Power probe looks to Jovian moons

[bigtree]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3302947.stm

Scientists have been giving details of a proposed US mission to the moons of Jupiter that may possibly support life - Europa, Callisto and Ganymede.

The huge probe, which would visit each in turn to study sub-surface oceans, will need to be powered by a nuclear reactor and this may be controversial.

The US space agency calls the concept craft the Jupiter Icy Moons obiter. The Galileo mission that came to an end earlier this year produced tantalising hints that Europa, Ganymede and Callisto might have oceans of liquid water below their ice-crusted surfaces.

One of the unusual requirements of the probe is that it will have to jump from moon to moon. This, Nasa says, will require far more energy than for any previous craft, and the only feasible power source is an on-board nuclear fission reactor to drive an electric propulsion system.

That's the official story: Let's go explore Jupiter's moons. Never mind the soldiers at war. Never mind the growing ranks of jobless poor Americans.

Oh, and by the way. We'll need to employ a nuclear propulsion system. That's right. Nuclear. But don't worry. It's perfectly harmless. It's all part of the safe end of nuclear technology.

And just imagine: Jupiter's moons! Woo!

Here's my view of this nuclear space madness-


What’s actually behind the White House's hawking of this space mission is their desire to promote and legitimize the industry's new nuclear propulsion technology needed to support such a mission. That would be another in a long list of moneymaking boondoggles for the aerospace industry.

To develop and demonstrate these new nuclear power and propulsion technologies, President Bush's budget proposes $279 million; ($3 billion over five years) for Project Prometheus, which builds on the Nuclear Systems Initiative started last year.

Project Prometheus includes the development of the first nuclear-electric space mission, called the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. This mission will conduct extensive, in-depth studies of the moons of Jupiter that may harbor subsurface oceans. Only advanced nuclear reactors could provide the hundreds of kilowatts of power the craft would need.

Included in NASA plans for the nuclear rocket to Mars; a new generation of Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) for interplanetary missions; nuclear-powered robotic Mars rovers to be launched in 2003 and 2009. NASA touts future mining colonies on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids that would be powered by nuclear reactors.


The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science. Additional science partners are located at the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and JPL.

The Prometheus Project is based on an archaic notion that began in the '50's with a space project named Orion.

Project Orion was a propulsion system that depended on exploding atomic bombs roughly two hundred feet behind the space vehicle.

Orion was developed at the old General Dynamics Corporation, under the guidance of several former Manhattan Project scientists.

In the late 1950's, Freeman Dyson, physicist, educator, and author, joined the Orion Project research team. The project’s participants proposed exploding atomic bombs at regular intervals at very short distances behind a specially designed space ship in order to propel it to the Moon and other planets in the Solar System far more quickly and cheaply than with chemical-fuel rockets.

The motto for Orion was, 'Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970'; hauntingly reminiscent of the administration's line about Project Prometheus exploring Mars and Europa's moons.

Orion ran out of money and needed the government's help. The military agreed to take up the project, but only on the condition that it adapt itself to a military purpose. The project was later abandoned because of uncertainty about the safety and efficacy of nuclear energy, and the high cost of the speculative program. Also, because the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 outlawed it.

"Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich," Dyson, 76, said, as he received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion 2000. Dyson once commented that, "Project Orion is a monument to those who once believed, or still believe, in turning the power of these weapons into something else."

Since the 1960s there have been eight space nuclear power accidents by the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, several of which released deadly plutonium into the Earth's atmosphere. In April, 1964 a U.S. military satellite with 2.1 pounds of plutonium-238 on-board fell back to Earth and burned up as it hit the atmosphere spreading the toxic plutonium dust, God knows where.

In 1997 NASA launched the Cassini space probe carrying 72 pounds of plutonium that fortunately did not experience failure. If it had, hundreds of thousands of people around the world could have been contaminated. During the Cassini RTG fabrication process at Los Alamos 244 cases of worker contamination were reported to the DoE.

Mum to all of that, the White House wants you to know that the nuclear space project will prove new technologies for future NASA missions. Like space-based weaponry.

The decision by U.S. President George W. Bush to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty allows research beneficial to orbiting space-based lasers as part of a global missile defense shield to resume; orbiting space lasers on permanent space platforms.

Despite the administration and industry talk of Europa's moons, the Prometheus Project will pave the way for the original Pentagon plan to mount nuclear reactors on space-based platforms to power their nuclear lasers.

And of course, as the Space Command also asserts, “. . . the United States must also have the capability to deny America's adversaries the use of commercial space platforms, for military purposes”

Enough! This Promethus project is a cynical attempt to commit the nation to Rumsfeld's Star War's nonsense. Bush and Europa's moons:

I don't believe them! This is the foot in the door for their space platform race.

A space-based laser system would only encourage other nations to build space-nukes to counter ours. The move to expand this type of weaponry will almost certainly provoke a space-based weapon war.

Maybe we can shoot this crazy laser down before then.

[Snow]

1. There was a fascinating novel a few years back -

intelligent beings from another part of the universe take over earth, earth mostly capitulates but underground resistance develops, cobbles together fighter space ship hidden in Bellingham WA harbor - and the thing has an Orion drive. The description of the ride in that sucker is quite something. Real lively acceleration.

[bigtree]

2. JOVIAN SPACE NEWS SERVICE- Interplanetary Edition

Serving the Jovian moons of Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.
Space Travelers Come in Peace; Turned Back, Nonetheless.

(Europa) Today marked two historic firsts for Europa. Space travelers from a distant planet, believed by many to be uninhabitable because of its toxic atmosphere, locked into our planet's orbit and were quickly intercepted by our interplanetary space patrol.

The travelers are apparently the first-ever recorded visitors to Europa from a planet far beyond our tri-planet system.

The travelers reportedly communicate by projecting the air into the other's orifices in modulated waves. All attempts by the patrol to connect with their inner voice have encountered only static and clutter, making communication difficult if not impossible.

The interplanetary patrol also encountered another first in their encounter with the travelers which was met with much alarm as the patrol reported their discovery to the interplanetary council.

Apparently, the traveler's spacecraft is powered, in part, by a nuclear reactor system. According to Europan law, concentrated radioactive devices have been extremely prohibited since the planet lost its natural atmosphere from the misuse of these materials.

The travelers were regrettably forced out of orbit and are assumed to be returning to their native planet, perhaps to perish in the toxic haze which covers their
dying home.

[brainshrub]

3. Trip to Jupiter, good idea.

Useing nuclear power NOT a good idea. Here's the quick reason why:

Assume there is life on Europa. A nuclear-powered craft might poison everything within 20 miles.

[NNadir]

7. Plutonium-238 is insoluble. Apollo 13's lunar lander crashed into the

the earth with about 20 kg. I haven't noticed the end of life on earth. Has anyone else?

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/9908/msg00329.html

This is pretty typical stuff, use the word "nuclear" as a scare tactic. The word is worse than the practice. Plutonium is just not that toxic unless it is transported directly into tissues. This is rare, owing to the fact that most of the metal's compounds, including the oxide, are insoluble and do not dissolve. Plutonium is not absorbed by the gastrointenstinal tract, and though eating it would result in exposure, it would quickly be shat away. The chief means of suffering the profound radiotoxicity from it is to inhale the dust, something that happens under very rare circumstances, like open air nuclear explosions. Even under these conditions, it takes years for Lung Cancer to result. I note that the very first person to make and see plutonium (and for that matter a boatload of other elements), Glenn Seaborg, lived to be nearly ninety, keeping an active scientific career going into his eighties. I would also like to note that there are thousands of people in the world who spent much of their lives with plutonium-238 powered pacemakers with no apparent health effects.

The choice is pretty stark. Remain a prisoner of our ignorance in service to our fear, or simply have the sense to extend human vision. There are a hell of a lot of less noble things that humans do than extending our vision. I can think of millions of things that ordinary people do that is far more dangerous than Cassini ever was, even in our wildest imaginations.

[bigtree]

9. my main complaint is with the nuclear waste

Any other argument against these space boondogles is fine with me.
You seem willing to risk others well being for some dreamy space mission. Will you vouch for all of the risks to the community, the nuclear plant workers,and the environment?

Where is the fuel for these nuclear adventures to be produced? In your neighborhood?

There are more than 100 operating nuclear power plants in America and 16 non-operational power plants. The electricity produced by these plants provide the U.S. with only 20% of our electricity needs. That 20% could easily be made up by any combination of alternative sources.

Most of the supporters of nuclear energy would be loath to place their homes and their families directly in the way of the negative effects of production.

By the time the fuel is converted into some neat package, millions in the community, in the nation and even the world could suffer the negative effects of its production.

We go to a gas station for our fuel. On the land where it is produced, the effects are devastating. One accident can mean death and destruction to the people or to the environment.

This is no idle musing. Nuclear power is not safe, as the industry supporters claim. The waste is not manageable in a way which will protect future generations from the effects of exploitation, misuse, or mishaps.

It's hard to be intellectual about nuclear energy when so many innocent people suffer the effects of its production. These plants are placed in areas where the people are poor and unable to defend against the intellectuals and space buffs.

These plants are presented as job creators for these community's weak economies. They become dependent on the revenue, and can't count on the proponents who sold them these nuclear plants to regulate them in a way that would put the public's welfare ahead of profit.

Try to shut down a plant once it is in operation. Try to stop the exploitation of the material after it is produced. Try to clean up the inevitable mess to the environment. How about we don't do this dance again? How about putting the nuclear monster back into Pandora's Box?

This raw ambition for nuclear power meshes perfectly with conservative tripe about the primacy of industry: "Damn the public. To hell with land, I don't live there. To hell with the people, they aren't me."

In the communities where the land has been poisoned, the people who have to live there and work in these plants know full well that the risks of nuclear production outweigh any benefit from electrical power.

The Government Accountability Project contends that 67 workers were exposed between January 2002 and August 2003 to toxic vapors escaping from tanks that hold radioactive wastes from the production of nuclear weapons.

The watchdog group reports that scores of Hanford nuclear reservation workers have been exposed to toxic vapors as the government pushes for faster and cheaper cleanups of wastes.

Until there is a change in the White House or in the control of Congress, it is folly to expect that the worst won't happen, or that we will be able to stuff all of the planned nuclear expansion back into some benign box.

It is immoral and wrong for this administration to hide their nuclear ambitions and proceed as if they had won the debate over the acceptability of nuclear power, when in fact no such public debate has occurred.

[NNadir]

23. Responses

Answer to question 1: Yes. The risk of nuclear non-war nuclear operations is vanishingly small. Millions of people are killed each year in non-nuclear energy operations in the United States, whereas no one has demonstrably been killed my nuclear operations in the United States. The same is true for environmental degradation. The environment is generally not degraded by nuclear operations. It is incredibly degraded by non-nuclear energy operations, including by the way biomass burning, which releases power carcinogens in the form of benzopyrans from the oxidative degradation of carbohydrates. (Wood stoves are actually fairly toxic, when compared to a nuclear plant.)

Question 2: I personally would be happy to have a nuclear plant in my yard. It is infinitely preferable to its alternatives. The British Journal of Cancer (1999) 79, 1288-1301 published a report showing that nuclear workers at the Sellafield plant in the UK had lower cancer rates than did workers in the rest of the country. This may be due to the much discussed possibility of the existance of hormesis (suggesting that living next to a nuclear plant might be good for you) or, more probably in my opinion, simply being remote from dangerous pollutants caused by non-nuclear operations.

Your silly 20% comment: Yes, we could generate 20% of our power by other means. However, we will have to kill people to do so, for reasons implied above.

Your sillier waste comments: Can you indicate a readily available form of energy that has an absolutely "safe" waste profile. If nuclear power is not safe as you claim, can you indicate a form of energy that is safer? Before you answer with some nonsense about solar cells (which BTW I support, as they are safer than coal and oil and biomass), maybe you would like to discuss the biochemistry of Cadmium.) As you are an expert in the dangers of nuclear waste: Will you please tell me where in the United States, anyone has been killed by "Nuclear Waste?" Then will you explain to me the equilibrium condition between the fission yield of Cerium-144, it's neutron capture cross section, and its decay constant can be used to calculate the maxima for this particular waste if the entire earth's energy needs in 2050 (roughly 1000 exajoules) was obtained by nuclear fission. After doing this calculation, maybe you can give the value for that maxima.

(Yes, that's right boy's and girls, nuclear "waste" is the only form of waste that has a maximum value, since it decays at the same time it's being created. Try getting biomass residue and coal ash to do that.)

You claim you are concerned with the land. Have you ever looked at a geological survey map of mercury contamination levels in soils throughout the United States. Have you ever considered what that map would look like if 100% of the US electrical energy was provided by nuclear plants rather than the current grid which depends on 40-50% coal?

We have nuclear plants right here in New Jersey, on the Jersey shore. Millions of people visit these areas each year with no apparent health effects. It is certainly not a poor disadvantaged area, not with homes nearby selling for millions of dollars. I frequent some restaurants with nice views of the cooling towers. I feel warm and fuzzy when I see them, and it's not related to radiation. It's from the warm glow I get from seeing the risks to the environment being minimized. The food's pretty good. You ought to try it.

These anti-nuclear claims of yours are rote reproductions that grow more and more ridiculous as reactor-years of experience with nuclear energy add up. Nuclear energy saves lives. Nuclear energy has less environmental impact than it's competitors, something we will find very, very, very, very graphically in the next decades as the Greenhouse effect kicks in seriously.

As for space, I am sorry that you find this important scientific missions "dreamy". I can see you have no use for science, but I really can't say that I find you particularly inspirational. As for the risk, I see you have ignored my remarks on the "disaster" of Apollo 13's plutonium on earth. Where exactly are those millions of dead bodies you report?

[bigtree]

24. I've blown my top. On to the links

SELLAFIELD-

Community contamination:

SELLAFIELD AS HEAVILY CONTAMINATED WITH RADIOACTIVITY AS CHERNOBYL
http://archive.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/nucreprocess/1998oct9.html
The area around the Sellafield reprocessing plant (UK) is as heavily contaminated with radioactivity as the zone around the stricken Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine. This is the conclusion emerging from the analyses of soil samples from both are as commissioned by Greenpeace to the University of Bremen (1).

The University of Bremen analysed the samples taken by Greenpeace in the area around Chernobyl. A comparison with radioactive pollution in the area around the UK reprocessing plant at Sellafield leads to the alarming conclusion that some of the figures for radioactivity at Sellafield are even higher than those for the Chernobyl area.

'Sellafield is a slow-motion Chernobyl, an accident played out over the last four decades', said Mike Townsley of Greenpeace International. "While an area of 30km radius around Chernobyl is prohibited access for people and any agricultural activity, there are no such restrictions around Sellafield".

Security concerns:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/apr2000/nuke-a19.shtml

The Irish government is reluctantly edging towards taking legal moves against the British Sellafield nuclear site.

A series of health and radiation surveys have pointed to Sellafield being an ongoing health hazard for people living in much of Ireland, as it is to those living and working near the site. All liquid waste discharged from the plant ends up in the Irish Sea and nuclear waste is also transported across it. A serious accident at Sellafield could shower Ireland with radioactive fallout.

A 1998 survey by the Green Audit Irish Sea Research Group, undertaken after a lack of comprehensive data undermined a court case brought by private individuals against BNFL, focussed on coastal areas in Wales believed to be affected similarly to the Irish coast. There are no national cancer statistics maintained in Ireland. The Welsh survey revealed that between 1974 and 1989 children living close to the Irish Sea were on average 4.6 times more likely to contract leukaemia. The statistics also showed a reduction in risk as the distance from the seashore increased. The suggestion was that, with high levels of radionuclides in the Irish Sea, seashore spray could carry radioactive particles several kilometres inland.

The Irish Times ran an interview in 1999 with Alan Mullen (aged 41) who was dying from kidney, prostate, stomach and liver cancers, normally only seen in much older men. Born at the time of the 1957 fire, Mullen comes from Louth, Dundalk, which is just 60 miles from Sellafield. The area has a cancer rate 12 percent higher than the Irish average. Out of a population of only 3,000, 76 died of cancer over a three-year period. Mullen called for the entire Louth district to be classified as an environmental disaster area.

NEW JERSEY-

Community contamination:

STATISTICS LINK INFANT MORTALITY, NEW JERSEY NUCLEAR PLANTS
AmeriScan: June 15, 1999
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news/ens41.htm

A new study has found statistical connections between the two Salem Nuclear Plants in New Jersey and infant mortality in Salem County from the time the reactors first went on-line until at least the early 1990s. In 13 of 16 years since 1977, while infant death rates were going down in the rest of New Jersey, infant death rates were going up in Salem County. However, in 1994 through 1996 when the Salem plants were largely or completely shutdown, infant death rates were lower than the 1977 levels. Similar results are also found on the rate of stillborn children, said study author Joseph Mangano, research associate with the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), a nonprofit educational and scientific organization established by scientists and physicians dedicated to understanding the relationships between low-level nuclear radiation and public health. "This startling finding is one more reason why the Salem Nukes should be shut down," said Norm Cohen, coordinator for the UNPLUG Salem Campaign of the Coalition for Peace and Justice. Cohen urged New Jersey families to send their children’s baby teeth to Operation Tooth Fairy, an RPHP program using teeth from around the country to help gauge radiation exposures in different locations.


Security concerns:
http://www.southjerseynews.com/issues/october/m100401a.htm

The thick concrete domes surrounding the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear reactors here are built to resist hurricanes and tornadoes and other natural disasters. But questions surround whether they could withstand the type of jetliner crashes that toppled the World Trade Center.

"They really were not designed to withstand acts of war," federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said this week.

But what are the risks that an attack on the Salem/Hope Creek complex, the nation's second-largest nuclear facility, could produce a reactor meltdown or a widespread release of radiation?
And would such an attack have to be carried out by suicide hijackers, or could individual terrorists inflict serious harm from the ground?

Scientists say the risk of a core meltdown from a jet crash into a reactor is low. But opponents of nuclear power argue that if a meltdown did occur, casualties would be higher here than in many other places in the nation because the plants are near well-populated areas, including Wilmington, Del.

A 1982 study by the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico estimated that 102,000 people within 20 miles of the complex, an area extending into southern Gloucester County, would die initially as the result of a core meltdown at one of the Salem County reactors.

Another 41,500 within that same radius would eventually die of cancer. More than 75,000 within a 55-mile radius - an area encompassing much of South Jersey, Delaware and and southeastern Pennsylvania - would suffer radiation-related injuries, such as temporary sterility, vomiting, cataracts and thyroid nodules.
Although this study has never been updated, casualties would be much higher today because of growth that has occurred since 1982, said Norm Cohen, coordinator of the Linwood-based UNPLUG Salem Campaign.

"Clean" Nuclear Energy-

The mining, milling and enrichment of uranium into nuclear fuel are extremely energy-intensive and result in the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.

Estimated "energy recovery time" for a nuclear power plant is about 10 to 18 years, depending on the richness of uranium ores mined for fuel.

This means that a nuclear power plant must operate for at least a decade before all the energy consumed to build and fuel the plant has been earned back and the power station begins to produce net energy. By comparison, wind power takes less than a year to yield net energy, and solar or photovoltaic power nets energy in less than three years.

A typical reactor will generate 20 to 30 tons of high-level nuclear waste annually. There is no known way to safely dispose of this waste, which remains dangerously radioactive for a quarter of a million years.


Philosophical analysis from nuclearfiles.org:

"The nuclear industry is not clean. The release of radiation from nuclear testing and the routine release of radiation through reactors have contributed to the cancer plague of the 20th century. Genetic impacts are discussed less frequently than cancer. We now know that radionuclides with a long half-life are cumulatively loaded into the environment and may result in ongoing impacts on health as well as long-term damage to the gene pool. Altering the collective gene pool of life on Earth is not an experiment that is reversible.

Under the guise of free trade, we are seeing a phenomenon from many industries including the nuclear industry that Hillary Wainwright describes in the following manner, "When multinational corporations don't get their way, the invisible hand of the market turns into a visible fist." The visible fist of the nuclear industry punches notions of democracy in the face as Pangea continues its marketing strategy despite the clear message delivered by this sovereign nations political mechanism. We all know that the nuclear industry was a necessary component in the development of nuclear weapons, a programme which was conducted in secrecy and in violation of the most basic elements of democracy. How could the history and the culture of the nuclear power industry not be tainted by the fundamentally undemocratic development of nuclear weapons? While the Pangea initiative will fail, it does arouse some concern at the growing stacks of nuclear waste and it does put us all on warning not to repeat the behaviours of the nuclear weapons states in their nuclear inspired assaults on democracy, by truly making decisions about the legacy of the nuclear age in a democratic, open and accountable fashion. Any long-term plan for the storage of nuclear materials from reactors and from dismantled weapons, should not centralise waste, and should not transport waste - the dangers of both are ridiculously high. It should be internationally negotiated and verifiable, and should begin with the only solution to stopping the creation of more waste - closing down the industry as a bad mistake of history, of politics and of science which has since evolved."
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/hinonproliferationtreaty/99-npt-ngo7-hill.html



How about hydrogen technology? Non-nuclear and non-coal?

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

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[bigtree]

28. wev'e expressed ourselves fully

I believe there is a wide gulf between our reasoning.

I'm going to heed the view from communities and advocacy groups like Greenpeace rather than rely on government-sponsored studies and industry apologists. God Bless Them.

I believe the detractors of nuclear energy.You believe the proponents.

One thing for sure, the money intended in the Energy, Energy and Water, and Defense bills this year is for a new generation of nuclear weaponry: from lasers, to tactical nukes, to bunker-busters. $9 billion in the Energy and Water bill passed this month. Also intended in the legislation is a new generation of nuclear plants which would utilize a new generation of blended and reconstituted fuels for use in new power plants and new weapons.

This is what your unequivocal support for the nuclear industry will lead to: A new worldwide nuclear arms race.

Resist man! Advocate!

Or knuckle under to patronistic, government-industry ambitions, funded with the product of our struggle and sacrifice.

[NickB79]

29. Hydrogen is a red herring

"How about hydrogen technology? Non-nuclear and non-coal?"

You use up more energy generating hydrogen than you get back in using it for energy (First Law of Thermodynamics at play). It's a joke to think that hydrogen is an energy SOURCE, when at best hydrogen is only an energy-transfer medium. You need something else to generate hydrogen production in the first place.

http://ohio.sierraclub.org/northeast/hydrogen.htm

If you remove nuclear power and coal power, there isn't much left to work with. Oil is limited already as a major energy source to rival coal and nuclear, as is hydroelectricity generation simply due to lack of suitable areas to build dams. Biomass would require massive amounts of land to be used to produce fuel-crops that could otherwise be used to produce food or protect wildlife habitat. Solar and wind power are limited to areas where sunlight and wind are highly concentrated (you can't use much solar power in northern latitudes, or wind where there isn't much wind blowing). They are also dependent on the environment to a much higher degree. What happens when you have cloudy skys, or the wind dies down? Fusion power is decades away at best. Whats left? As we use up more and more of our oil resources, and suburban sprawl gobbles up more cropland, we don't have much choice but to use either coal or nuclear. I'd love if we could stop using coal, oil and nuclear power tomorrow, as all three are unclean and harmful to the environment. I'd also like to wake up tomorrow with a million dollars and a supermodel in my bed. Not gonna happen. If I have to chose, nuclear power seems far preferable to coal-burning plants overall. And we DO have to chose, because there are no energy alternatives for the foreseeable future.

[NickB79]

4. There is no alternate power source if we want to explore Europa

Solar power is too weak past Mars-orbit to provide sufficient power for the task of moon-hopping like this orbitor would. Also, when you reach the surface of one of the moons, how do you drill down deep enough into the ice to look for life? The surface of the moons is continually sterilized by radiation, so you need to probe deeper. You need power to do this, and nuclear reactors are the only thing that can provide enough of it that far out into space.

Assuming we as a species are ever going to colonize other worlds outside of our own orbit (Mars, Jupiter's moons, etc) we will need to look for a power source other than solar to get us there and sustain us. Fusion power would be ideal, but as the recent post on fusion power pointed out, workable fusion reactors are probably 50 yrs away if not more.

[bigtree]

5. We should learn to live here first

and care for our planet. Nuclear meddling will poison our world.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[bigtree]

14. I am reading the replies to my post

I may not completely understand all of the intricacies of nuclear energy but I do read alot about it. What I dislike about the restart of the nation's nuclear program is the backloading of all of the nuclear industry's nuclear ambitions behind seemingly benign uses for radioactive elements. The administration and the nuclear energy industry supporters attach new tactical nukes and bunker-buster to funding for benign unassociated projects. All or nothing. Detractors of nuclear energy howl. Supporters of the seemingly benign projects balk.

Nuclear energy supporters are winning. There is no national debate about the efficacy of a new generation of nuclear weapons or new nuclear plants producing new blended nuclear fuels. Perhaps you think the decisions should be left to scientists and intellectuals. I believe that the communities that are affected by these plants, and are universally opposed to the placement of these plants in their communities, are not just blowing smoke about the dangers of nuclear production for workers, communities and their environment.
There is a great deal of credible argument against nuclear energy for electricity and bombs. I realize that you reject these arguments. I wish that I could persuade you otherwise.

The abandonment of nuclear ambitions in space, war, and electricity will not bring about the dark ages. Nuclear war has that potential though. Nuclear plant accidents or sabatoge can have devastating worldwide consequences also.

The benefits of a new nuclear arsenal escape me. Maybe it's because we already have enough nuclear weaponry to blow us all to Pluto.

The benefits of a new generation of nuclear plants and reconstituted fuels also escapes me. We have a legacy of radioactive waste from the '50's destined for that hapless mountain in Nevada, against the opposition of the community around the mountain.

Any guarantees that the nuclear madness won't get out of hand and further destroy the land and the water are hollow in the face of our inability to make safe the waste from our last generation of meddling.

I'm sitting here in my room wondering at the personal attacks. It's a pattern in most of the discussions on this and other boards. Many feel free to unburden themselves of any hateful impulses they may have and direct them at posts they disagree with. I have been a sounding board most of my adult life. I don't want folks to hurt inside. I try to understand the vitriol.

"Its folks like bigtree"

". . . if folks like bigtree informed themselves . . ."

"Bigtree’s comments are obviously from a very uniformed person."

"For the sake of the species, I say again: Kill yourself."

Really? Well then, thank you for your enlightening commentary about me. I remain opposed to any new push towards nuclear expansion in weapons, electricity, and hydrogen fuel production.

I am not sympathetic to any benign use of radioactive elements which are married to legislation promoting the expansion of the nation's nuclear ambitions for weapons, electricity, or hydrogen fuel production. I think any starry-eyed missions to Jupiter can wait until these issues are seperated from the more insidious provisions in the funding legislation. Can't have one without the other? Then I would have none.

[treepig]

18. are you also against the use of radioisotopes in biomedical research?

if so, i assume you take a principled stand against any medical or pharmaceutical procedure that was developed by their use? (which, btw, pretty much includes all therapeutic agent developed within the past half century or so).

[bigtree]

19. no, of course not.

Those facilities that support those benign applications of radiation therapy are, in many cases, married to more pernicious applications like military and power production. I would support a seperation of these entities, but I am realistic about the political and monetary interests which blur the line between benign projects and the types of applications which are dangerous and unnecessary.

Do you believe that we must expand our nuclear program to include space lasers, tactical nuclear weapons, and bunker-buster bombs?

Can you show me where in the rejected Energy bill, in the $9 billion in nuclear projects in the recently passed Energy and Water bill,and in the recently passed Defense legislation that directly address your nuclear interests? I can't find anyhing specific. This is about money that is to be appropriated within these bills for destructive and provocative meddling that obscures your benign applications.

Do you support this administration's nuclear efforts within these legislative inituatives?

Here's a section of the recently passed energy and water bill. Can you find your benign projects?

$8,933,847,000 has been provided in the 2004 Defense bill to the Department of Energy for the activities of the National Nuclear Security Administration, to be allocated as follows:
For weapons activities, $6,457,272,000.
For defense nuclear non-proliferation activities, $1,340,195,000.
For naval reactors, $788,400,000.
For the Office of the Administrator for Nuclear Security, $347,980,000.
Test capabilities revitalization, phase I, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, $36,450,000.
Exterior communications infrastructure modernization, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, $20,000,000.
Project engineering and design, various locations, $2,000,000.
Chemistry and metallurgy research (CMR) facility replacement, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, $20,500,000.
Building 12-44 production cells upgrade, Pantex Plant, Amarillo, Texas, $8,780,000.
Cleaning and loading modifications (CALM), Savannah River Site, Aiken, South Carolina, $2,750,000.
Mission relocation project, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, $8,820,000.
Project engineering and design, facilities and infrastructure recapitalization program, various locations, $3,719,000.
Replacement of an administration building, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, $50,000,000.
$360,000,000 for defense nuclear waste disposal.

[treepig]

20. somehow it seems you're confusing two completely separate

issues on this thread - the use of nuclear technologies in weapons programs, and their use for commercial power generation (and other applications, such as the generation of radioisotopes for biomedical research - which can nicely dovetail with commercial nuclear power plant operation).

clearly, there are huge problems with the nuclear weapons program - one look at the hanford site is abundant evidence of that. however, the commercial power plants have been incredibly clean and safe compared to any other form of power generation in widespread use. and the waste from commercial power plants is a minor issue at worst, easily solved with current technologies if the political resolve was available.

btw, have you looked into the witch's brew of toxic chemicals used to manufacture a solar panel? and if alternate energies are adopted on a wide scale, who do you think will be manufacturing all the solar panels (for example) - no doubt exactly the same disreputable characters now run the petroleum companies (some, such as bp are quite upfront about their intentions, even if it's only a marketing scheme at present).

[bigtree]

22. I am not confused about the difference

My point is that the mission to Jupiter is a cover for more pernicious administration and industry ambitions for nuclear military space. They wed the issues in their pursuit of nuclear dollars. You can't seperate your benign projects from their dangerous ones.

You can't guarantee that the production of the nuclear fuel for nuclear propulsion will be done safely and efficiently. Where will the fuel be produced?

The new generation of nuclear plants that would be funded by the new inituatives in Congress are to be dual-use. For the production of 'blended', reconstituted nuclear fuels, as well as for the production of a new generation of tactical weaponry. No significant amount of money will go for the "generation of radioisotopes for biomedical research." If you can find the item in the mass of nuclear meddling let me know. You don't claim that we can't have one without the other? We can seperate beneficial, benign applications from military meddling. This administration and their supporters in Congress and industry won't allow that.

It's a shame. They dangle the carrot of space exploration and muscle in a new generation of nuclear military madness along with it.

Renewables have their own issues of exploitation and abuse, waste disposal etc. We have to be vigilant, and not allow your beneficial projects to provide cover for dangerous and unnecessary meddling.

The nuclear hawks are stepping out from behind their Trojan Horses of nuclear space travel and ‘safe’, new nuclear fuels and are revealing a frightening ambition to yoke the nation to a new legacy of imperialism. President Bush has decided that America’s image around the globe is to be one of an oppressive nuclear bully bent on world domination.

I would oppose any money for new construction which would serve to refurbish or expand our existing supply of nuclear weaponry. Similarly, I would support any provision which intends to dismantle such weaponry and any provision which is intended for the disposal of these weapons and their radioactive waste in a safe and effective manner.

Also I would oppose any money for new construction of any nuclear plants which are designed for energy production, or any money for construction intended to preserve any existing power plants which utilize nuclear material.

I strongly favor the existing practice of immobilizing the nuclear waste in glass and storing it, as the previous administration advocated.

I would similarly oppose any money for research or development of any new nuclear fuels, or nuclear fuel blends, or the recycling and utilization of any 'degraded' nuclear material for use in new or existing weapons or for use in any new or existing power plant, as is outlined in the document “A Roadmap to Deploy New Nuclear Power Plants in the United States by 2010” and in the Generation IV Roadmap. http://gif.inel.gov/roadmap/pdfs/gen_iv_roadmap.pdf6
http://gif.inel.gov/roadmap/

I would oppose any monies which intend to preserve the Uranium Transfer Program. As laudable as the realized goal of the reduction of the Russian nuclear arsenal may be, in reality, the transfers depend on a faltering contract with USEC and support an electric supply that provides only 20% of our nation's electricity needs. This 20% could be made up by any combination of renewables.

The uranium program should be allowed to sunset. The focus should be on the replacement of the uranium industry with a more sustainable supply of energy. There is also the concern that U.S. Energy Corp. redistributes much of the blended uranium outside of the country, inviting more opportunities for exploitation and abuse.

I would oppose any money expended to support, enhance or expand the construction of any nuclear centrifuge facility for demonstration, research, or production of thermonuclear weaponry.I would similarly oppose any money which would support or encourage any such thermonuclear program abroad.

Finally, I would oppose any expansion, enhancement, or renewal of the Price-Anderson Act which would further encourage public or governmental involvement in nuclear production. And I would encourage the expansion of any law or regulation which would hold those in the nuclear industry accountable for the safety of their workers and the environment.

In respect to all of these issues, I feel that the Bush administration's nuclear ambitions represent a foot in the door for those who would expand our existing nuclear program and would draw our nation into a new nuclear arm's race; exacerbating the problems of proliferation; threatening the safety and the health of workers, the community and the environment.

[bigtree]

15. who is Emperor Norton?

Previous post:

"I am Joshua Abraham Norton II, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico and the Dominion of Canada. Rightful heir of Emperor Norton I, of the House of Norton of Algoa Bay on the Cape of Good Hope, who was proclaimed Emperor by the citizens of the United States in 1859, who ruled for 30 years from his capitol in the city of St. Francis, and who worked for peace, tolerance and the improvement of the human condition.

Those are my bonafides."

[Emperor_Norton_II]

16. Okay, you can use the search function. Good for you.

Was there a point to that, or did you just want to snicker?

I stand by my bonafides, incidentally.

[bigtree]

17. just for a snicker (mine)

I kept the thread in my files. Your threatening tone has made an impact on me.

I actually used your curious identification to correct my misidentification of you as ruler of the universe.

". . . worked for peace, tolerance and the improvement of the human condition."

These are not compatible with hate.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Wonk]

25. Who is Emperor Norton? Discordian Saint, Second Class

(this post has nothing to do with the original subject matter of the thread)

http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/emperor_norton.html
http://www.zpub.com/sf/history/nort.html
http://www.net-tex.de/snafu/saints.html

[bigtree]

26. kick

[bigtree]

10. Germany's retreat from nuclear energy begins

http://www.enn.com/news/2003-11-18/s_10497.asp

Germany switched off the first of its 19 nuclear power stations recently, launching what it calls the world's fastest withdrawal from atomic energy — but it's a policy that may still be reversed if the opposition takes power.

Germany's center-left government struck a deal with industry in 2000 to close all nuclear power plants by about 2025, the Greens making a phase-out a condition for forming a coalition with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats in 1998.

Greens Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said the closure showed nuclear power had no future in Germany."No country is pulling out as quickly as Germany. Up until 2020 one nuclear power plant will be closed on average every year in Germany," he said in a speech.

The Greens held a party in Berlin to celebrate, but operator E.ON said its 32-year-old reactor would have closed anyway on purely economic grounds without government pressure.

[zeaper]

13. Nuclear rockets

Nuclear rockets do not explode bombs for propulsion.

The way a nuclear rocket works is very similar to the way a steam boiler works. In the case of a nuclear rocket we heat hydrogen using the reactor. Heating it increases the pressure, at high pressure the gas is squirted out the rocket nozzle for propulsion. The only emission is hydrogen, which is used because it won’t become radioactive in the reactor. There are no radioactive emissions.

Nuclear rockets have the potential for a lot more thrust than the chemical rockets we use to day. It’s a technology that needs to be pursued so we can get all of our eggs out of the same basket. It’s too bad the anti-nuclear groups have done such a good job in killing this use of a valuable safe technology.