Constitutionality of light bulb ban questioned - Environmental Protection Agency must be called for a broken bulb

[phil-news-nospam]

In alt.engineering.electrical krw wrote: | In article , | [e-mail] says... |> |> David Nebenzahl wrote: |> > |> > On 6/24/2008 4:49 PM krw spake thus: |> > |> > > In article , |> > > [e-mail] says... |> > >

|> > > I see you would rather make a fool of yourself than discuss the |> > > issue. |> > >

|> > >>>>

|> > >>>

|> > >>>Would rather read the National Enquirer. |> > |> > Anyone who expresses a preference for the /National Enquirer/ over the |> > NYT *is* a certified fool. |> |> |> Not really. You always know the National Enquirer is lying, but you |> aren't always sure with the NYT. | | You're quite sure with the NYT too, but it's a lot less | entertaining.

Actually, the NYT has been known to "dilute" their publication with some truthful articles from time to time.

[krw]

Exactly, but it needn't go that far to leave banks, and such, bankrupt. All it takes is a 3% real estate decline and the value of the instrument is negative. Real estate declining to 97% of its value from the peak of a bubble isn't much of a "downturn".

The real problem is that the toxic CDOs have invaded the stock market, as well. Banks are required (after the '29 crash) to keep much higher margins. The stock (bond) market isn't under such restrictions with CDOs. That's why you have money that was borrowed

30 times. Banks can't do that.

[Anonymous]

:Paul M. Eldridge wrote in :news: [e-mail]: : :> For all the panty-waists out there who whine about CFLs containing :> mercury and, in particular, those who oppose the use of energy saving :> lamps and advocate the construction of more coal-fired plants instead: : :why not NUCLEAR power plants? They are clean,safe,and practical. :We'll need them anyways for plug-in electric autos. :Good high paying jobs,too. GOOD for the economy.

Nuclear? Clean safe and practical? Huh? Ask people in Eastern Europe about Chernobyl.

Also, they haven't come up with a decent means of dealing with nuclear waste. You cannot demonstrate that it's clean, safe or practical.

Dan

[Jim Yanik]

Dan Musicant ( [e-mail]) wrote in news: [e-mail]:

a RUSSIAN plant;they can't do anything proper except military weapon. Then look at France and Japan...

France and Japan have;cleanly and safely generating around 70% of their electric power from nuclear power.

You're just trying to set Utopian,unpractical,goals to block nuclear power.

The ONLY reason the US hasn't got their waste problem settled is due to the environuts.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

If you knew the difference between that plant design and any US plant, you'd not make such statements.

[Jim Yanik]

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in news:AjB9k.20093$ [e-mail]:

well,that's the sum of environuts arguments concerning nuclear power; create fear,misinformation,distrust,outright lie.....all based on FEELINGS and not real information.

[HeyBub]

Uh, nobody in Eastern Europe was harmed by Chernobyl - except perhaps to their phobias.

People concerned with that sort of thing have come up with MANY methods of dealing with nuclear waste. These methods range from encasing the waste in molten glass and dumping the ingots in the Pacific Ocean to shooting them into the sun to storing them in salt domes.

None of the proposed solutions have been implemented because a solution is not needed today. The longer we wait for a final decision, the better the decision will be. In other words, we don't have to take steps until we have to take steps.

By every objective standard, nuclear power is safer than almost any alternative. Except to those who fear.

[Don Klipstein]

I also see that anti-nukers will block implementation of any solution to long term waste storage. Anti-nukers want their problems with nuclear energy to remain unsolved, so that they can oppose nuclear power.

As a result, the barriers are political more than technical.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[David Nebenzahl]

On 6/29/2008 1:01 PM Don Klipstein spake thus:

I assume that by "anti-nukers" you also mean, um, er, the entire state governments of both Utah and Nevada which have vigorously opposed nuke dumps in those states since they were proposed decades ago, no?

Not exactly the usual lefty "environ-meddlers" (in Edward Abbey's immortal phrase) ...

Both are barriers. There are good technical reasons we don't have a long-range high-level radioactive waste repository, due to various geological problems with *every* site that's been proposed, and political bungling over the years by the likes of the DOE, NRC, and most importantly the Feds vs. the states (the Feds wanting to ram through a repository at any cost, backed up with shabby "science", and the states fighting back with lawsuits, regulatory appeals, etc.

In fact, this is one of *the* classic states-rights issues.

[Don Klipstein]

Besides the fulltime environmentalists many of whom are at best luddites, we have a wider set of chemophobes and the like. More still, we have NIMBY-ism playing very well in this country. Even people who say we need such-and-such say we need it someplace other than here.

Politicians gain votes by saying how such-and-such proposed for "our district" is a *bad thing*, dangerous, toxic, whatever even if they would have supported it coming into existence somewhere else.

And I don't see any actual technical problems with dumping nuclear waste into salt domes, or into uranium mines that held radioactive materials just fine for many millions of years. Especially if the waste is vitrified first.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[David Nebenzahl]

On 6/29/2008 1:59 PM Don Klipstein spake thus:

Salt domes turn out to be one of the worst places to consider storing radwaste, even though it was originally thought they'd be ideal. (I did a lot of research on this very topic some years ago, so I do know

*something* about it.)

The thing that seemed attractive about salt domes for storing nuclear waste was the property they had of "healing" cracks and voids in the salt, so that if there was a potential leak, it would basically seal itself over in a short time.

Turns out that the rate of "creep" in salt is far higher than the geologists originally estimated. So high, in fact, that they determined that if waste was stored there, it would soon be entombed by the advancing salt. One of the requirements of any high-level radioactive repository is that the waste containers must be accessible and retrievable; salt makes this damn near impossible.

So any other bright ideas?

[Paul M. Eldridge]

Hi Jim,

Perhaps if the nuclear industry paid more attention to winning over the hearts and minds of the financial sector rather than pointing fingers at so-called "environuts" they could move forward. Of course, there's always the tax payer:

"....So risky and expensive, in fact, that building new ones won't happen without hefty government support. NRG Energy (NRG), Dominion (D), Duke Energy (DUK), and six other companies have already leaped to file applications to construct and operate new plants largely because of incentives Congress has put in place. The subsidies include a 1.8 cents tax credit for each kilowatt hour of electricity produced, which could be worth more than $140 million per reactor per year; a $500 million payout for each of the first two plants built (and $250 million each for the next four) if there are delays for reasons outside company control; and a total of $18.5 billion in loan guarantees. The latter is crucial, since it shifts the risk onto the federal government, making it possible to raise capital from skittish banks. "Without the loan guarantees, I think it would be very difficult for the first wave of plants to move forward," says David W. Crane, CEO of NRG...."

See:

Ever wonder if those pinko hair-shirt environuts are in bed with the evil capitalist pigs? ;-)

Cheers, Paul

[David Nebenzahl]

On 6/29/2008 4:49 PM Paul M. Eldridge spake thus:

Thank you for that.

The commonly-believed myth is that the forward march of nuclear power generation was stopped dead in its tracks by those aforementioned commie-pinko hair-shirt NIMBY environmeddlers back in the 1970s and 80s. This is basically bullshit: the industry collapsed for very easily explained financial reasons, with just enough public distaste for nukes on account of Three Mile Island and other disasters to put it under.

It would be instructive to go back and read the story of the Rancho Seco plant near Sacramento, which was shut down not by environmeddlers, nor by money managers, but by voters in the municipal utilities district which operated the plant.

[sorry, couldn't find good links in a minute search; it's out there ...]

[Don Klipstein]

If the waste is a mile down in a salt dome, why is there need for it to be retrievable?

And if it is vitrified, how would it leak into the surrounding salt?

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[David Nebenzahl]

On 6/29/2008 6:01 PM Don Klipstein spake thus:

I don't know if it's a DOE/NRC requirement, but it is definitely a preference that any stored waste be retrievable, for several reasons:

o In order to be able to determine the state of the storage container, to detect any leaks, and to monitor its temperature, any radiation leaks, etc.

o Because future generations might conceivably be able to use this buried waste with new technology.

[Nate Nagel]

I believe that the second is already being thought about.

nate

[Don Klipstein]

Your several reasons amount to 2.

The first one is unnecessary when the waste is a mile (or more) down in a salt dome.

The second is an argument against "permanent" waste disposal, and *I Wonder Why* a nuclear power opponent likes arguments against schemes for the permanent waste disposal that nuclear power opponents claim is necessary (and claim is unsolved) to make nuclear power safe?

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[David Nebenzahl]

On 6/29/2008 8:09 PM Don Klipstein spake thus:

Yes, I knew that: I gave you two out of several.

I didn't say I liked, or even agreed with this argument: I'm telling you the reasons the people who are pushing for *permanent* repositories want the waste to be retrievable. I don't write the rules, just reporting them.

[Doug Miller]

No, actually, the thing that really seemed attractive about salt domes is that the *presence* of crystalline salt necessarily means the *absence* of water.

No water to corrode the containers. No water to be contaminated.

[Tim Smith]

Why must they be accessible and retrievable?