The changing face of the environmentalist
If you are not aware of a huge amount of discussion in the last few years about climate change, fossil fuel alternatives, and renewable energy, I respectfully suggest that you’ve been living underground. It’s everywhere.
The largest source of electricity in the United States comes from power plants burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Together these fossil fuels account for about 75% of the electricity in the US, and they also pump tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. If something is to be done about climate change (and by the way it’s pretty well accepted in the scientific community that humans are responsible for the rising global temperatures), we must come up with a way of generating electricity that doesn’t pollute as heavily.
My answer for this problem is nuclear. It’s not just because I like physics and there’s really cool physics in nuclear power, but because I think it is the most practical solution, especially over the next few decades. Let’s face it: hydro is limited geographically, and neither wind nor solar is reliable on a large enough scale to contribute significantly. Not to say they won’t be, but probably not in the next 20 years.
There are probably some doubters out there, so here’s some interesting facts about nuclear power you may not have known.
- A nuclear power plant has zero carbon emissions. Yes, zero. The only thing a nuclear plant releases is steam.
- A nuclear plant is almost completely automated, and the computers won’t let anything bad happen. Like a commercial airliner, the safety systems on a nuclear plant are doubly or triply redundant, which means if something fails there’s at least one layer of backup.
- The reactor is contained in a concrete dome. Even if something bad were to happen to the reactor, the radiation would be completely contained in the dome and would not have any impact on the surrounding environment.
- You get less background radiation if you live near a nuclear plant than if you live near a coal power plant. Turns out coal has some radioactive isotopes (in small levels) that are released into the atmosphere when it is burned.
- The spent fuel, although it is highly radioactive, can be recycled, which cuts down on waste. Fuel that cannot be recycled can be stored safely in repositories such as the one proposed at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the political process has not allowed the facility to become operational.
- Half of the fuel used in the US’ nuclear plants since 1989 has come from decommissioned nuclear weapons. That accounts for 10% of all the electricity generated in the US in the last 20 years.
February 24th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
No way Nuclear energy has killed 100s of thousands in Chernobyl, caused terrible birth defects. And before you mention the UN report. The UN report figures were a consensus report not serious.
There are 3 sets of figures on the death rate due to Chernobyl
1. From the health organisations who claim Chernobyl killed 100s of thousands of people
2. The nuclear lobby stats who deviously claim under 100 people died as result of Chernobyl
3. A UN consenus report which had the nuclear lobby on the board of the report which claims a few thousand died from Chernobyl.
Now who do you take seriously health organisations, the nuclear lobby or a consensus report.
Also Tindale works for an energy company. Look it up So big deal guy who works massive energy company backs nuclear. Wow.
If nuclear is so safe why do they have massive containment shields around them. You don’t put a muzzle on poodle.
February 24th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
First – The stats you have “quoted” from Chernobyl are irrelevant to any discussion of the safety of nuclear power. You have employed a logical fallacy called red herring; look it up. And anyway, I wouldn’t take any of those three sources seriously, since they all have an agenda. But as I said, it has nothing to do with the safety of nuclear power.
Second – You misunderstood what I wrote. Nuclear is not inherently safe, but then again neither is air travel. When the proper precautions are taken, however, both become very practical options. At Chernobyl the proper precautions were not taken (starting with the fact that there was no containment to prevent the radiation from spreading across Europe), and the Soviet government being stingy with information is part of what has made it so difficult to figure out what happened and how many died. Read an article on the subject; if you’re going to argue a point, at least be informed about what you’re arguing.
It’s true you don’t put a muzzle on a poodle, but if you put a muzzle on a pit bull he won’t bite people.
The point of this post is that Tindale, regardless of who he works for now, was a Greenpeace official, and he now supports nuclear. Is it possible that he supports nuclear because it’s a clean and practical alternative, not because he works for a power company?