes, since RO is powered by electricity (for the pumps and control systems), a single nuclear plant can provide both power and water. The same is true for thermal desalination plants, but this application is less likely.

        3. Some designs like the CANDESAL which was a CANDU reactor powered power plant/desal plant used steam driven pumps on the RO side.

  14. Do you honestly believe that Third World nations will be able to successfully assimilate into Western Culture? You keep insisting that the Third World nations, even those in Africa, will eventually attain a First World lifestyle, thus driving up demand for commodities like uranium and silver. Culture is defined as anything passed on from one generation to the next that isn’t inherited, characteristic of a particular population. Therefore a First World lifestyle would essentially be one in which one practices that which whites have invented ever since the transition to agriculture began in Europe thousands of years ago, with the introduction of Middle Eastern wheat into nearby Greece. This chart clearly shows that very few nations will be able to assimilate:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

    China will undoubtedly keep assimilating at 100, and Japan and South Korea are already assimilated, at 105. Japan’s assimilation began as early as 1867 with the Meiji restoration, and has since culminated in the emergence of a world power. Much hope also lies with Argentina and Uruguay (96) and other parts of Latin America where the population is near-pure white, such as northern Mexico and southern Brazil. Mexico has already attained First World prosperity in its state of Nuevo Leon, which is mostly white and castizo, but southern Mexico remains solidly Third World, which is mostly mestizo, cholo, and Indian. Mexico and Brazil are both at 87, which is the approximate midpoint one would expect relative to their admixture profiles. The average IQ in sub-Saharan Africa is 67, and among American Indians 75. Mexico is about 59% European in admixture, 32% Indian and 9% black. Note Spain at 99. Brazil is about 69% European in admixture, 27% black and 4% Indian. That is, of course, only on average. The two nations shade from lightest to darkest, North to South in Mexico, South to North in Brazil, and actually have the most racial inequality of any nations on Earth and rigid affirmative action quotas. Manuel Obrador, who nearly defeated Felipe Calderon in the 2006 presidential election with 35.31% of the vote to Calderon’s 35.89%, based his entire campaign on racial equality through socialism (Calderon won 865,006 to 282,384 in Nuevo Leon). Please, get realistic on race. The nuclear fast breeder reactor (such as the IFR) is a highly sophisticated technological invention which will make assimilation even more difficult as world fossil fuel extraction soon reaches its peak and enters terminal decline.

    Sincerely,

    Luis Garcia
    San Pedro Garza Garcia, Nuevo Leon

    1. This should develop into a very interesting (because under-discussed) sidethread. Stand back Luis!

      I’m not even sure the population of the US is yet intelligent enough and well-informed enough to deserve the benefits of atomic energy.

    2. @ Luis and Atomikrabbit

      I will suggest at this time a little consideration for the third world and the ‘uncivilized tribes’ that have such a low civilization coefficient as you seem to point to.

      Nuclear energy and SMRs will be the great energy equalizer and will get the 75% of the population, that has no base load electricity today, on its way to a better quality of life. Such is the path reserved for the energy that man created with his knowledge!

      Your grandmother’s mothers were once spending a good proportion of their time washing clothes. And then electricity and the washing machine came along and freed them from such chores. Women in poor countries tomorrow will aspire to a better quality of life with the same god damn electricity and washing machines. The time freed allows for education and economic creation.

      But we have to get them electricity first, the plug & play type of base load that could offer centralized services in remote villages around the world and not be based on carbon and sophisticated distribution grids.

      Listen to the ode of the washing machine by the remarkable Hans Rosling and see how it freed women in this country.

      http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine.html

      And I forbid anyone to dare denying cooling, comfort, care and them god damn washing machines to the needy that have such a low ‘civilization coefficient’.

      This is why I like autonomous nuclear SMRs.

      Nuclear : The energy equalizer !

    3. I drive a car and so do you. Yet the amount of gasoline that is transformed into energy is so small that no one has ever been able to measure it.

      That does not make me inelegible to the point were I cannot drive a car or turn the electricity switch on when I get home. I take a leap of faith. If I had to understand everything, I would overdose.

      Vaihinger’s psychology of ‘as if’ allows me to take the plane without fear or any understanding of the underlying technology.

      Nations from the third world can also aspire to ‘turn the stupid switch on’ electricity that I benefit.

    4. “Please, get realistic on race.”

      This sort of thinking isn’t new, Rudyard Kipling wrote in 1899:

      Take up the White Man’s burden // Send forth the best ye breed // Go, bind your sons to exile. To serve your captives’ need;

      He was wrong then, as you are wrong now. If a dirt-poor country like Pakistan can develop a nuclear weapons capability more or less independently, then I submit there are very few nations that cannot find enough individuals that can be trained to run a nuclear power plant.

      1. The Pakistanis stole Dutch centrifuge technology to get the uranium bomb. And even they are in the high 80s, let alone Africa.

        1. And the American atomic bomb effort depended on a number of expatriate Europeans as well. Since then every country with a nuclear weapons program has used information from somewhere else. See:The Hidden Travels of The Bomb

          Your thesis is not only flawed factually, it is outright bigoted

  15. Here is my stand with the positions that the NRC and DOJ take with regards to their testimony at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant trial.

    They state that they will not testify nor interfere.

    If they need to, Vermont Yankee will subpoena them and they will have to go.

    What a circus and a lack of courage from both of these agencies. I hope they get a subpoena from Vermont Yankee.

  16. I also think Vermont Yankee will win against the State of Vermont and I hope that all the workers affected will show up.

    I would also invite them to take the tritium challenge as the amount found in the water were said to be insignificant and of no danger to public health nor the environment.

    I would have a few jugs of TEG – ‘Tritium Enhanced Gatorade’ at the door step. Serve chilled.

  17. T Boone Pickens was on Morgan Piers Tonight yesterday.

    At some point they engaged on energy … Oil, gas, wind, solar … Nothing on nuclear.

  18. The NRC issued news in the last 2 days regarding the AP1000 design. It is cleared and must now be submitted to public hearings.

    The NRC will then approve it officially.

    The NRC also issued news for the Vogtle COL. It is due before the end of the month to then go to public hearings.

    I think Jaczko is feeling too much TLC from the GOP dominated Congress.

  19. HI Rod,

    I just watched the video. I have something to say about Sen Boxer’s last comments about friends. Her comments are extremely demeaning. She is the one using a personal attack – “You are getting too personal, let’s all be friends” to insinuate that the questions that Sen Alexander was asking were some type of personal attack. “I disagree with you, so you must be attacking me personally, or you are personally attacking the Chairman of the NRC. Let’s all be nice and stop these attacks. Of course I am only speaking as a human being, so as Chairperson of this committee, I am telling you to shut up and we will move on.”

    Time to change the charter of the NRC to include the promotion of and facilitation of Nuclear power, Nuclear Health, and radiation related manufacturing. As well as a reasonable cost benefit analysis in relation to other sources of energy, medicine and manufacturing. Those who oppose nuclear power like to call names, especially when excellent questions are being asked. In this case she is calling Sen Alexander – unfriendly.

    1. One more, The key question in Nuclear power is the health impact. All the other questions fade quickly in the minds of the public apart from this most key question – are we creating some drastic deadly poison just by using Nuclear Power? Many of the public – even those who support the use of Nuclear power – believe we are. That there is a unique danger to the waste of Nuclear Power Plants. Much of this is the popular portrayal of radiation as intensely harmful (Star Trek, Star Wars, Homer Simpson etc.). While we may not like the conclusions people draw, we are dealing with real fear and a sense of responsibility for the future. They don’t want to pass on poisons for their grandchildren. Until that concept is dealt a death blow (from a light saber….. ???) we will continue to fight the hesitation that is the equivalent of denial.

      1. One way I like to approach the ‘nasty nuclear waste’ issue is thru a mental repositioning that I credit Monbiot for.

        He says that nuclear medecine feeds from those nuclear wastes and they are used to save lives. And he is right !

        Tc99, Cesium, Baryum and even Strontium all have their niche in nuclear medicine. It creates a paradigm shift and is an eye opener.

        1. Daniel, I totally agree. My real breakthrough in understanding came from a podcast Rod did with a Physician who talked about the fact that in killing a cancer they will use 2 grays on the cancer and that 1 grey will fall on the healthy tissue. That will recover in 10 hours so they simple wait for 24 hours and then apply the 2 grays to the cancer again. After hearing the podcast, I talked with a person a church who was in Nuclear Medicine and confirmed the dosage levels. That sealed it for me. I understood that we were literally thousands of times “safer” than needed with radiation releases in Nuclear power generation.

    2. I just watched the video. I have something to say about Sen Boxer’s last comments about friends.

      Oh,k do you mean when she alludes to talking “as human beings, not as a senator”? Heh … How hypocritical! This is the same woman who dressed down a General from the Pentagon for not addressing her as “Senator.”

      Yeah … Boxer is a piece of work. She’s a real B–[female dog]–, and she’s a two-faced one at that.

      Alexander was right on when he took her to task. Unfortunately, he was too polite (unlike Senator Boxer) to press his point to his advantage.

      1. She had the floor and the power to shut him down. He did as well as he could in the circumstances. I don’t think he was too polite in other words, that type of politeness simply reflects well on your opponent who is rude.

  20. The nuclear power industry in the US has been its own worst enemy ever since it started- idiot thinking. Nearly every chairman of the NRC had to be “pro-nuclear” rather than able to balance the interests of the US which is far more sensible. So now you have the reactionary swingback that could only be expected.

Comments are closed.

Recent Comments from our Readers

  1. Avatar
  2. Avatar
  3. Avatar
  4. Avatar
  5. Avatar

Similar Posts