Re: Gigatons CO2 vs. radwaste disposal?-

[RadiumProj@cs.com]

In a message dated 10/9/00 3:03:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
NeilKeeney@aol.com writes:

> Geez, I feel better now.
>  
>  This is all my opinion and my reality and you'd have a hard time swaying 
me 
>  from it...
>  
>  Neil Keeney
>  neilkeeney@aol.com
=====
Neil:
I'm the last person who would try and sway you from your opinions, expressed 
in your post. I think everything you wrote is exceedingly sensible. Your 
comment about the developed countries like the US failing to cut its gross 
overconsumption of fossil fuels vs. what it was capable of achieving with 
nuclear power generation is a key point raised by leaders of the Western 
industrialized nations back in early 1979. France's Prime Minister at the 
time, Giscard d'Estaing in a summit on energy pleaded with the US that it to 
do more to develop the US's own nuclear power generation and reduce US demand 
for fossil fuels. Instead our country has cancelled hundreds of nuclear power 
plant units and continued to import more and more oil. Meanwhile France, a 
country reknowned internationally for its agriculture and wineries,  has over 
60 nuclear units operating in a country 80% the size of Texas, cutting its 
oil imports dramatically, reducing its air pollution, and no longer being 
over a barrel having to placate Mideast oil interests for oil concessions 
driven by excess domestic demand. 

Being beholden to another country for your energy has major strategic 
implications for any nation.  Don't forget that prior to France doing what it 
has done since the late 1970s on nuclear power plant construction & 
operations, they greatly depended on Arab oil imports. Because of this 
dependendence in the 1970s,  France felt obligated to supply Saddam Hussein 
the Osirak nuclear test reactor, and similarly Germany supplied Hussein the 
advanced hot cells to reprocess the spent fuel from the reactor, which 
Hussein had vowed to used in producing Iraq's own nuclear weapon's. Were it 
not for Israel's having the willingness to go it alone, and destroy the 
Osirak reactor just before it went critical, Saddam would have been producing 
several nuclear weapons a year with the plutonium he could have extracted 
from Osirak. There is an excellent book on the destruction of Osirak called 
"First Strike" written by a former Israeli Intelligence Director which tells 
the story of the destruction of Osirak by the Israeli air force and the 
geopolitics of what led up to it.

In the past 20 years the higher cost of crude oil to the third world caused 
in part by our actions in increasing demand, has doomed millions to 
starvation due to crushing debt, and lack of oil and petrochemicals to 
support and develop their backward economies. The environmental movement will 
eventually have to answer why it was  more concerned about theoretical risks 
to health from a fraction of a milliRem [10 microSv] 10,000 years in the 
future from nuclear waste disposal, while real people die from lack of 
affordable energy across Africa, or thousands die in Bangladesh from floods 
due to monsoons made worse by global warming. 

Perhaps Norm Cohen, active in the Salem shutdown effort in NJ, who asked so 
many seemingly concerned questions to Radsafe a few months ago could lend his 
perspective on these important questions. And before someone like Norm says 
we don't use much oil in power generation and that all we have to do is 
develop electric cars to reduce oil imports, where are electric cars going to 
get their electricity. Solar cells? Windmills? Methane from dumps or chicken, 
cow, and hog manure? 

Hey Neil, geez' I feel better now too.

Stewart Farber, MSPH Air Pollution Control
[802] 496-3356
email: radiumproj@cs.com
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