Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Ben on January 31, 2010, 10:35:23 AM
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So what do you all think? Sincere or scam?
On the face of it, this is the very first thing Obama has done (er, said he was going to do) that I have not completely disagreed with. In fact I see the tact of wrapping it in with climate as something a Republican President would do as well for the sell. You're always gonna get opposition from the screwball enviros who lack an 8th grade foundation in science, but on the whole, it seems like a good sell if he keeps the promise.
I was also quite shocked that an AP article admitted that 70% of current clean energy comes from our 104 nuke plants (mostly shocked that they admitted "clean" and "nuclear" can go in the same sentence).
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100131/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_nuclear
Obama pushes nuclear energy to boost climate bill
By DINA CAPPIELLO and MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Writers Dina Cappiello And Matthew Daly, Associated Press Writers 1 hr 58 mins ago
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is endorsing nuclear energy like never before, trying to win over Republicans and moderate Democrats on climate and energy legislation.
Obama singled out nuclear power in his State of the Union address, and his spending plan for the next budget year is expected to include billions of more dollars in federal guarantees for new nuclear reactors. This emphasis reflects both the political difficulties of passing a climate bill in an election year and a shift from his once cautious embrace of nuclear energy.
He's now calling for a new generation of nuclear power plants.
During the campaign, Obama said he would support nuclear power with caveats. He was concerned about how to deal with radioactive waste and how much federal money was needed to support construction costs. Those concerns remain; some say they've gotten worse.
His administration has pledged to close Yucca Mountain, the planned multibillion-dollar burial ground in the Nevada desert for high-level radioactive waste. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has been criticized for his slow rollout of $18.5 billion in loan guarantees to spur investment in new nuclear power plants, and the administration killed a Bush-era proposal to reprocess nuclear fuel.
What has changed is the outlook for climate and energy legislation, a White House priority. The House passed a bill in June that would limit emissions of heat-trapping gases for the first time. But the legislation led to a Republican revolt in the Senate, where the recent election of Republican Scott Brown from Massachusetts has made the measure even more of a long shot.
Obama reaffirmed his commitment to a bill in his State of the Union speech as a way to create more clean-energy jobs, but added that "means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country."
To back that up, he is expected to seek $54 billion in additional loan guarantees for nuclear power in his 2011 budget request to Congress on Monday, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the request has not been made public.
White House officials say Obama's actions reflect his long support of nuclear power. But lawmakers from both parties say the speech reflected a new urgency and willingness to reach out to Republicans who have criticized Obama for not talking more about the role nuclear energy can play in slowing global warming.
The 104 nuclear reactors in operation in 31 states provide only 20 percent of the nation's electricity. But they are responsible for 70 percent of the power from pollution-free sources, including wind, solar and hydroelectric dams.
Several analyses of the climate bills passed by the House and under consideration in the Senate suggest that the U.S. will have to build many more plants in order to meet the 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050 called for in the legislation. One of those studies, by the Environmental Protection Agency, assumed 180 new reactors would come on line by 2050.
"I see an evolving attitude on energy by the president," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, who has called for 100 plants to be built in the next 20 years. Alexander, R-Tenn., said Obama's mention of nuclear energy in the address Wednesday night was the most important statement that the president has made on nuclear power.
"Up until now, the administration has been pursuing a national windmill policy instead of a national energy policy, which is the military equivalent of going to war in sailboats," he said.
Well before the speech, three senators cobbling together a Senate energy and climate bill — Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham — were pledging to include more in the bill for nuclear energy and offshore drilling to secure the necessary 60 votes to overcome a likely filibuster from opponents.
What's unclear is whether Obama's endorsement will help. It could attract more Republican and moderate Democrats. But nuclear energy and offshore drilling may alienate some liberal Democrats and environmentalists. One environmental group, Friends of the Earth, called it "a kick in the gut."
Graham, in an Associated Press interview, said Obama's speech was an opening that he hoped to take advantage of to court more GOP support. But he said some pro-nuclear Republicans, while pleased with the president's remarks, are nervous about the other part of the bill — a plan to limit heat-trapping pollution, which will raise energy costs.
"The president did a great job putting nuclear on the table in a robust way, as well as offshore drilling for oil and natural gas," said Graham. "I hope Republicans understand we have a once in lifetime chance, but in return we have to come up with emissions standards."
Lieberman praised Obama for "reaching out beyond the Democratic Party base," but said it may not be enough to win the support of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. McCain criticized Obama's stance on nuclear power during the 2008 campaign, but has backed efforts to reduce global warming.
McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said that while the senator was encouraged, the administration needs to address reprocessing and disposal if nuclear power is to be a viable option.
On Friday, the Department of Energy announced a bipartisan commission to investigate alternatives to Yucca Mountain.
The nuclear energy industry is waiting to see what else the administration will deliver. Its wish list includes more financing for loan guarantees, as well as tax incentives for nuclear energy manufacturing and production facilities.
"The turnaround in the last year has just been astounding and welcome," said Jim Connaughton, the former chairman of the White House Council of Environmental Quality under President George W. Bush. Connaughton now works for Constellation Energy, the Baltimore-based energy company that owns a stake in five nuclear reactors and is seeking to build more.
"There is no question that if you look at the votes, for a majority of them that have been on the fence, restoring America's leadership in nuclear energy is an essential requirement."
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Is it bad that all I can think is, "close the coal and NG plants now, and I will gladly have your nuclear plants running next Tuesday"?
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I'm good with it, just don't send the waste to my state. I don't relish the idea of nuclear waste traveling within 2 mi of my house on a rail car. And yeah, I know how secure they claim the containers are, but I seem to remember the Murrah building being gutted by fertilizer and diesel fuel.
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Is it bad that all I can think is, "close the coal and NG plants now, and I will gladly have your nuclear plants running next Tuesday"?
That is my worry, bait and switch, everyone buys in and passes a climate bill and then the nuke plants never get built, the pesky EPA or something holds them up for decades while the coal plants still close and the wind farms go up everywhere to suck tax dollars out of the breeze.
Be good if we get more nuke plants though.
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So what do you all think? Sincere or scam?
Anything this man does that isn't rooted in Marxism is a scam.
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I'm good with it, just don't send the waste to my state. I don't relish the idea of nuclear waste traveling within 2 mi of my house on a rail car. And yeah, I know how secure they claim the containers are, but I seem to remember the Murrah building being gutted by fertilizer and diesel fuel.
I saw some of the container tests on film - HOLY MOLY is all I can say. There's nothing short of an intentional and deliberate and very well carried out attack that would actually break those containers open.
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The larger question is, would you accept the promise of nuclear plants for a job-killing, tax-raising cap and trade system?
Cap and trade would be one of the final nails in the coffin of the US economy. Nuclear plants should be addressed on their own merits.
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Cap and trade are just code words for control and taxation.
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The larger question is, would you accept the promise of nuclear plants for a job-killing, tax-raising cap and trade system?
No.
But I would take a crapload of nuclear reactors in trade for the current coal/NG/Hydro/etc that we have now. Those resources are better used for other things, and will last us a lot longer without electricity generation using them up.
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The larger question is, would you accept the promise of nuclear plants for a job-killing, tax-raising cap and trade system?
Cap and trade would be one of the final nails in the coffin of the US economy. Nuclear plants should be addressed on their own merits.
Cap and Trade or any number of other attachments to the policy. Hence my caveat that on the face of it, this is the first thing I don't outright disagree with, versus actually agree with. One always has to worry if the blade is poisoned or not. :)
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Scanr, do you live near a coal fired powerplant?
Do you live in a state that uses coal for its electricity?
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I'm good with it, just don't send the waste to my state. I don't relish the idea of nuclear waste traveling within 2 mi of my house on a rail car. And yeah, I know how secure they claim the containers are, but I seem to remember the Murrah building being gutted by fertilizer and diesel fuel.
Not a good comparison, scanr2. Well beyond apples and oranges. A boxcar of ANFO wouldn't break one. It might toss it into the next county, but the contents would still be intact and secure.
Do a little research on how those nuke waste containers are constructed and strength tested and you will see that they are nearly indestructable.
edited for speeling.
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I'm good with it, just don't send the waste to my state. I don't relish the idea of nuclear waste traveling within 2 mi of my house on a rail car. And yeah, I know how secure they claim the containers are, but I seem to remember the Murrah building being gutted by fertilizer and diesel fuel.
It has to go somewhere. If not your state and not anyone else's, where does it go?
Chris
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It has to go somewhere. If not your state and not anyone else's, where does it go?
Chris
Put it in my backyard. I'm not a NIMBY person.
And, someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but can't we reuse a great deal of that waste?
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Put it in my backyard. I'm not a NIMBY person.
And, someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but can't we reuse a great deal of that waste?
Yup. Except for an executive order orginally signed, IIRC by Carter. The French, of all people, do this all the time. The "problem" was that refining the waste for re-use resulted in potentially weapons grade plutonium being extracted as a fission by-product. 'Course, there's no reason why a Pu reactor couldn't be built to use that for energy rather than weapons.
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Nevada has no nuclear plants, so we do not produce any of the nuclear waste. So the Not In My BackYard analogy doesn't fit. That would be the same as me taking a dump in a bucket and driving over to your house to dump it in your yard. We have some coal plants, a lot of geothermal plants and solar, in southern Nevada we have hydroelectric.
I find it amazing that most conservatives I meet online are all for state's rights, except when it comes to nuclear waste. "It's got to go somewhere."
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Have any of Nevada's rights been violated in the construction of the waste storage facility? (Honest question, I dunno much aobut it.)
I could understand an objection to putting nuclear waste on someone's private property, literally in their backyard, against their wishes and in violation of their property rights. I doubt that's the case here, though.
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Have any of Nevada's rights been violated in the construction of the waste storage facility? (Honest question, I dunno much aobut it.)
I could understand an objection to putting nuclear waste on someone's private property, literally in their backyard, against their wishes and in violation of their property rights. I doubt that's the case here, though.
The storage facility is in the middle of the Nevada Test Range, which is where the majority of nuclear bombs were tested in this country.
In other words, it's all federal property. (About 85% of Nevada is owned by the feds in one form another, though). And it's smack in the middle of a place that has been nuked to hell already anyway. Personally, I can't think of a much better place to put it.
Also, for what it's worth, I am also a Nevada resident. Nevada missed a huge opportunity with Yucca Mountain. We could have charged the feds a lot of money for storing and transporting the waste through the state. Instead, the state government fought it tooth and nail. Oh well.
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Having been to the Nevada Test Site many times, and having also been a Radiation Safety Officer, and also studied up on those transportation casks, to me it's much ado about nothing. The amount of high-level radioactive waste produced pales in comparison to the amount of crap we dump into the atmosphere via coal-fired power plants, and that doesn't even take into account the environmental damage created digging the fossil fuel up.
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So what do you all think? Sincere or scam?
I'll take bull manure from the Man-child president for $1000, Alex.
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It has to go somewhere. If not your state and not anyone else's, where does it go?
On a rocket ship pointed at the sun? Or at least fired into deep space.
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On a rocket ship pointed at the sun? Or at least fired into deep space.
Until the first rocket full of nuclear waste explodes in the atmosphere and blankets half the globe.
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Having been to the Nevada Test Site many times, and having also been a Radiation Safety Officer, and also studied up on those transportation casks, to me it's much ado about nothing. The amount of high-level radioactive waste produced pales in comparison to the amount of crap we dump into the atmosphere via coal-fired power plants, and that doesn't even take into account the environmental damage created digging the fossil fuel up.
Yep. Burning coal releases more radiation than any other form of power generation.
If it came to a vote, I'd vote in favor of storing the nuke waste in my home state.
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Until the first rocket full of nuclear waste explodes in the atmosphere and blankets half the globe.
I had to laugh, too.
Yep. Those containers are nigh indestructible, not indestructible.
Slinging them into space on top of tens/hundreds of thousands of pounds of rocket fuel is one of the few deliberate acts that might get one to rupture, if it goes kerblooey on the pad or in flight through the atmo.
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1. Obama has moved back into campaign mode and is trying to move to the center a little since his lefty slant didn't work.
2. He realizes that his cap and trade bill hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of passing without trying to compromise a little. IMO, he is obviously not trying to compromise very hard.
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Put it in my backyard. I'm not a NIMBY person.
And, someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but can't we reuse a great deal of that waste?
If not now, maybe once we learn a little more - one of the reasons why it's dangerous is BECAUSE IT'S RADIATING ENERGY (that, and it's poisonous as all get out).
But yes, we can reuse a LOT of spent fuel now, if we can reprocess it. We're just getting back into that game, here in the US.
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Smoke and mirrors from Obama. He will toss nuclear energy under the bus as soon as it suits him.
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Technology has risks. So does civilization. So does liberty.
And...? The danger of not having enough energy is an order of magnitude greater than any jeopardy from nuclear waste disposal.
Obviously we need a crash program for nuclear power in America, and pity is that Bush didn't push this back in 2001 when he could easily have gotten a mandate. Had he done so we'd have a good number of plants coming on line right now.
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The larger question is, would you accept the promise of nuclear plants for a job-killing, tax-raising cap and trade system?
Nope, not even if we got the nuclear plants first.
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My prediction is it will be part of something we don't want. New cap and tax with Nuclear Power and "clean" offshore drilling attached.
The obvious intent will be to paint the (R)'s into a corner. Just the same as Bush did to the (D)'s in '04 with the Gay Marriage amendment.
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Probably a stalking horse, yes.
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I expect to see a proposed legislative deal involving some sort of carbon tax in exchange for increased nuclear power in the US.
And despite getting my power from Palo Verde nuclear plant... I'll end up paying the carbon tax on my electric bill. As will you all.
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A coworker today said that Obama's new budget defunds the nuclear waste facility in NM. If true, that would speak pretty clearly to their real intentions regarding nuclear power.
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A coworker today said that Obama's new budget defunds the nuclear waste facility in NM. If true, that would speak pretty clearly to their real intentions regarding nuclear power.
Yup, it appears he's just giving lip service to whatever his targeted audience is. He doesn't mention "nuclear" once here:
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100203/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_energy
Obama pushing clean coal and green jobs
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 3, 6:02 am ET
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is meeting with governors from coal-producing states, hoping to earn their support for a languishing energy bill and to bolster his image as a leader willing to work with Republicans as well as Democrats.
Obama planned to announce on Wednesday new steps to increase the role of biofuels in powering the nation and to release a report detailing how Washington could increase investments in green technologies, an administration official said. The president was also expected to discuss so-called clean coal technologies, said the official, who spoke ahead of the announcement only on condition of anonymity.
Many pieces of those proposals were likely to win Republican support on Capitol Hill, where GOP allies have been elusive for a Democratic White House looking to pass controversial cap-and-trade legislation that would limit the nation's emissions. Wednesday's plan also was likely to find support from GOP governors in states rich in coal and corn, which can be used to produce ethanol.
Republican Govs. Jim Douglas of Vermont, Bob Riley of Alabama and Mike Rounds of South Dakota were scheduled to meet with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House.
Energy has served as a major plank of the president's domestic agenda, finding places on his travel schedule, in his speeches and in his budget proposal released on Monday. In that plan, Obama's team called for tangible accomplishments that Democrats can champion as they head into a 2010 campaign season that has become more perilous since Republican Scott Brown won a special election to replace the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
"Well, you're not going to get any argument from me about the need to create clean energy jobs," Obama said Monday in a YouTube forum. "I think this is going to be the driver of our economy over the long term. And that's why we put in record amounts of money for solar and wind and biodiesel and all the other alternative clean energy sources that are out there."
The president added: "In the meantime, though, unfortunately, no matter how fast we ramp up those energy sources, we're still going to have enormous energy needs that will be unmet by alternative energy. And the question then is, Where will that come from?"
That was a question Obama asked a group — led by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson — to explore.
Officials said their recommendations would build on some $786 million allocated for environmental projects ranging from ethanol research to pilot programs at biorefineries. The plans also would mesh with Obama's budget proposal, which called for ending oil and gas subsidies, a move that could save $36.5 billion over a decade.
The Obama budget proposal, meanwhile, would retrofit 1.1 million housing units to improve energy efficiency through next year and increase batteries for plug-in hybrid vehicles to 500,000 a year by 2015. Both are examples of a tangible program that could help residents' pocketbooks and Democrats' chances at the ballot box.
Obama's political team is already making that case. He toured a company that produces energy-efficient light bulbs in Nashua, N.H., on Tuesday and late last month visited an Ohio community college that trains students to work on wind turbines. He has also been talking up the energy sector's potential to move out-of-work Americans off unemployment rolls.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/01/national/main6163433.shtml
A Quarter of U.S. Nuclear Plants Leaking
27 of 104 Plants Leak Radioactive Tritium, a Carcinogen, Raising Concerns About Nation's Aging Plants
* The cooling towers of Three Mile Island's Unit 1 Nuclear Power Plant pour steam into the sky in Middletown, Pa., in this March 17, 2009 file photo. Radioactive tritium, a carcinogen, now taints at least 27 of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors — raising concerns about how it is escaping from the aging nuclear plants.
The cooling towers of Three Mile Island's Unit 1 Nuclear Power Plant pour steam into the sky in Middletown, Pa., in this March 17, 2009 file photo. Radioactive tritium, a carcinogen, now taints at least 27 of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors — raising concerns about how it is escaping from the aging nuclear plants. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
(AP) Radioactive tritium, a carcinogen discovered in potentially dangerous levels in groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, now taints at least 27 of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors — raising concerns about how it is escaping from the aging nuclear plants.
The leaks — many from deteriorating underground pipes — come as the nuclear industry is seeking and obtaining federal license renewals, casting itself as a clean-green alternative to power plants that burn fossil fuels.
Tritium, found in nature in tiny amounts and a product of nuclear fusion, has been linked to cancer if ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin in large amounts.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that new tests at a monitoring well on Vermont Yankee's site in Vernon registered 70,500 picocuries per liter, more than three times the federal safety standard of 20,000 picocuries per liter.
That is the highest reading yet at the Vermont Yankee plant, where the original discovery last month drew sharp criticism by Gov. Jim Douglas and others. Officials of the New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., which owns the plant in Vernon in Vermont's southeast corner, have admitted misleading state regulators and lawmakers by saying the plant did not have the kind of underground pipes that could leak tritium into groundwater.
"What has happened at Vermont Yankee is a breach of trust that cannot be tolerated," said Republican Gov. Jim Douglas, who until now has been a strong supporter of the state's lone nuclear plant.
Vermont Yankee has said no tritium has been found in area drinking water supplies or in the Connecticut River and that earlier, lesser tritium levels discovered last month were of no health concern. Messages left for a plant spokesman Monday were not immediately returned.
President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address last week, called for "building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country." His 2011 budget request to Congress on Monday called for $54 billion in additional loan guarantees for nuclear power.
The 104 nuclear reactors operating in 31 states provide only 20 percent of the nation's electricity. But they are responsible for 70 percent of the power from non-greenhouse gas producing sources, including wind, solar and hydroelectric dams.
Vermont Yankee is just the latest of dozens of U.S. nuclear plants, many built in the 1960s and '70s, to be found with leaking tritium.
The Braidwood nuclear station in Illinois was found in the 1990s to be leaking millions of gallons of tritium-laced water, some of which contaminated residential water wells. Plant owner Exelon Corp. ended up paying for a new municipal water system.
After Braidwood, the nuclear industry stepped up voluntary checking for tritium in groundwater at plants around the country, testing that revealed the Vermont Yankee problem, plant officials said.
In New Jersey last year, tritium was reported leaking a second time from the Oyster Creek plant in Ocean County, just days after Exelon won NRC approval for a 20-year license extension there. The Pilgrim plant in Plymouth, Mass., like Vermont Yankee, owned by Entergy, reported low levels of tritium on the ground in 2007. The Vermont leak has prompted a Plymouth-area citizens group to demand more test wells at the Massachusetts plant.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan says leaks have occurred at least 27 of the nation's 104 commercial reactors at 65 plant sites. He said the list likely does not include every plant where tritium has leaked.
The leaks have several causes; underground pipes corroding and the leaking of spent fuel storage pools are the most common. The source of the leak or leaks at Vermont Yankee has not been found; at Oyster Creek, corroded underground pipes were implicated.
Many radiological health scientists agree with the Environmental Protection Agency that tritium, like other radioactive isotopes, can cause cancer.
That worries Vermont public officials and lawmakers. Rep. Tony Klein, chairman of the Natural Resources and Energy Committee in the Vermont House, said he fears public officials may be downplaying the risk.
"When you have public officials that the public depends on for their health and welfare making casual statements that a radioactive substance is not harmful to you, I think that's ludicrous," Klein said.
There's disagreement on the severity of the risk.
"Somebody would have to be drinking a lot of water and it would have to be really concentrated in there for it to do any harm at all," said Jacqueline Williams, a radiation biologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York state.
But in 2005, the National Academy of Sciences concluded after an exhaustive study that even the tiniest amount of ionizing radiation increases the risk of cancer.
"The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial," Richard R. Monson, associate dean for professional education and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said when the NAS released its study.
Paul Gunter of the Maryland-based anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear, said in many instances, it's impossible to know how much tritium is getting into the environment.
"These are uncontrolled, unmonitored releases from these plants," he said.
Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, said the public shouldn't be unduly worried.
"These are industrial facilities, and any industrial facility from time to time is going to have equipment problems or challenges," Kerekes said. "Not every operational issue rises to the level of being a safety issue."
Vermont, with a strong anti-nuclear movement, is the only state in the country where the Legislature decides whether to relicense a nuclear plant. Vermont Yankee's current 40-year license is up in 2012, and Entergy is asking for 20 more years.
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Tritium?
I wonder how many night sight owners will end up with cancer.
Somehow, I doubt many, and the tritium won't be the culprit.
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"The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial," Richard R. Monson, associate dean for professional education and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said when the NAS released its study.
From wiki:
The U.S. limit is calculated to yield a dose of 4 mrem (or 40 microsieverts in SI units) per year.
From NRC.gov:
The average annual radiation exposure from natural sources to an individual in the United States is about 300 millirem (3 millisieverts)*. Radon gas accounts for two-thirds of this exposure, while cosmic, terrestrial, and internal radiation account for the remainder. No adverse health effects have been discerned from doses arising from these levels of natural radiation exposure.
1.3% of radiation exposure comes from drinking water at the standard. I would bet money that the drinking water standard is based on the natural concentration of Tritium. Since the article is purposefully vague, Tritium is an isotope of Hydrogen, H3 to be precise.
This article disagrees with many issues in the main one:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/tritium-radiation-fs.html (http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/tritium-radiation-fs.html)
intereting point is a flight from LA to NY has almost the same exposure to drinking water at the regulated limit for a year. So if you take four such flights a year you are being exposed to more radiation than drinking from these wells for a year.