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Re: News Advisory: Still Crazy After Oil These Years!

On 22 Jul 1996, Dennis M. O'Regan wrote:

> Date: 22 JUL 1996 04:25:43 GMT 
> From: Dennis M. O'Regan <doregan@ix.netcom.com>
> Newgroups: alt.energy.renewable, alt.save.the.earth,
>     alt.sustainable.agriculture, talk.environment, sci.environment,
>     sci.energy, bionet.agroforestry
> 
> David Beorn <dbeorn@freenet.vcu.edu> writes: 
> >
> >On Tue, 16 Jul 1996, David Beorn wrote:
> >
> >> Eric Riley <103263.3410@CompuServe.COM>
> >> 
> >> On 8 Apr 1996, Eric Riley wrote:
> >> 
> >> > From: Eric Riley <103263.3410@CompuServe.COM>
> >> > 
> >> > What's wrong with using nuclear energy?
> >
> >Absolutely nothing - as a matter of fact, those who are REALLY serious
> 
> >about cleaning up the environment WITHOUT going back to living in caves 
> >should consider it because it's the ONLY truly non-polluting power.  The 
> >power plant I worked at has stored ALL of the spent fuel on-site in the 
> >containment building and therefore there has been NO need for waste 
> >disposal of this type.  The "environmentalists" who want to save the 
> >environment should stop protesting it and embrace it!!!
> >
> >And by the way, for those of you who might point to Chernobyl or TMI, 
> >these were HUMAN mistakes and TOTALLY preventable.  They KNEW what they 
> >were doing was by-passing the safety systems but they did it anyway - and 
> >hence the incidents we have had. 
> 
> In the case of TMI, operator error was involved but it was not due to
> bypassing safety systems on purpose. As I recall, the PORV was stuck
> open and there was no way to guage the amount of water in the reactor.
> When they shutdown the water, the fuel melted. Can't compare TMI to
> Chernobyl where techs really screwed up.

True - Chernobyl was a real screw-up - but TMI also involved bypassing 
safety's to do what they did, I believe, even though it was to solve an 
existing problem.  They did CAUSE the problem - I think it may have been 
determined there was a safe solution but they didn't use it for some 
reason???  I can't remember this detail.  

> That being said, I agree that nuclear is environmentally benign if
> managed properly. However, huge amounts of waste ARE accumulating at

Exactly my point - but not the case with fossil fuel.  

> the roughly 100 U.S. reactors in service today. Seems the gov't can't
> get off its ass to either reprocess the fuel or store it at a high
> level repository such as Yucca mountain.

Right - we do need to get on the stick with this but it CAN be done 
safely, I think you would agree.  It's just that with the gov't involved 
it takes forever (and probably doesn't get the best solution) - they 
should contract it out with specific requirements and someone would get 
it done.  

> The future of nuclear power? Just about lifeless now.

Unfortunate, I think.

         *-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^
        *        David Beorn, david.beorn@pobox.com (internet)        *
        *        Virginia FREENET                                     *
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