Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Spamming NRDC about recycling used nuclear fuel

By

The following tweet led me to an interesting tale about the history of recycling.

After reading the article, I composed the following comment, taking care to ensure that it followed the rules for civil discourse that govern NRDC blogs.

All comments offered in the spirit of civil discourse are welcome. Commercial spam, obscenity, and other rude behavior are not and will be removed. Due to our nonprofit status, we are also required to delete any express or implied statement endorsing or opposing any political party or candidate for political office. Valid email addresses are required. (OnEarth respects your privacy and will not use, lend, or sell your email address for any reason.)

Here is my comment as copied and pasted from the comment block. I have not made any edits.

Both of my parents grew up on cash-poor farms during the Depression. They learned how to recycle as children and carried those habits throughout their lives. They taught my siblings and I about recycling in the early to mid to late 1960s; we recycled bottles, paper, even kitchen scraps into a compost bin.

I have carried the lessons I learned then throughout my adult life in both my personal and professional activities.

That is why I continue to be confused about the NRDC’s position on recycling used nuclear fuel. Fully 95% of the potential energy remains in the fuel assemblies that are removed from reactors in the once through fuel cycle.

Unfortunately, many organizations, including yours, think it would be better to bury that valuable material deep underground than to invest in the systems and scientific research that would enable the material to be safely and economically reused. Can you help me to understand your seemingly conflicted position with regard to the mantra of “reduce, reuse and recycle.”

Thank you for your assistance.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights

When I hit submit, I was notified by the site that my comment had triggered the spam filter and would not be accepted. Here is a screenshot of that response.

NRDC recycling rejection

Can anyone guess what might have triggered the spam filters? I wonder if the NRDC has chosen to filter comments for bad grammar? Upon more careful proofreading, I realized that the third sentence in my comment should have said “…my siblings and me…” and that that I should have used a question mark rather than a period in the last sentence.

Otherwise, I am befuddled.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I’d bet $5 that the words “atomic” and “nuclear” are either tagged spammy or banned outright.

      • But they are innovating!!! like the MBA trash outfitting the Idiocracy’s favorite “human” dumping ground called Walmart with solar panels.

        Can’t have the physicists piling up otherwise the central bank cons wouldn’t be able to steal so readily.

  3. NRC – another central bank crime organization funded by the Idiocracy called The Stupid Taxpayer of which there is no accountability. The capital and operating costs of large LWR’s remain a total mystery in thanks to these thugs disguised as do-gooders.

    It would be abolished immediately except for the big gov loons who love these worthless scam outfits like the NSA and such.

  4. Every single comment I’ve tried to post to that article has gotten the same spam filter message, regardless of content. I’m betting it’s a software bug.

  6. There are so many sites now where the sole purpose of comment section is to agree with the post/and/or provide a social interaction space for like minded individuals. They are usually policed solely by substandard ideologues and/or bots. I think this is another example.

    It gives the illusion of truth, openness and reason without all the messy and difficult reference, thought and argument that it requires.

  7. “There are so many sites now where the sole purpose of comment section is to agree with the post/and/or provide a social interaction space for like minded individuals”

    I agree.

  8. That is why as much as it pains me to read things that Bas and Starvinglion write I applaud Rod for allowing others views.

    • @Sean McKinnon

      There is certainly a balance between accepting the annoyance and deciding to screen certain types of commentary, but I tend to err on the side of more discussion rather than less. Bots are not allowed, but real people can generally express any view they want as long as they do not cross rather fuzzy lines and harmfully attack anyone other than me. (I have a thick skin.)

      I don’t know if you have noticed, but Bas seems to have decided that he was wasting his time here. There has been no effort on my part to stop his posts, but his production level has dropped off rather dramatically.

      I just searched; it looks like his last comment was on 12/17.

      • Whatever happened to Luke from down under ?

        Is he still hosting his ‘oh my god’ Fukusjima panic site ?

        He used to come and visit here once in a while.

      • @Daniel

        I think you are talking about Luke Weston. The last I heard, he was busily working on graduate school and probably has figured out that he needs to focus in order to complete that important endeavor.

      • Almost to the day when Angry_American (or whatever his handle is) showed up.

        I more than half suspect that A_A was our paid warranty replacement after breaking BAS. But then, I tend toward paranoia — not personal paranoia. I don’t think anyone cares enough to be out to get me, but paranoia about the motives of others.

    • Well, he does have the word “scraps” in there. Could an overly ambitious censor program be taking it out because it contains “crap”? I used to run into that — somewhere. It wasn’t that particular word, but there was a combination of three words which were a term of art for the subject matter of the forum, and the forum censor software saw some socially unacceptable word in the midst of the letters, even though they were three separate words.

      Bad regular expression. No cookie.