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26 Apr 08 - 05:16 PM (#2326495) Subject: RE: BS: Chernobyl Anniversary NO NUKES! From: GUEST,Fantasma My bad, that was me. Every year since I've found this site, I go through it again. If you have never seen this online essay & photography exhibit about the Ghost Towns of Chernobyl, you should really spend some time there. Makes you think. Photos are stunningly eerie. http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter1.html |
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26 Apr 08 - 05:17 PM (#2326497) Subject: RE: BS: Chernobyl Anniversary NO NUKES! From: bobad ☮ |
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26 Apr 08 - 05:51 PM (#2326520) Subject: RE: BS: Chernobyl Anniversary NO NUKES! From: GUEST,Fantasma Some quick excerpts from Mother Jones' Earth Day issue (our presidential candidates didn't seem to notice the day, so it came and went pretty silently this year). "When President George W. Bush celebrated the Energy Policy Act of 2005 at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland, he may as well have been delivering the 21st-century update of Eisenhower's 1953 manifesto, minus the poetry, and plus some dopey jokes. ("Pass the Mayo," he chirped to Constellation Energy CEO Mayo Shattuck.) This time, however, the marketing slogan was not about peace, but the very future of the planet. "Without these nuclear plants," Bush said, "America would release nearly 700 million metric tons more carbon dioxide into the air each year." Half a century after Shippingport powered up, the U.S. government has once again entwined its long fingers under the heel of the big industry that couldn't... ...Industry has been quick to take advantage of the shifting political climate: Last year, UniStar submitted an application for a new nuclear reactor to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the first to cross the agency's desk since Jimmy Carter was president. Four more followed, and 14 separate companies have notified the agency that they will file applications in the next year. It's hard to imagine any of the current presidential candidates slashing nuclear subsidies once in office. (Senator Barack Obama, for one, represents a state with 11 of the nation's 104 civilian reactors, and his donors include employees of nuclear giant Exelon.) But can nuclear power really rescue our warming planet? And if you answered quickly, answer this too: Are you for or against because you know the science, or because someone said you should be? When we talk about nuclear power these days, we talk about environmentalists for nukes, and about people posing as environmentalists for nukes. We talk about Dick Cheney's energy bill defibrillating a faltering industry with $12 billion worth of incentives and tax breaks. We talk about who is for and who is against, and whether we can trust them." |
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26 Apr 08 - 08:50 PM (#2326605) Subject: RE: BS: Chernobyl Anniversary NO NUKES! From: Ebbie I don't know what's going on these days but it seems very shortsighted to me. In the name and cause of our need for affordable power many people have jumped on the nuclear bandwagon. Yesterday on 'Capital News'they had a long segment debating the question. The consensus was that it is time to go nuclear- it's cleaner, more efficient, and so on. The part I can't get past is that they can't even find a way to safely dispose of the waste product (which no one seems to care about). Given that, how in the name of all that's holy can anyone support it? "and as he passed each window bar He called to the people inside: "All right, so far!" Ogden Nash The people on the segment all agreed that 'Chernobyl' happened because it was poorly designed and badly maintained. |
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26 Apr 08 - 09:45 PM (#2326625) Subject: RE: BS: Chernobyl Anniversary NO NUKES! From: Rapparee And it was all of those, Ebbie. And there are much better designs now. But... fission power should be the last resort. Use other types that are available first: wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, even coal. In the meantime, restart R&D into fusion as it can use the fission waste products to produce energy while rendering the radioactive waste into non-radioactive waste. We're looking for a non-existent magic pill. It's not there and we'd better get used to the idea that the time has come to pay, and I mean PAY, the piper. |
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26 Apr 08 - 09:47 PM (#2326626) Subject: RE: BS: Chernobyl Anniversary NO NUKES! From: Charley Noble Fantasma- I'm with you in depth on this one. Thousands have already died in the aftermath of Chernobyl. I was coordinating a referendum for shutting down the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant in 1986 when Chernobyl blew its lid. We raised $600,000 in that campaign but we still didn't win, 48% doesn't constitute a win. One problem with nuclear power is that the operators get bored watching the screens and when something happens they are not paying attention. The consequences can be catastrophic. And there is no long term solution with what to do with the nuclear waste. Charley Noble |
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27 Apr 08 - 12:36 PM (#2326930) Subject: RE: BS: Chernobyl Anniversary NO NUKES! From: Barry Finn Another problem is that when they become obsolete what do we do with them? Incase them in concrete & hope that they stay untouched for the next millennium? Bury it's trash under a mountain? A toxic site can't be efficently cleaned up no matter how much funds you put into it, it stays toxic, there s no complete clean up! So what was saved & the profits that were made become nullified, no lost, XXX fold over by the future costs of waste & clean up & we have to live with the shit left behind. Chernobyl & 3 Mile Island happened so long ago that the fright of those times has been forgotten & rationalized. Why would anyone want to sink billions into a business when the future of it is so much a toxic ending? It's like baking a cake using poision, freeze it for a few yrs & it'll be alright for our kids to eat!!! Not with my kids you don't! Like Bush said, "you're either with us or against us" it's either gonna have to be a greener world or a blacker world! The choice is ours & it's here, now. Barry |