[ RadSafe ] Salsman warning

Thu Apr 8 11:11:55 CDT 2010

Franz,

I agree the benefits and drawbacks of nuclear power compared to
alternatives are a good topic of discussion for RadSafe.

What has been the experience in Austria with the cost of wind and
pumped storage hydroelectricity compared to nuclear power?  What are
the risks and drawbacks of both?

Do you think http://bit.ly/100by2030 presents the most economical path
to eliminating fossil fuel (which is itself very economical when flood
insurance and costs are considered)?  I believe Google.org had a very
similar plan they published a year earlier.

Sincerely,
James Salsman

2010/4/8 Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer at chello.at>:
> Ahmad,
>
> This is in my opinion one of the most foolish approaches.
>
> First of all you have to distinguish between different countries and their
> approach to nuclear power. .......
>
> Etc. etc. I am not going to waste my time on this topic.
>
> Topics have to be discussed in detail, on a country specific basis. There
> are so many factors for such a decision, public opinion being just one of
> them! To ignore the anti nuclears is just another way of showing them that
> you do not take them serious, enhancing their efforts. In my home country
> Austria we did not take them serious before the (silly!) referendum in 1978,
> we ridiculed them with correct arguments etc. and then the referendum was
> against the opening of the NPP in Zwentendorf.
>
> Do you want to repeat this disaster somewhere else??? Or do you want to have
> a dictatory governement which would simply declare what is good for their
> citizens?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Franz
>
> Franz Schoenhofer, PhD
> MinRat i.R.
> Habicherg. 31/7
> A-1160 Wien/Vienna
> AUSTRIA
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] Im Auftrag von Ahmad Al-Ani
> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 07. April 2010 08:59
> An: jsalsman at gmail.com; jdaitken at sugar-land.oilfield.slb.com
> Cc: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
> Betreff: Re: [ RadSafe ] Salsman warning
>
> James Salsman wrote:
> I honestly do not know why people who I am sure are in favor of
> nuclear power don t explain that uranium is one of the reasons
> that coal is so dirty. Is it possible instead, or in addition,
> that they don t want people to know about high cancer rates
> in uranium miners?
>
> In a recent IAEA workshop for Stakeholder s Engagment plan for countries
> which are introducing NPPs for the first time, and the public relations
> excercise, I asked the top PR manager of one of the top US NPP management
> companies a similar question, what is your advice for us to handle nuclear
> opposition groups as we expect them to excert some pressure to stop our
> project?
>
> Her answer was that we want to avoid an endless futile discussions with
> nuclear opposition parties, and hence I advise you to just ignore them .
>
> I think this old ignore them approach is the easy, lower political risk
> method, but results are not guaranteed.
>
> Ahmad Al-Ani
>
> On Tue Apr 6th, 2010 11:37 PM AST James Salsman wrote:
>
>>On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 12:49 PM, Doug Aitken
>><jdaitken at sugar-land.oilfield.slb.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>... you now make the wonderfully illogical statement: " some in the HPS
>>> have become so accustomed to defending the use of pyrophoric depleted
>>> uranium munitions that they aren't willing or able to articulate the
> extent
>>> to which coal ash presents a more serious uranium contamination problem
>>> than nuclear reactor waste?"....
>>
>>I was asking the question "Is it possible that" some in the HPS have
>>become so accustomed....  I honestly do not know why people who I am
>>sure are in favor of nuclear power don't explain that uranium is one
>>of the reasons that coal is so dirty.  Is it possible instead, or in
>>addition, that they don't want people to know about high cancer rates
>>in uranium miners?
>>
>>> where is the evidence of this?
>>
>>Web searching finds dozens of examples of HPS members and official
>>documents claiming that uranium nephrotoxicity (toxicity to kidneys)
>>is the most important aspect of uranium toxicity.  The peer reviewed
>>research, on the other hand, says that the kidneys build up a
>>tolerance to uranium. (Pellmar, T.C., et al (1999) "Distribution of
>>uranium in rats implanted with depleted uranium pellets," Toxicol Sci,
>>vol. 49, pp. 29-39.)
>>
>>> And how have you connected these topics? In fact, it has been stated on
> this
>>> forum that the fly-ash of coal-fired power stations contains a reasonably
> high
>>> content of naturally-occurring radionuclides (to the point that it has
> been
>>> suggested that this fly-ash represents an interesting source of such
> nuclides:
>>> http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html ).
>>
>>They are connected that way, yes, but I've been complaining about
>>uranium contamination from coal power plants for many years; including
>>here on RadSafe.  The large coal ash slurry breaches a little over a
>>year ago focused more attention on the toxicology of coal ash.
>>
>>As for the relative economics of wind on a larger grid,
>>hydroelectricity, and pumped storage hydro, there is plenty of
>>documentation readily available, but none of it is really on topic
>>here.  (One interesting fact:  The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy
>>Information Administration assumes that the renewable tax credit will
>>never be renewed after 2012.  Seriously! Check out
>>http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/speeches/newell121409.pdf on page 21.)
>>
>>As for the historical economics of nuclear power, this document seems
>>accurate in that even when it is vociferously attacked, the attacks
>>usually amount to very small criticisms in terms of the accuracy
>>tolerance of the figures in its conclusions:
>>http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pd
> f
>>
>>Sincerely,
>>James Salsman
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