Firmage EdNuclear Waste, Energy Solutions (Envirocare by any other name…) and John McCain
I note that John McCain’s brief (three hour) trip allowed only a short version of his “speech,” given now for three years, raking in half a million dollars for the campaign, and a long talk with Steve Creamer, owner-head of the only private nuclear dump in the United States, and the only company with the right to print money for the honor of destroying our environment. I’m sure many scores of thousands from Creamer and Energy Solutions will fill the campaign funding of McCain’s campaign. John McCain is the most uniquivocal champion of nuclear power (and its inevitable effluent…our only “gift” since Utah doesn’t use nuclear power) in the nation.
Why is this man so popular here? When a huge majority of Utahns hate Energy Solutions, in spite of the masterful ploy of Creamer in buying daily publicity and by that, linking nuclear waste with the Utah Jazz? Do we all have the attention span of snail- darters? Will Utah continue to support Republican leaders and like Lemmings, march lock-step off a cliff and into a nuclear sea?
There are solutions that do not force a hard choice between carbon fuels and nuclear energy whose effluents last into millions of years, half-life. See, e.g., Aarjun Makhijani, Carbon-Free and Nuclear Free, IEER Press, 2007.
March 29th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
When I volunteered for McCain in 2000, our little knot of McCain supporters were lonely indeed. He dropped out of the race even before the Utah primary. Eight years later, he’s too old, too compromised by his total support for the Bush administration (he even voted for torture!), and it is becoming more evident every day that John McCain has little or no understanding of Iraq, foreign policy or economic policy.
If Utahns vote for McCain, it will be because they’ll back any Republican over any Democrat.
March 29th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
There are those among us.
March 29th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Or Diebold will vote for any Republican over any Democrat.
And while we’re at it, let’s remind Utahns that Steven Creamer presided over the Syncrete debacle and the construction of a dam which broke in southern Utah (Quail Creek Dam).
But then we’re from Utah and we don’t run people out of town who swindle us, we invite them to handle our nuclear waste.
They told me about acid flashes and I didn’t listen.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
blockquote>There are solutions that do not force a hard choice between carbon fuels and nuclear energy whose affluents last into millions of years, half-life. See, e.g., Aarjun Makhijani, Carbon-Free and Nuclear Free, IEER Press, 2007.
Also: The Renewable Deal: Plank 1: Energy Systems
March 30th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Those are effluents Ed.
Utah is is where the affluent, meet the effluent…., and all shit slides downhill, think about that the next time you see a hollywood yoyo on the hill at Deer Valley.
Nuclear power is viable, and France has 59 reactors online. They will soon be using their electric production to compress air to power vehicles. All of this at zero carbon emissions. They already run their train systems with electricity from nuclear power.
I did the math, and at current technology, in order to equal a single 4000 megawatt nuclear reactor, over 25 square miles of solar panels would be required to equal that output. This does not include the service road infrastructure, and the cost of such a system just in panels, at current price, would exceed 35 billion dollars. The panels last 25 years, the nuke 60.
There are consequences to every option we face in power production. In the near term, Utah has little right to complain having paid for none of its own power infrastructure, and at that benefitting from coal burning…which by the way emits more radioactive elements into the environment as it is currently used, than well operated nuclear plants.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
“over 25 square miles of solar panels would be required to equal that output”
Now if only we would invest the kind of money we do in nuclear to get solar technology up to speed — we could greatly reduce that and not have thousands of years worth of waste to deal with (or “reprocess” which still has a dangerous waste problem).
The best solution by far is voluntary population reduction — but no one has the political guts to take that on.
April 4th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Jenni said:
I remember an old “All In The Family” episode where Gloria and Mike were arguing with Archie about whether to bring any more children into the world because of concerns for the future, but the issue almost never comes up, does it?
April 4th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Jenni; we have not yet even been able to cover the southern side exposed roofs of our houses, and in Utah there is productive reason to.
Someday drive 12 miles in any direction and then think of that place covered for the solar use. The overall average electricity, accounting for seasons and weather is about 660 watts per sq. meter of sunlit area. This cannot be improved upon. We currently harvest some 14% of that light to make electricity in a panel.
The French reprocess their nuclear waste and end up with very little they have to store. We introduce large amounts of radioactive waste through coal burning currently. The nukes offer the thing we have grown accustomed to, large constant power usage rates, solar does not. It is expected we will need at least 100 nukes to replace coal burning. That would require 100 of the 25 sq. mile solar farms. This is the reality with what we are given in current power production.
Start covering large areas for solar, and see if environmentalists will approve of the outcome.
April 4th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
This is a hopeful story on wind farming, which however has its up front costs.
April 4th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
here’s the link.
/www.enn.com/energy/article/33594