Re: 60 minutes - Yucca Mountain

[BERNARD L COHEN <blc+@PITT.EDU>]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 RuthWeiner@AOL.COM wrote:

> Because I am very familiar with the project, I recognize the bias and

 distortion in the program.  It makes me wonder about the 60 minutes and similar

 programs for which I am not so familiar with the subject matter.  Are they

 really biased also?  I think they probably are.



	--"60 minutes" has a long history of bias against nuclear energy.

One of the worst was a segment on the 1957 explosion in the waste

storage facility at the Soviet nuclear weapons complex in Siberia. Their

expert was Ralph Nader, who claimed that a similar event could occur in

U.S. doing similar damage!! I don't think he knows that U.S. handles waste

much more cautiosly, and the millions of viewers were not told that.

	I had a confrontation with the 60 Minutes producer, Don Hewitt,

when we both spoke on reactor safety at a AAAS meeting. Before our

session, we had lunch together, including his wife, who seemed

especially interested in the subject. It was quite friendly.

   But in the session, after I spoke, he showed a movie which

claimed that a single incompetent welder could easily cause a disaster.

  I didn't have a chance to respond there, but I sent him a lot

of info on the inspection procedures and lots of other measures to protect

against incompetent welding, but he never responded.

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