Re: nuclear safety groups?- UCS

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

Thanks, Stewart.  I had a similar experience recently with a nuclear engineering professor(!) at U. of New Mexico, who claimed that the Sandia mixed waste landfill (that the local anti-nukes are now after) contained hundreds of curies of radiolithium from 40 years of landfilling.  So I looked up lithium in my handy dandy Chart of the Nuclides and pointed out that the longest-lived radioisotope of Li had a half life of 0.84 seconds.  He stared fixedly at the floor while I pointed this out, and corrected his statement in his final report without ever acknowledging his mistake.


If UCS were really interested in safety, and were really scientific in their approach, they would neither nitpick nor distort as they do, including distorting the aims of the organization.  They could, for example, perfectly well have pointed out the difference between a nuclear plant containment and the World Trade Center (as could NRC...).  Above all, they would quit distorting the so-called dangers of spent fuel transportation.


I just wish this attitude weren't called "liberal."  "Liberal" is not a synonym for "anti-nuke" or "Junk scientist."  I still consider myself a social liberal -- very much so -- a supporter of the social contract, an opponent of tax cuts for corporations, and above all, I agree with FDR, who said something to the effect that a nation is not judged by how it treates its wealthy but by how it treats its poor.  Can't we just call them "anti-nuke" or even "anti-science?" 


Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com