Pete C. wrote:
>

>
> Not true at all, anyone who blindly thinks that all nuclear energy
> should be abandoned is a "whacko loony environut" and paranoid.
>

I don't think all nuclear energy should be abandoned. I, and millions
just like me, don't think that it is safe enough at the current level
of technology, and we all think that the waste byproducts are too
dangerous for too long of a time to be reliably stored in the long
term. Between the human mistakes, the deliberate acts of terrorists,
and plain old bad luck, the negative effects of a problem in the
nuclear industry can be far-reaching and destructive on a large scale.
If a regular power plant suffers a catastrophic failure the results
are contained locally, and no matter how bad, can easily be cleaned up
and no long-term problems exist. The losses associated with Chernobyl
alone are in the trillions, and not only that but when the sarcaphagus
collapses it will produce a radiation event that makes the original
disaster look small by comparison.

Three Mile Island was fully contained, you say that like it means
anything, but in fact there is still an unknown amount of uranium fuel,
radioactive debris, and contamination inside the now dead reactor. The
cleanup cost a billion dollars and took years, and in some ways will
never be completed. Pennsylvania electric customers will be paying for
TMI for decades to come.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...anup032889.htm
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/PA_En...tmiEpstein.htm


> Nuclear power may or may not be the "solution to all of humankind's
> problems", but it is clearly the best option we have now or likely will
> have over the next 10 years. To reject it because of paranoia is absurd.
>

It is not clearly the best option we have. It is clearly the only
option that you are willing or able to perceive, and since that's
an obvious sticking point with you there's not much point in continuing
this discussion, is there?

> As noted in another post Chernobyl did *not* leave "a thousand square
> mile patch permanently uninhabitable". In fact outside of the plant area
> itself everything has been decontaminated. Granted that was a lot of
> work, but it was done and the whole accident was due to a reactor design
> several generations behind the ones we are currently running, and those
> are obsolete as well.
>
> It's difficult to disagree with facts. While I have not personally been
> to Chernobyl, I do have several friends who have been there multiple
> times doing relief and rebuilding work and their eyewitness reports
> confirm that the area is quite inhabitable now.
>

Your friends apparently missed a few spots:

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

http://www.livingearthgatherings.org/novozybkov.html

http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/004/Y2795e/y2795e08.htm

Anyone can do a search on Chernobyl and get one point five million
hits, all with information that easily contradicts your assertations
here. In fact, your statements are so out of phase with reality I have
to wonder just where you're getting your information? Perhaps you're
a spin doctor for the nuclear power industry? That would make sense.
Deny, deny, deny, don't acknowledge the facts, ignore the truth.

Sigh.

> I'm for the technology that is safe, available and practical *now* that
> does not release any pollution on a daily basis (other than waste heat),
> and what waste is generated is compact and containable.

Safe, available, and practical now, that covers wind right
now. And, unlike almost every part of a nuclear power plant,
wind generators are both cheap and easy to build *and* are
recycleable. No need to bury that worn out windmill inside
a mountain for a few million years before it's safe again.

LOL!

JazzMan

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