No such thing as safe, clean nuclear power

February 4th, 2010

Dear Readers,

There is no such thing as safe, clean nuclear power, and there never will be. There is no such thing as safe containment of nuclear waste, and there never will be. Therefore, we should not put our money into President Obama's misguided nuclear dementia.

Did we learn nothing from 9-11? Did we learn nothing from the tsunami in Banda-Ache? Did we learn nothing from the earthquake in Japan that nearly initiated "Genpatsu-Shinsai"? Did we learn nothing from Davis-Besse's near-meltdown in 2002? Did we learn nothing from Chernobyl?

So far we have been lucky: Lucky the terrorists only flew directly over, instead of into, the Indian Point Nuclear Power Facility. Lucky the nearest nuclear power facility to the 2004 tsunami was thousands of miles away and the waves only did "minor" damage. Lucky none of the seven nuclear power plants at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Facility melted down when a "beyond design basis" earthquake occurred in 2007. Three years later, only two of those plants have come back online. Lucky a worker at Davis-Besse inadvertently leaned against a control rod housing during maintenance, and it gave way, alerting them to the severe corrosion in the reactor pressure vessel head below them. Lucky Chernobyl happened there, not here.

Steven Chu and the entire DOE (Department of Energy) couldn't stop 9-11 style terrorists no matter how much money Obama gives them to "solve" the nuclear waste problem with so-called "temporary" onsite storage. In fact, DOE won't even try -- they say the TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) handles that. Since no planes will ever be hijacked again, they don't have to protect against airplane strikes structurally. No airplane will fall uncontrollably out of the sky onto a nuclear power plant, either -- even though numerous commercial flight paths overfly nuclear power plants around the country. The containment domes are touted as being airplane-proof but they aren't. And even if they were, MOST of the nuclear poisons at each reactor site are stored OUTSIDE the containment domes, in the spent fuel pools and dry casks. The control rooms are also outside the domes, and without the control rooms, the plants would surely melt down, releasing billions of Curies of deadly radiation.

Only geologic storage combined with constant monitoring has any hope of protecting nuclear waste from a 9-11 type of attack, and even then, rogue employees can sabotage any physical fortress.

Geologic storage also may not be able to protect the radioactive waste from earthquakes or other hazards. For the past 20 years Yucca Mountain was the presumed future national repository for nuclear waste, but it has technical flaws as well as political hurdles. Any repository will have such problems. Over time, water, rodents and insects will always move the waste out of the repository. Finding a community that accepts nuclear waste means finding a community that is desperately poor, poorly educated, and has corrupt leaders. The Yucca Mountain team was allowed to suggest anything different if they could -- just not the same thing in a different place.

Obama is correct that Yucca Mountain is a flawed solution for the waste problem, but so is Obama's current plan for spent fuel -- known as "on-site storage" -- which means dozens of different things at dozens of different reactor sites, each with a scandal behind it.

Reprocessing is intensely polluting and expensive, and doesn't eliminate the deadly fission products. And worst of all, reprocessing enables the nuclear weapons industry.

Rocketing spent nuclear reactor cores to the sun costs too much and would fail too often, because humans fail, and so do their materials. Materials ARE failing at all our old nuclear power plants, and so are the humans. Fraud, cover-ups, circular arguments, intimidation of activists, and lies are the stock-in-trade of the nuclear industry.

Radiation, heat, pressure, and vibration are all very damaging, even to so-called super-alloys. New steam generators start to fail almost as soon as they are installed, but the industry accepts this, and makes wild claims about the great research and new materials that will be used to replace the old stuff. And then they deliver the same old leaky parts made of the same old leaky materials, and that's why there is tritium (and other radioactive substances) in the groundwater under so many reactors.

Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen, the most common element in our bodies and in the universe. Hydrogen is used in our bones, brains, heart, blood... everywhere. The legal limit for reactors to release each year is about one thirtieth of a teaspoon of tritium, and they have to dilute even that much in billions of gallons of water before they can legally release it. Neither the Nuclear Regulatory Commission nor the nuclear reactor operators care about tritium leaks as long as the deadly pollutant is diluted to legally-dispersible (but still hazardous) quantities.

The nuclear industry assumes that a little radiation, of any type, absorbed by any part of the body, is good for you. Therefore, they believe that every release is harmless as long as it's sufficiently diluted. In reality there is no safe dose of radiation. Benefits from using radiation in medicine come at a price in cancers for some percentage of the patients later, and even in cancers for the medical personnel.

The nuclear industry and its supporters insist that renewables won't work. But wind power ALONE could supply all of America's energy needs -- with a properly-designed power grid. We need a better grid anyway, to avoid colossal blackouts like we had in the Northeast in 2003, impacting approximately 50 million people and causing emergency shut downs at dozens of nuclear power plants, when their offsite emergency backup power supplies failed. Even Obama favors investing in a better, more robust power grid.

The nuclear industry claims nuclear power can be a cure for global warming. It can't be. There are the uranium mining companies with their enormous earth-moving equipment, the construction process, the storage of the waste for millennia afterwards, the operational costs in fossil fuels for the thousands of employees at the plants, the superfund cleanup sites the nuclear fuel cycle has already created, and the hospitalizations resulting from accidental (and intentional) releases of radiation. These are all "carbon intensive" activities.

President Obama wants to invest $54 billion dollars (of taxpayer's money) in a "new" generation of nuclear power plants which will be marginally more efficient -- if that -- and marginally safer -- if that -- and dozens of times more expensive than previous generations of nuclear power plants. And they'll generate thousands of tons of new nuclear waste each year, just like the currently-operating, "old" generations of nuclear power plants do.

Instead of finally ending the senseless production of more nuclear waste, Obama has set up a new committee to "study" the waste problem for two more years. In two years, these people will throw up their arms, like everyone else before them, and declare, as quietly as possible, that they couldn't solve the problem either. But creating the committee gives the 104 currently-operating nuclear power plants a green light to keep making more waste. Over the next two years, thousands of TONS of NEW nuclear waste will be created, any milligram of which can kill, and kill, and kill, and will destroy any container you put it in.

All just for electricity (or so they say). Electricity which is easily obtained through other methods that are truly safe, clean, and green.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

The author has written thousands of essays about nuclear power but only one book, THE CODE KILLERS, which is available as a free download from his web site: www.acehoffman.org . The author is also a computer programmer; his educational software programs are used by students and teachers at over 1000 universities around the world: www.animatedsoftware.com .
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Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
address: PO Box 1936, Carlsbad, CA 92018
Subscribe to my free newsletter today!
Email: ace@acehoffman.org

Nissan Gets $1.4 Billion Loan from Feds

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-01/nissan-gets-15-billion-loan-feds-build-electric-cars

Nissan Gets $1.4 Billion Loan from Feds to Build Electric Cars
A retooled Nissan factory is expected to create up to 1,300 jobs in the U.S.
By Jeremy Hsu
01.29.2010

Nissan can officially start its engines for its all-electric car, Leaf. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has finalized a $1.4 billion loan to the car manufacturer that should help it retool a Smyrna, Tennessee factory to build electric cars, and also revamp an advanced battery manufacturing center. Nissan's projects are expected to create up to 1,300 American jobs.

The 2011 Nissan Leaf won one of PopSci's "Best of What's New" awards last year, and for good reason. Nissan's vehicle may is the first truly mass-market electric car aimed at commuters, with a 100-mile range on its lithium-ion batteries and a price tag supposedly under $30,000. A PopSci test drive showed that the small car is surprisingly highway-worthy. And Nissan plans to eventually ramp up production to 150,000 electric vehicles annually.

Nissan represents the third vehicle manufacturer to sign a DOE loan agreement -- Ford and Tesla Motors each received $5.9 billion and $465 million, respectively. Ford has its electric Focus lined up for next year, and Tesla has also been working on its Model S electric sedan for a 2011 debut.

The DOE also throws in the fun fact that Nissan's loan-backed efforts should save 65.4 million gallons of gas per year, or about six times the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez back in 1989. But somehow that leaves us just feeling mildly angrier about the oil spill rather than inspired by the fuel savings ... at least until we can ditch the hybrids.

The Future of Cars

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/30583156/the_future_of_cars_the_realities_of_alternative_fuels

The Future of Cars: The Realities of Alternative Fuels
From algae to manure, how six methods stack up
Oct 22, 2009

Algae
Who's Doing It: Sapphire Energy, San Diego
How It Works: Hydrocarbons get refined from algae-based "Green Crude," then extracted to run on a plug-in electric Toyota Prius hybrid, nicknamed the Algaeus.
Claims: 147 mpg in the city, 52 mpg on highways
Reality: In September, the Algaeus took a 10-day trip from San Francisco to New York City. Sapphire plans to produce 1 million gallons of algae fuel by 2011, at a cost of $60 to $80 a barrel.

Air
Who's Doing It: The Scuderi Group, West Springfield, Massachusetts
How It Works: A special "Air-Hybrid Engine" uses oxygen to supplement the combustion process.
Claims: 50 percent increase in gas mileage for standard cars
Reality: First air-hybrid engines due Q3 2010.

Water
Who's Doing It: Genepax, Japan
How It Works: A "Water Energy System" extracts hydrogen and oxygen from water, then converts it to electricity in a fuel cell.
Claims: One quart of water per 20 miles
Reality: Scientists and bloggers have debunked the car as "rubbish."

Urine
Who's Doing It: Gerardine Botte, Ohio University
How It Works: Hydrogen is extracted from pee using nickel-based electrodes, then converted to electricity inside fuel cells.
Claims: 90 mpg
Reality: Initial research with synthetic urine has given way to the real thing, but a working pee-mobile has yet to run.

Hemp
Who's Doing It: Hemp Car
How It Works: Hemp is charcoalized or bio-chemically composted, then converted into gasoline like other biomass materials.
Claims: 21 mpg
Reality: A hemp car completed a 13,000-mile cross-country trek, and Lotus is now using hemp-based materials in its new Eco Elise sports car.

Manure
Who's Doing It: Western Washington University Vehicle Research Institute
How It Works: Cow manure is transformed into biomethane fuel.
Claims: Researchers at WWU say there's enough cow poop in their area to fuel every vehicle in the county
Reality: The university just received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to increase the Biomethane for Transportation project.

Gargantuan Industry Of Climate Alarmism Exposed

http://www.prisonplanet.com/gargantuan-industry-of-climate-alarmism-exposed-by-climategate.html

Gargantuan Industry Of Climate Alarmism Exposed By ClimateGate
“Scientific Consensus”, rather than skepticism, is driven by profit and big business
Steve Watson,
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, Dec 2, 2009

The leaking of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit has shined a light on an industry of climate change alarmism, highlighting the hypocritical claims of corporate cronyism on behalf of proponents of the anthropological global warming theory (AGW).

A common accusation made by AGW theorists, or “the consensus” as they like to be known, is that dissenting groups are only interested in the financial kickbacks they can secure from big oil companies.

For example, in 2008, ExxonMobil donated around $7 million, less then 0.01% of it’s annual profits, to a selection of think tanks and institutes. Among these donations was a combined $125,000 to the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Heritage Institute, right of centre public policy groups that have questioned the “consensus” on climate change.

The NCPA website states: “NCPA scholars believe that while the causes and consequences of the earth’s current warming trend is still unknown, the cost of actions to substantially reduce CO2 emissions would be quite high and result in economic decline, accelerated environmental destruction, and do little or nothing to prevent global warming regardless of its cause.”

The London Guardian and other left leaning mainstream media outlets have pounced on Exxon’s small donations to such groups, reporting it as detestable corporate funding of “climate change denial”.

However, when it comes to the funding of AGW proponents, the figures are infinitely greater, many of the sources take their money directly from our pockets, and yet the Guardian and its ilk, conveniently, remain completely silent.

The leaked emails from the Hadley centre reveal that (now former) CRU chief Phil Jones has received 55 endowments since 1990 from agencies ranging from the U.S. Department of Energy to NATO, worth a total of £13,718,547, or approximately $22.6 million.

$19 million alone came between the years 2000 and 2006.

Massaging the scientific data, hiding a decline in temperatures, hijacking the peer-review system and blackballing dissenting scientific opinion does not look good for Jones in the context of such financial gain.

Another document leaked from the CRU, titled potential-funding.doc, lists sources of potential funding and shows that the scientists considered pressing “energy agencies” that specifically deal in new technology to reduce carbon emissions.

Three agencies listed as potential sources of funding are UK based Carbon Trust, the Northern Energy Initiative, and the Energy Saving Trust. Renewables North West, an American company promoting the expansion of solar, wind, and geothermal energy, is listed as a fourth potential benefactor.

Of course, all these potential financial backers have a vested interest in maintaining the conception that human-induced global warming is a reality backed by science.

In an article entitled Climategate: Follow the Money, columnist Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal points out that the funding of climate skeptics is a drop in the ocean compared to the huge industry that human-driven climate change science has spawned.

“The European Commission’s most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that’s not counting funds from the EU’s member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA’s climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA’s, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. American states also have a piece of the action, with California—apparently not feeling bankrupt enough—devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal.” Stephens writes.

“And all this is only a fraction of the $94 billion that HSBC estimates has been spent globally this year on what it calls ‘green stimulus’—largely ethanol and other alternative energy schemes—of the kind from which Al Gore and his partners at Kleiner Perkins hope to profit handsomely.”

Billions of dollars in grants for one research institute or university does not go unnoticed by the rest, and there is a valid point to be considered in the notion that this is where the “scientific consensus” has it’s roots.

“Today these groups form a kind of ecosystem of their own.” comments Stephens.

Al Gore, the first carbon billionaire, has proven that he is only interested in solutions to environmental problems that line his pockets. The industry beneath him depends on anthropological global warming like the dot com industry depended on the internet he claims to have invented.

If you follow the money it becomes clear that it is the “consensus” that is being driven by gargantuan financial backing, not the skeptics, as climate change alarmists would have everyone believe.

Ace Hoffman 10-13-7

October 13th, 2007

Dear Readers,

One might recall, last April (2007), when a section of freeway near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and erupted into flames.

One might recall a fire in a tunnel near Baltimore, when a train burned for five days and the heat was estimated at more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, exceeding design limits for nuke waste transport casks. It's easy to forget, because it happened July 18-23, 2001, but we MUSTN'T forget. The same tunnel will probably be used to transport nuclear waste from Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant to Yucca Mountain. Over 1000 tons of High Level Nuclear Waste is currently being stored at Calvert Cliffs, requiring hundreds of individual shipments. Every other nuclear power station in America ALSO has many tons of nuclear waste stored dangerously OUTSIDE the "containment dome."

One might recall (if you were me) that the Department of Energy told me -- when I mentioned the tunnel fire at a hearing on Yucca Mountain, and said "how are you going to guarantee that all those nuke transport vehicles won't get involved in something like that?" -- that they would be tracking ALL THE OTHER TRAINS on all the other tracks that the nuke waste train would go near, so there could never be a combination of a nuke train and a fuel or hazardous / flammable waste train in a tunnel, on a bridge or overpass, or just simply passing each other at the same time. One would have to be very dense -- denser than D.U. -- to believe ANYTHING the D.O.E. tells you.

Today's fiery pileup in a California truck tunnel just points out, once again, that the nuke waste problem hasn't been solved. It WON'T be solved -- transporting waste will ALWAYS be hazardous, risky, leaky, and foolhardy. But sooner or later, we're going to do it anyway, because the waste HAS TO GO SOMEWHERE. But transporting the waste won't be safe, and it won't be easy.

In today's fire, chunks of concrete and steel fell from the ceiling -- a container of nuke waste could be crushed and breached. Today's pileup happened just THIRTY MILES from Los Angeles and closed one of the most important escape routes out of the city. Nuke waste transport routes cover hundreds of thousands of miles of old, dilapidated roadways. Bridges thought to be safe are collapsing around us, yet still the plan moves forward, as if there is no danger. As if the containers will be made MAGICALLY strong enough to survive anything that can happen. It's a pipe-dream. It's terrorism. Domestic terrorism by our own government against our own citizens.

But what ARE our options? We can't leave the waste on the coasts, subject to tsunamis. We can't leave it near population centers. We can't leave it in earthquake zones. We can't just leave it be -- it MUST be monitored for hundreds of thousands of years. It will cost a bundle. The costs have not been factored in to the price you pay for nuclear-generated electricity, no matter what the nuclear industry claims to the contrary.

What about Yucca Mountain, I hear some naive pro-nukers cry! "That will solve our problem once and for all!"

No it WON'T. It won't even solve our problem ONCE, let alone, for all time. Yucca Mountain probably will never be completed because 1) The people of Nevada have a say in their future, and they HATE IT. and 2) It's a scientific failure and a financial boondoggle, and 3) Even if built, it would only hold TODAY'S waste -- if that. It won't hold the waste the nuclear industry plans to make TOMORROW.

Nuclear power is a crime against humanity. To call it anything less is an understatement. Nuclear power's supporters, with almost ZERO exceptions, all make a living, or made a living, from within the nuclear industry.

Nuclear reactors generate about 20,000 pounds -- 10 tons -- of high-level radioactive waste EACH DAY in America alone -- 100,000 pounds of NEW "HLRW" worldwide every day.

The day MUST COME when this madness stops. Many pro-DNA people ("anti-nukers" is the term pro-nukers use, but we're really just "pro-DNA") believe that ONLY a severe accident will stop the juggernaut. But humanity cannot wait for that -- the cost -- trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives -- would be too great to bear. It would bankrupt America, or any country it happens to.

Sanity -- stopping nuclear power ENTIRELY and IMMEDIATELY -- is the only choice.

That, or hell on earth. If you think a 15-truck fiery pileup in a truck tunnel in California, or a 5,000 degree fire in Baltimore, Maryland, or leaky containers along routes that pass within a few miles of 200 million Americans are bad things, then you need to protest not just "new" nuclear power, but "old" nuclear power, too. A closed reactor is much less vulnerable to terrorism, human error, environmental catastrophes, and aging ("embrittlement") accidents than an operating reactor. AND, perhaps most important, it's no longer generating new nuclear waste.

Nuclear power was a dream of cheap energy that failed miserably. It's time to put the nightmare to rest.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

SIGN THIS PETITION to stop loan guarantees for new nukes: http://www.nukefree.org/
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© Ace Hoffman
PO Box 1936
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(760) 720-7261
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