Oct
9
The Voters are Out on Nuclear Power
October 9, 2008 | 1 Comment
Practically everyone in the energy field recognizes the critical role fission based nuclear power will need to play for supplying electrical power. Politicians with some caveats are on board. The environmentalists with realism as part of their calculation understand that nuclear must grow for life as we know it to continue with the planet’s healthcare in mind.
But where are the voters? Somewhere not paying much attention, which is justified, as energy and fuels sources in particular fields are something far down the list of many people’s life concerns.
Senator McCain uses nuclear as a prime source in his plan as he said again in the second debate, “Now, how — what’s — what’s the best way of fixing [climate change]? Nuclear power. . . Look, I — I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it’s clean, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. And — and I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel. The Japanese, the British, the French do it. And we can do it, too.” Note that I edited out the Obama references out.
But even Senator Obama endorses nuclear power, not that he has much choice, while keeping himself an out by using safety saying, “I favor nuclear power as one component of our overall energy mix.” Note that I edited out the McCain references.
Its clear having watched both of these campaigns that McCain is far out in front of Obama in grasping the precepts and consequences of any policy on energy and fuels. Perhaps the gravest disservice from the mainstream media in supporting Obama is the loss of the necessary coverage of the energy options. This blind support without doing the reporting and investigation is a disservice to the readers viewers and the advertisers that provide the commercial support.
Nuclear has been through thirty years of technological improvement while voters are still way behind. You and I may know about the Hyperion Nuclear Reactor, but the average voter is completely in the dark. That simply results in voter’s minds still being in 1979 when Three Mile Island had its accident. Actually Harris Interactive is reporting their polling shows public attitudes about nuclear power show fewer people support building more nuclear power plants than a few months after the accident.
The environmentalists, even the hardened core grasp that nuclear with its minimal environmental impact is a choice of the very least evil possible so far. That leaves the barrier of entrenched ignorance in which 94% of the polled people think that storage of nuclear waste is the problem today (table 3) compared to 95% in 1979. Things have hardly moved at all.
That might be Obama’s tactic in playing to ignorance for keeping himself an out. But when more people discover that the used or what would be waste nuclear fuel can be used over and over again with reprocessing as done around the world now, being played for the dope might not set too well when the brown out or rolling blackout hits home.
With the media piled up and taking Obama’s side how did Senator McCain’s comments play to the audience during the debate? Climate Progress, a holdout critic of nuclear growth, offers “At best, people consider nuclear power as castor oil, something your parents made you take that is supposed to be good for you. At worst, people think it’s a source of radioactivity they’d like to stay far away from.” It seems condescension can still be marketed in the nuclear power field.
If you didn’t like $4 gasoline, you’re really not going to like the coming prices for electricity. The CO2 doomers are getting very close to imposing solutions of serious economic destruction and the biggest target of all is coal that equals half the fuel for U.S power generation.
Everyone reading these pages has an interest in a better future. We know new energy and fuels offer a method to build up the economy. But knowing without sharing is letting ignorance hold power over knowledge. Can 95% of people in ignorance be left to decide our fate? By no means can they be blamed, no one has cared to inform them.
Today we’re facing a turn into an economic downturn, a completion of a business cycle. Its not President Carter’s misery index, well not yet anyway, of inflation plus the unemployment numbers. It’s still a credit crisis. Energy isn’t even in the partial control of the free world’s independent oil companies as in 1979; oil is controlled by OPEC the new Axis of Oil, and an assortment of thugs and tyrants. Oil as the prime energy and fuel source has to end or we’ll be blackmailed for decades until we get on with alternatives and efficiency.
Americans, Europeans and lots of free people around the world are busy living lives, raising families and building the intellectual, emotional and economic wealth of freedom. Perhaps you care enough to share your know-how, experience and attitude. Is not a far view to see that the energy issues of today are going to get much larger and if ignored much more difficult to solve.
The U.S will have a significant election in a month. You are choosing whether ignorance will out poll intellect by caring enough to share and inform. No matter where you are in the political spectrum, unless an egotist in it for the power over others, informing and overcoming ignorance can only benefit everyone no matter who wins.
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So the issue of radio-active nuclear waste as not a problem because it is being re-processed. I have to plead ignorance about the details, is it cost-effective? Does it get rid of all the waste? Is there significantly lest waste stockpiled now than 10 years ago? Just the term reprocessing suggests to me that only a fraction is actually used up each time.
I do know of a well documented, proven solution in Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors that burn the existing waste, produce no products suitable for bombs, and have a tiny reactive waste with a 78 year half life. http://www.energyfromthorium.com/
Doesn’t this sound like the ideal solution?