Do You Support Billions of Dollars in New Subsidies for the Nuclear Industry?

[Liberation Angel]

Poll question: Do You Support Billions of Dollars in New Subsidies for the Nuclear Industry?

I do not.

But previous polls at DU reflect that we are pretty much split down the middle on nuclear power.

I am a downwinder, and I and my family have been exposed to way too much/too many radioactive emissions and effluents in our community and I have seen too many friends and family members die young from bone, brain, leukemia and other cancers to ever trust this industry or support it.

That said, I am interested to know who here cares about this issue and what the positions/percentages of support or opposition at DU are in general.

This issue is of critical importance to me and is perhaps the most determinative of whether I believe that Obama is really selling us out to the energy czars or not: right now I believe he probably is or else he is dangerously naive.

Please state your reasons or perspective if you feel strongly one way or the other or the reasons why you are undecided.

[Jennicut]

1. All other alternative energy will take years for get any real use out of.

Nuclear energy is already a known thing. France has benefited from it. We have to weight the good stuff with the bad with it so I am a bit torn but not totally against it.

[Liberation Angel]

20. France's nuke energy is a mess. Nukes are known to be deadly, too expensive

and no one has yet figured out out to dispose of the waste for hundreds of thousands of years during which time it must be guarded and protected. History is only 5000 years old - how can we guard waste for 200,000 years and pay for security and how much will it cost and how much of a carbon footprint is THAT going to make,

It is insane and stupid to support nukes. But the industry is very effective at making people stupid and confused about it and at making folks think it is really not killing us - especially children and fetuses in utero who get irradiated and mutated.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Do I support jobs and cleaner energy?

Fuck yeah.

Salt in the wounds of the woo woos isn't bad either.

[Liberation Angel]

5. nuclear is the deadliest/filthiest energy out there: it mutates and kills fetuses in utero

and other living things.

Nothing clean about it.

Green energy provides real jobs and forever: plus a better quality of life for future generations

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Who do you think I had in mind when I posted that?

[Liberation Angel]

11. Salt in the wound of woo woos?

what an intelligent position.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. Compared to the woo...

absolutely.

[Liberation Angel]

13. Nuclear power is woo woo plus is mutagenic and carcinogenic and kills babies in utero

so THAT is the woo...

But quit derailing this thread with insults please

[timeforpeace]

15. How does that happen? How close do you have to be?

[Liberation Angel]

16. All commercial reactors release radioactive gases and particles into the air and water

It all depends which way the wind is blowing or where the currents or tides are going where this radiation ends up.

Certain radionuclides produced in the nuclear fuel and energy cycle like strontium 90 and radioiodine can cause severe conditions even at extremely low doses BUT these cancers or mutations may not be apparent for years as you cannot, without a dosimeter or a biopsy with radiochemical tissue analysis determine whether you have been exposed (the NRC relies on the industry to report leaks etc but an operating plant is permitted to leak or release radiation into the local water and air (through the stacks) by regulation and law (even though in my opinion such exposure of the citizens is a violation of our human rights and the constitution)

Anyway, strontium 90 does not fully decay for some 100 years or more so once you breathe it in or eat it in vegetables grown downwind or drink it in cow's milk it can be absorbed by your body in the bones and teeth and tissues nd organs and stay there for your whole life, emitting radiation as it decays into your blood stream or organs etc.

It gets into the ground water so we drink it and it gets into the trees which soak up the rainwater. It can, in 100 years, prety much blow around the world many many times in the jet streams etc or it can settle and stay in the ground until it totlly breaks down and is no longer dangerous.

But the closer you are to the leaking effluent pipes or stacks or the bodies of water where the pipes dump the effluents (Long Island Sound, for example, or Biscayne Bay or the Hudson River or Cape Cod Bay or the Connecticut River or the Gulf of Mexico or the Great Lakes) it floats about and gets into the seafood and fish and seaweed and goes up the food chain.

Waves on the beach create particulates by vaporizing the radioactive effluent waters from the plants and when you "smell the salt air in the sea breezes" you may be breathing in a radio-cocktail of death.

Tests on baby teeth show highr concentrations within 1 mile of the shoreline downwind of nuke plants.

So the closer you are the more you get exposed, generally,but you can get exposure from Chinese nuke plants in products from China and they can get it from Oranges grown in Florida if the wind and rain puts it there.

It really fucking sucks and it kills.

Invisible mutagenic gases and particles which have no taste or smell or color. What better terrorist/killing tool could fascist have in their arsenal of death. And they mke US pay for it too with our tax dollars. How very nazi of them.

[boppers]

17. Down with physics!

Shut down the earth's largest reactor, before it kills us all, we can't have the sun continue to poison us emitting radiation anymore.

[Liberation Angel]

23. Nukes triple the amount of radiation we get from the sun

yeah the sun can be damagingto us so it is asinine to add MORE radiation to the environment.

But the radiation from the sun is NOT the same as the intense deadly radiatioactive elements like radioiodine or strontium 90 (man made and released during the nuclear fuel cycle) which are far more dangerous and deadly.

The sun cannot kill me in minutes from 93 million miles away but my local nuke plant can melt down and kill us in hours or less if we are close enough.

But mostly they kill babies exposed in the womb and give us cancer or cause infant death (so death in a few months or if you are older ten-15-20 years or so.

Yeah you can get skin cancer from the sun. But you can't breathe in or drink nuclear waste/byproducts from the sun as we are forced to do by an corrupt and deadly industry.

[boppers]

24. Where do you think complex atoms come from?

"you can't breathe in or drink nuclear waste/byproducts from the sun"....

How, exactly, do you think uranium is created in the first place?

[Cosmocat]

3. I don't know about Billions in subsidies ...

But nuclear is a REAL part of the solution ...

[midnight]

4. Absolutely no. Old economy energy....

[Liberation Angel]

8. Old economy death factories too

Nuclear emissions kill people in huge numbers

But it is hard to prove this in court as who can say which pollutant caused a particular cancer or birth defect (just as big tobacco STILL claims successfully that THEIR cigarets did not cause THAT cancer - the nuke industry uses the same defense and offense in pr)

[avaistheone1]

7. Is the nuclear industry going to send me any of their profits?

Is the nuclear industry going to send me any of their profits should I as a taxpayer agree to $50BBBBBillion $$$$$ in guarantees for their industry? Of course not. So I don't want to be on the hook for them, nor do I think nuclear power is cheap or safe.

Anyone here volunteer to have the nuclear waste go to their community?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. So, you're against all stimulus then?

[avaistheone1]

10. In this case I am.

I am against stimulating Wall Street bandits, and nuclear power plants where the people bear the risks yet do not share in the profits.

If these people are so dedicated to the free market, leave us taxpayers alone and let the free market reign.

[Liberation Angel]

14. +1

nt

[old mark]

18. NO. I worked on a nuclear plant design project years ago, and I believe

they were built as well as they could have been, but they are relics of a past time. They are an extremely complicated and dangerous way to boil water. The ones in service now do contribute and should be maintained, but I don't care to pay to support them if they are not carrying their own weight. And I certainly don't want any more built here, ever.

mark

[Liberation Angel]

22. if they are so dangerous...?

why not shut them ALL down now ?

[old mark]

26. They will continue to be dangerous after they are shut down....they won't just go away.

The hot side of the exchange - the radioactive side of the plant - will be radioactive nearly forever. And they are contributing electricity that we all need and have no other means to produce right now.

mark

[rug]

19. Since you put it that way,

no.

[Liberation Angel]

21. Hard to believe that 43% of DUers support $Billions$ in Nuke industry subsidies

Unbelievable.

Where are the rest of you true progressives?

Do you REALLY support subsidies for the rich and deadly corporations?

[insanity]

28. I am a progressive

Nuclear power will helps us progress from the rampant burning of fossil fuels. It's going to play a huge step in creating sustainable energy.

[Onceuponalife]

31. So you can't be a "true progressive" if you support nuclear energy?

Give me a break.:eyes:

[sandnsea]

25. No. All Nuclear needs to end n/t

[insanity]

27. Support!

It is going to be a huge part of transferring into a clean(er) energy economy. In the last 15 years we've made it safe, reliable, and relatively clean.

[Sebastian Doyle]

29. I'm against a whole new shitload of wars in countries that have uranium.

I'm opposed to nuclear waste being stored on any piece of land that is not occupied by a member of the Bush Crime Family, and even then, only if they and only they are exposed to the radioactive garbage.

I am opposed to any push to become dependent on another energy source that somebody has to "own" when we need to move away from that fucked up way of thinking, into using sources that neither run out, nor have to be carved out of the earth, nor controlled by corporations.

[Zavulon]

30. There is no industry I want to get billions of dollars in subsidies.

I don't even want subsidies going to art, much less nuclear power.