87% IN FAVOR OF TAX BREAKS TO COMPANIES TO DEVELOP ALTERNATIVE ENERGY!!

[JohnWxy]

87% SAID WE SHOULD GIVE TAX BREAKS TO COMPANIES TO DEVELOP ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF ENERGY!

Time magazine poll


Wind power grew at about 38% last year in the U.S> That figure would have been higher but the Wind Turbine manufacturers don't have the capacity to meet the demand. So projects are waiting for the Turbines. We really need to support expansion of Wind Turbine manufacturers capacity - to accomplish a large incrrease in their production capacity.

ONe way to do this would be to use Government insured loans and low interest rates to accelerate plant expansions. The loans would be from private sources. The Government would just be insuring the loans. I know most of the wind turbine business is GE's (60%), and some may wince at helping a very profitable company. but you know what? I don't care.

We are about to experience a climate catastrophe. The permafrost is starting to melt. There are millions of tons of organic material in that permafrost. As the permafrost melts the organic material will begin to decay. When it decays it RELEASES CARBON DIOXIDE. Once this gets going too far WE WILL SEE MAJOR INCREASES TO THE ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE. IF this gets too far ahead of us, all the passive steps at reducing contributions to the atmospheric CO2 won't mean very much. The decaying plant matter in the permafrost will be releasing CO2 to the atmosphere and keep heating the atmosphere no matter what we do. We would have come up with some massive form of carbon sequestration - really massive. How this would be done is still a matter of considerable conjecture - a number of ideas have been kicked around but none, that I know of, that have been tried yet.


If we expanded the production capacity of the Wind Turbine manufacturers we could see yearly gains of exceeding 38% (lets try for 100% yearly growth) for years to come. But this would take significant and continuing increases in the capacity of the Wind Turbine manufacturers.

But we must act immediately. Because we have delayed taking any action we are now in a very bad situation. We may have a few years to get going. But the margin here is extremely close. It may even be too late now, but we still must try. Not trying would make matters far far worse, and even the nonchalant naysayers, in a couple more years will be in favor of taking action. But by then it will be far more difficult to get matters under control - and delaying may doom us to failure. Then look for MAJOR changes to the Worlds climate and the to the biosphere.

[OhioNerd]

1. This is a difficult issue.

This is a difficult issue. One problem is that we desperately need to start building nuclear power plants again, and you KNOW how controversial that will be. Another problem is that if you give tax breaks, one side will scream about tax cuts for the rich while the other side whines about tax dollars being wasted on Alternative Energy Boondoggles. In the meantime, nothing gets done. Worst of all is the unfortunate fact that no matter what we do here in this country, you have China, India and a lot of other nations that are going to be pumping out huge quantities of CO2. Now I honestly don't know how big a role CO2 is really playing in our current warming trend, but mega-tons of third world CO2 can't be GOOD, can it?

[BR_Parkway]

2. China already recognizes the problem of running out of oil and is

making huge strides in alternative energy. Not as much as the European nations, but definately on track to surpass the US.

[JohnWxy]

26. everybody's on track to move ahead of us!

[Dead_Parrot]

4. I suspect many of these places...

...have aspirations to be like the US - rich, powerful, influential. If the the US can prove that it is possible to be these things while while using renewable energy, they will want to do the same: Nobody would to be the backwards country still burning oil and coal. Plus, the US has (or at least had) the financial and intellectual resources to throw at the considerable problems associated with development. There is no reason why GM couldn't produce cheap, reliable wind turbines (for example) that make them the world leader in that tech, apart from their inherent stupidity.

Aside from which, the US on it's own is responsible for something like ~25% of the problem. That needs fixing regardless.

[OhioNerd]

13. I agree totally with everything except...

I agree totally with everything except the part about GM being stupid.
They're not stupid. No doubt that've made some bad decisions, but they've made good ones too.
You work with what you've got. Everyone has limits to their options, even corporations.
I've owned a failed business. I know firsthand how you can work your ass off, try to make all the right decisions and still fail.

By the way, I agree that we have a big footprint. We tend to break a lot of stuff too. But it's the nature of the beast. It's our size. Even if we did everything right in the world; we'd still be the nosy, 800lb uncle that keeps breaking all the furniture every time he sits down. And eats half the stuffing all by himself.

But you know what? That number is going to go down for the same reason the Big Three automakers saw their market share erode: Foreign Competition.
China & India are going to outpace us in the resource gobbling race pretty damn soon. Then we can look good by comparison. :D

[Dead_Parrot]

16. Oh, I don't know...

I was a director of a UK IT consultancy that went down the pan: With hindsight, it's because I was a complete asshat. Getting stuck in your ways can be a killer.

[JohnWxy]

5. Will people argue over tax breaks? Did you read the 87% poll results?

87% FAVOR tax breaks to company's who develop alternative energy sources. When have you seen 87% of the population agree on anything? This is an amazing degree of consensus, which should demand some respect (far more than the 1% margin Bush claimed was a mandate). But the W has demonstrated he doesn't give a fuck what the voters want (look at election 2000) or what makes clear common sense. (Of course my suggestion of insuring loand from COMMERCIAL LENDERS involves much much less money outlay than tax breaks.)

But if people start emailing telling Legislators we need to do something (not spout rhetoric) real and very very soon. It CAN make a difference.


RE nuclear, no we do NOT 'have' to start building new nuclear plants. The nuclear industry and DOE (it's public relations arm) would have you believe there are no other sources of energy to develop. Wind power potential in US is 3 times the total power demand. We continue to spend Billions to support the Nuclear Power INdustry's continuing efforts to try to make Nuclear Power feasible and PRACTICAL. If we took a tiny fraction of that money and used it to accellerate expansion of Wind Power we would get REAL RESULTS with no safety issues (for the next 14,000 yrs - anybody who would like to offer any improvement on this estimate of 14,0000 yres are welcome, by the way.) and virtually NO pollution. (keep in mind insuring commercial loans doesn't mean you are spending an amount of money equal to those loans. The amount of money which MAY be required - to cover loan loan defaults - would be a tiny figure compared to the amount loaned. In teh poll the respondents were talking about tax-BREAKS. Now that is much more money than insuring loans would involve. That would be tax revenues foregone - much more money actually given to the companies developing alernative sources of money. What I am talking about is much much more focussed and much cheaper!)

We should give alternative energy sources a real try before we launch off on a continuing experiment in nuclear survivability for the next 300 generations (that's how long the waste will have to be sequestered). Given the unresolved risks involved in Nuclear energy, it should only be expanded when and if we have actually exhausted all other energy sources.

China and other under-developed nations are a problem which we obviously cannot control. We can however, decide on actions for our country. Without action from the U.S. the worlds biggest energy user and polluter - there isn't much point in lecturing to others. If we show commitment to fixing the problem this will help and apply some pressure (of sorts) on them to do something too. But if we do nothing, forget it.

[OhioNerd]

6. Two things...

1) People WILL argue over it and it WILL break down essentially along those lines; and all the polls in the world won't stop people from fighting over it.

2) There are a lot of alternative energy options that look great on paper or in theory. In the real world, there are only two practical alternatives to burning combustible substances to generate power on a large scale:
a) Nuclear Power
b) Hydro-electric, which has certain practical limitations. (You need a lot of water, a gravity well and a real lack of population at the proposed site.)

Wind power is a pipe dream. I have known exactly ONE person in my entire life who generated his own power with a windmill. I'm hoping to build (as opposed to buy) a house next year. If I manage to buy a piece of land that is suitable and I can get through the permitting process, I will use a windmill. I will DEFINITELY use Solar hot water and as many passive tricks as I can manage. But that's all small scale. Wind Farms? I'm sorry but, that is NEVER going to happen on a large scale. Even forgetting the whole NIMBY problem, it's a question of land values. We can talk all day about how our society SHOULD do things, but we're stuck here in the real world where "should" takes a back seat to "does".

[jpak]

11. Global wind power capacity is currently 59,000 MW

growing at >30% per year and will exceed >200,000 MW world-wide by 2014.

Germany installed ~850 MW of photovoltaics last year and ~1000 MW per year by 2008.

US geothermal power capacity will double to ~5000 MW in the near future.

Some pipe-dream...

:)

[Dead_Parrot]

12. cough cough peak cough cough

;)

[jpak]

22. cough cough nameplate cough cough

cough cough engineering standards cough cough

[Dead_Parrot]

23. Err, you've lost me.

:shrug:

[jpak]

27. There are engineering performance standards

for all devices used generate electricity - the nameplate rated capacity.

better????

[Dead_Parrot]

29. Ahh, with you.

Yes, that's more technically precise. But they still don't work when there's no wind: A 1 MW wind turbine will not produce 8,766 MWh of electricity per year, no matter what it says on the box...

[OhioNerd]

14. 200kmw?

200,000 Megawatts is a lot of juice.

However, when talking about electrical capacity or consumption, the numbers aren't expressed in Megawatts. They are expressed in "watt-hours". There is a difference, it's a VERY big deal, and I am completely unqualified to explain why. I can say this much: It is "work" x "time". In the same way horsepower is work done over a period of time, not what can be done at any particular instant.

Anyway, here's some info from http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=1367&Witness_ID=3948



"Total electricity consumption, including both purchases from electric power producers and onsite generation, is projected to grow from 3,657 billion kilowatthours in 2003 to 5,467 billion kilowatthours in 2025, increasing at an average rate of 1.8 percent per year."


So, 200,000 is nothing to sneeze at. But.

My math is rusty. Dear God, I hope I'm not about to embarrass myself here...

I think that works out to:


3,657,000,000,000,000 watt/hours vs.
200,000,000,000 watts


3.6x10^14 vs.
2.0x10^10


And that's what it is NOW.

[Dead_Parrot]

15. Well...

On one hand, you've grasped the scale of the problem - all those missing zeros on the end, plus the time factor that turns a KW into a KWh. Renewables all have downtime (when it's not windy, sunny, wavy, whatever): balancing what they produce in terms of energy - joules - is different to their capacity to produce energy, or watts(peak). Storing the energy for when it's needed seems to be a big blind spot in terms of renewable energy policy.

You would get a cigar for spotting it, but on the other hand you've invented the kilomegawatt, so you get a slap with a wet fish instead. :D

[JohnWxy]

20. Wind Energy potential for U.S. = 3 times total generated electricity

http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/Wind_Energy_An_Untapped_Resource.pdf

You sound confused. "pipedream" yet you are going to get one for yourself?

" the total amount of electricity that could potentially be generated from wind in the United States has been estimated at 10,777 billion kWh annually— three times the electricity generated in the U.S. today."

"THE TOP TWENTY STATES for wind energy potential, as measured
by annual energy potential in the Billions of kWhs, factoring in
environmental and land use exclusions for wind class of 3 and higher."

1 North Dakota   1,210   
2 Texas   1,190
3 Kansas   1,070
4 South Dakota   1,030
5 Montana   1,020   
6 Nebraska   868  
7 Wyoming   747  
8 Oklahoma   725
9 Minnesota   657
10 Iowa   551
11 Colorado   481
12 New Mexico   435
13 Idaho   73
14 Michigan   65
15 New York   62
16 Illinois   61
17 California   59
18 Wisconsin   58
19 Maine   56
20 Missouri   52



Source: An Assessment of the Available Windy Land Area and Wind Energy
Potential in the Contiguous United States, Pacific Northwest Laboratory, 1991.
For more information, see AWEA's web page at http://www.awea.org .

Wind power as an industry will be based upon installations of multiple Wind Turbines a little more expensive than the average person can afford. Although there are small wind turbines being sold for individual home owner applications. They can be bought for as little as a few thousand dollars. the real efficiencies are to be had with large Wind Turbines that are taller and can pick up stronger and less variable winds.

Interest in solar is laudabel but you should be advised solar is very expensive on a per kiloWatt hour basis. It is much more expensive than wind even on an individual homeowner scale.

87% in favor of tax support for alternative energy. I have never seen such a strong consensus on anything. 87% against 13% - that wouldn't be much of an argument. Of course money counts more than votes just ask Exxon-Mobil, the coal industry - and Jack Abramoff, (for one).

[OhioNerd]

21. I only sound confused because you aren't paying attention.

Nothing I have said is contradictory. You're simply so eager to reply with statistics that you mistakenly believe will make your case that you aren't taking the time to actually THINK about what is being said.

For instance, and this is sort of a test; can you think of even one potential problem with the figures you posted?

[phantom power]

24. I don't follow your reasoning about wind power.

I personally don't know anybody who generates their "own power" with a nuclear reactor. It's generally done in larger batches than that :-)

And, it is indeed possible to purchase residential-scale wind turbines. I don't think they are especially practical, compared to megawatt-scale wind turbines, but they're on the market, if you really want one.

[OhioNerd]

28. Were you speaking to me?

Were you speaking to me?

It looks like you are but your post doesn't seem to have any relevance to anything I said, so I was confused.

[phantom power]

30. Well, yes... Here is what you said:

"Wind power is a pipe dream. I have known exactly ONE person in my entire life who generated his own power with a windmill."

I wasn't sure what the point of that remark was, since I can say the same for nuclear power, which is a perfectly viable and proven form of energy. In fact, I can make an even stronger statement: nobody anywhere has ever generated "their own" nuclear power. And yet, it is not a pipe dream. It's quite real. But there are people out there who have generated their own power with wind turbines.

Wind power is certainly capable of generating electricity on an exajoule (per year) scale, although I agree with NNadir's general point that so far, it hasn't. Wind power can be applied to up to about 15% of our electricity needs without the need for time-shifting storage(*). That would represent about 9 exajoules per year. By no means a home-run for civilization, but quite significant.

(*)I'm not familiar with the details that led to this conclusion, but it seems reasonable. I'd be interested to see how that number was arrived at, if anybody knows. Or a refutation, for that matter.

[Dead_Parrot]

31. 15%...

I tend to chuck 15% around, since that appears to be Denmark's wind capacity, and they now have problem with not being able to store it, but I'm open to suggestions.

[OhioNerd]

32. Well then perhaps you can tell me...

Well then perhaps you can tell me what I said that you are confused by?

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

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

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

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

[phantom power]

35. I feel like I'm conversing with ELISA. Turing score 10%.

[Dead_Parrot]

36. Ouch. nt

[OhioNerd]

37. Does that mean...

Does that mean that they are going to stop trying to convince me that Wind Power is a practical large scale alternative energy source?

[OhioNerd]

38. You're the one with the non-sequitors

You make a post complaining about mine that has NOTHING to do with anything I've said and you remain unable to explain precisely what it is that you're complaining about. I suspect that the reason for that is because you aren't quite certain yourself.

[phantom power]

40. Tell me, how do non-sequitors make you feel?

[OhioNerd]

41. They make me feel like...

... dancing... wanna dance the night away... :D


No, sorry... Different conversation.

Seriously? How do they make me feel?
They make me feel good, because if you had a GOOD argument, you'd be using it.
That makes me feel like I'm right. :)

[phantom power]

42. Does it bother you that makes you feel like you are right?

[OhioNerd]

43. Not even a little bit

Of course, I knew I was right BEFORE that, so that's no change.

Like I said; if you had a valid argument, you would have presented it.

[phantom power]

44. Why do you say not even a little bit?

[OhioNerd]

45. Because it's accurate.

You see how that works? Someone asks you a question and you give an answer. That is, you give an answer if you HAVE one. If you don't, you play silly games like the one you're playing now.

Unfortunately for you, the game you chose puts ME in a position of power.

If you respond with another "Turing" answer, it's because you HAD to in order to keep up your end of the game.

If you don't respond, it's because you realized you're looking silly.

The only way out of your conundrum is to return to the topic. Anything else, ESPECIALLY giving another "turing" answer leaves you looking like, well... I don't want to get personal. That would be rude, and you're being rude enough for both of us.

[phantom power]

46. Is the fact that it is accurate the real reason?

[phantom power]

3. If I promise to try some E15, will you turn your caps-lock off?

(See, this is why excessive caps-lock is governed by the Geneva conventions: It's a recognized form of torture, which causes people to provide false confessions)

[JohnWxy]

7. well, you see I figure some people have very long arms and may not be able

to read my text. I consider all-caps like a headline. Can't i use a headline. Really, 87%? that is amazing.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. The other 13%...

...may be found over at freerepublic, methinks...

[NNadir]

8. There are 87,000 DUers.

Few of them need to capitalize lots of their posts. In fact, I can't think of another DUer who does so regularly.

Then again, most DUers don't need to shout because they actually have something important to say. If, on the other hand, you lack something important to say, I guess shouting loudly would be may seem like an option to obscure that reality.

[JohnWxy]

19. Well, you sure told me. As usual, attack the messenger ignore the message

[NNadir]

25. Whatever.

WHATEVER.

I get your message loud and clear; the same message I've been hearing since I was a kid thirty years ago:

Here is what it is, with my editorial spin freely applied:

"I am a big supporter of the renewable energy industry, even though it cannot produce on an exajoule scale. That's OK, though, since I have a weak understanding of what an exajoule scale is. Since I don't understand exajoules, I am content to ignore the consequences of global climate change because I am a big supporter of the renewable industry. Since I am a big supporter of the renewable industry, I will insist that nuclear power, alone among energy forms be absolutely risk free under any scenario I can imagine or google my way too. I will not bother to learn and chemistry or physics, in this quest, since that might trouble my arguments. Renewables are real. I swear they are. Really. They'll work this time. I read it on the internet. Yes, they will. This time they're for real. Don't tell me about the last 50 years. They will work. I have a link to an expert and he's really, really, really, really cool. He's been to college too.

It will work this time. In 20 years. I mean ten years. I mean tomorrow. Next week. Last week. Here's a picture of a really, really, really, really cool car that's powered by (insert renewable fuel here.).

Percent.

Percent. Don't tell me exajoules.

9000% percent growth in (insert renewable fuel here.)

Don't tell me about coal. Coal mine accidents aren't cool. Nuclear accidents are cool. Link. Link. Link.

Could have happened. Might. Potentially.

Maybe. Ten thousand years. Gazillion years. Waste. (No not coal waste, not renewable waste, not carbon dioxide. Nuclear waste. Cool. Radioactive. Radiation. Scare scare scare. Bomb. Nuclear is not safe enough even though I don't know of anyone personally who has been killed by it. Waste. Waste. Accident.

No. I don't care about coal accidents. They're not cool, like this picture of a house in (insert location of renewable paradise here.)

Amory Lovins. Cool solar house in Snowmass. On the top of a cool mountain. Could. Percent. Megawatt. Solar."

Believe me kid. I have been hearing your message, in capitals, in bold, in endless links, all of my adult life, decades of it, as if shouting and repeating is the same as thinking. You may think it's new and creative and insightful, but it's just another fleck in the avalanche of rehash of big words and small accomplishments.

While I hear it, I'm sick of it. The lives of my children and my planet are at stake and I'm sick of kids who don't know shit shoveling their tired fantasies around. I am not about to place the lives of my children in your hands, because I have looked into the matter and I know how you think. I started from where you started and then, as I hope will happen for my children, I grew up.

I know all about ethanol, corn, solar cells, windmills, geothermal, blah, blah, blah. They don't work, at least in a way that makes a difference.

Here is fucking reality:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table17.xls

If you and your buds can produce numbers much larger, like a brazillion times larger, like something approximating real energy demand, that would be 440 exajoules, then you'll deserve to be taken seriously. Until then, you won't be taken seriously. Until then, you and your buds will simply be full of endless horseshit and manure - and yes I do know that manure can be digested to make methane. Thanks for the fart.

Before you get to nukes, kid, you better take a look at the world's weather and get to fossil fuels first. Cause it ain't happening by 2020 or 2050 or 2070 or whenever you're predicting the renewable nirvana. It's happening now. The path to respectability lies through solving that problem, not through exercise of imaginary scenarios about nuclear accidents.

Nobody's routing against the pet fantasies of the renewable crowd. Nobody's trying to stop them. Shit, even I would be thrilled if that industry could deliver two out of the 440 exajoules the world needs. But it can't and it doesn't.

The fact is that the renewable promise is up until now, just another form of denial. Denial. DENIAL.

You think people are going to tool around in their ethanol cars because you just can't face the reality that people might actually starve to death instead. Yeah, that's right. Global climate change might not just interfere with the cars or the high school field trips to Antarctica to watch the glaciers melt and make microscope slides of the melt water. It might mean death by starvation for billions of people. Roll that silicon carbide pebble around the pool table. Knock that one into the side pocket, kid. Then come back to me and tell me how worried you are about whether a pebble got stuck in the hopper in 1986 and scared Helen Candicott half to death.

Why can't the renewable thrill squad just shut up and make the energy? Why must they talk so much and deliver so little?

Is that really so difficult? Stop talking and producing? PRODUCING. PRODUCING PRODUCING. Do the caps make it easier to understand? Got some difficulty there?

If the renewable industry had simply stopped talking, the world would not have rejected the renewable mantra and decided to go nuclear, as it has. Instead we'd all be living the happy horseshit.

As I say to your new hero: Exajoule! Boo! :scared: Exajoule! Boo!

[JohnWxy]

34. Here's my exegesis of your kind of thinking /argumentation

here you criticize the author without addressing specifics in the article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=46584&mesg_id=46635



NOw let's see if I get you right here:

YOu are saying because I-131 can be treated we:

1) don't have to worry about it.

2) I-131 doesn't need to be stored as a carcinogenic substance and

3) Caldicott was making a fallacious assertion by including I-131
in a list of dangerous , cancer causing substances found in
nuclear waste.

Is that what you are saying Nuclear Nadir?

I-131 is harmless??, ... even though you later referred to the "Prophylaxis in Poland after the Chernobyl reactor accident"?? quoting from you:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


"The article is entitled "Iodide prophylaxis in Poland after the Chernobyl reactor accident: benefits and risks. Of course the prophylaxis in question was in response to the release of I-131, which is a horse of a different color than I-129."


{correct me if I'm wrong but isn't I-131 what Caldicott referred to in her article? Here's quote from the article:

"Iodine 131, which was released at the nuclear accidents at Sellafield in Britain, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile Island in the United States, is radioactive for only six weeks and it bio-concentrates in leafy vegetables and milk. When it enters the human body via the gut and the lung, it migrates to the thyroid gland in the neck, where it can later induce thyroid cancer. In Belarus more than 2,000 children have had their thyroids removed for thyroid cancer, a situation never before recorded in pediatric literature."}

again using your own words:


"The prophylatic treatment of contamination with radioiodine with iodine supplements is well known and well reported."



NOw I would submit to you that if I-131 requires prophylactic treatment that, how shall I put this: IT'S A FUCKING CANCER CAUSING SUBSTANCE.

Am I being clear enough for you? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESS KNOWN AS CANCER? It involves mutation and uncontrolled cellular colony growth leading to a pathological condition referred to colloquially as DEATH. ARE YOU STILL WITH ME?

in fact here is a quote you provided, maybe you should read it:

" For the reasons discussed above, the Chernobyl data provide the most reliable information available to date on the relationship between internal thyroid radioactive dose and cancer risk. They suggest that the risk of thyroid cancer is inversely related to age, and that, especially in young children, it may accrue at very low levels of radioiodine exposure. We have relied on the Chernobyl data to formulate our specific recommendations below."


Now, as to the presence of other forms or the same form of Iodine being in the environment in trace amounts - is that an argument for adding a lot more of this stuff to the environment? That's an argument only Dr. Strangelove would appreciate.

So, when Caldicott included I-131 in a list of hazardous, (i.e. Cancer causing agents) she was not lieing or 'blathering' was she?

But let's not stop there, she mentioned several other substances in additon to I-131. Quoting:


"These unregulated isotopes include the noble gases {b]krypton, xenon and argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons living near a nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs, migrating to the fatty tissues of the body, including the abdominal fat pad and upper thighs, near the reproductive organs. These radioactive elements, which emit high-energy gamma radiation, can mutate the genes in the eggs and sperm and cause genetic disease."

"Tritium, another biologically significant gas, which is also routinely emitted from nuclear reactors is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen composed of two neutrons and one proton with an atomic weight of 3. The chemical symbol for tritium is H3. When one or both of the hydrogen atoms in water is displaced by tritium the water molecule is then called tritiated water. Tritium is a soft energy beta emitter, more mutagenic than gamma radiation, which incorporates directly into the DNA molecule of the gene. Its half-life is 12.3 years, giving it a biologically active life of 246 years. It passes readily through the skin, lungs and digestive system and is distributed throughout the body."

"Strontium 90 lasts for 600 years. As a calcium analogue, it concentrates in cow and goat milk. It accumulates in the human breast during lactation and in bone, where it can later induce breast cancer, bone cancer and leukemia."

"Cesium 137, which also lasts for 600 years, concentrates in the food chain, particularly meat. On entering the human body, it locates in muscle, where it can induce a malignant muscle cancer called a sarcoma."

"Plutonium 239, one of the most dangerous elements known to humans, is so toxic that one-millionth of a gram is carcinogenic. More than 440 pounds is made annually in each 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant."

"Plutonium is handled like iron in the body, and is therefore stored in the liver, where it causes liver cancer, and in the bone, where it can induce bone cancer and blood malignancies. On inhalation it causes lung cancer. It also crosses the placenta, where, like the drug thalidomide, it can cause severe congenital deformities."



Okay, now were there any innaccuracies in those statements. I'm just sticking to what was in the article I posted. Any lies or inaccuracies or bullshit in what I just quoted above????

Caldicott also said:



"Each typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactor manufactures 33 metric tons of thermally hot, intensely radioactive waste per year."

"Already more than 80,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste sits in cooling pools next to the 103 U.S. nuclear power plants, awaiting transportation to a storage facility yet to be found.
~~
Last week a congressional committee discovered fabricated data about water infiltration and cask corrosion in Yucca Mountain that had been produced by personnel in the U.S. Geological Survey. These startling revelations, according to most experts, have almost disqualified Yucca Mountain as a waste repository, meaning that the United States has nowhere to deposit its expanding nuclear waste inventory.

"... a study released last week by the National Academy of Sciences shows that the cooling pools at nuclear reactors, which store 10 to 30 times more radioactive material than that contained in the reactor core, are subject to catastrophic attacks by terrorists, which could unleash an inferno and release massive quantities of deadly radiation -- significantly worse than the radiation released by Chernobyl, according to some scientists."

"This vulnerable high-level nuclear waste contained in the cooling pools at 103 nuclear power plants in the United States includes hundreds of radioactive elements that have different biological impacts in the human body, the most important being cancer and genetic diseases."


Now, are there any inaccuracies in those quotes? I think addressing specific statements would be much more meaningful if you have anything to say regarding these specific statements than generalized pejorative comments about the author. Willing to give it a shot?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seems to me if anybody is guilty of questionable reasoning it is you, Nuclear Nadir.

[OhioNerd]

47. By the way, are you sure you don't mean E85?

Are you sure you don't mean E85?
85% Ethanol + 15% Gasoline.

I'm wondering because E15 wouldn't be anything special. I was buying well over a decade ago.

[ladjf]

10. Strong energy initiatives are happening in industrialized

Countries all over the world EXCEPT the U.S. where only a few states are leading the way.

If we are doing anything right, I can't think what it is.

[skids]

17. Some other polls...

...I diaried some other polls here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/3/23/134625/959

FWIW.

[rfkrfk]

18. how much is the contract electricity price, for steet lighting?

I don't think it is as much as many would believe