Nader’s nuclear blind spot
A March 12, 2014 Democracy Now! segment featuring an interview with Ralph Nader was advertised as a report about the recent US Senate climate change talkathon. Nermeen Shaikh, the show co-host, moved rapidly from a discussion about the Senate actions to draw attention to climate change to asking Nader a leading question about nuclear energy.
The long-time antinuclear campaigner suffered a near meltdown as he railed for several minutes against one of the two ultra low-carbon energy sources that can produce reliable power — large scale hydroelectric power is the other one. He made several specific accusations that are complete fabrications. Here is the video segment.
Note: You can find the transcript at Nader on Senate’s Climate Stance, “Insanity” of U.S. Nukes, & Why Obama’s Min. Wage Hike Falls Short.
Ralph Nader needs a fact checker.
Nader: It requires 100 percent government loan guarantees.
The maximum number for the Vogtle loan guarantee is $8.3 billion, the total project cost is budgeted for $14.5 billion. Taxpayers are on the hook for less than 60% of the total cost. SCANA’s two nuclear reactors under construction in South Carolina are being financed without any loan guarantees.
Nader:…over a quarter of a million people homeless or refugees
There were not 250,000 people moved from their homes as a result of the Fukushima accident. The maximum number of evacuees was 160,000. Of that number, 70,000 were mandatory and another 90,000 left voluntarily. All but 89,000 have returned. (See Fukushima Accident Update March 9, 2014.)
Nader: …many of the reactors are just like the Fukushima reactor designs, by the way, and they are near earthquake faults. Now, the Indian Point reactors, two of them, they’re aging.
That phrasing seems designed to imply that there is some similarity between the reactors at Fukushima and those at Indian Point. The reactor technologies are completely different — Fukushima reactors were GE BWRs while Indian point are Westinghouse PWRs — and the plants have completely different containment designs. In addition, Nader implies that an earthquake caused the accident, neglecting the confirmed reports showing that all four units survived a massive earthquake with their safety and cooling systems intact.
The force that indirectly killed the plants was the massive tsunami that flooded all of the on-site normal and emergency power sources. The complete loss of all electricity for several hours along with a failure to initiate a containment venting in a timely manner is what caused the larger-than-expected release of radioactive material at Fukushima.
Though flooding is possible at some US plants, the sustained loss of power is avoidable. The US nuclear industry has taken several redundant actions to improve an already reliable set of back-up power systems. The reactors that we have with designs similar to those that were destroyed at Fukushima have more capable venting systems and better operating procedures.
Those actions do not provide absolute guarantees, but the chances of failure are quite small. However, even if multiple malfunctions and errors occur, the multiple layers of defense in depth reduce the consequences of a severe accident to an acceptably low result, one that would be far lower than the harm caused by a maximum credible accident at a competitive coal, oil, or natural gas plant.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently conducted an extensive, multi-year study called the State of the Art Reactor Consequences Analysis (SOARCA). That report, quietly released in November, 2013 showed that an accident with significant core damage AND a breached containment structure would still result in few, if any off-site fatalities. Off-site doses would be acceptably low under any rational radiation exposure limits and realistic responses.
In the context of a discussion about Senate action to draw attention to the risk of climate change, it was disconcerting to hear such a strongly negative commentary about nuclear energy as the one provided by Nader and the Democracy Now! hosts.
The episode reminded me of the challenging task facing Dr. James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists.
Hansen has been working diligently for more than three decades to raise awareness of the risk of CO2; for the past several years he has been trying to teach his colleagues in the Environmental Movement about the utility of nuclear energy as a tool for addressing the challenge and providing a better world for our grandchildren.
He is getting frustrated with the effort required to encourage people like Nader and Goodman to remove their fingers from their ears, their hands from their eyes, and to stop their antinuclear chants long enough for them to hear his argument and notice the superiority of virtually emission-free nuclear over natural gas from an environmental perspective.
On March 10, 2014, Hansen published a note titled Sleepless in Ningbo on his web site. It includes several passages that respond directly to Nader’s diatribe.
Thus efficiency and renewables are not causing carbon emissions to decline – on the contrary, emissions are growing rapidly.
This situation was predictable. It is not difficult to understand. But it is exceedingly difficult to communicate. Foundations and major environmental organizations (“greens”) are pretty much on the same page, so don’t expect to get support if you question their position. Instead, expect to be attacked.
…
The Koch brothers could not purchase such powerful support for their enterprise. The renewables-can-do-it-all greens are combining with the fossil fuel industry to lock-in widespread expansion of fracking.
…
Greens fanatically support an anti-nuclear-power agenda, asserting that even low level radiation is harmful to human health, an assertion that is not supported unequivocally by scientific evidence.
My personal distress in this situation is that I lean quite far to the left on the political spectrum. I’m environmentally aware; I’ve been reducing, reusing and recycling for nearly 50 years. I listen to Democracy Now! on a regular basis and often find myself agreeing with their guests. I didn’t need a Senate all-nighter to convince me that we need to do something to address CO2 emissions.
Aside: I was bemused by the ads displayed on The Hill when I searched for a link to provide about the “all-nighter”. Here is a screen shot of the site when I visited. Can you pick out the source of my bemusement?
During his forty years in public life, Ralph Nader has lost whatever sense he might have had for the interests of the consumers and taxpayers that he claims to represent. That might be because he has lived a very odd lifestyle compared to the rest of us. Nader has never owned a car, lives very modestly — supposedly in a rented room in his brother’s house — unless being pampered while on a speaking engagement, has never been married, has never raised children and has been in the public eye for more than 40 years.
There is no reason for him to have any empathy for the rest of us; he probably doesn’t know any of us. Here is one more quote from the interview that shows the poor quality of his political radar.
And the second point is this, that when you have very affluent people, like George Soros, Tom Steyer and Al Gore, who are really out front warning about climate change, when you have them, they’ve got to come and build a very powerful external lobby on Congress, where you have a hundred professional scientists, lawyers, organizers, public relations specialists descend on Congress every day in every member’s office, in the corridors, in the cafeterias, building a concern here. And if that doesn’t occur, it doesn’t matter how many demonstrations around the country are going to occur.
Nader’s recommended course of action — an intense lobbying effort in the halls of Congress funded by Soros, Steyer, and Gore — would be exactly the wrong way to address CO2 emissions. It would poison the well even more than it already is because it would harden the position of all of the reasonable skeptics who think that the issue is all about money and interest groups.
Climate change is more about physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, economics and honest accounting. It needs to move outside of partisan politics funded by special interest groups. There is an uncertain amount of damage being done by continuing to burn fossil fuels at an ever increasing rate but there is also a great deal of good that comes to humanity from having concentrated, responsive and reliable energy sources.
Fortunately for the people who like using personal transportation, living well, and raising families our Earth was endowed with two incredibly abundant materials — uranium and thorium — that can be used to create enough energy to start reducing hydrocarbon consumption to levels where natural processes can mitigate the effects of the unavoidable CO2 production. Nuclear energy is available and abundant; it can be economic if properly managed.
After making numerous management errors during our first sixty years of experience with the still amazingly young energy source, I believe we are ready to produce significantly improved results. Collectively, human society still has a lot to learn about atomic energy, but the best way to learn is by doing, not by standing by as a constant critic.
One more thing, just in case anyone from Democracy Now! happens to read this post.
Dear Democracy Now producers:
It would be a great service to your listeners if you would invite James Hansen onto your show for an interview in a format similar to the one that you provided Ralph Nader. Several weeks ago, you had Hansen scheduled to be a guest, but at the last minute decided to turn the interview into a debate with an antinuclear activist.
Hansen is not interested in debating his advocacy of nuclear energy on your show; he is interested in explaining his position so that people can better understand how he arrived at the decision that nuclear energy is a vital part of the solution to climate change. A debate with a shrill antinuclear activist like the one you set up between Caldicott and Monbiot might be fun to watch, but it would be a disservice to the people who donate, watch and listen to your show because they want information, not entertainment.
Rod
Great summary so that I don’t have to actually spend my time listening to Nader. Your link to Charles Barton’s review of Nader’s life was also very interesting.
Nader’s “quarter million people homeless or refugees” is the typical nuclear opponent willingness to take ALL damage from the tsunami and ascribe it to the power plants. In this link from November 2013at Japan Today, we learn that
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/nearly-290000-people-still-living-in-shelters-2-12-years-after-tohoku-disaster
290,000 people are living in shelters. Of these, 52,000 can be ascribed to the power plant evacuation.
Corrice’s numbers are power-plant focused and up-to-date. But the numbers from Japan times show two things:
1) The relative number of the power plant refugees compared to the entire refugee situation (approx 5/6 tsunami, 1/6 power plant)
2) The willingness of people like Nader to latch on to a number and use it, no matter what the number actually represents. It’s a number, right? Opponents love to use numbers: it looks so scientific. What the number means…well, some nuclear advocate will have to dig into the data and find out.
@Meredith
Truth be known, it was your fault that I listened to Nader yesterday. 🙂
I got so distracted by his rant and my decision to write about it that I have not yet listened to the segment of the show I was actually tuned in to hear. I’ll go do that now.
Julia does a great job! You will like it!
She was great. I recommended that an acquaintance who hosts one of the most popular podcasts on the web clip that last few minutes for his podcast. We’ll see.
😀
By the way, we are talking about my daughter Julia Angwin’s appearance on Democracy Today. She spoke about her book “Dragnet Nation”. The book is about relentless surveillance on the Internet.
Hundreds of data trackers have an internet file on you which is more complete than a Stasi file. (Julia went to Berlin and obtained some typical Stasi files.) This tracker file information is available to the government, or to anyone who wants to sell you something. In most cases, the trackers will not show you this file. But someone who is trying to sell you something will quickly have more information on you than you have on them. In a negotiation, information is power…
Watch the video or read the transcript
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/3/12/dragnet_nation_julia_angwin_s_quest
or read the book
http://www.amazon.com/Dragnet-Nation-Security-Relentless-Surveillance/dp/0805098070
This is the reason that any third-party site that adds cookies to my browser gets put on a block list that I maintain. My computer simply won’t talk to them. Data they don’t have cannot be sold, mined or used against me.
While we probably don’t need a huge political machine with scientists in the halls of DC everyday, we do need more involvement of normal people in the political process. Currently only the loudest people are the ones that go out of their way to engage with Representatives and Senators. Communicating with government on issues important to you should not be seen as a right or a burden, it is a responsibility.
Amen, Mr Thompson!
I meant “Democracy Now!” not “Democracy Today” of course.
My excuse is that it simply snows too much around here. 😉
The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
– – – Thomas Jefferson
——-
Speaking of truth, I honestly enjoy seeing Nader on stage again. The last time I heard about him, he was getting thrown out of a Congressional Black Caucus meeting. They said, and I quote, “..Get your arrogant white a_s out of here and stop telling us what to do!”
So he demanded an apology. Because he does not think he is arrogant. He was angry about the “…racist…..vituperative. . tawdry, anatomical comment yelled loud enough so the press could hear it outside. . . ”
And it is the press, again, that is at fault here. They are, mostly, every bit as exhibitionist, opportunistic, cynical, self-satisfied and uninformed as the pompous airheads that they continue to parade in front of their cameras like trained seals. And because the liberals and conservatives both do it, mass media has become irrelevancy squared.
To my mind, though, Nader helps serve Nuclear’s larger purpose — he is a virtual liberal pinata – a papier maché caricature of the fundamentalist tree-hugger that conservatives love to beat up on.
But I don’t believe progressives still take Nader seriously, and I know many who won’t forgive him for Gore’s loss. Still, every time he gets to a microphone, and says he hates Nuclear, a thousand more conservatives turn pro-nuke.
I know that’s not the most honest way to win, but like the man said, honesty is in the advertisements.
@wayne moss
At Atomic Insights, the whole newspaper – so to speak – is an advertisement.
I have never paid idiots like Ralph Nader any attention. They deserve zero publicity.
@Paul W Primavera
With all due respect, your act of ignoring Nader does not seem to have reduced the amount of publicity he receives.
I’m going to try a different tactic.
“I have never paid idiots like Ralph Nader any attention”
But I betcha Backman gets more than her fair share….
Rod, I think Ralph actually has a smart lifestyle, why do you criticize it? I mean:
No car: If you can get away with no car (I know, hard in the US) you save a ton of money.
Small apartment: Again, save a ton of money
Not married: Again, save a ton of money when half of all married people get divorced and best of all, divorce lawyers don’t get any of it.
No Kids: Save tons and tons of money. Also, he can change the world because he is not too busy chaning diapers.
Meanwhile, isn’t having 19 kids (the Duggars) weird too?
And what about spending 6 months at at time for several years in a steel tube in the middle of the ocean with 120 other guys on what is essentially a death machine for the entire world?
@BobinPhg
I find Nader’s attitude toward nuclear energy naive and delusional. It has been said that radiation can be dangerous, but so can ignorance.
One would think that with all that money and time he has saved over his life that he would have had the resources to educate himself about fission energy systems, radiation science and risk assessment. And about the limitations of solar and wind energy systems. Instead we witness the fading of an American icon.
It seems that these misguided “beliefs” about nuclear science held by the likes of Nader, Kaku, Lovens, et. al. are not subject to penetration by any science or facts. Just too much “face” to lose by admitting their error.
And, on another subject:
I resent your insult to our host; it was uncalled for and out of place.
Rod is to be commended for his service.
OT but funny: What’s the minimum safe distance for ignorance?
For some advocacy tasks nuance doesn’t sell well. Therefore for some goals, education is not only unnecessary, but counterproductive.
I miss the Corvair.
“Unsafe at Any Speed.”
I just think the forceful, exclusive terminology is funny. Like “no safe dose,” or “most deadly substance.” “Unsafe at Any Speed” – Not really ever true in any and all cases and comparisons but a meaningless absolute commonly used and accepted in argument for dramatic effect.
But thanks to Ralph, cars starting back then and today are much safer than before. Sure, some people like Corvairs and we lost them but Chevy had a lot of other cars back then that people could buy so where is the loss? If Ralph had kids I doubt if he would have created as much change. Because of saying: Your parents couldn’t change the world, they were too busy changing diapers!
Man – The Corvair was an air cooled six cylinder car. It was rare. It was like an American Porsche.
Ralph and other lawyers may have helped safety features but it was the influence of the Japanese and others chipping away at the US auto market that added quality and features to today’s cars. The US auto industry has had to respond to stay in business. Their attitude at the time of Nader’s book was one developed by Robert McNamara of planned obsolescence. Cars were only built to last 3 years. You don’t hear about that any more.
Ralph is a lawyer. In my opinion, he is a roadblock to many things including nuclear energy. Some lawyers are good and some get in the way of helping people. The word anachronism somehow comes to mind when I think about him.
“Man – The Corvair was an air cooled six cylinder car. It was rare. It was like an American Porsche”
RARE???? HUH???
Hardly, they were all over the place. And Porsche? You gotta be kidding me. Not even close. It was a Karman Ghia clone, basically, but without the charisma. But hey, I’d still like to find a mint condition Corvair Spyder.
Nah – The Ghia had the VW type one engine. The Corvair was a six and you could get it with a turbo. You were right though. It was a production car. I should have clarified that it was rare because it was air cooled. Sorry to stray from the core subject.
Nuclear to Gas:
State clears way for Carlsbad power plant
Well officially Gas is replacing at least a third of San Onofre’s capacity long term so far. I saw this looking for updates on WIPP. This is “the other Carlsbad” in calf.
State utility regulators paved the way Thursday for contract negotiations on a new, natural gas power plant at Carlsbad to ensure adequate power supplies in response to the early retirement of the San Onofre nuclear plant.( http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/mar/13/open-door-carlsbad-powerplant/ )
With the plant shut down, the portion of San Diego’s electricity derived from natural gas jumped from 43 percent in 2011 to 63 percent in 2012.
The “aging” Indian Point is practically in my yard. You can always tell when it’s a slow news day because the local rag (good for training puppies, pesky engine oil leaks, and not much else) will break out the apocalypse typeface and remind us we have Chernobyl on the Hudson just waiting to go off. Even basic research would prove their “facts” dead wrong.
Still, when you come down to it, that’s the same tactic Nader employs. Hysteria, doom, and cherry-picked facts to make a case. Why? Because it works. At one point I think he was actually out to help make the world a better place. Now I think he just exists in an echo chamber of his own making, reinforcing his own idea of how the world ought to be.
I asked my father once if the Corvair was as bad as Nader made it out to be (it’d come and gone before I was born) and he said that one of our relatives had one and that it was no worse than any other car of the time in all but the most extreme of situations where it could, potentially, under the right circumstances, be more dangerous. All cars of that era were lousy by modern standards, the family car we had when I was young he described as “a nightmare.” It was just that the Corvair had that flaw that could be used to make his point. Considering Nader’s stance nuclear energy and the tactic he uses in the interview that all sounds familiar, somehow.
“I asked my father once if the Corvair was as bad as Nader made it out to be (it’d come and gone before I was born) and he said that one of our relatives had one and that it was no worse than any other car of the time in all but the most extreme of situations where it could, potentially, under the right circumstances, be more dangerous”
Well, your dad was wrong. I had a teenage friend decapitated when his Corvair hydroplaned and flipped after hitting 2 inch deep surface water on the Ventura Freeway. The unibody construction and the configuration of the belly pan definitely made the car prone to hydronplaning. The standard “body bolted to chassis” configuration of American automobiles of that era were far safer. The VW Karman Ghia was also prone to hyrdroplaning for the same reasons as the Corvair.
Nader didn’t fabricate his concerns about the Corvair out of thin air. He had testing and statistics on his side, (and on the side of the consumer). You don’t take on GM and successfully get them to discontinue a model if you’re just blowing hot air.
@POA
I’m a little confused. I thought the issue that Nader identified had something to do with the Corvair’s rear axle and the way the wheels cambered in during a hard turn.
How does the car’s construction (unibody or body bolted to chassis) affect “hydroplaning?” Isn’t that when tires lose contact with the road because the tread doesn’t properly channel the water? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaplaning
As Nader himself admitted during the controversy, the issue he publicized had already been fixed by a redesign by the time he publicized it.
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-1960-1963chevrolet-corvair-gms-deadliest-sin/
It was my understanding that water coming off the wheels on impact with standing water supplied lift to the overly light front section of the car, conbributing tio the suspension and control problems you cite. Not a wet pavement issue as much as a moderately deep standing water problem. My friend Scott hydroplaned his Monza after hitting two inches of standing water on the Ventura Freeway. Witnesses claimed the car seemed to completely lose steering and spun “as if on ice”. When he hit dryer pavement the car rolled, tearing the roof off the car and killing him instantly.
However, upon looking for internet collaboration just now about the alleged hydroplaning being reason for the Corvair’s demise, I find a bit of insinuation and casual mention, but nothing I’m willing to introduce as solid sourcing. It could well be I am the victim of a long held misconception formed as a result of my buddy’s death. My apologies if I have passed on a misconception. I’ll look into it further and see what I can find.
BTW, thanks for the “curbside” link. That was a fun and informative find. Even the comments were informative and amusing.
Nader’s biggest, positive claim to fame is the mandatory inclusion of seat belts in every car sold in the U.S. This has saved likely 100s of thousands of lives and save the same in health care costs. For that i’m grateful. Often people are not consistent. They can be dead right on one thing and dead wrong on another. Nader was right on seat belts and car safety, and not on energy. Oh well. Batting .500 in life is what a lot of us do.
Hardly a .500 average. His handicapping of nuclear electricity generation has likely killed millions and certainly condemned billions to more poverty than necessary. Held up against a few hundred thousand saved, at most, I’d saying his average is well below .100.
“Those actions do not provide absolute guarantees, but the chances of failure are quite small”
Trouble is, Paul, thats what we’re always told prior to these kinds of events.
“Can’t happen” seems to happen.
Nader, however, can only be described as shrill and yesterday. Personally, I wish he’d buy himself a Corvair and find a puddle to drive through.
Oops…picking on Paul today, I guess.
I meant….
“Trouble is, ROD, thats what we’re always told prior to these kinds of events”
@POA
There is a difference between “can’t happen” and “the chances of failure are quite small.”
Heck, when I was a teenager and Mom worried about me driving somewhere, I did not say “I’m a safe driver; I can’t have an accident.” I said I would be careful and not take any wild risks.
“I said I would be careful and not take any wild risks”
Well, when it comes to nuclear power plants, its the “wild risks” part that gets a little hairy. Like planning for a moderate tsunami when history tells you that sooner or later you’re gonna get a goliath.
Any idiot reading my posts knows that I am a tremendously distrustful of the pro-nuclear narrative proclaiming the harmlessness of the Fukushima event.
But here’s an amazingly despicable EGADS from the very kind of scumballs that are discussed daily here. This kind of sensational BS, ( see following link) should really be exposed for what it is; pure utter sensationalized crap. There are two sides to the debate, and, as is usually the case, I suspect the truth will be somewhat in the middle, and not exactly what both sides would have us believe. But I see garbage like the following, and it leads me to believe the truth is gonna lean a bit towards the pro side of the squabble….
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/14/reflections-on-fukushima/
Excerpt….
“The news from Japan three years after Fukushima began its eruptions is simple: it’s anything but over.”
“Three molten radioactive cores are still missing, four explosions have wracked the infrastracture, 300 tons of radioactive water pour daily into the sea, the improvised tank farm leaks and is running out of space, tens of thousands of spent fuel rods are strewn around the site, the mafia permeates the work force, tens of thousands of refugees grow more desperate every day, radioactive cesium is about to arrive on the west coast … and much much more”
“Blahblahblah….and so on.”