The China Syndrome No More?

Nuclear power is the best option we have to fill the requirements right now. We can’t wait for solar or wind or radical efficiency improvements. Nuclear is indeed expensive and inherently hazardous, but it is better than coal. I bet it will not be my children’s fuel, but it is ours.
Good night all, see you in April (I give up arguing on the internet for Lent).

OBAMA musta visited YALE and got infected with dumb-itis or finally sold-out.
84 BILLION in NUCLEAR loan guarantees… not just an 8.3 billion dollar loan AS REPORTED
If you love your kids, you better fill up your cell phone memory with Politician and News agency telephone numbers.
When you have a minute…sitting in traffic, or waiting at service station for your gas tank to fill up, THEN spend that minute to call and complain. DEMAND solar power.
SQUEAKY WHEEL GETS THE GREASE.
GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN
IF YOU GAVE 84 BILLION
FOR
*AMERICAN-BUILT SOLAR PANEL*
LOAN GUARANTEES
-to Joe Homeowner– the little guy????
Do you REMEMBER INSTANTLY SAVING THE US AUTO INDUSTRY WITH
*CASH FOR CLUNKERS* ???
(not cash for corporations and corporate CEO’s)
The nice thing about nuke-cue-lur power:
it is centralized…
and supply is limited/controlled by need for a big buck reactor,
under thumb of a corporate CEO/Board of Directors…
thus the laws of supply and demand apply, and the “ARC of benefit” leans toward ENRICHMENT of the few suppliers- rather than toward/for the good of THE PEOPLE.
Remember ‘CASH FOR CLUNKERS’???
TRICKLE-UP ECONOMICS ???
Give the dough to little guy, at the bottom, who spends it immediately…tricking it *UP*, INSTANTLY saving auto suppliers, dealers, manufacturers… the ENTIRE auto and assorted industries that are above the retail customer?
(vs. ‘TRICKLE-DOWN’ economics? …give dough to the bankers in cash, and the ultra-rich in tax breaks… so it supposedly TRICKLES-DOWN to us po’ folks)
Think how many US Solar Panel Manufacturing Plants would be built.
How many SOLAR panel Engineers, Retailers, Installers, Recyclers, would be PERMANENTLY EMPLOYED, SAVING THE MIDDLE CLASS.
(solar panels wear out, like autos)
PROBLEM IS THAT THE CASH FROM GENERATING ELECTRICITY ISN’T CENTRALIZED AT POWER COMPANY…IT IS SPREAD OUT AMONG all the Joe Homeowners..giving little guy the power.
CORPORATE POWER CEO’s will never allow large scale solar power generation by the little guy.
(I tried mightly to hook up to power grid with 50 acres of solar panels on the family farm…I regret Carolina Power and Light won. I didn’t have the resources to continue fighting them)
And you know who bankrolls Senators…Governors…for the reelection advertising campain you are too foolish to see thru.
—-
If you don’t believe me about our latest nuclear ‘accident” a few days ago, just look up ‘radioactive leak’…see what pops up…just public history since internet days, -forget the earlier century.
Don’t Let them sell you a bill of goods.
JUST as there is no ‘SAFE’ airplane, there will never be a ‘safe’ reactor on the same planet as a human.
THAT’s cause HUMANS are failible (sp.)…just as are the materials the reactor is made of. PERIOD
The Difference is – the consequences of failure.
A Terrorist PLANE crash costs a couple hundred, or a few thousand, useless human souls…
vs.
reactor failure…. BILLIONS of years for recovery of the affected territory,
and depending of Locale of Reactor…Like Downtown New York and other metro reactors- 100′s of MILLIONS of Lives. Forget the Economic Costs.
=================
wanna give 84 billion ‘trickle-DOWN’ economics dollars to corporate CEO’s for nuclear plants… ?
thats ok – nighttime power.
but
that means there better #$%^& well be an
84 billion
“trickle-UP” economics dollar
‘Cash for SOLAR panels’ program started first
to complement
the nuclear program.
Just as the “TRICKLE-UP” economics of ‘Cash for Clunkers’ saved every aspect of the US Auto industry above the Retail Customer…
…just imagine what cash for solar would do for middle class solar retail, installing them on your roof, manuf., engineering, recycling, etc.
(solar wears out just like autos)
BUT
it
would
also literally PAY FOR ITSELF with REAL cash dollars.
The power company hates that because it would put money/power in hands of the little guy, not centralized to the same degree- where the big bucks would be skimmed off for benefit of just a few big guys.
JUST as way back when, the Railroad Barons had all the bucks and power in the country, and used it for themselves – not the regular Joe…
thats what the power companies are and have been doing with this Nuclear proposal.
Put the power in the hands of the worker, the little guy, us!
Call and write, over and over – DEMAND a “CASH for SOLAR” program.
If not, i guess then you do deserve to live dirt poor, jobless, like a pig, in a homeless shelter

I assume that the China Syndrome refers to the country that is most likely to finance and benefit from the purchase of goods and labor.. required to build these plants in the U.S.

First, one question…
France produces more than 80% of its electricity from nucler power, and has for decades…how many dead in France from their use of this technology?
By the way, do you know how many coal miners were killed in the past year?
You have an irrational fear, just as Douglas,Fonda and Gore have had.

I congratulate Corpseman Obama for getting this one right.The only two realistic practical alternatives to fossil fuels are nuclear and hydroelectric.Virtually everything else is pie-in-the-sky with the Achilles heel of storage of energy during periods of non-production.Nuclear power is clean,safe and cheap( if the legal hassles are removed).If the morons that destroyed the industry had never been given a forum this country would have been well on the way to energy independence.By the way, the “China Syndrome” is a physical impossibility. A core meltdown would lead to the fuel loosing its critical shape,stopping the chain reaction.

The liberals in Congress got their money’s worth. “In December, a report commissioned by the House Judiciary Committee found ACORN, which was heavily criticized after the video came to light, did not violate any federal regulations.” Of course they didn’t, ACORN GOT THEM ELECTED! This is the most corrupt administration in American history.

Nuclear power is cheap- no coal minor deaths,no “scrubber” devices,cheap fuel, no air pollution.It is only Luddites like Skip with their almost superstious fear of nuclear power that have generated legal barriers to a full-scale nuclear power industry in this coumtry.That is where the cost of nuclear energy is-in the courtroom,in the law offices.I find that the people with the least knowledge of nuclear physics, nuclear engineering and radiation health are the most vocal in objecting to nuclear power.

“ACORN GOT THEM ELECTED!”
It’s funny how much right-wingers just hate it when people in the inner-cities vote.
Posted by: Skip | Feb 17, 2010 11:04:30 AM
________________________________________
The Republican right wish poor, urban people wouldn’t vote at all.

Nice straw man there Skip.Nobody said anything about building” cheap nuclear power plants in their backyards”.A rational expansion of nuclear power with the advanced technology of modern American nuclear engineering is a safe,cost-effective alternative to plants using coal. petroleum or natural gas.The cost would go down further with economies of scale that would be seen with significant increases in the number of plants.The main reason for costs going up for nuclear power have been due to litigation and legal attempts to delay or block the construction of nuclear power plants.The opposition to nuclear power is rooted in ignorance.

Nuclear power will not ease oil imports from the mideast – we don’t burn any significant amount of oil for electrical generation. Natural gas yes, not oil, and we have plenty of natural gas.
Solar and wind cannot replace coal or natural gas fired plants. As the sun doesn’t shine nor the wind blow all the time, you have to have 200 percent capacity with coal/gas backup to guarantee meeting 100 percent of power requirements. Those “sustainable” sources can only be supplemental.
If Obama is sincere about nuclear power, then good on him. I suspect that it’s a canard – a bogus enticement for conservatives to support cap and trade (which revenues are desperately needed to support other agendas).

@ Skip: “Nuclear power is not and never has been cheap, and that’s one of the reasons it’s been safe so far. If you try and make it cheap it will not be safe.”
With all due respect, you need to do more research, Skip. Electricity generated by nuclear power is quite a bit cheaper than other existing sources.
Spending additional money on safety precautions doesn’t change that significantly.

Scott: You asked about the linkage between nuclear power and cap and trade…
Obama made the linkage in his State of the Union address where he addressed the need for renewed construction of nuclear power plants, but only as an element of a comprehensive energy plan to reduce greenhouse gasses and foreign oil dependency.
But the real issue for him is CO2. Without the push for CO2 reduction there is little need in the US for nuclear power. Nuclear power will have little impact on foreign oil dependency and coal and natural gas are cheaper. We also have ample supplies of both. But, both are carbon emitters. I personally don’t give much credence to AGW and carbon as the root of all environmental evils, but the President seems to. Certainly, his science advisor does. Therefore, in my mind at least, there is a firm linkage whereby he offers to fulfill the long cherished conservative desire for nuclear power, BUT only if the Republicans support carbon reduction. Lindsey Graham is an example of one who has said he would go for such a quid pro quo. The democrats preferred vehicle for carbon reduction is cap and trade (and I agree C&T is dead in the water).

no nuclear power?
sure.
I just cut down two 75 year old oaks for firewood.
wonder how efficient they will be in heat vs. carbon release. wonder how much carbon they captured- not enough to make up for al gore’s plane trips. oh well…
two anecdotes from history-
take a look at the UK and their landscape. not a lot of trees there.
maybe some photos of north korea?

The China Syndrome No More?
Three Mile Island caused 0 fatalities;
New designs are even safer.
One advantage over Oil/Gas/Coal:
No fuel delivery system to interrupt.
Space-based Solar is even better:
Expensive 1st world station in orbit,
cheap 3rd world ground installation;
If the natives get restless, turn off
the power until they settle down. :)
Polywell fusion is best of all:
No radioactive waste, direct conversion
to electricity, and a deep-space drive
for interplanetary travel as a bonus.

Nuclear fission is not safe, it produces neutrons for breeding plutonium for production of nuclear weapons. I think a better alternative is aneutronic nuclear fusion, because it does not produce neutrons.