Nuclear Power
The Nuclear industry has stepped up its promotions
in the last few months and Home Power Magazine looked
at some of their claims. Here is data from an article
by Michael Welch:
Nuclear power will be inexpensive.
This claim has been made for the last 40 years and
has been never been true. Will it be true in the
future? read on.
Nuclear power is safe.
This claim has been around for years also and has
never been true. Several countries have classified
their nuclear power reports and accidents were not
made public. This makes getting good data difficult
but given what has been reported we can conclude that
safety is a big issue. Currently the industry is
scrambling to deal with the possibility of nuclear
terrorism. They can't hide their vulnerability to
air attack so this is another problem.
We have an energy shortage and need nuclear.
At present we have an energy glut and many options
for future energy production.
Nukes don't pollute.
Maybe the plant does not pollute but looking at the
whole industry tells a different story. The Paducah
enrichment plant is driven by a coal powered generator
and is the nations largest producer of CFCs. The mining
and other support industries are also problems. The
nuclear waste is an ongoing problem.
Nuclear waste is a political problem not scientific.
Spent fuel will be around for about a million years.
We have spent billions on solutions and still no
completely safe site can be found. Calling this
a political problem is a half truth.
England, France, and Japan have done nuclear right.
All three of these countries are having problems. The
French are dumping wastes into the ocean and getting
complaints from England. Japan has had several failures
and admitted hushing some up. On and on.
New Nuclear technology will solve the problems.
The current candidate to solve problems is called
PBMR which is an old idea using pebbles. It has not
worked well in the past and isn't close to being
a proven technology.
additional information: www.nirs.org
www.ieer.org
www.redwoodaliance.org
jeff
