1950s Chest Freezer Refurbish

[Kurt Ullman]

NO, actually the system worked as it was supposed DESPITE the human error. You can't ask for much better safety than a system that compensates for the mistakes those dern humans make.

[Kurt Ullman]

No doubt.. but no evidence.

[trader4]

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as more reason

Why bother. Just admit it. NOTHING anyone could do with any nuclear reactor would reduce the risk to zero or to any level that would satisfy you. With any nuclear reactor, if you defeat every safety device put into place, you can always create a scenario where radiation escapes the plant. You'll always have to transport the waste, which you've railed against. You'll always have to store waste. So, why pretend that some other country is going to "find glitches and make nukes acceptable to you?"

BS. I live 25 miles from the first commercial nuke in the USA. JCPL, mid 60's. No such foolish claims were ever made. And for good reason. The plants were expensive to build. Who was gonna pay for them? And even if the power itself was free, you still have a huge distribution system to pay for. Ever think about who pays for the transmission towers, sub stations, utility polls?

BTW, it's not up to me to do research to support your silly claims. If it's true, you show us.

You pretend to understand risk vs reward, but clearly you don't. In many scenarios, I can take a miniscule risk, say with .0000001% probability of occurence, and use it to block almost anything. I gave you the example, which you failed to answer, of the risk from airplanes. How many have crashed and killed 200-600 people? Two actually killed 3000 on 9/11. Yet, we're not stopping more of them from being built. Why? Because the risk/reward is worth it. Same thing with nukes.

As for this nonsense about poisoning a large part of the country forever, ever hear of Hiroshima? Nagasaki? Are they abandoned cities, or thriving modern ones? How many nukes were set off above ground in NV during the 40's and 50's, so close to Las Vegas that people went out into the streets to see them? Is Nevada an abandoned waste land?

And now it comes down to this silly accusation? Like I have some vested interest in building nuclear power plants? Are you for real? Like there aren't a million other investments out there? Ones where you can just go ahead and actually build something? As opposed to spend maybe $100mil and 5 years to TRY to get permission to build it and then have it get turned down. Repeat that 10 times, then MAYBE get to actually build one?

Sure, that's a business I like.

My real interest is in having energy to keep this country safe, secure, and my house warm.

BTW, I note you totally ignored my question of what exactly is YOUR proposed solution to our energy needs? Which one is greenhouse friendly, low pollution, reduces the trade deficit and completely safe and risk free? Or are you one of the nuts that thinks electric just comes out of the wall and that Detroit has a carburetor that will get

100 miles to the gallon, but keeps it off the market?

And you ignored France, which gets 70% of their power from nukes. And Japan, that gets 1/3 of theirs from 55 nukes. Please explain how it is that Japan, a country with plenty of reason to fear nuclear power, finds it safe and acceptable.

[Kurt Ullman]

Don't know. We should have pretty good data on where the cloud went with the winds and all. Also should be able to model dispersal. The first is just meteorology 101, the second should be floating around from the days of above-ground testing of the nuke weapons. After that it would be simple epidemeology to match up the above with (or lack thereof) clusters of nuclear fallout-related cancers.

But if anything, the Japanese and French are even more anal retentive about such things than even the US, yet they have long (and safe) histories of nuclear energy.

[clifto]

As long as there's a steady supply of stupid people for reactor sites to hire, there's no safety in nuclear power.

[dpb]

Sure -- but that's not exactly what I said. Studies have been made although I've not looked at what conclusions they may have drawn.

It is, however, a statistical correlation at best and my guess is that except for the near downstream track it will be impossible to detect any increase owing specifically to Chernobyl.

--

[dpb]

The _systems_ did work correctly as is demonstrated by having no offsite or onsite consequences other than mechanical damage. That's what they were designed to do and what they did.

As noted in another response in which I summarized the accident scenario, the actual failure was in the intervention of the operators in the automatic response of the system to the incident w/o which the whole thing would have been over and the reactor online again within a month or so at the outside.

So, again, your lack of knowledge of what actually happened and what it really shows is apparent. If it didn't say so much about what is wrong w/ our overall level of scientific and technical education in the country it would almost be funny.

--

[hallerb]

risk vs rewards

Either we burn coal with its downsides or move to nuclear.

you obviously being from the industry prefer nuclear. thats certinally your right........

but lets consider risks for just a moment.......

lets imagine the unthinkable occurs and a nuclear plant actually melts down the core and breaches the containment somehow.

now no doubt there will be a rushed evacuation, and hopefully katrina lessons will be remembered. that is take pets, use busses and have a plan in place in advance.

now we need a site, say 3 mile island. depending on prevailing winds the area of contamination will be wide. sad all that dead zone, for many generations. probably includes new york philadephia and most of the coast to maine, heck canada might be effected too.

I bet the fiancial loss will be more than the profit on all the nuke plants generated since the first went on line. including the profits on building the plants.

the reward green energy or so you say.

the risk, in the event of a major malfunction probably the bankruputcy of our country..........

[hallerb]

Discuss this story Print This Post E-Mail This Article Published on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 by CommonDreams.org Why Must Nuke-Power Lemmings Again Flock to the Radioactive Sea? by Harvey Wasserman It's baaaaaack. The fifty-year multi-trillion dollar failure of atomic energy has resumed its lemming-like march to madness.

Why?

Isn't the definition of insanity the belief that if you do the same thing again and again you'll somehow get a different result?

The first commercial reactor opened in Shippingport, Pennsylvania in

1957. America was promised electricity "too cheap to meter."

That was a lie.

America was promised there'd soon be consensus on a safe way to dispose of high-level radioactive waste.

That was a lie.

America was promised private insurance companies would soon indemnify reactor owners--and the public--against the consequences of a catastrophic meltdown.

That was a lie.

America was promised these reactors were "inherently safe."

Then America was told no fuel had melted at Three Mile Island.

Lie and lie.

Then they said nobody was killed at Three Mile Island

Another lie.

They said it took six years for acid to eat through to a fraction of an inch of the steel protecting the Great Lakes from a Chernobyl at Davis-Besse, Ohio. That's a lie too.

Now they say they say nukes are economically self-sustaining.

But de-regulation stuck the public with the capital costs, and hid the true amortization for the long-term expenses of rad waste disposal, plant decommissioning, on-going health impacts and likely melt-downs by terror and error.

Now they say nukes can fight global warming. But they ignore huge radon emissions from uranium mill tailings, huge CO2 emissions from fuel enrichment, and huge direct heat that results from nuke fission itself, not to mention the long-term energy costs of decommissioning and waste handling.

All reactors are pre-deployed weapons of mass radioactive destruction for any willing terrorist. Had the jets that hit the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 hit nukes instead, the death toll and the (uninsured) economic losses would be beyond calculation.

It could be happening as you read this.

They say a new generation of nukes will be "inherently safe," which is exactly what they said about the last one. Limited construction experience with this "new generation" already shows massive cost overruns. There is no reason to believe these will be any safer, cheaper, cleaner or more reliable than the last sorry batch.

They say more reactors won't be a proliferation problem. But they want war on Iran which wants the Peaceful Atom to give it nuke weapons like those in India and Pakistan.

They say the green alternatives won't work, but wind power is the cheapest form of new generation now being built. The Solartopian array of wind, solar, bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal and increased conservation and efficiency are attracting billions in investments all over the world. The immensely profitable green energy industry is growing at rates of 25-35%.

Meanwhile, "there isn't enough money in the federal till to change Wall Street's calculation of the financial risks" for new nukes, says Philip Clapp of the National Environmental Trust.

It is impossible to embrace both nuclear power and a free market economy.

Nuke power cannot exist without massive government subsidies, government insurance, government promises to deal with radioactive waste, government security, government blind eyes to basic safety and environmental standards.

A terrorist reactor attack would mean the end of our political rights and the beginning of martial law, killing all the basic freedoms which have defined the best of this country.

America is again being told this can't happen here. It is another lie.

Yet Clinton, Obama, Pelosi, McCain, Lieberman and other mainstreamers flock to the nuke madhouse. Al Gore says new nukes must prove themselves economically (they can't) but that there'll be a "small part" for reactors in the future, and that the waste problem will be solved.

There's a move to reverse California's ban on nuke construction pending a solution to the waste problem. (California has four active reactors near major earthquake faults).

Environmental Defense doesn't think "any options should be taken off the table."

But in 1952 a Blue Ribbon Commission told Harry Truman the future of America was with solar power.

Then Dwight Eisenhower embraced the "Peaceful Atom", sinking America in the most expensive technological failure in human history.

In 1974 Richard Nixon responded to the Arab Oil Embargo by promising a thousand US reactors by the year 2000. The No Nukes movement and soaring oil prices kicked in, and the industry tanked.

So Jimmy Carter started us up the road to Solartopia ... until Ronald Reagan ripped the solar panels off the White House roof and forced us into Death Valley.

Now Gore has sold the world on the dangers of global warming. But will it just be another excuse to throw more good money at more bad reactors?

Clearly, there will be no easy end to this madness. But atomic energy's bio-economic clock has clearly run out.

Basic sanity, ecological truth and the smart green money are all on our side.

Our challenge is to put them in charge before more Three Mile Islands or Chernobyls--or a nuclear 9/11--irradiate the asylum.

[trader4]

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t 70% of their

has more reason

I have to concede, if you take fanciful magazine articles of what MIGHT be possible in the future, then H probably did read stories that about meterless electricity. When he first made the claim that this was promised, I took it to mean that it was being promised by power companies actually building the plants. Or companies supplying the nuclear reactors, etc. As you say, I don't see how you take a speculative magazine article as a promise.

While at the time I don't recall meterless electricity stories, there sure were plenty of other pie in the sky forecasts, like using nuclear reactors in the home for heating. But why anyone would consider them reliable promises is beyond me.

[hallerb]

concerns

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an has more reason

yep even nuclear cars, imagine the risks of that,

never the less these were how nuke was sold to the public who at the time looked at nuke only as a weapon.....

the industrys propoganda machine must of been working overtime

[dpb]

[e-mail] wrote: ...

Virtually none of it was "industry's" doing.

One of the charges in the legislation establishing the original AEC (precursor of NRC) was the promotion of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It was a national policy objective pretty much generally accepted at the time.

Most of the farfetched notions were, however, dreamed up by the kinds of folks mentioned above -- the writers and editors for popular "science" and technology rags of the time. Some of these did get occasional exposure in the more mainstream publications, unfortunately.

Now, of course, the movement of which haller is a prime example dredge up every source they can possibly find to raise as a red herring and example of "lying" or other malfeasance by presenting science fiction or outlandish conjecture as fact.

It's the same thing as the other article he just posted -- not a single actual factual argument--merely a stringing together of one half-truth or innuendo or in some cases outright fraud as if it proved a preconceived conclusion conclusively. Of course, there's no way one can actually have a rational discussion w/ any of these folks -- as haller shows, they simply dodge from one assertion to another, never have to build a defensible scientific or engineering analysis that a hypothetical situation could even be possible, assert "coulda's" or "may haves" willy-nilly as fact and even worse. When called on any particular item, they simply ignore the point and go to the next strawman on the list. After a while, they then go back to somewhere earlier in the list and repeat.

If it weren't for the fact they are doing great harm to the development of a rational energy policy as well as postponing doing something useful for environmental abatement of combustion gases and emissions, not to mention causing an even more rapid depletion of our oil and gas reserves, it would, as noted before, almost be funny to watch.

--

[Kurt Ullman]

From a purely epidemiological standpoint, it really shouldn't be all that difficult to find clusters of excess cancers, and there are forms of cancer that are more highly correlated with exposure to nuclear materials. It would be correlational, but then much of public health is.

[dpb]

That assumes there _are_ such clusters...the dispersion was so wide, it's highly unlikely to be concentrated enough to show up imo.

--

[Jim Yanik]

clifto wrote in news: [e-mail]:

you watch too much "Simpsons" TV.

[hallerb]

as to hiroshima they were really low yield weapons detonated at higher altitude, which caused more damage but created less radioactive debris. no doubt this helped in rebuilding.

plus the types of radiation from a nuke plant was different from hiroshima.

long lived highly enriched nastys in reactors are highly dangerous.

[Kurt Ullman]

That should be even easier, then. Any related cancers suddenly spike after Chernobyl world wide? Any upswings over time, since radiation-induced cancers are very dose dependent. There either was an important change in cancers after Chernobyl or there wasn't. If there are no clusters and no spike, then it would be hard to argue (at least from an epi standpoint) that Chernobyl had any impact.

[dpb]

Precisely, and imo, if any studies had shown even a hint, haller and his ilk would be on them like a hen on a June bug, even if they weren't statstically significant but only showed a point estimate possibility. Of course, the "suddenly" is a problem w/ low-dosage events and that makes the correlation of causation even more tenuous.

That they're not implies to me w/o even looking that all work (of which I'm sure there's a lot because plans were in effect to begin such follow-on studies while I was still in Oak Ridge participating in engineering solutions studies/analyses for the site within the year after the incident).

--

[dpb]

...

One other point I intended to make before I kill watching the thread as having reached its inevitable conclusion of going 'round 'n 'round...

The "industry" has been, if nothing else, remarkably _unsuccessful_ in their attempts at "propaganda" or "public relations". This was owing to the thought that simply presenting good, solid engineering and scientific evidence would carry the argument against bluster and fear-mongering. As this thread illustrates, it doesn't do much except leave a track record against the misinformation.

In a former life, when being in a position where I was one of the point persons to talk on nuclear power and all, the inevitable discussions of this type almost always came up.

The most useful piece of advice I ever got was from the behavioral science guy who provided a lecture on how to deal with various types of audience interaction. He pointed out these individuals are like the small child who has learned that by sheer persistence it can get its own way in a large percentage of cases because the parent will finally give in simply to get a moment of peace. The only way to stop such behavior is to _NOT_ let them wear you down--extremely tiresome, wasteful of resources, etc., but its the only course of action that will in the end be productive.

Sad, but how true.

Finis...

--

[hallerb]

so you gave up???????

thats interesting.

so you admit you were in the business of selling reactors presence to the general public?

i see you had zip success since 3 mile island.