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Re: Nukes -- the Wrong Fix



Ho-hum.  Here we go again.
 
"But nuclear power presents a whole host of dangers that pose even more serious problems than fossil fuel."  None that we haven't known about and dealt with successfully for years.
 
 "Nuclear waste is recognized as the most dangerous substance known."  By whom?  Given a choice between a snootful of nuclear waste or a snootful of nerve gas, which would you choose?  The snootful of nuclear waste presents a slight possibility that you MAY develop cancer in 30 or so years.  The snootful of nerve gas guarantees you will be dead in 30 seconds.  Or how about the venom of a Coral snake?  One bite and you're probably gone.  Botulism?  The list goes on and on.  Nuclear anything is far from "the most dangerous substance on earth."
 
"nearly half of the nation's nuclear power plants failed to repel small groups of intruders on foot in "force-on- force" exercises"  And the point is what?  Penetrating the outer perimeter of a nuclear facility, or even penetrating into the control room does not threaten the integrity of the reactor.  The primary lesson learned from Three Mile Island is that humans cannot make enough mistakes (or in the case of terrorists, take enough deliberate actions) to overcome the multiple levels of safeguards built into American nuclear facilities.  So unless the terrorists happen to be carrying a nuclear weapon when they penetrate the facility, the reactor will survive.  And if the terrorists have a nuclear weapon, there are more effective places to detonate it than at a nuclear facility (downtown San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, to name a few).
 
"The industry recently convinced Congress to bury the problem in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, even though. . ."  And once again we see the same list the anti-Yucca forces have used for years.  It obviously hasn't convinced government decision makers or the U.S. Senate that Yucca Mtn is a problem, and no matter how many times the same arguments are used, they will be discounted. [If you keep doing the same thing every day, you will get the same result every day].
 
"Lynn Woolsey is the representative from the Sixth Congressional District and a member of the House Subcommittee on Energy."  Now that scares me more than Yucca Mtn or nuclear power - a representative sitting on the Subcommittee on Energy who thinks wind, geothermal and solar power can solve our future energy shortages.
 
Les Aldrich, CHP
laldrich@gte.net
 

----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2002 4:54 PM
Subject: Nukes -- the Wrong Fix

Echoes of the Energy Crisis
Nuclear power -- the wrong fix
Lynn Woolsey, Bernadette Del Chiaro
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/11/12
/ED177593.DTL
. . . .
Lynn Woolsey is the representative from the Sixth Congressional District
and a member of the House Subcommittee on Energy. Bernadette Del Chiaro is
the energy advocate for CalPIRG, the state environmental and consumer
advocacy organization.

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page A - 19

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