[ RadSafe ] Equal time - a negative view on Nuclear

Tue Jan 23 19:21:30 CST 2007

Hello All -

I believe that the current NRC chair, Dale Klein, has
some concerns about his agency's manpower requirements
to meet the challenge of new licensing.  Overall, he's
quite positive about the prospect of new nuclear
construction in the U.S.

Some NRC Commissioners' speeches are here:
http://www.tropicalmedicine101.com/staging/

A big part of the personnel problem is that there was
a decline from about 1980-1999 in the number of
nuclear engineering students in colleges.  The reason
for that decline was the perceived lack of
marketability of a nuclear engineering degree, which
was connected with the activities of anti-nuclear
pressure groups that attempted to invalidate nuclear
power as a viable energy generation option.  

However, it's important to talk about the much broader
issue of energy options and decisions.  

At this time, with the wider and broader realization
that fossil fuel-generated carbon dioxide releases are
contributing to climate change problems, the
"environmental movement" has a great big problem on
its hands.  

The renewable resources that the "environmental
movement" promotes [wind, solar energy, and biomass] 
simply do not have the multiple thousands of megawatts
of capability to displace Europe or America's demand
for fossil-fuel fired electricity.  

A simple electricity generation chart shows that
nuclear energy, followed by hydroelectric, is the
largest source of non-fossil-fuel electricity.
Non-hydroelectric renewable sources are only 2.3% vs
6.5% for hydroelectric and 19.3% for nuclear energy. 
The chart is at this link:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/fuelelectric.html

If the "environmental movement" is truly concerned
about carbon dioxide emissions and global warming,
they will have to realize that they need to support
nuclear energy...unless they want to support very
controversial new dam sites [many of which aren't to
be found, anyway].  

On the personal note - these are not personal comments
directed at any particular person on the list.  

It's directed at the clueless anti-nuclear crowd who
asked a list member to forward the same hackneyed
material they anti-nuclear crowd has been distributing
for the past 25 years.  The net effect of their
blockades, frivolous lawsuits, and "nuclear phaseouts"
in both Europe and the United States has been to
increase fossil fuel use and to increase the
associated environmental problems including sulfur
dioxide [acid rain], mercury pollution [from coal
emissions], particulate emissions [largely from coal],
and carbon dioxide emissions [from all fossil fuels,
including natural gas as well as coal]. 

Right now, Germany is running into a serious problem
with its emissions reduction goals because of its
official "nuclear phaseout" policy.  Deutsche Bank
just released a report about this issue:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/aa778212-aa17-11db-83b0-0000779e2340.html

On the other hand, France is well on its way to
meeting emissions reduction goals.  

http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/AFP/2006/01/17/1157945?extID=10051
 [although this is a fragment, it contains the
relevant information]. 

The "environmental movement" in both Europe and the
U.S. has a huge decision to make: If they think that
wind power and solar can substitute for fossil fuels
by themselves, they will need to endorse covering the
landscape with enormous numbers of wind turbines and
solar panels, because these are low-density energy
sources.  Or, they can continue implicitly endorsing
fossil fuels along with the associated pollution
problems.  Or, they can drop their anti-nuclear bias
and start to move constructively to reduce pollutant
and carbon dioxide emissions.  

It's not a matter of Europe vs. the U.S.  This is a
worldwide issue.  The developed world has to take
leadership and help other countries like
coal-dependent China to ease their enormous pollution
problems.   

Some countries have good energy policies while others
have bad policies.  Personally, I think that
transportation policies are quite good throughout most
of Europe.  I think that electricity generation policy
is excellent in France, Sweden, and Switzerland;
reasonably good in Denmark; and quite bad in Germany
and Italy.  I think that transportation policies in
the U.S. are bad, while electricity generation
policies are fair.   

I can give links to material about my
assessments/opinions of energy policies in various
countries if anyone wants them. 

There.  I've tried to raise the level of debate on
this post.  I believe that the original post was
intended to spark a discussion on the list about
energy alternatives, rather than an argument about
"Austria" vs. the U.S."

If anyone has more interest in the topic of EU carbon
emissions reduction goals and nuclear energy policies
in countries such as France, Sweden, Germany, and
Denmark, they can visit my blog and search for the
name of the country.   

http://wesupportlee.blogspot.com

~Ruth

--- Sandy Perle <sandyfl at cox.net> wrote:

> On 22 Jan 2007 at 19:44, Ruth Sponsler wrote:
> 
> > Who is Jim Bell and why is he requesting his
> material
> > to be posted to Radsafe?
> > 
> > Such material is easily available on the internet,
> and
> > I'm sure that almost all the members of this list
> have
> > been heavily exposed to such opinions during their
> > college years and while reading newspapers etc.  
> 
> Hi Ruth,
> 
> Your points are well taken. The primary reason I
> went ahead and posted the information was 
> because of all the pro-nuclear and nuclear
> renaissance, as well as concerns raised by the 
> current NRC Chair. Otherwise, I agree that the
> posting would not add any value to the 
> dialogue.
> 
> On another issue, Marshall Reber and I have
> corresponded and I definitely concur that I 
> should have put Mr. Bell's entire article in quotes
> to categorically make it understood that all 
> of the posting was his beliefs, and not mine. I
> treated this posting as other news postings, 
> and don't use quotes. I do however understand that
> this is not a case of posting a news 
> article from the wire services, and, should have
> used the quotes. However, my pro-nuclear 
> support should not have been questioned, as was the
> case in one posting. My 35+ years 
> supporting the nuclear option is well documented and
> I apologize to nobody regarding that.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Sandy
> 
> Sandy Perle
> Senior Vice President, Technical Operations
> Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
> 2652 McGaw Avenue
> Irvine, CA 92614 
> 
> Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714  Extension 2306
> Fax:(949) 296-1144
> 
> E-Mail: sperle at dosimetry.com
> E-Mail: sandyfl at cox.net 
> 
> Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/ 
> Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/ 
> 
> 

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