[ RadSafe ] Engineering & science reduced sadly to politicalabortions.

[Muckerheide, James]

Excellent Maury!  But re your PS:  It should be noted that U.S. voters can
generally only select the lesser of two evils put forward by two parties with
different self-interest agendas, selling out to different deep-pocket funding
sources.

Regards, Jim 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
> Behalf Of Maury Siskel
> Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 1:17 PM
> To: Mailing List for Risk Professionals; RadiationSafety
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Engineering & science reduced sadly to
> politicalabortions.
> 
> 
> The US over the years has contributed great achievements to the rest of
> the world as well as for ourselves. On the other hand, the poor quality
> of leadership in the US often is impressive. The nation complained
> bitterly about fuel prices even as one of our former leaders selected
> the largest deposits of the cleanest, highest quality coal to declare
> its deposits a wilderness area and thus inaccessible for mining without
> an act of Congress. And our selected leaders outlaw drilling off the
> east coast of Florida, off the west coast of Florida, off the entire
> Atlantic coast, and off of the entire Pacific coast.
> 
> A national "executive" agency sets pollution standards for refineries
> making economic jokes of the construction of such facilities. And as the
> nation refuses to accept unsightly drilling rigs in coastal waters, it
> tries to welcome huge toy windmills in those same areas. And solar
> energy panels are pursued in spite of their known inefficiencies and of
> the pollution produced by their manufacture.  And we still outlaw the
> recovery of oil from an area in Alaska which is less than 1% of the
> Wilderness Area containing those oil deposits -- like the coal deposits,
> a wilderness no one can even see unless they backpack into it or fly
> over it! Are these not impressive achievements? Our leadership
> subsidizes the production of grain alcohol for its addition to gasoline
> -- even though alcohol reduces the efficacy of the gasoline and
> contributes more to air pollution than does the unadulterated gasoline.
> Under current conditions, no such production and usage of alcohol would
> take place in the absence of the federal tax credits for it.
> 
> Holland has successfully recovered a huge productive land area and
> protected this below sea level area from  repetitive severe storms from
> the sea. But the US has failed to construct even a simple lock or
> gateway across a narrow waterway connecting a big lake with the Gulf of
> Mexico. Such a gate would prevent a storm surge from overfilling the
> lake which overflows to submerge a major city.  Truly remarkable!
> 
> Science and engineering are made into a political miscarriage to produce
> the US abortion shown below in Table 1. It shows electricity as a
> percentage produced by nuclear energy in each country. This is an absurd
> reality. It should be noted that:
> _________________
> "Nuclear power certainly looks good to the rest of the world. France
> gets nearly 80% of its energy from nuclear power and has demonstrated
> [that] the problem of nuclear waste is political, not technological. At
> least it's waste that doesn't get into our lungs on a daily basis."
> 
> "Like Britain, Germany, Japan and Belgium,  France reprocesses its spent
> nuclear fuel rods, letting the country reduce its volume of nuclear
> waste to one-fifth its size while generating even more energy, making
> nuclear power a "renewable" resource."
>  From Investors Business Daily
> ____________________
> And now for decades, US politicians have argued vehemently over the
> suitable hole in a desert mountain to bury our unprocessed spent nuclear
> fuel. Is it not amazing? -- perhaps the 9th wonder of the modern world.
> It is as though the acceptable US political solution to nuclear
> proliferation might be bows and arrows ....
> 
> Table 1. NUCLEAR OPTION: Percentage of electricity derived from nuclear
> power in 2004. (by IAEA)
> 
> Netherlands      3.8
> Romania          10.1
> UK                  13.4
> US                   19.9
> Spain               22.9
> Finland            26.6
> Czech Rep.     31.2
> Germany         32.1
> Hungary          33.8
> Slovenia           38.8
> Switzerland     40.0
> Bulgaria           41.6
> Sweden            51.8
> Belgium           55.1
> Slovakia           55.2
> France              78.1
> Lithuania          72.1
> 
> Are there any leaders in or outside of the Congress with the ability to
> alleviate the problems described above? Are we willing to elect  or
> insist upon rational performance by them?
> Cheers,
> Maury&Dog   maurysis at ev1.net
> 
> PS. It must not be overlooked that US voters generally selected (hired,
> elected) their leadership.
> 
>