I attended the Payette meeting last night. No way did supporters outnumber opponents, and no way the nuke issue is secondary to jobs. In fact, 47 immediate neighbors hired a lawyer who blew away the flimsy incomplete P&Z application, and vowed to fight this insane plan. I don't think AEHI had 47 friends testify, and the actual testimony seemed split.
Gillispie had little local support, but had many stockholders from Boise testify, like Bruce Wong, and some lady wearing a beauty queen sash testified we should get educated like her so we would be thankful like her that AEHI came to Idaho.
But 47 irrate neighbors who hire a lawyer count a tad more than Eagle stockholders, don't they? This group just started last week and they will no doubt grow.

Most Idahoans are extremely uneducated, especially when it comes to anything logical.

Nuclear power is the future. You people need to get your crazy heads out of the 1950s when nukes were unsafe. There's been what; 1.5 nuclear power 'disasters' in all of our(human) nuclear history. I'd say that's a pretty good track record.

Just like any other power plant or factory, people screw up and stuff breaks. The consequences are much greater though with a nuke (if you want a recent "big" accident, look up Tricastin leak. The current French strike that has shut down a bunch of their plants is amusing too).

Even with all the taxpayer subsidies and shields from liability, the nuke industry still isn't economically viable.

Then you have to figure out a way to safely reprocess the waste (hello bin Laden) or store it for centuries.

If you want jobs in the rural areas, subsidize something with an immediate impact, like fiber and wide bandwidth. Lots of us can live and work anywhere so long as we can get a fast net connection - I'm sure not going to live close to a nuke plant when I can move my computer (and my tax dollars) upwind.

I don't think they are uneducated, they may remember and be jumpy about this...
-USSR April 1986 Chernobyl- 31 dead and severe contamination.
-Three Mile island here in the good old USA
"An accident with potential for a core meltdown occurred in the PWR at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Station Unit 2 near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979" ( Glasstone 105). The cause? a combination of design deficiencies, inadequate procedures, and operator errors.
Although there have been vast improvements in the industry people remember this.
Calling concerned people uneducated is not helping your cause. EDUCATE if you can, belittle if you can't.

TheEnd is incorrect to say modern nukes have no problems. Please look up alloy-600 stress cracks that nearly melted down Ohio's Davis-Besse plant in 2002. The engineer found the acid leak in the containment by luck, but then covered it up to keep running for profit! LUCKILY he got caught, and now the NRC says that very alloy-600 stress crack problem at Davis-besse effects HALF the US fleet (the PWR's) Here is an NRC reference about some of the dangers of the stress cracks. They patch welded some cracks they found, replaced some nozzles, but are mostly just watching, hoping they won't shake loose in the next lil' earthquake. They are renewing these old reactor licenses. But the cracks don't even need earthquakes to crack! Alloy-600 was tested and APPROVED by INL at the "flawless" ATR!!!:-)
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/prv.html
Primary Water Stress Corrosion Cracking of Upper Reactor Vessel Head Penetration Nozzles in PWRs
Control rod drive mechanism nozzles and other vessel head penetration nozzles welded to the upper reactor vessel head are subject to another phenomenon - primary water stress corrosion cracking. The issue is a potential safety concern because a nozzle with sufficient cracking could break off during operation. This would compromise the integrity of the reactor coolant system pressure boundary - one of three primary barriers that protect the public from exposure to radiation. The break may also result in the ejection of a control rod, which could damage nearby components.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060120/NEWS03/60120012/-1/NEWS
Article published Friday, January 20, 2006
U.S. indicts trio in Davis-Besse inquiry
Reactor head facts withheld, government says
Siemaszko
By TOM HENRY BLADE STAFF WRITER
CLEVELAND — Two former Davis-Besse engineers and an outside consultant who was contracted for years to work for FirstEnergy Corp.’s nuclear division have been indicted by a federal grand jury, according to a copy of the indictment obtained yesterday by The Blade.
Andrew Siemaszko, a former systems engineer, and David Geisen, a former engineering manager, were charged with five counts of making false statements to a federal agency. Contractor-consultant Rodney Cook was charged with four counts of making false statements to a federal agency.
The indictment alleges that information about the status of the nuclear plant’s old reactor head deliberately was withheld from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, causing federal regulators to underestimate the amount of danger that existed at the plant along the Lake Erie shoreline near Oak Harbor, Ohio.
The reactor head nearly burst open in 2002 because of acid that had been allowed to escape from the reactor and burn a cavity deep into the device’s steel lid over a number of years.
If the reactor head had burst, radioactive steam would have formed in the containment building and put northern Ohio on the brink of a nuclear accident akin to what happened in the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in central Pennsylvania in 1979, the NRC has said.

DONT DO IT

Nuclear power can't be viewed in isolation as some would like to do. There are real tradeoffs between Coal, Nuclear, Hydro, and the renewables like wind and solar. Coal is poisoning the planet with CO2 and mercury along with considerably more radiation than would be allowed from a nuclear plant. And there are real consequences, even if you don't believe global warming is important. Studies attribute 10,000 to 50,000 per year in the U.S. due to the adverse health effects of burning so much coal.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

An just the amount of waste involved is incredibly different. If an American got all his or her lifetime electricity solely from nuclear power, that person’s total share of the waste would fit into one soda can. Of that, only a trace is long-lived. In France, where nuclear fuel is recycled, waste is drastically reduced, so that the lifetime total for a family of four would fit in a single coffee cup.

Half of our electricity comes from burning coal. If an American got all his or her electricity from coal over a lifespan of 77 years, that person’s mountain of solid waste would weigh 68.5 tons and would and would fit into six 12-ton railroad cars. That person’s share of carbon dioxide from coal emissions would come to 77 tons.

By the way, on a per watt basis, nuclear has about the same CO2 footprint as Wind energy.

Wind and solar are fine but are not capable of providing a base load (basically the electricity you need to run lights at night or when the wind is not blowing). In fact, nuclear power could actually enable more renewables to come on-line. I’ve attached some links to Bonneville Power Administration ( BPA ) data below that make the case graphically (both literally and figuratively).

http://www.bpa.gov/corporate/WindPower/index.cfm

http://www.transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx

BPA is an almost ideal case of plenty of hydro storage (Columbia River system) and lots of wind. Yet, the hydro storage has limited ability to deal with balancing wind generation and maintaining base load. New storage technologies or the addition of nuclear could actually allow more wind energy on the grid. Current capabilities of hydro to load balance limits wind to about 3000-3500 Megawatts. Here at Boise State we’ve been working on compressed air storage systems for renewables. One thing I’ve learned working on storage is that it is not going to be easy for any storage technology, especially if you take into account its entire impact on the planet from construction to operation to dismantling at end of life.

Finally, there have been tremendous advances in the design of nuclear plants so comparisons to '50s and '60s designs like the PWR mentioned above is like comparing '50s Chevy design to a 2009 Toyota Prius. Many of the arguments used against nuclear just don't apply anymore. It's also no more correct to equate nuclear power with nuclear weapons than it is to compare gasoline engines to napalm bombs. In fact, one exciting development in nuclear power is the ability to burn the plutonium from old Soviet and US nuclear weapons that have been dismantled to produce electricity. It would be like converting napalm into gasoline for cars. And, once the plutonium is burnt up making us electricity, it is gone from the face of the earth forever. That is a very good thing.

Here's a couple of books worth reading that are accessible to anyone, not just the energy technologists, that present the many tradeoffs. A lot of the old environmental assumptions must be changed to save the planet. Many are outdated if they ever were true and failure to change puts all of us in danger.

Whole Earth Discipline - Stewart Brand (also the author of the Whole Earth Catalog)

Physics for Future Presidents - Richard Mullar

Bob Davidson, Ph.D.

Idaho remains the sole site of a fatal accident at a US reactor. The SL-1 reactor exploded in 1961 at the NRTS (now the INL) in Eastern Idaho killing three technicians and releasing radioactivity that drifted southeastward over a tiny ranchhouse just ten miles away where a six-year-old little girl who sixteen years later would be come my wife lay sleeping. Her older brother died a few years ago of multiple myeloma, a bone cancer known to be associated with exposure to radioactivity.

Biomass = Trees in Idaho is probably not exactly carbon neutral because of the oil and other resources you'd have to use to extract the tree. But it would be better than burning coal. This is not my area of expertise so maybe someone who's studied it could comment. It seems unlikely that there would be enough trees to burn day in and day out to provide a significant amount of energy outside of Idaho. However, in Brazil most cars run on sugar cane based fuels with a small (but not neutral) carbon footprint. It's sure good for mobil energy.

If you don't believe in global warming, then you still have to deal with population and extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is the feeder system into global terrorism (see for example this short video from Nuru)

http://vimeo.com/7386152

The thing that separates the "haves" from the "have nots" in this world is access to abundant energy. This impacts also world population as you can plot GDP/capita vs number of children per woman and it drops dramatically as GDP/capita increases above $5,000/year. High Income/Quality of Life = stabilized world population. The alternative will be a overpopulated hell on earth. This requires abundant energy at a minimum. We have to generate that energy in ways that don't poison the earth.

windmills kill birds by the way (should be especially an issue in Idaho) I found this pretty disturbing but just points out that there's no perfect solution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9srPoOU6_Z4

If you are interested in something really exciting, check out the Thorium fuel cycle. Proliferation proof and burns so efficiently that there's little waste left over. Also, thorium is way more abundant and widespread than uranium.
Check out this Google talk (compressed, Reader's Digest Version)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk

Hi Dr Davidson,
Seriously, I have had an open challenge to debate INL scientists anytime-anywhere since 1988. The INL actually has backed out of conservative pro-nuke host radio shows when they heard I would also be present to share the DOE documents that contradict almost everything they promise in public about safety and waste problems.
I read your bio on the BSU web, and you are certainly a very bright and educated guy. But your post above is misleading, incorrect, and even avoids the great US geothermal power potential, as you frame your point in the old ploy of the ignorant coal vs nuclear argument. Those are NOT the only 2 sources of steady baseload power. Please see my website at www.MyIdahoEnergy.com for some great DOE and NRC documents on MODERN nuclear safety flaws, like containment scenarioes that can lead to "catastrophic failure." I also share the 2007 Stanford published report showing linking widespread wind farms provides as steady a baseload as coal, and cheaper. DOE says Idaho can double our present electric consumption with cheap 7.5 cents/kwhr by 2030! No meltdowns from disgruntled employees or terrorists! Have you read the nuclear cyber-terrorism threat documents from Homeland Security and DOE? Se da website!
You above avoided my NRC reference on the ONGOING alloy-600 stress crack problems, that effects half the present US fleet, the PWR's. Infamous Davis-Besse plant was built in 1970, not 1950. Instead of acknowledging this MODERN, INL tested and approved, alloy-600 stress crack problem you arrogantly attempt to dismiss it as "Finally, there have been tremendous advances in the design of nuclear plants so comparisons to '50s and '60s designs like the PWR mentioned above is like comparing '50s Chevy design to a 2009 Toyota Prius. Many of the arguments used against nuclear just don't apply anymore. It's also no more correct to equate nuclear power with nuclear weapons than it is to compare gasoline engines to napalm bombs."
Dang Doc, I bet you never hear your educated colleagues discussing the below LATEST REPORT from the DOE & NRC on the CURRENT containment flaws and UNKNOWNS, even after 50 years of nuclear science huffing and puffing promises of "safety." So when would you like to debate nuclear issues at BSU Dr Davidson, so we can get on with the "education" you recommend above...Peter
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/contract/cr6906/cr6906.pdf
find at p 147 or p 166/206 on webpages
4.7 Issues for Future Consideration
4.7.1 Leakage
A great deal has been learned about containment behavior and containment analysis methods in
the last two decades of containment research, but questions still remain. One of the most
important behavior questions is that it is not known with certainty whether a leakage failure will
reach an equilibrium state or if it will lead to a catastrophic failure. The arguments for each
follow below. SNIPPED FOR SPACE!!!
4.7.2 Other Considerations
Many aspects of containment integrity have still not been addressed in the various containment
integrity research programs. Some of these topics are listed below:
• The behavior of the containment under elevated temperature and pressure loads has not
been thoroughly investigated. Most of the containment tests have ignored the effects of
temperature on the material properties and thermal induced stresses associated with
elevated temperatures.
• The effect of aerosols within the containment atmosphere during an accident has not been
investigated. Aerosols may plug holes in the containment that may lead to a higher
pressure capability, but have the potential to change the mode of failure from a possible
benign mode to a burst mode. This applies to unlined concrete containments and lined
containments when the liner has failed.
• Seismic loadings coupled with severe accident loads have not been investigated in any
detail.
• Liner-anchorage-concrete interaction is significant in determining how liners tear in
concrete containments. These phenomena are still not fully understood. SNIPPED!!!

In fact the world has already seen worst case nuclear accidents (the dreaded meltdown), Chernobyl, being the best example. While horrible, they just aren't that apocalyptic. Far fewer died at Chernobyl than died at Bhopal, India for example, which was a chemical plant accident. Nature is taking over the Chernobyl site now and the plants and animals are doing just fine. Three Mile Island was an economic disaster but less radiation escaped than is typical for a coal fired plant under normal operation. Materials issues are a challenge for nuclear (your alloy-600 problem for example) but Japan and France both generate the bulk of their electricity from nuclear and have for decades. Nuclear safety is not a theoretical argument put forth by DOE/INL and subject to refutation by more theoretical arguments from the other side. It is a fact that exists in the world today. The United States is being irresponsible by not pursuing nuclear and renewables more aggressively.

Again, you can't reason about this stuff out of context. If we got all our electricity from nuclear (not saying we should, I'm actually working on renewables and energy conservation through LED lighting) we wouldn't be importing oil and enriching our enemies or sending our troops to die in the mideast. We already know about the 10,000 to 50,000 deaths every year attributable to coal burning in the US and the pollution of all the waterways by mercury released from burning coal not to mention the ash waste and CO2 pollution. This impact is far worse than anything attributable to nuclear power generation by orders of magnitude. It is just wrong minded to attempt to deny people a relatively safe, carbon free, source of power (I didn't say perfect, nothing is).

I'm not making up a false comparison of coal to nuclear just to make nuclear look good either. Here's the data on how we get electricity in this country:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation

There are new designs (Gen IV I believe is how people talk about them). Those are what I was referring to. All of these are inherently stable and not capable of melt down because of the physics involved, e.g pebble bed designs. Some of the more exciting designs are the so called "backyard" nuclear systems and modular systems being designed. And the best place to site them is right where the power is needed, e.g. downtown Boise. This avoids all the losses involved in transmission lines.

Finally, Stanford may have written a report on wind but the issue is not the wind farm, it's the grid. The BPA info is on one of the largest wind installations and grids in the world and growing daily (just drive to Portland sometime to see) and they are stymied at the moment meeting base power requirements if they add more renewable wind and solar. I'd give more weight to someone who's actually doing it verses a paper study. Improving the grid will make wind and solar more viable for sure but it's not without it's costs and risks either. for example, a fully interconnected grid would be a nice target for cyber terrorist. In fact, something like that shutdown power for a large portion of Brazil recently.

I'm not interested to debate this. Not because it's you so much, I don't have that much ego involved. It just is not a good use of my time right now and not my strong suite. In any case, the data is out there. No need for debate. Nature always gets the last word anyway.

Go back and look.

http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2009/11/20/rockybarker/more_250_people_show_testify_about_nuclear_plant_payette#comment-308393

Sir/madam, you are to be congratulated for your brevity. It was staggering.

----------
Like a midair collision with a tugboat

Hi WA7ut,
I see you are another victim of the talking points of diversion from their nuclear salesmen. Your main "point" above is "In fact the world has already seen worst case nuclear accidents (the dreaded meltdown), Chernobyl, being the best example. While horrible, they just aren't that apocalyptic. Far fewer died at Chernobyl than died at Bhopal, India for example, which was a chemical plant accident. Nature is taking over the Chernobyl site now and the plants and animals are doing just fine."
MM'KAAYY, well, the Chernobyl fallout caused thousands of thyroid cancers in kids far away from the area, in Belarus. Most kids survived the harsh chemotherapy and now do survive on man made thyroid supplements. So congratulations, the "talking point" becomes the number of "deaths", which the nuke salesmen love to compare to an unregulated ghetto chemical blast in India (NOT an energy source). You are forgetting the mass impoundment of crops, and forced evacuation is what keeps the cancer rate from soaring even higher! Yes, evacuating southern Idaho permanently is the risk we are forced to take with nuclear power, even Gen IV nukes.
Wind power IS integrated into the grid in Iowa, the Netherlands, and eventually Portland and Idaho. We are already planning a new western grid, so your other point is moot. You can quote Wikipedia all you like, but you have still ignored the geothermal steady baseload as you frame the old coal vs nukes narrow discussion. AEHI's Gillispie claimed in the Statesman that our Raft River geothermal costs 62 cents/kwhr. If you check the PUC contract, Id Power is buying it for 5.25 cents/kwhr. Rock steady power baby! Rock on...Peter

Sorry but again the facts are not as exciting as some of the apocalyptic predictions and fear mongering that goes on. In fact, I would buy property in the region of Chernobyl. The excess cancer rate was exhaustively studied by UN agencies and less than 1% of the predicted (using Goffman's original predictions) have been observed. In fact, it is a statistical non-event. Further, research by the World Health Organization have shown no excess birth defects attributable to radiation at either Chernobyl or at Nagasaki or Hiroshima sites. You can find this data lots of places if you're willing to look. One place is GreenFacts.org (hardly an nuclear industry friendly organization).

I am for using whatever energy sources are available and make sense environmentally and economically. Some that are possible economically, like hydropower on certain streams in Idaho, don't make sense environmentally or otherwise. People have to make choices, eg. rafting on the Payette vs hydropower and irrigation. In many places geothermal makes sense and there are new technologies for extracting it that make sense. Again, it's not completely benign. A geothermal operation in Germany recently was shut down because the development and operation of the site was causing earthquakes. And, it's not available everywhere people live, though Idaho must have a lot of potential.

The comparison to coal is valid. In the US we generate 50% of our electricity by coal fired plants vs. 20% using nuclear. My point is that the US and the rest of world would be better off to replace all that environmentally damaging coal with something else. The choices open to people should include carbon free, proven safe nuclear as well as anything else you can think of. But every technology has tradeoffs that should be made in a real context and not some fantasy world approach. And, in any case, the US is not the whole world and other people will make choices in their context and world view. People living in extreme poverty need energy to pull themselves up. They may make choices like burning wood and coal that we don't like and that ultimately destroy the world. That's what's happening in India and China even if the US goes completely clean and green. People need choices and nuclear is one of the more attractive green technologies, but of course not the only one.
Supplying base load from renewables is not now and not for the foreseeable future a possibility so what are you going to do in the meantime? We don't have time left given the issues of global warming and global population explosion. Nuclear is a very attractive bridge green technology to some renewable nirvana in the future. We live in the present though and so have to deal with things as they are now.

Finally, the nimby stance of some is just irresponsible. If people are going to enjoy the fruits of having a reliable, cheap energy supply, they should be willing to step up to the responsibilities and risks associated with it. In Idaho we do have cheap reliable power and that's one of the attractions of the region. Unfortunately, according to Idaho Power, about 40% to 50% of this cheap power comes from coal fired plants sited in surrounding states. we get the power, our neighbors and the world gets the CO2 and other pollution. That is just wrong. Generating power for Idaho in Idaho from all available sources, geothermal, wind, hydro, safe green nuclear would be a more responsible stance. Enjoy your light and heat tonight. Hope you sleep well.

wa7iut says proudly "In fact, I would buy property in the region of Chernobyl."
MMM'KKKAAAYYY!!! Lemme know when you ACTUALLY move there! :-)

wa7iut says proudly "The choices open to people should include carbon free, proven safe nuclear as well as anything else you can think of. But every technology has tradeoffs that should be made in a real context and not some fantasy world approach."
Sure wa7, but above you avoided the non-fantasy official NRC document on the pervasive ONGOING alloy-600 stress crack problem, effecting HALF the present 104 US nuclear reactors. Your actual dismissal 2 posts above says "Materials issues are a challenge for nuclear (your alloy-600 problem for example) but Japan and France both generate the bulk of their electricity from nuclear and have for decades." MM'KKAAYYY again wawa. NRC says this nickel based alloy-600, that was tested and approved by INL, suffers from stress cracks that can make fuel rods projectiles breaching safety equipment and containment, but YOUR rebuttal is that France and Japan use nuke power. JEEPERS WALLY, I'd eat right and exercise, but the sky is BLUE! Your logic is so limp even Viagra couldn't make it straight talk...
But let's explore France and Japan's nuclear "gamble and party all night" attitude toward nuclear power.
Two years ago Japan had to shut down a nuclear reactor designed for a 65 earthquake, when a 6.9 earthquake broke the known faultline to the UNEXPCTED sharp right, ripping under the nuclear plant. Originally reported as undamaged, umm, opps...
And for the "Let's do it like the French" fans. Sure the French brought the world the French kiss, and the Menage a'trois, but let's consider the consequences of "doing it like the French."
Areva had a couple leaks last summer, oddly while Larry Craig was in France promoting the INL plan called GNEP that brings the world's nuke waste to INL for dirty work. The French nuke leaks had to close a river for irrigation and recreation. OPPS!
RE: Your posts title: "Renewables are great/ that's not the point"
MM'KKAYYY dude or dudette, but dat IZ da point...Peter

Yo Fore-Ore,
Don't go twistin' my gal Judy Tenuda's wry sarcasm into your pretzel, pal. Judy IZ funny, but alloy-600 stress cracks are dead serious...
Zen question of the Day my tugboat collision obsessed friend: If Tree Frogs leap to the ground, do they not "fall from the sky"? If you fry the Tree Frogs in olive oil with fresh-crushed home grown garlic, and "salt" them, do they not taste delicious? ...Peter

Sun Nov 22, 2009 NRC investigating radiation at Three Mile Island

Peter, you have a point, only one apparently. No doubt there are cracks in the reactor steel. There's also cracks in every bridge you drive or walk over, cracks in every airplane you fly on. Engineering involves taking into account material properties, including cracking, when designing a structure. If it's as bad as you say, the NRC can shut these plants down, in fact, they're obligated to. Personally, I'm going to continue to drive across bridges, fly on planes and use as much nuclear and renewable generated electricity as possible so coal can be phased out.

There's real measurable danger on a global and regional scale when using coal at the levels we do (50% of electricity production). There is a real need for large quantities of energy to bring people out of extreme poverty as well as maintain our level of wealth. All the alternatives, including nuclear need to be on the table. Using unjustified fear to keep nuclear off the table is wrong. That is the point.

"What are fears but voices airy?
Whispering harm where harm is not.
And deluding the unwary.
Till the fatal bolt is shot!"
Wordsworth

What scares me more than cracks is when people use fear for political ends or maybe it's just the ego's need to be right. History shows it always turns out badly. Unfortunately, it seems to be the fashion these days.

WHOOPIE! We're all gonna die!

Potluck is served.

----------
Like a midair collision with a tugboat

"Crack kills" wawa...
Nice job of avoiding the documented potential of the geothermal potential of the USA, and your attempt to keep framing the energy discussion as the lame narrow "coal vs. nukes".
RE: "Peter, you have a point, only one apparently. No doubt there are cracks in the reactor steel. There's also cracks in every bridge you drive or walk over, cracks in every airplane you fly on."
Umm, my NRC reference above detailed the fuel rod nozzle can break and send the fuel rod as a projectile breaking containment and safety equipment. And you haven't read my website if you think I only have one point. My challenge to the INL to debate these issues allows them to bring any number of experts they require to discuss the HEPA filter alpha-recoil flaws and the nanocluster plutonium colloids that defy old physics texts and move plutonim with water very easily.
RE: "What scares me more than cracks is when people use fear for political ends or maybe it's just the ego's need to be right. History shows it always turns out badly. Unfortunately, it seems to be the fashion these days."
Umm, if a person wants just "political ends" and an "ego's need" in Idaho the clear path is to follow the feeding trough of INL donations and become an affluent lobbyist like Idaho's Republican Sen Jim McClure (Givens-Pursley lobbyist for nukes wannabees like Warren Buffet) and Dem Gov Cecil Andrus (Gallatin Group lobbyist for lobbyist for nukes wannabees like Warren Buffet). Idaho IS FOR SALE! "Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap!"...

I lean anti-nuke not out of fear, I think they are generally safe to run, but I have two reasons to not want us to invest in nuclear power.

First, I think it is immoral to burden future generations with radioactive waste. I understand there have been great strides in reprocessing and dealing with the harmful products of fission, but it is dangerous for far too long, and I think it is criminal to put our heirs in danger for our benefit.

Secondly, I don't care to be the insurer of last resort if there is a major incident. The Price-Anderson Act limits the liability of the plant owner, and at some point, if the accident is expensive enough, I help pay for it. The NRC speaks of a disaster fund of $10 billion. Right, somewhere there is a locked box with $10 billion in it. It sounds like something Madoff would say. The staggering amounts of money mentioned when considering liability speaks louder than someone trying to convince me that these things don't break. That's what they said about the Titanic.

I say, take all the billions needed to build and insure the thing, invest it in decentralized electrical production, geothermal generators, better batteries, solar farms, wind farms, and whatever, and we could achieve a heck of a lot a lot faster and cheaper with no annoying garbage that is deadly for thousands of years.