Organizing for America | Sheldon Motley's Blog: Nuclear Power Is Contraindicated as a Solution to Global Warming

Nuclear Power Is Contraindicated as a Solution to Global Warming

By Sheldon from Doylestown - Oct 12th, 2008 at 5:26 pm EDT

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Tags: Global Warming, Nuclear, Nuclear Energy, nuclear power, nuclear waste, Warming

Nuclear Power Is Contraindicated as a Solution to Global Warming Because of Nuclear Mutagenesis. Watch: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4397307903287515932

Nuclear Power Is Contraindicated as a Solution to Global Warming Because of Excessive Cost: "When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and "micropower" (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

"These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in "Forget Nuclear," and fully documented in "The Nuclear Illusion," available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' journal Ambio. (courtesy of rmi.org)

Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program has said, "Switching from coal to nukes is like giving up smoking and taking up crack."

Here is the Natural Resources Defense Council's position on Nuclear Power: http://nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf.

Make a small statement. Join our My.BarackObama.com group, Nuclear Power?, here:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/NuclearPower

Barack Obama is a man of integrity. Our belief is that when all the facts about nuclear power are presented to him clearly, that he will reject it as an option.

The large utilities eager to build nuclear power plants are now suddenly pressing Congress about global warming. Very convenient. But is nuclear power a solution for the problem of global warming? Hmmm, No.

1)Nuclear power plants are too expensive to build. The nuclear power industry refuses to accept responsibility for the unique risks of nuclear power and demands massive federal subsidies so that they can rake in profits on their suspect investments. To quote the Rocky Mountain Institute (rmi.org) position on nuclear power: "Contrary to an argument nuclear apologists have recently taken to making, nuclear power isn't a good way to curb climate change. The power they produce is so expensive that the same money invested in efficiency or even natural-gas-fired power plants would offset much more climate change." Quoting the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC): "Our national electricity needs could be met, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent or more, through a combination of increased energy efficiency, wind power, solar power, advanced coal-fired plants with carbon capture and storage, and high-efficiency natural gas turbines."

2)Nuclear power is extremely unsafe. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acknowledged in a reference document "that early containment failure cannot be ruled out with high confidence for any of the plants." Even with the most technologically advanced checks and safeties, eventually some critical part of everything man makes fails. If an explosion occurs at a gas-fired or coal-fired plant, this is not good. But if a nuclear reactor melts down and breaks through its containment vessel, we have at least a regional catastrophe. Large areas of necessary habitable land are rendered uninhabitable, and people die of radiation-caused cancer.

3)To again quote the Rocky Mountain Institute's position on nuclear power: "Nuclear power poses significant problems of radioactive waste disposal."

4)Quoting the NRDC: "Plutonium is a normal by-product of electricity production in conventional reactors. Thus, the same reactors and fuel-processing facilities that are used for energy production can also be used for the manufacture of weapons." "Perhaps the most serious of all the problems that would be exacerbated by dramatically increasing global nuclear capacity is the threat of nuclear proliferation."

Join our My.BarackObama.com group, Nuclear Power?, here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/NuclearPower

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Thank you | Report to Admin

By Dianne Dec 2nd 2008 at 12:18 pm EST (Updated Dec 2nd 2008 at 12:18 pm EST)

Thanks for posting this!
Peace,
Dianne

Let's face the facts. | Report to Admin

By Mark Travis Feb 25th 2009 at 5:51 pm EST (Updated Feb 25th 2009 at 5:51 pm EST)

Nuclear power has gotten a horrible reputation, and it is undeserved. The biggest "meltdown" (chernobyl) was a graphite cooled reactor that was specifically used by the USSR as a scientific reactor for making bombs. The site to this day has abundant wildlife, with successful offspring and low levels of background radioactivity.

It is true that radiation, especially high levels of exposure causes many complications. Cancer being high on the list. But radioactivity in this universe is unavoidable. In fact an argument for the genesis of life could be derived from the biologic function that natural mutation from being exposed from radiation gives. But that is another post.

The reactors that are built today don't function the same way (as chernobyl), they are way more safe (in fact most can run with the cooling system shut off without causing a meltdown), they create the cheapest form of electricity (after the capital cost of building a reactor, which I agree is expensive), can de-salinate water (think of the agricultural solutions there), and as a by-product of most reactors comes hydrogen (hydrogen fuel-cell cars anyone).

The waste is currently being called waste, but in fact it will someday be called fuel again. It is the radioactivity of the material that makes it a fuel. The problem is that each reactor design currently built only burns one type or range of isotopes at a time, etc. So a new reactor or new type of reactor has to be build to burn the new fuel as the isotopes decay down the chain. Maybe instead of being afraid of the isotopes we should just help them along to a safer state of being, or we can just lock them up indefinitely (the EPA's best idea). Science does work people.

My point is, don't be so short-sighted. And please get your info from non-biased sources, or at least a mixture of sources. The current source material tied to your posts are very one sided. Of course, it is probably hard to find info from the people actually working in the field, they are working after all.

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