This is hysterical:
exiled wrote on Jun 23, 2008 9:26 PM:
" There's nothing like a bunch of lay-people arguing about nuclear power. "
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I am not sure about that. Many people have educated themselves about nuclear power and for some reason, the so called experts expect us to leave it all to them. I think that must be especially scary in the US where nuclear plants are operated by private companies!
ReplyDeleteI am very much opposed to nukes and have been all my adult life. And not because some person convinced me or because I am some true believer.
I am a scientist who has subscribed since I was 16 to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and studied nuclear power as much as I could. Many of the anti nuke books are written by peple who come FROM the industry. Yes, there are those who might lack the scientific degrees but imho that does not make them any less knowledgeable. Take Ralph Nader for example - tho I do wish he'd stop running for Pres, lol (IIt's hard to know whether Al Gore would have won in 2000 if Nader had not been in that race but he certainly did not help, sigh! I have heard he is a difficult man to work for (My one time bf (in Boston) once spent a summer as an intern there) and he is a loner type but there is no doubt that he has accomplished and proved that the typical citizen can take on the govt. Think of all the safety issues he has helped with.
I once attended a speech by him where he opined that when people who become involved in any issue- say animal rights for example but there are any number of issues we have out there - inevitable arrive at the same conclusion. That it is necessary to be political in some manner to accomplish goals - I note this was some 15 yrs ago before he ever became involved in partisan politics which I don't believe is suited to him.
There are also the excellent books , "We Almiost Lost Detroit" which chronicles how a couple workmen (and they were men) constructing a scary breeder reactor (these actually create plutonium, the most carcinogenic product known to humans) and it was even named after Enrico Fermi, the famous scientist. almost succeeded in destroying the city of Detroit and environs when a top of a pop (or soda depending on where you live -:)) landed in the wrong part of the reactor.
Several of the best books- Perils of the Peaceful Atom among others - are written by people who know very well what they are writing about. I think debate is needed but I do hope people inform themselves before debating.
I once made an impassioned speech (one of my 1st public ones since I was a teenager) to an audience in a body cast if you can imagine (I was recuperating from spinal surgery) about the horrors of nuclear power - and this was before Three Mile island and the Urals' incident (which is documented but not talked about much but much worse than Chernoble)and my qualifications were negligible. I was a concerned citizen who had studied the issue and knew from studies that anyone who lives near a nuclear plant has a higher chance of developing cancer. For the record, the plant was built elsewhere BUT not because of the environmental group I was in - it was more due to political patronage and I would have wished it not built at all. It is still too close for comfort!
However, I won't debate that here. I look at the work of the group Another Mother for Peace (a US group) who have collected millions of baby teeth and have shown how every boomer - ALL of us- and I just barely make the boomer group but I am there - have strontium 90 in our teeth due to all the atomic testing in the desert. Think of the people of Bimini Island and others who were bombed to death or lived lives of cancers and genetic mutations galore. They were not scientists but they showed the world what this nuclear proliferation could do! Even Albert Einstein was opposed to it omnce he realized what his work had helped to unleash and he and a plethora of colleagues wrote to the president of the day imploring him NOT to use the atomic bomb. Those laymen were the ones who needed to debate and did not, sigh!
Read John Hersey's acclaimed book about Hiroshima (It is short, maybe 10 pages if that). There is also one called Rain People or something like that - I'll find the name - have it here somewhere, lol - and they both document how needless and horrifying sending the Enola Gay and the 2nd bomb were. The Allies were winning the war - it was a rout at that point yet they had to experiment with the bomb - mostly to make profits for the arms manufacturers who are the only winners in war.
Anyway- I am off my soapbox. I have definite opinions on the subject, lol (Plus, 25 yrs agp, we were discussing energy options yet neither Canada or the US did anything but talk and now we are no further ahead. Brazil started at that time to use a certain way to develop sugar that runs cars and they need no fuel imports. Pun intended, that sounds like a sweet deal to me! :-)
I should not that John Hersey's book is about 100 pages, not 10, lol (I know, I am not the best typist - I forsake typing for science in high school).
ReplyDeleteThe other book I mentioned is actually Black Rain. There are two - one if a 1965 fictional account but based on reality and the other an exploration of the dropping of the bombs on his country by a Japanese writer.
I demonstrated at Trojan when a teen, also, concerned about the longevity of nuclear waste and there being no plan as for what to do with it, long term.
ReplyDeleteHere's the big problem. We Americans gulp energy like there is no tomorrow. So, fuel prices are skyhigh. What will replace fossil fuels, oil, in other words, because the price is fast becoming prohibitive for much of our poorer population. The US pretends no hardship is great enough for the poor here, who deserve hardship although no one else does. That is because we have failed at pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, so to speak, although the same party so adament that the poor do for themselves because we're failures, will sacrifice the country to save Iraq, who can't possibly "do for themselves". It's ironic, in so many ways.
Anyhow, I believe, as energy becomes more and more expensive, it will be the poor here sacrificed while others go on like nothing is going on.
Sadly, I think you are right about that but in the end, it will hit everyone.
ReplyDeleteCanada is no better tho some try to pretend we are. We have too many nuclear plants and we have sold nuclear technology to India (a Candu reactor) which imho was a terrible thing to do. The US gets as much fuel from Canada as it does Saudi Arabia but it seems as tho many ppl are not aware of that. That said, that again is fossil fuels so ppl in the west - where much of our fossil fuels are - suffer the consequences in terms of pollution. I do think we at least are a democracy and cannot understand why since we are pumping out oil so much now, the US severs its ties with the Saudis - who have funded so much of the terrorism in the middle east (Keep in mind 19 of the hijackers on 911 were from there!) - and who treat women as if they did npt exist (I went there onxce as part of a delegation from our hospital and was told if I refused to wear a veil , I could be jailed. hmmphh! Yet I did meet some wonderful women doctors there - such a contradiction. They hate that they are not allowed to drive yet they can be a surgeon! Yet a demonstration would likely mean the end of that. It has fewer human rights than Cuba which has superb medicine and treats women very well.) I just do not get that dichotomy!
Shale oil, you mean, from Canada? I know we import a lot of shale oil, but I didn't know we import a lot of crude, from wells, from Canada. I know a lot of lumber we now import from Canada, something about it being cheaper, which has shut down a lot of mills.
ReplyDeleteOur bedmates, the Saudi's, treat women horrifically and not only spawn and breed terrorists, but treat their own people in many cases, with torture, beheadings, beatings of women who have been raped, just horrible. And we can hardly forget where Bin Laden hails from originally either. But we cozy with them. After 911, when no American was allowed to fly, because a no fly order was issued for the whole country, who gets to fly? A Saudi prince gets to fly out and home to Saudi Arabia. Why? I don't have any clue. OUr government too has forgotten it is here to serve Americans and not for the benefit of corrupt politicians. The power involved in high government office must be so seductive that it can cause people to lose it, completely. Either that, or the power attracts the wrong type of individual in the first place. I don't know which, or maybe it's both.
Crude yes. Actually, the US imports daily the EXACT amount of oil from Saudi Arabia as it does Canada. We are one of the highest oil producing nations in the world and we are democracy, do not belong to OPEC and are a friend to the US. So I often wonder why everyone thinks the Saudis are so wonderful (being sarcastic here) when it comes to oil.
ReplyDeleteThe current oil production is easier than some of the up and coming stuff up north - which will be more expensive to bring in - but gheez, it nest door, not around the world and I believe democracies should support one another.
Then again, when one reads Damniel Yergin's (sp?) The Prize, one finds an excellent history of the oil indutrsy which is essentially a history of the world. It is a fascinating book ad of you have time, look for it at a library. If you can't find it, I may have two copies. (Tho it would cost mopre to ship than what it cost me to buy, heheh mainly because it is a BIG book). There was a PBS series based on the book as well and I never saw that but I wonder if there is an accompanying web site? Hmmm..
btw, Yergin - whose name I can never spell - won the Pulitzer prize the year he wrote the book. It is truly one of the most informative books I have ever read and I LOVE history books. (They take me away from the sad parts of my work) I am also a critical reader so that is saying something - It is so much better than that opportunistic one from the 60's- The Seven Sisters which is about the oil COMPANIES. Yergin writes about oil - where it was 1st discovered in the US (and how that happened), JD Rockefeller's role- what we did before with the fellow who invented kerosene - who comes from the same place I do (and I never knew that until I read that book - history texts in school are sooo inexclusive, ie they give the basics and that is IT, no wonder people are not as informed as they should be). Then he traces the role of oil in the various wars and other worldly events - how really so much of our history revolves around it. He is an American but makes no apologies for his country. (Canada is no Saint either - the overthrows of govts like Iran and Iraq- thow they took ovr the Ottoman empire and now we have this mess- and he wrote the book in 1991!!
I'd love to see a sequel! If you want to know anything at all about oil ad how we got to where we are now, that is the one book to read. There are others that one should also read but if one could only tread one, this would be IT.
Going to search for the PBS series- probably long gone from their server.
Here is the book:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Prize-Epic-Quest-Money-Power/dp/0671799320
I can't seem to find the PBS series- must be too old but here is his latest book which I must find.
The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy