Re: More Greenpeace intervention

["Frank "Free Spirit" Borger" <frank@rover.bsd.uchicago.edu>]

> From:          sweis <sweis@roadrunner.com>
> To:            Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
> Subject:       Re: More Greenpeace intervention
> 
> It seems that the realized cost of nuclear power has gone from too cheap to
> meter, to 10 cents/kwhr, to 15 cents/kwhr, to.......?? Any guesses what
> nuclear power really costs? A guess is all anyone could offer.
> 
	Try just the opposite. By ORNL's calculations, (and other
	varied studies,) our current main energy source, coal, contributes
	100 times as much radiation burden to the biosphere as do all
	the nuclear reactors,  without considering the impact the plants
	have on our atmosphere. (Im biased, since my asthma is bothered
	a lot more by conventional fules than by nuclear reactors.) Were
	coal plants regulated the way nuclear plants are,  they would
	be high-cost sources too.

> I believe that the implementation of nuclear power was a tragic and costly
> historical mistake. I also believe that if all the research, money, and
> political and military support that went into developing nuclear power, went
> into the development of sustainable energy(solar, wind,...)

	I remember as a kid reading  Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll"
	where our society was transformed by cheap solar power.
	Unfortunately, if you do the math on how much energy  per
	square foot is actually available,  even at 100% efficiency Heinlein's
	fiction is pure fiction for most of the populated US. Cover half
	of Nevada with solar screens and you may power Vegas and
	Reno, but what about night-time power?

	Same thing for wind power.  Nice idea. But if you plug in the cold,
	hard numbers into the equations, and even assume some magical
	discovery lets you get conversion efficiencies in the 90% range,
	the raw power just isn't there. Convienient geographical features
	such as oceans and mountain ranges in relative close proximity
	that combine to provide strong, steady wind sources don't occur
	in much of the US, (except in Chicago and Congress.)

	Hydro? As a recent poster from Canada put it, America seems
	bound and determined to dam every possible moving bit of water.
	We're already using most of the significant hydro power in the
	US, but we see a lot of environmental effects. Wonder why
	Greenpeace doesn't pick on our dams more?

	Face it. All our power sources have significant "other" effects
	that must be dealt with, (even the supposedly green ones, like
	wind and sun-power.) By my estimation, Nuclear power has
	the cleanest record.

	 (Yes,  people died at Chernobyl, but outside my window at 
	is a disaster site with a death toll far beyond the actual radiation-
	induced death toll from Chernobyl. Anybody on the list  able
	to come up with what I'm referring to? )

	When the GreenPeace groups and the Ralph Naders of this world
	stop making tons of money off environmental issues, THEN I
	will start listening seriously to their protestastions.

Frank R. Borger - Physicist - Center for Radiation Therapy
net: Frank@rover.uchicago.edu   ph: 312-791-8075 fa: 791-3697

"One third of the rats were improved on the experimental
medication, one third remained the same, and the other one
third could not be reported on, because that rat got away."
- Edwin Bidwell Wilson