I am black, arabian, and poor.
In this new saga, you will discover a science-fiction movie dealing with the disappearance of Dinosaurs and with worldwide nuclear power.
To listen to the trailer, surf on my site : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEttx9D2j7E
The weapon design and arms control communities agree that it is not the capability to design a nuclear device that determines the pace of a country’s acquisition of a first weapon, but, rather, the availability of nuclear weapons materials that can be turned to weapons purposes. For a nation-state, the material for weapons can come from uranium enrichment plants (highly enriched uranium), or reactors and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants (plutonium), or both.
Regardless of its isotopic composition, the minimum amount of plutonium required to make a pure fission nuclear explosive, with a yield equivalent to one to 25 kilotons of chemical high explosives, is quite small, on the order of 1 to 3 kilograms (kg), with the exact amount depending on the level of design expertise and the desired nuclear explosive yield. The minimum amount of highly enriched uranium required is a few times larger—5 to 10kg.
While far from ideal for military applications, the isotopic composition of the plutonium typically produced in civil power reactors does not pose a serious obstacle to fabricating efficient and powerful weapons, as well as crude terrorist devices.
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf
The proliferation of nuclear weapons is inextricably linked to nuclear power by a shared need for enriched uranium, and through the generation of plutonium as a by-product of spent nuclear fuel. The two industries have been linked since the very beginning and a nuclear weapons free world requires a non-nuclear energy policy. http://www.cnduk.org/index.php/information/info-sheets/briefings.html#nuclearpower
HOPE AND HYPE VS. REALITY IN NUCLEAR REACTOR COST
THE ECONOMICS OF NUCLEAR REACTORS:http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Documents/Cooper%20Report%20on%20Nuclear%20Economics%20FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf
The Missouri Senate is going to consider a so-called Family Recovery Bill proposed by Republican Ron Richard. This bill will enable the electric utilities to charge customers for plants that are under construction...for maybe ten years before the plant actually produces any electricity! Hopefully with a consumer issue that takes money from the pockets of voters and puts it into the pockets of utility investors, the State Legislature will vote down the mis-named Family Recovery Plan But it may well take a a strong and organized group of citizens to point out to the legislators that they are supposed to serve us and not the utilities that make large campaign donations. Please contact your senator and representative in Jefferson City and urge them to quickly vote against any effort to charge customers for construction of plants before those plants produce any electricity. There is a long history of consumer success in this area ...
Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for energy secretary, has been a vocal advocate for more research into alternative energy, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming.Chu, a Chinese-American who currently is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, has in recent years campaigned to bring together a cross-section of scientific disciplines to find ways to counter climate change.If action is not taken now to stop global warming, it may be too late, he argues.Since 2004, Chu has been director of the Berkeley lab, the oldest of the Energy Department's national laboratories, with its 4,000 employees and a budget of $650 million. The laboratory does only unclassified work and under Chu has been a center of research into biofuels and solar energy technologies. He is a former head of the physics department at Stanford University.Chu, 60, brings additional diversity to the Obama cabinet.Born to Chinese parents in St. Louis, he grew up in the Queens borough of New York City. His father, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate and professor of chemical engineering, and mother came to the United States in 1943 and two years later decided to stay because of the political turmoil in China.One of the country's most renowned scientists, Chu in 1997 shared the Nobel Prize in physics with two other scientists for his research into ways to cool and trap atoms using laser light. By cooling atoms to minus-273 degrees Celsius, they found the movement of atoms can be slowed to a point where they could be trapped and manipulated.http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h9UxSs58fjw-Taa9KfDV1YccfgbgD9505J8G1
Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for energy secretary, has been a vocal advocate for more research into alternative energy, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming.
Chu, a Chinese-American who currently is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, has in recent years campaigned to bring together a cross-section of scientific disciplines to find ways to counter climate change.
If action is not taken now to stop global warming, it may be too late, he argues.
Since 2004, Chu has been director of the Berkeley lab, the oldest of the Energy Department's national laboratories, with its 4,000 employees and a budget of $650 million. The laboratory does only unclassified work and under Chu has been a center of research into biofuels and solar energy technologies. He is a former head of the physics department at Stanford University.
Chu, 60, brings additional diversity to the Obama cabinet.
Born to Chinese parents in St. Louis, he grew up in the Queens borough of New York City. His father, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate and professor of chemical engineering, and mother came to the United States in 1943 and two years later decided to stay because of the political turmoil in China.
One of the country's most renowned scientists, Chu in 1997 shared the Nobel Prize in physics with two other scientists for his research into ways to cool and trap atoms using laser light. By cooling atoms to minus-273 degrees Celsius, they found the movement of atoms can be slowed to a point where they could be trapped and manipulated.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h9UxSs58fjw-Taa9KfDV1YccfgbgD9505J8G1
Note to Dr. Chu: I am a proponent of nuclear power. Talk to the people at Areva and Thorium Power.
Nulear power is one of the most expensive and unsuitable sources of power existing. There is a simple metaphor to illustrate. It is the same as ringing a doorbell with a cannon. But you cannot just fire the cannon, it would destroy the door and what is inside. So then you have to take a thick metal plate and put a hole in it just big enough to allow the tip of the cannonball to protrude out the end and ring the bell. Then you have to mount the plate on the wall with special supports that can cushion the metal plate when it is hit with the cannonball.
Nuclear power is used to boil water to turn turbines. There are so many better and inexpensive ways to turn those turbines. And less dangerous to the general public.
Please do not allow any more of these to be built.
Greetings Everyone,
Because the agencies whose missions have been to protect us and our interests as citizens of this country have allowed themselves to be dictated to by political interests rather than there assigned duties as directed by their mission statements, we find our health & well-being, our environment, and our federal and local budgets are in jeopardy.
I am not just referring to the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but I am also talking about agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission.
The nuclear power industry has been allowed to tell the American public that it provides safe and clean energy to our country. Though nuclear power is neither safe nor clean, it has been allowed to do this by the FCC and the FTC and SEC when it engages in its advertising and when it engages in its business activities. The nuclear power/energy industry has been allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, the Department Of Energy, and state public service commissions to be heavily involved in setting the standards and regulations that govern it. Those standards and regulations, for the most part, do not protect human health or the environment.
The current as well as previous administrations have allowed these regulatory agencies to be run by, and in most cases rendered impotent by having them run with, political appointments and agendas. This has been unfortunate, because now we have an American public who is working from a well ingrained position of ignorance when it has been led to believe that nuclear power is clean, safe, less expensive, and needs to remain 'on the table' as part of our energy solution.
These agencies that were designed to protect us have allowed the nuclear power/energy industry to get away with false advertising in its commercials and publications, they have been allowed to misinform investors with this same false and incomplete information.
A nuclear power reactor/plant is not a stand-alone entity that acts as the sole source provider of nuclear power. It is only one segment of the process of getting nuclear power generated electricity to the public. It is only one link in the fuel chain.
We have to face that we are being led down a path that is false from it beginning. Nuclear energy is one of the most egregious emitters of CO2, toxic heavy metals, and other poisonous emissions and we have to stop being led by the nuclear industry to believe that nuclear power is clean, safe energy.
The electricity produced by nuclear power in and of itself is relatively benign, however the waste, including high levels of CO2, which has been created to get us to the production of that electricity will harm you, your children, your grandchildren, and generations after them.
You should also always keep in mind that CO2 is not the only toxin that we have to deal with or be worried about.
The nuclear industry itself uses enormous amounts of electricity in their gaseous diffusion plants, (created by coal-fired power plants). Enormous amounts of cooling water are needed and used, and the highly corrosive and radioactive uranium hexafluoride gas is produced. All have adverse human health and environmental impacts. The waste is pervasive in its movements through our earth, air, and water. It has proven itself to be more than difficult to contain. It has proven itself deadly. Sometimes it will kill you slowly; sometimes it will kill you quickly. The nuclear power/energy industry has of course chosen to do its damage primarily on Native American lands as well as in poor and minority communities. The people who until now had no voice, no say.
But don't be fooled. Nuclear waste is not just a byproduct created at the end of the nuclear weapons, nuclear fuel, or nuclear energy production cycle. The ugliness begins at the beginning and it's not all radioactive. The Uranium ore needed to produce nuclear power or nuclear energy has to be mined. Uranium is both radioactive and a chemical toxin. Part of the uranium mining process is milling which consists of chemically separating uranium from other ore. The waste produced is known as milling tailings. In some cases these highly radioactive tailings are left on and near the land surrounding the mines creating another legacy of dangerous waste. For typical uranium concentrations, the tailings contain an extremely high percentage of the radioactivity in the original ore, along with toxic chemicals and heavy metals, such as lead and arsenic which adversely affect the environment and human health. After being converted to uranium hexafluoride it is further enriched through the process of gaseous diffusion. Enrichment is required to increase the percentage of Uranium-235 (half-life of 700 million years). Considered to be the "product", it's the isotope needed for nuclear power and weapons. Uranium-238, aka depleted uranium, another byproduct of gaseous diffusion, is a heavy metal and radioactive. Uranium-238 can be used to breed plutonium-239. These radioactive and toxic wastes are process and production outcomes. Remember, all of this and we haven't even gotten to the nuclear reactor for the production of the first nuclear energy generated kilowatt.
We really have to let our representatives know that we are not going to continue to allow this industry to control our conversation on our energy needs and our national security. We can look forward to being carbon free and nuclear free if we make that commitment to ourselves, our families, and our environment.
We have to start now to look toward a new type of future, a future that considers all of us, not just one group of people. We have to stop this unsafe practice of giving quick money more importance than sound judgment and survival.
It is time to change how we live in this world, we have to start somewhere, at some point in time. Now is that time.
Peace,
Dianne
I think America will continue to have its chance to help. Even CNN commentators came out of their closet to acknowledge that this bottom up effort mirrors software engineering (I couldn’t believe it!!) comparing the open source movement of creating software to Microsoft's top down approach.
Old government == Microsoft.
Obama + government == open source.
I know that left a lot of viewers in the dark but some of them on CNN actually get it.
You could see some of their sophistication in their graphics last night, however over the top their business intelligence software usage was with all the pink and yellow states :-)
Barack I've always hoped is going to use this infrastructure and 'people-power' enthusiasm not just for winning an election but in fixing/improving the country.
What if a PRESIDENT asked the AMERICAN people to LOBBY CONGRESS!?!
What if he organized Obama-website-like-Events for:
Asking for buses to go to volunteer at some future natural disaster site
Send in donations not for just the Obama campaign but for the ‘good’ cause of your choice?
Emailing/ Writing your congresspersons to pass Bill 902834 (fake) for a New National Electric Power Grid for electric cars
Emailing/ Writing your congresspersons to pass Bill 234321 (fake) for a new single standard for New French-like Nuclear Power Plants to feed electric cars
Emailing/ Writing your congresspersons to pass Bill 332533 (fake) for a New Health Care Plan with all its details laid out like a Chinese Menu for the American public to voice an opinion on
Emailing/ Writing your local news paper for the above initiatives
Emailing/ Writing national news papers for the above initiatives
Young people showing up at newly organized volunteer efforts associated with Earth Day or Peace Corps Signup Day or whatever
I could go on but I think I’ve made my point
I’m hoping I’m right that he’s now going to ask the American people, in a truly modern, electronic, web oriented way, to ‘ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country’ with the American President ACTUALLY ASKING US TO DO SOMETHING BESIDES GO TO THE MALL.
JMHO.
George
Woodlanders for Obama Administrator
…what kind of a peace do we seek. I’m talking about genuine peace. The kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, not merely peace in our time, but peace in all time. Our problems are manmade, therefore they can be solved by man. For in the final analysis, our most basic common language is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s future, and we are all mortal. -JFK
1. What is your position on Integral Fast Reactor technology?
IFR technology has the potential to create nuclear reactors that run off of the waste products of traditional light water reactors, material from decomissioned nuclear weapons, and other depleted sources of uranium and plutonium. Federal funding for this technology was halted in 1994, when the project was estimated to be only three years from completion. Senator Obama's support for nuclear power has been rather tepid, rightly citing storage issues with traditional nuclear waste. As a way expand our nuclear energy capacities while making such energy safer, would Senator Obama support reinvesting in IFR technology and production?
2. Why do you support the misnomer that is "clean coal"?
The goal of "clean coal" technology is to capture carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal and sequester the excess carbon where it can't get into the atmosphere, in addition to removing other pollutants from the process. The technology for such carbon capture is reportedly many years away at best, and the carbon sequestration process has had nothing in the way of long-term study to determine if it may have unexpected negative consequences in the future. Furthermore, "clean coal" technology does nothing to mitigate the dangerous conditions for coal miners nor the environmental degredation caused by coal extraction practices. And using this technology does nothing to wean us from our dependence on fossil fuels. "Clean coal" is the typical politician's wet pipe dream, using a catchy slogan to repackage something old as new and improved. You have been running a campaign based on not being a typical politician, so why have you fallen into this trap of supporting "clean coal"?
It is this kind of American ingenuity that Obama fosters and encourages with his intelligent and uplifting approach to issues and with his empowering "yes we can" motto. The audacity to hope for, work hard to realize and then sieze and implement such scientific and engineering breakthroughs are the qualities that led America on its former path to greatness, a path we strayed from during the reign of the oil barons, but one that Obama and Biden will put us back on, with a faster, cleaner more finely tuned engine!
Obama, like me, is a child who came of age during the computer age. When Barack was 8 and I was 7 we saw human beings walk for the first time on the moon because a young president challenged us to have faith in our ingenuity. Today the power of the computers that got us to the moon resides the chips found in our cell phones, while even our consumer laptops are capable of modeling complex scientific and engineering realities. In a few hours of number crunching our personal computers can inexpensively simulate all sorts of experiments that would have taken innovators of the 1960's years to complete and which would have cost millions.
Because Obama's supporters, like me, are computer savvy and scientifically courageous, we know that in the time it takes to drill for offshore and Alaskan oil and bring it to market, and in the time it takes to build and operate those horrible radioactive mausoleums we call "nuclear reactors" (which Ralph Nader should write a book about called "unsafe at any voltage") we will already have invented and deployed clean, safe, inflation and terrorism resistant technologies based on truly renewable sources like solar, wind, tidal, wave, geothermal and non-food biomass sources. Those of us in the energy industry already know that ALL the solutions are already on the table, in development or out in the field, merely awaiting stewardship from a sensible government.
We see Obama and Biden as the government of sustainable development, a government truly of the people, by the people for the people that believes in the people because it IS the people.
What about so-called "energy independence"?
Energy independence is a complex issue in a global economy. We don't want America to become an isolationist nation again like it was in the 1800's. When McCain calls for America to be "energy independent" he sounds foolish. In Cailifornia we lived through the Enron scandal when an energy crisis was manufactured by greedy traders (on that score McCain is correct -- there is greed and corruption on Wall Street and in Texas as well as in Washington). During the period of our rolling blackouts that caused much damage and cost many lives, California was a net surplus producer of electricity. We were "energy independent" in terms of generation capacity. But because electricity after deregulation became a market commodity, traders could buy it low and sell it high to anybody on the grid, from California to Colorado. The same will be true of Alaskan oil and gas and the electrons produced by nuclear power plants. They will all enter the global market and thus will be traded and sold to whoever can pay the most. So much for energy independence.
A short-sighted government run by less intelligent men would call for tighter regulations and more market interference -- a return to the days before deregulation with state controlled water and power. It would try to comfort the American consumer by prohibiting the sale of "American-made energy" to foriegn countries, through some weird regressive kind of "import subsititution" policy. If the Democrats win, as we hope, but were to implement such a strategy of strong market interference, it would give the Republicans a chance to come back to power in 2012, running on the usual platform of "less government meddling".
But Obama doesn't strike me as one who will get caught up in the usual pendulum swing from "conservative to liberal ideologies and back again". He seems far too smart to get caught up in see-saw politics as usual. Instead I hear Obama saying he will use government for what it was created -- to break monopolies and prevent oligopolies, to REMOVE subisidies and handouts to big oil and nuclear, and to level the planning field, using regulations to control the excesses of the market, but encouraging the entrepreneur to invent better solutions by providing strong incentives and protections.
Homeland Energy Security through Household Energy Independence and Global Information Inter-dependence.
One policy that I will propose in an Obama led nation is that we achieve so-called "energy independence" by making households as energy self-sufficient as possible so that we can safely trade our energy surpluses on the free market. We do this, I propose, by becoming more INTER-DEPENDENT in our information sharing and global social networking so that we can rapidly develop and deploy technologies that give middle class households a chance to be energy independent even as the world energy markets get more imbricated with one another. My experiences living in Indonesia, Egypt, Guatemala and Germany and visiting and living in more or less autonomous "Eco-Villages" around the world, have shown me that all the solutions are out there, but often fail to get implemented because many of us in America don't look much further than our own regions and Truman-show-like real estate developments. Meanwhile we depend on a "pipes and cables" approach to the built environment that plugs us into centralized water and power suppliers who can raise prices at a whim and can adversely affect our lives every time the winds of global change blow in a different direction.
Instead we should be "weatherizing" our homes to get through both physical and financial storms, ensuring that every family can supply enough of its own grid-independent energy right there at home, so that nothing that happens in the market can affect our quality of life. Meanwhile we as citizens can contribute our surplus, literally home-grown, energy (coming from our roofs and backyards and parking lots) to the common weal.
This is disaster preparedness. This is true homeland security.
This is also the project we are working on at Solar CITIES in the ghettoes and slums and informal communities of Cairo, Egypt. wprking with a U.S. AID small infrastructure grant.
For the past two years we have been training households and local craftspeople to build and install and maintain do-it-yourself, community created solar hot water systems on their rooftops. This year we will work together to create urban rooftop biogas systems that use city garbage to create clean cooking and heating fuel, electricity and fertilizer. With households freed from dependency on "the grid" the government and the business community can afford to remove the 5 billion dollar a year subsidy they waste trying to keep oil and gas and electricity cheap for residents and sell their resources at full market value outside Egypt to bring in much needed hard currency. They can then use that money to reduce the deficit and invest in infrastructure.
America can do the same thing: We can use household level renewable energy solutions -- solar electric, solar thermal, small wind, micro-hydro, urban biogas etc. -- to free consumers from dependency on the overstrained national grid. When households are producing their own power (and selling power back to the grid through feed-in tariffs such as we have in California to help the entire state) the average family will no longer see any rise in their average energy prices. THEY will be energy independent. But America can continue to be energy INTER-dependent with the rest of the world, exporting energy to help countries in need, selling energy at a fair price to countries experiencing development booms (like the Arabian Gulf States!) and using our energy surpluses (once household demand is reduced or eliminated) to repay our national debt.
Thus I propose the following policy to my future President Obama -- trust us, the people, to innovate, and support us, the people, to implement the technologies that will make every American home and small business energy independent. Then help us develop large scale energy technologies like the mulit-megawatt capacity solar power towers, CSP fields and wind farms I've seen all over Spain and Germany that can give us excess power for our manufacturing sectors, and our urban centers and for export for hard currency. Stay away from filthy fuels like nuclear and so-called "clean coal" (my father in law worked in a coal mine -- he says it doesn't matter how much you try and clean it up after it comes out of the ground through expensive scrubbing and carbon sequestration technologies -- for the coal miner it is still a killer; clean coal, he says, "is like putting lipstick on a pig!"). Trust that we Americans, using our home-grown computer skills and our vast intellectual resources, will create a green economy to make America and the world safe places to live in, long before the first drops and chunks of dirty oil and coal and uranium are ready to go on line.
Think we can do it?
Yes. WE CAN.
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
Hmmmm... I think I just figured out who the real John McCain is, and why his energy policy is so focused on promoting nuclear power!
From the Huffington Post
If you don't watch the debates on CNN, you are really missing something. CNN has set up a dial group of uncommitted Ohio voters. At the bottom of the screen CNN then shows the graph of the reaction by men and women as they rate statements they like or don't like.
McCain seems to think his strong support of nuclear power is a big political winner for him, since he has brought it up three times in the first hour. But every time he talks about nuclear, he flatlines with both men and women. They simply are unenthused about nuclear power, which is no surprise.
At best, people consider nuclear power as Castor oil, something your parents made you take that is supposed to be good for you. At worst, people think it's a source of radioactivity they'd like to stay far away from.
Frankly, McCain has been flatlining for most of the debate, which I suspect post-debate audience polls will reflect.
Read more reactions to the Obama-McCain Town Hall Debate from HuffPost bloggers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-romm/note-to-mccain-uncommitte_b_132804.html
First they both produce power. The difference is nuclear creates nuclear radioactive waste. Nuclear waste is not a problem until it is being dumped in your back yard. John likes nuclear because in Arizona we have 3 nuclear power plants. The only thing he did not tell you is that they are reaching their maturity and they are off line more than they are on line and he knows that some of those nuclear reactors would end up out at Palo Verde and create lots of jobs in Arizona.
Plasma Converters get rid of garbage. With this technology the only thing you need to recycle is the paper. Go to http://renewableenergy101.wordpress.com for the full explanation of a Plasma Converter. First the fuel is free. The benefits are numerous and there is zero emissions. See the heat produced in these unts is the same heat as on the sun and so everything that is introduced to the plasma becomes molecularly dissociated. The results is heat and lots of it, hydrogen, some process gas, metal slag, a stone like material and no emmissions.
I do not agree at all with either candidate. Nuclear is not the answer...Not at all. Even if you reprocess fuel there is still all the equipment that came in contact with the radioactivty that has a half life of 1000's of years.
Maintaining the equipment is an absolute nightmare.
I participated in a study with handling waste at the Hanniffer GE Richland, WA project and the amount of people required to fix anything is ridiculous. It is because any one person can only be exposed to so many rads for a given time and so it is cheaper to throw away than it is to fix.
The Challenge is the status quo and new designs cost money. If you replicate old designs you can make more money building new power plants. Then there is the politics of the existing vs the new. People resist change especially when they are getting near the end of their careers. I saw this with my Dad when he worked for what use to be Combustion Engineering. They were just bringing in computers when he was 2 years from retirement and he did not want anything to do with the new technology.
With Plasma Converters you have to deal with the egos and status quos of the existing power companies who usually know nothing about waste management. And waste management companies that know nothing about power.
Places like Hawaii, Japan, big cities have a garbage issue and they are usually more open to change because it solves a major problem.
Conclusion: This and many more changes will not happen unless governent mandates the change and provides money and incentives to make the change. Someone needs to lead and be bold.
During the presidential debate, McCain spoke of off-shore drilling and nuclear power plants. When pressed on renewable energy, his response was vague, and he evaded the questions by acknowledging that we need to consider all avenues to reduce dependence on foreign energy. I for one am not convinced that McCain would do squat (can I say that?) in terms of renewable energy. He will focus on nuclear power because nuclear power generation has high barriers to entry, and only his billionaire buddies can afford to enter this market. We would be trading one evil (oil) for a worse evil (nuclear waste). McCain did not engage in conversation on how he'd handle the nuclear waste produced by the plants.
Barack has firm plans for brining the United States to the cutting edge of renewable energy. He want the US to take a leadership role in developing these technologies creating several substantial benefits:
1. Reduce dependence on foreign energy
2. Save the environment and stop/reverse climate change
3. Create millions of American jobs
4. Put the United States back in leading position in the world markets
Anyone who thinks nuclear energy is "clean" energy, please read some articles:
http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/nuclear_waste_storage/nuclear_waste_storage.html
http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-energy-&-waste/start/fact-sheet_ne&w.htm
The overall Energy solutions within the Obama campaign are good aswell as the Green Energy Plan for America.
The only part of Obama Energy Plan that needs to be excluded are Drilling for Oil off Shore McCain wants it and its not only bad for the Environment but the oil return will take if anything 10-15 years if that to find some Oil.
Its a bad Idea Senator Obama don't fall for McCains Energy Plan its no good.
The other area that many are concerned about is Nuclear Power Plants .
Since the early days of the Anti Nuclear Movement which I would bet many of you were involved in over 35 years ago.
Seabrook New Hampshire for one back in the late 70's people protested in the streets against Nuclear because of the Radiation leaks and other major problems with these types of energy plants.
Just recently in an investigative report in the Valley Advocate talks about a Public move to finally shut Vermont Yankee down I suggest all Obama supporters and Obama's campaign staff on Energy Policy read this here is the link http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=8218
Here is a picture of a fire burning at the Planet in the front of this Nuclear Plant not good in 2007 .
Here is another picture of the same Nuclear Plant where they have used Duct tape on a leaking pipe.
Here is the link to the editorial from again the Valley Advocate Newspapers
http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=3551
Remember Three Mile Island anyone i do .
I also have an excellent link which gives information on the dangers of Nuclear Power.
Go to this link aswell Senator Obama I know your concerned with the waste disposal of Nuclear Power Plants thats another reason we cannot build anymore Nukes in this Country.
Anyway here is the link http://www.nonukes.org/ .
Don't listen to the Oil Industry nor the Nuclear Industry they represent whats bad for America and the World we live in period.
Tell Mccain your for real Alternative Clean Energy not Nuclear Power Plants first Mccain said he wanted 100 new Nuclear Plants lastnights debate he said 45 new Nuclear Plants .
The bottomline is Nuclear is unhealthy for our Children and their Childrens ,Children .
Here is a youtube video about Fusion Energy which is not Radioactive as Fission Energy is Senator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn04nIby-gY
Here another good site http://www.generalfusion.com/
What I am basically suggesting Senator Obama is that you take Nuclear Power out of your Energy Plan and instead ad Fusion Power which is clean and safe.
I would like everyone on the grassroots to learn about this Alternative to Radioactive Plants aswell as the Obama Campaign Staff .
Thanks for listening Obama/Biden 08
http://www.foreignpolicy.comThe List: McCain’s 10 Worst IdeasPosted September 2008
Creating a League of Democracies
What he said:“We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact—a League of Democracies—that can harness the vast influence of the more than one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.” —Speech at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, March 26, 2008
Why it’s a bad idea: As Thomas Carothers argues in the July/August issue of FP, “[T]he idea that democracies naturally align is only half right and risks being a dangerous oversimplification.” Carothers and other critics have noted that such a league might further weaken the United Nations. For the most part, world leaders have been cool to the idea, and rightfully so. A previous iteration, the little-known Community of Democracies, founded in 2000, has stumbled into irrelevance.
Calling for a Gas-Tax Holiday
What he said: “I propose that the federal government suspend all taxes on gasoline now paid by the American people—from Memorial Day to Labor Day of this year. The effect will be an immediate economic stimulus—taking a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas every time a family, a farmer, or trucker stops to fill up.” —Speech at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pa., April 15, 2008
Why it’s a bad idea: Pick your poison. Many (including Dick Cheney) predict that such a “holiday” would have little effect, as oil companies would just pocket the difference. Ditching the 18.4-cents-a-gallon gas tax and 24.4-cents-a-gallon diesel tax would deprive the already-strapped Highway Trust Fund, which relies on gas-tax revenues to fund transportation projects, of cash. Economists and environmentalists also widely deride the proposal, which would boost demand and therefore quickly drive prices back up. When you’re in a hole, it’s best to stop digging.
Requiring a Three-Fifths Majority to Raise Taxes
What he said: “John McCain believes it should require a 3/5 majority vote in Congress to raise taxes.” —Press release, Dec. 18, 2007
Why it’s a bad idea: States that have enacted supermajority requirements for tax increases haven’t exactly entered the pantheon of budgetary glory. Take California, which requires approval from two thirds of the state legislature to raise taxes. The Golden State has recently struggled to raise revenues—and has witnessed an increase in taxes disguised as “fees” as a result. Raising taxes should be like the use of force in foreign policy—the last resort, yes, but you never want to take any option off the table.
Flip-flopping on Immigration
What he said: “I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift. I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people’s priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders.” —Remarks to reporters in Simpsonville, S.C., Nov. 3, 2007
Why it’s a bad idea: Immigration was once an issue where McCain could justifiably claim to be a “maverick,” unafraid to buck party orthodoxy and popular opinion. The Arizona senator even partnered with Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2005 to craft a bipartisan bill that would both give illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship and boost security at the U.S.-Mexico border. But with his poll numbers plummeting during the Republican primary, McCain began trumpeting the party line of “securing the borders first.” The problem is, without providing more opportunities for legal immigration or taking steps to build up the Mexican economy, taller fences and more guards will only address the symptoms, not the ultimate causes of illegal immigration.
Drilling Our Way Out of the Oil Crisis
What he said: “Gas prices are through the roof. Energy costs have seeped into our grocery bills, making it more expensive to feed our families. ... It is time for America to get serious about energy independence, and that means we need to start drilling offshore at advanced oil rigs like this.” —Press conference on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, Aug. 19, 2008
Why it’s a bad idea: Even ignoring potential environmental impacts, lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling would make little difference for consumers. According to the government’s own Energy Information Administration, production of the new supplies would not even begin until 2017 and would have little effect on what Americans pay at the pump anyway—just a few cents a gallon by 2030 under the best-case scenario. More to the point, it’s a strategy of yesteryear. As columnist Thomas Friedman put it in a recent interview with FP, “When I hear McCain pounding the table for ‘drill, drill, drill,’ it reminds me of someone pounding the table for IBM Selectric typewriters on the eve of the IT revolution.”
Balancing the Budget through Victory in the War on Terror
What he said: “The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.” —Jobs for America: The McCain Economic Plan, released July 7, 2008
Why it’s a bad idea: The yearly bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is certainly enormous. Yet it still covers less than half of the United States’ projected $490 billion deficit for 2009. Given the massive tax cuts that McCain also supports, it’s unclear how his debt-reduction math adds up. McCain opposes a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, yet he feels confident enough to budget for victory by the end of his first term. Afghanistan is getting worse, not better. And as for “the fight against Islamic extremists,” how does one even define victory? Don’t try asking McCain: He doesn’t have an answer.
Making the Bush Tax Cuts Permanent
What he said: “We’ve got to make these tax cuts permanent. We have to, otherwise I think it’ll have a negative impact on our economy.” —NBC’s Meet the Press, Jan. 27, 2008
Why it’s a bad idea: You might say McCain was against the $1.35 trillion Bush tax cuts before he was for them. In 2004, he said he opposed them “because of the disproportional amount that went to the wealthiest Americans.” Now, he says he supports them because the economy is weakening. Yet “the tax cuts are more likely to reduce long-term growth than to increase it,” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. McCain insists he will restrain spending and eliminate the budget deficit. But McCain’s budget numbers simply don’t add up, and the senator’s constant hammering on congressional earmarks misses the big picture: Defense and entitlement programs are where most of the fat lies, not in relatively small pork projects such as Alaska’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.”
Supporting Abstinence-Only Education and the Global Gag Rule
What he said: Asked on the campaign trail if he thought grants for sex education should include instruction on contraception, McCain turned to an aide for help, saying, “Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception—I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.” The reporter asked, “Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?” After a long pause, McCain replied, “You’ve stumped me.” —Town hall meeting, Iowa, Mar. 16, 2007
Why it’s a bad idea: A landmark, 10-year study sponsored by Congress found in 2007 that students in sexual-abstinence programs “were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, reported having similar numbers of sexual partners, and first had sex at about the same age,” the Chicago Tribune reported. Abstinence-only education is one of the core principles guiding the so-called global gag rule, an executive order passed by President George W. Bush in 2001 that prohibits giving foreign aid to NGOs that offer any kind of counseling on abortion as family planning. McCain voted against repealing the measure in 2005. Critics of the gag rule point to reports showing a shortage of contraceptives, clinic closings, loss of funds for HIV/AIDS education, and a rise in unsafe abortions since it was instituted.
Calling for 45 Nuclear Power Plants
What he said: “If I am elected president, I will set this nation on a course to building 45 new reactors by the year 2030, with the ultimate goal of 100 new plants to power the homes and factories and cities of America.” —Speech in Springfield, Mo., June 18, 2008
Why it’s a bad idea: There are many good reasons to be skeptical of the widespread new enthusiasm for nuclear power, including its high-and-rising costs, but perhaps the best one is that, as experts Charles Ferguson and Sharon Squassoni explained in 2007, “a nuclear renaissance will take too long to have a significant effect” on climate change. Moreover, how do we know that 45 is the right number? A drop in the price of alternative fuels could “make nuclear plants look like white elephants,” the Wall Street Journal noted in May. For someone who likes to extol the virtues of the free market, McCain’s target sure smacks of socialist planning.
Backing Cap-and-Trade Without a 100 Percent Auction
What he said: “We will cap emissions according to specific goals, measuring progress by reference to past carbon emissions. … Over time, an increasing fraction of permits for emissions could be supplied by auction, yielding federal revenues that can be put to good use.” —Speech in Portland, Ore., May 12, 2008
Why it’s a bad idea: McCain’s gotten credit for supporting a cap-and-trade system, but his specific proposal is pretty weak. Cap-and-trade systems work by putting a ceiling on carbon emissions, and then allocating permits that give companies the right to pollute a given amount. From an environmental standpoint, it doesn’t much matter how you initially distribute the permits, as long as the cap is stringent enough. But most economists think that, unless you first auction these off in a transparent process, you’re basically enabling a massive corporate giveaway, raising the likelihood that well-connected corporations or industries will get sweetheart deals, and failing to capture revenue that can pay for other priorities.
Rather than duplicate my posts here, please
read about the fallacy of John McCain's Energy Plan and
the problems with Nuclear Power at my blog on blogspot
http://mikeby.blogspot.com/2008/08/test.html
Yep, he was good last night. Obama inspires. Obama can soar. I especially loved the Martin Luther King part:
