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Re: background vs man-made emmissions
And the reason you want to eliminate nuclear and coal is????? based on your options, I'm not sure I understand the net benefit..
Natural gas: average yearly REAL deaths from carbon monoxide poisioning as aresult of natural gas is about 900 per year in the US, not to mention the number of individuals injured or killed from natural gas explosions every year. These are real deaths, not speculative deaths. Not to mention the contribution to global warming from carbon dioxide as a result of burning of natural gas...more natural gas means more natural gas lines.. and nobody wants a natural gas line in their backyard....
wind: how many ecosystems are you willing to destroy to install enough windmills to power the US? do you knowhow many birds are killed each year by windmills?? is it ok to kill hundreds of thousands of birds per year in order to use windmills?
solar: it would take an area in the California desert, about 3/4 the size of NY state to provide enough solar power to fuel the U.S.. Solar panels contain hazardous and toxic chemicals and solar panels need to be replaced every few years. Because they tend not to grow naturally, we will need an infrastructure to maintain these panels, produce these panels and transport these panels and dispose of these panels as they are replaced. Lots of hazardous waste being generated here... . Unfortunately, there is only so much intensity per square foot from the sun, so we are left with the need for thousands and thousands and thousands of solar panels.. or we can give up lights at night, and restricted uses of electricity...
fuel cells: these are batteries...haz-mat ... lots and lots of toxic and hazardous chemicals...with no half-life..which means they stick around for a long long time.....
wave: as the problem with solar, there is only a finite amount of energy available from waves.......how do we decide what ocean ecosystem we are going to destroy to enable us to have the power we want to watch televison and cook with a microwave??
we need conservation, we need to be smart with our uses of electricity and power....but your options are very costly in terms of impact on the environment... nuclear is clean, infact the increased capacity of nuclear generating stations has helped the Clinton Administration meet a lot of their reduced CO2 goals... nuclear is efficient. nuclear is safe.
I'm certainly open to alternative ideas, but nothing you've presented makes sense on a country wide or global scale. help me out here Norm, explain to me what the benefits are from closing nuclear and using natural gas.... or solar or wind..... or better yet, tell me what the AMerican population is willing to give up so that we can use natural gas (limited supply) or the other alternative power sources. and tell me who is it, who will decide which life forms are more important than others and which eco-systems we can completely destroy in order to have solar power....
Your arugments agains nuclear are based on statistical, hypothetical, calculated, possible deaths in 20 years.. you can't find anyone in the US who can say definitively, "Yes my cancer was caused by nuclear power".. you can however, count the bodies from natural gas deaths... and in some natural gas explosions, you sometimes get lucky enough to find some bodyparts...
Patricia Milligan Sullivan, CHP
pxm@nrc.gov
>>> Norman & Karen Cohen <norco@bellatlantic.net> 05/01 2:47 PM >>>
Short term - a phase out of nuclear and coal, replaced by natural gas. Long term - real investments in all of the alternatives out there, from wind to solar to hydro to wave to fuel cells. As well as a real commitment to efficiency. This is really more of a national policy question - whether we as a country have or can get the necessary will to make these changes.
norm
Patricia Milligan wrote:
> Hi Norm,
> Just a quick question... what are the safer forms of energy production that you would like to see implemented in this country?
> thanks!
> Patricia Milligan Sullivan, CHP
> pxm@nrc.gov
>
>
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