Minnesota nuclear plant shuts down for leak; residents worry

[Caribbeans]

Source: AP

MONTICELLO, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota utility began shutting down a nuclear power plant near Minneapolis on Friday after failing to stop the release of radioactive material it says is not dangerous but has prompted concerns among nearby residents.

Xcel Energy started shutting down the plant in Monticello, and after it cools over the next few days, workers will cut out a pipe that is over 50 years old and had been leaking tritium, said Chris Clark, the utility’s president. The utility will then have the pipe analyzed in hopes of preventing similar leaks in the future, he said.

“We could have continued to safely operate the plant and simply repair the catchment, but then, of course, there is always a risk that it would spill over again and have more tritium enter the groundwater,” Clark said during a news conference near the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) northwest of Minneapolis. “We didn’t want to take that chance, so we’re bringing the plant down.”

Clark said the tritium isn’t a risk to the drinking water of Monticello or the nearby city of Becker. He said Monticello takes its water from the Mississippi River above the plant, and Becker’s intake is across the river. Even if the tritium reached the river, which Clark assured wouldn’t happen, it would dissipate within a few yards, he said.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-nuclear-plant-leak-6b72b6f9cd2a1141aadd985b68654e04

---

People walk on a trail at the Montissippi County Park near the Xcel Energy Monticello Generating Plant, a nuclear power plant, in Monticello, Minn., on Friday, March 24, 2023. (Renee Jones Schneider/Star Tribune via AP)

[Meadowoak]

1. I'd get the hell away from there.

[NickB79]

5. Why? It's tritium

You'd have to ingest the water straight from the leak to even come close to a dangerous amount. If it managed to migrate outside the plant grounds, or a surface water source, it would be so diluted you'd be hard-pressed to find it against background radiation.

It would be similar to freaking out over an annual x-ray at the doctor's office.

And I have relatives that live within 30 miles of this plant. I live about 100 miles south of it, near the Mississippi River.

The bigger issue is that Minnesota has had a moratorium on new reactors for so long that we're running the ones we have past their normal lifespans in order to hit our carbon-free electricity requirements. Hopefully the next generation of modular reactors will be available soon to replace these.

[Meadowoak]

7. So they say, I wouldn't take any chances.

[Caribbeans]

9. $30+ Billion to boil water

which is all a nuke plant does.

Counting on the next generations to baby sit the waste may not be the best the current generation has to offer.

Let's say a new nuke plant was approved tomorrow - how long before the plant boils water to spin turbines? 5 years? 10? And what to do while the plant is built? One "idea" would be to bash hydrogen. That might not work for 10 years though, especially while China will have taken over that industry by then.

[NickB79]

16. For 70+ years, generating huge amounts of electricity from that boiling water

Which is far longer than a standard wind or solar farm lasts, while generating many times more power, since a standard wind or solar farm only runs at 20-25% of it's rated capacity.

Besides, I specifically stated *modular reactors. They aren't the ones costing $30 billion; they are standardized and prefabricated as small units that can be combined for a much lower cost. That's the direction the nuclear industry is going. Bill Gates has a nuclear power company that's about to install it's first reactor in Wyoming for $4 billion, which is half the size of the $30 billion Vogle reactor you referenced.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42464627/bill-gates-nuclear-reactors/

But hey, at least it's not as stupid as trying to convert precious global water resources into a fuel source, when we're facing a water shortage crisis in the next decade. Now THAT would be crazy, right?

[Bear Creek]

26. Correct

Newspaper just trying to sensationalize. There has been new plants designed that are way safer. James Lovelock supports nuclear and has said that nuclear is the only green solution.

[womanofthehills]

36. The Sun Zia wind farm 3500 MW.

Small nuclear reactors = 1 to 300 MW

Plus to build one in US, you need millions just to apply to build one - corporations will not go there.

“Just getting through the regulatory process could cost hundreds of millions for a new SMR company. So far only one SMR company, NuScale, has earned certification of a reactor design from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in January 2023, after spending more than $500 million putting together its NRC application. And NuScale has a light-water design that will use standard nuclear fuel, so it’s somewhat similar to the large nuclear plants already in operation around the U.S. Nano’s design is not at all similar.”

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/feds-approve-small-modular-nuclear-201400490.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAI3FX3WRxt6LeQdybKKThnlNZp2bNU8qDdDGLw-2Kzjg-tUDztR7VdFKgWFQZtOj4BODAfhVNdbi_ZI6AgXn9kB2NeEyLBpJ0SQ7LXWeXaR4mUZxuCj4_SiEWelnj6C044zRj4NEpS0y40HY6mRo6ZZkeJKpFktd6y_fuoOwYK3k

[progree]

40. Terrapower Wyoming plant is $4 billion and 345 MW. Vogtle 3&4 $30.3 billion, 2234 MW

The Terrapower plant in Wyoming (estimated $4 billion Natrium demo plant ... 345 MW = $11,600/KW. Originally to open in 2028, now facing at least a 2 year delay), 12/14/22
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-backed-high-tech-nuclear-plant-wyoming-delayed-2022-12-14/

"TerraPower is anticipating a minimum of a two-year delay to being able to bring the Natrium reactor into operation," he said. The 345-megawatt plant had been slated to open in 2028.

==================================================

Vogtle 3&4 estimated cost $30.3 Billion, 2 reactors X 1117 MW each = 2234 MW = $13,563/KW (5/8/22)
https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-united-states-georgia-atlanta-7555f8d73c46f0e5513c15d391409aa3
DU discussion of above article: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142913946

Vogtle's 3&4 estimated cost was originally $14 billion. I fear the Terrapower plant, being a first of a kind, will also have similar cost increases.

Additional modules at the Terrapower plant might be a lot cheaper, though, as much of the $4 billion is (perhaps?) being spent on common structures, common infrastructure, and site development to house the additional modules?

[womanofthehills]

43. NM Sun Zia wind farm $8 billion 3500 MW

Nuclear reactors average under 900 MW for $30 billion (Georgia) & small reactors - 1 to 300 MV

WIND WINDS

[progree]

44. The information on Vogtle and the Terrapower Natrium reactor is in post #40 just above

Last edited Sun Mar 26, 2023, 02:37 PM - Edit history (5)

"Nuclear reactors average under 900 MW for $30 billion (Georgia) & small reactors - 1 to 300 MV"

No, as I said in #40 above WITH LINKS, the Georgia Vogtle 3&4 project is $30.3 billion for 2234 MW (2 reactors of 1117 MW each), not 900 MW. Or just Google, e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=vogtle+project+cost . Or the plant project site (scroll down half a page for the sizes) https://www.georgiapower.com/company/plant-vogtle.html

And the Terrapower Natrium Wyoming plant is 345 MW. Links in #40 or just Google.

Yes they are expensive as hell. But let's at least deal with the facts on the sizes of these projects, not linkless assertions of opinions as fact. (Or in some cases that I see way too often, making up "facts" to fit ideological predilections or simply in order to "win" an argument)

Likewise, in another post by a different poster

Bill Gates has a nuclear power company that's about to install it's first reactor in Wyoming for $4 billion, which is half the size of the $30 billion Vogle reactor

No, the $30 billion Vogtle project is for 2 reactors totalling a combined 2234 MW. The Terrapower reactor in Wyoming is to be 345 MW which is 15% the size of the $30 billion Vogtle project, not half.

As progressives, I think we can and should do better when facts are readily available.

Someone else will be along I'm sure to go into the limitations of solar and wind -- they have their place in my opinion, but without adequate storage capacity, they cannot replace _all_ dispatchable thermal generators -- which come in only 2 varieties: fossil and nuclear. (Dispatchable meaning can be called upon to provide electricity as needed, as opposed to intermittent and low availability factors depending on sunshine and the wind blowing).

There's also dispatchable hydro and geothermal, but there isn't much or any available for development in most places.

[NNadir]

21. Um...um...um...

I realize that the people who want to promote coal by greenwashing it, at a thermodynamic loss, to make hydrogen don't know shit about science or engineering, but coal waste is in the active process of destroying the planet.

Of course, there are few people who hype hydrogen made from coal who give a rat's ass about climate change. They'd rather talk about bourgeois fantasies about hydrogen cars and trucks.

It's very clear that these are the sort of people who would never qualify to pass a college level chemistry or engineering class; these are people who have clearly never opened a science book in their lives. Nuclear chemistry is well understood at this point, and the movement to save the world by closing the nuclear fuel cycle is an active enterprise, despite the idiot rhetoric of anti-nukes.

Air pollution kills seven million people year, the largest fraction of them being in China, a coal hell that is often advertised here, with insipid marketing cartoons, as a hydrogen nirvana - hydrogen largely made from coal.

If you ask a dumb anti-nuke to show that the in 70 year history of nuclear energy, that as many people as will die in the next three hours from air pollution, that would be around 4500 people, have died from the storage of used nuclear fuel, they generally change the subject, because they can't find that many people who have so died.

The moral, intellectual level of these sorts of people is appalling, their comprehension of environmental issues nil

The same people who carry on so stupidly about used nuclear fuel, a subject they know nothing about, come here to do cheap marketing for the fossil fuel industry, which dominates the manufacture of hydrogen.

Because, let's be clear, opponents of nuclear energy are proponents of fossil fuels.

We have hydrogen sales people here at DU, as an example of fossil fuel sales people:

And let's be clear, once again, that selling hydrogen as if it were a primary source of energy is nothing more than selling fossil fuels:



The caption:

Figure 1. Global current sources of H2 production (a), and H2 consumption sectors (b).

Progress on Catalyst Development for the Steam Reforming of Biomass and Waste Plastics Pyrolysis Volatiles: A Review Laura Santamaria, Gartzen Lopez, Enara Fernandez, Maria Cortazar, Aitor Arregi, Martin Olazar, and Javier Bilbao, Energy & Fuels 2021 35 (21), 17051-17084]

I have to repeat this all the time here, because there are so many endorsements of fossil fuels, which is what all thermodynamic nightmare energy storage scenarios are a the end of the day.

[womanofthehills]

39. Potassium iodide pills need to be available to everyone living near a nuclear plant

Potassium iodide (KI) pills should be available to everyone age 40 or younger—especially children and pregnant and lactating women—living near a nuclear power plant, according to a new report from a government-mandated expert panel of the National Academy of Sciences.

The panel, which is made up of nine members, including Dr. David V. Becker of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, also finds that potassium iodide can prevent thyroid cancer caused by exposure to radioactive iodine, a substance that could be released during a severe accident at a nuclear power plant. Potassium iodide will not protect the body against other types of radioactive isotopes released during nuclear-reactor incidents or those likely to be used in a so-called "dirty bomb," adds the committee that wrote the report.

https://www.nyp.org/news/potassium-iodide-should-be-available-to-people-living-near-nucle

[PlutosHeart]

13. Next Generation? Seriously?

I did not move to Red Wing because research showed a cask was possibly leaking at the facility north of there. Old and rotten.That was 16 years ago.

Did not buy in Monticello for fear of exactly this.

They should not extend the Plant's contract. They delay. They are all about profit.

[The Jungle 1]

31. OK, but the question is do you believe them???

I would not believe them?

[MN2theMax]

2. This is the town I work in

I am not amused.

[progree]

3. Xcel is getting well-deserved static for not notifying the city of Monticello until 3 months later

Monticello plans to test city water as precaution after leak at nuclear generating plant, KSTP, 3/23/23

... While the city found out in February, the public didn’t learn about the leak until last Thursday. [Mayor] Hilgart said the city urged Xcel to make an announcement sooner.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS asked Hilgart why the city didn’t put out an announcement when it learned of the leak.

“I think we were still trying to learn about the situation,” he said. “We didn’t really know what it meant, that’s why we were really pushing for Xcel to put something out because it was out of our scope.”

... Hilgart is also speaking with Xcel about how to improve communication.

MORE: https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/monticello-plans-to-test-city-water-as-precaution-after-leak-at-nuclear-generating-plant/

Xcel did make all the required notifications to the NRC and state officials immediately on finding the leakage in mid-November. But it is a bit bone-headed and frankly surprising to me that they didn't notify the host city for 3 months, as if this was never going to get out or something. Full disclosure: I worked for Xcel back in its NSP days for 15 years. Perhaps I'm biased, but I think they have a reputation for being well managed, so that's why I'm surprised by the bone-headedness. It has been getting **a lot** of local press

from the link in the OP (illustrating how well the reassurances are not working):

Tyler Abayare, who was fishing at the Mississippi River not far from the plant Friday, said he’s been coming to the river every day for five years and he usually sees about 15 to 20 others fishing as well.

“Typically this time of year, there’s a lot of families that come out and fish with their children,” he said. “Now, after the media released what happened, there’s not a soul in sight, and it just takes away from the recreation and passion of fishing.”

He said he doesn’t believe that tritiated water hasn’t made it to the Mississippi River. He doesn’t eat the fish he catches and said he no longer ties his line with his teeth but makes sure to only use his hands so he doesn’t get sick.

. . . Judson and Lyman both said public concerns about the possible health risks of the tritium leak are exacerbated by the recent toxic train derailment in Ohio. East Palestine residents remain concerned about possible health effects despite pledges by government officials that air and water near the train derailment and explosion are safe.

“People are seeing what happened in Ohio, and they are distrustful of the government response,” Judson said.

(emphasis Progree's)

By the way, this wasn't a second leak, but rather:

A temporary solution was implemented to capture water from the leaking pipe and reroute it back to the plant for re-use. After monitoring equipment on the plant indicated new water had reached the groundwater, the company determined the short-term solution was no longer capturing 100% of the leaking water.

so it's not like another pipe began leaking or the same pipe sprouted another leak, at least according to this. (Although that is a possiblity). On the other hand, the attempt to contain the leak sounds kinda jury-rigged (as I understand it, they were working thru a hole drilled through concrete).

I'm sure there are others who will post how low radiation tritiated water is, and I don't disagree.

[C Moon]

4. oh man!

[NickB79]

6. I mean, I refuse to eat anything out of the Mississippi as well

But that's because of all the PFAS and other chemical shit that's gotten swept into it over the years.

Fish from any freshwater sources these days is suspect, which is a real shame. I loved it when my grandpa would deep fry up a bunch of battered perch and crappies.

[PlutosHeart]

14. Camp Ripley. That is all I have to say.

[Mr.Bill]

8. Ever notice that the first response

is that there is no danger to the public? I hope for these people it's true.

[womanofthehills]

11. Radiation - we're always told not to worry

Yrs ago, our local Albuquerque paper said, everytime it rains, plutonium from the 1940’s in Los Alamos (Dumped in arroyos back then) runs down arroyos into the Rio Grande but NOT to worry!

[republianmushroom]

10. Please tell what radioactive material is not dangerous ?

Interested.

[FBaggins]

17. Virtually all of them

Seriously - almost everything around you is a radioactive material (including almost certainly the air you breathe). You yourself (along with every living thing) are a radioactive material.

The type and amount really do matter.

[NullTuples]

12. The event and handling of it concern me. The tritium itself, not at all.

This is why when I'm against nuclear power, it's only because I don't trust the humans (and corporations) that manage it to always do the right thing.

Tritium is not like radioactive fallout, where a particle containing billions of highly energetic radioactive atoms can become lodged in your lung & irradiate tissue for 10 years until it causes cancer.

And once released into say, a river, Tritium is not like a dense, large pellet of radioactive fuel that would burn your skin, either.

Tritium is just a hydrogen molecule.

That is, it's two hydrogen atoms bonded together. They just happen to be heavier and more likely to decompose and release beta particles and turn into helium-3. But it can also be part of water where the H2 of H2O is tritium. In that case it mixes with normal water pretty much perfectly because it is water, it just has a tiny bit more mass compared to regular water. Given that gaseous hydrogen floats up and out of the atmosphere, it's likely the release was in the form of water.

When Tritrated water mixes with river water it disperses super easily because it is water, too. Which means any given organism will likely encounter only a single tritium molecule at a time that releases a single beta particle when it breaks down. Or depending on how far away the organism is, it may encounter just a single tritium molecule over time from the spill that may decompose and release a single beta particle while inside them if it was ingested.

For perspective, Carbon-14 is present in the human body at a level of about 3700 Bq (0.1 ?Ci) and stays in the body for an average of 40 days. This means there are about 3700 beta particles per second produced by the decay of Carbon-14 in the human body. Scale down to a small fish a couple centimeters long and that one second of C14 radiation is still double the beta radiation they'll encounter one time from this accidental tritium release if they're any distance away.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

15. Science wins the thread, read up on it! It's not like near a giant white spy balloon level fear!

Thanks for the facts.

[NNadir]

19. But people trust corporations to burn fossil fuels that actually kill people so they can power...

...their computers to complain about how they're afraid of nuclear power because they have entirely bizarre selective attention.

It's rather like emphasizing an allergic reaction to a vaccine over death from disease; anti-nukes and anti-vaxxers are, in my view, equivalent, intellectually, morally and socially: They apply their ignorance derived from selective attention to kill people.

Whenever I hear this kind of nonsense, I call up this very famous and highly cited scientific paper, accompanied by some commentary:

: Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249). This study is a huge undertaking and the list of authors from around the world is rather long. These studies are always open sourced; and I invite people who want to carry on about Fukushima to open it and search the word "radiation." It appears once. Radon, a side product brought to the surface by fracking while we all wait for the grand so called "renewable energy" nirvana that did not come, is not here and won't come, appears however: Household radon, from the decay of natural uranium, which has been cycling through the environment ever since oxygen appeared in the Earth's atmosphere.

Here is what it says about air pollution deaths in the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Survey, if one is too busy to open it oneself because one is too busy carrying on about Fukushima:

The top five risks for attributable deaths for females were high SBP (5·25 million [95% UI 4·49–6·00] deaths, or 20·3% [17·5–22·9] of all female deaths in 2019), dietary risks (3·48 million [2·78–4·37] deaths, or 13·5% [10·8–16·7] of all female deaths in 2019), high FPG (3·09 million [2·40–3·98] deaths, or 11·9% [9·4–15·3] of all female deaths in 2019), air pollution (2·92 million [2·53–3·33] deaths or 11·3% [10·0–12·6] of all female deaths in 2019), and high BMI (2·54 million [1·68–3·56] deaths or 9·8% [6·5–13·7] of all female deaths in 2019). For males, the top five risks differed slightly. In 2019, the leading Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths globally in males was tobacco (smoked, second-hand, and chewing), which accounted for 6·56 million (95% UI 6·02–7·10) deaths (21·4% [20·5–22·3] of all male deaths in 2019), followed by high SBP, which accounted for 5·60 million (4·90–6·29) deaths (18·2% [16·2–20·1] of all male deaths in 2019). The third largest Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths among males in 2019 was dietary risks (4·47 million [3·65–5·45] deaths, or 14·6% [12·0–17·6] of all male deaths in 2019) followed by air pollution (ambient particulate matter and ambient ozone pollution, accounting for 3·75 million [3·31–4·24] deaths (12·2% [11·0–13·4] of all male deaths in 2019), and then high FPG (3·14 million [2·70–4·34] deaths, or 11·1% [8·9–14·1] of all male deaths in 2019).

I then invite someone whining about not trusting corporations to produce nuclear energy, but who do trust corporations and people to produce energy that actually kills people to find an example of nuclear power over its 70 year histor killing as many people as will die in the next six hours from as will die from air pollution, around 4,500 people.

Only sources from the primary scientific literature will be accepted as evidence.

Nuclear power saves lives, and the environment:

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

It follows that anti-nukism kills people and kills the future.

Nuclear energy need not be perfect and without risk to be vastly superior to all other forms of energy - most of which is generated by dangerous fossil fuels. It only has to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.

[NullTuples]

30. Most people fighting climate change only trust carbon energy companies to maximize investor returns.

Last edited Sat Mar 25, 2023, 12:44 PM - Edit history (1)

Beyond that, most of us don't trust them any more than we trust corporations and politicians to be able to manage nuclear power.

Centralized, concentrated power generation by its very nature involves creating significant potential dangers to living organisms on a large scale; the entire industry should be held to such high standards and regulations that returns on investments, or political shenanigans should not even be considerations if we're going to protect both human lives and non-human lives.

If that sounds like I'm arguing that maybe centralized, intense energy production is inherently, needlessly unsafe in our current Capitalist-drive society, I've made my point.

It's also something we could change, but it would take reforming the neocon driven free-capitalism trajectory that we've been on since Reagan.

[IbogaProject]

33. Did Big Oil fund the anti-nuke movement?

With all the effort to obscure the climate risk over nearly 50 years, did big oil help fund the anti-nuke movement?

[womanofthehills]

41. No one has to fund the anti-nuke movement- it's going down itself

The 60-Year Downfall of Nuclear Power in the U.S. Has Left a Huge Mess.

Oyster Creek in New Jersey disconnects from the grid in October with 11 years left on its license. Indian Point in New York State is to shut by 2021 due to falling revenues and rising costs. In California, Diablo Canyon is being closed by state regulators in 2025. The reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania that survived the 1979 accident will finally shut in 2019.

Shutdown is only the beginning of the end. Final closure and clearance of the sites can take decades, and the waste crisis created by decommissioning cannot be dodged. Lethal radioactive material is accumulating at dozens of power plants, military facilities, and interim stores across the country.

Some, like the train cars buried at Hanford, is evidently in a precarious situation. Much more needs urgent attention. Cleaning up and safely disposing of the residues of the nuclear adventure—much of it waste with a half-life measured in tens of thousands of years—is turning into a trillion-dollar nightmare for the nation.


https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/atomicage/2018/05/29/the-60-year-downfall-of-nuclear-power-in-the-u-s-has-left-a-huge-mess-via-the-atlantic/

[IbogaProject]

45. Wow lots to read in that horrifying post

Here is a link to load that university blog post https://archive.is/THMHq
I read that and then this, which I found in the post you linked https://archive.is/m9BzK
The experts wanted to use Thorium rather tgan uranium for power for both initial safety and much lower ckean up tail. I'm not qualified to evaluate those claims but anything would be safer and cleaner than uranium fission. The two huge risks with nuclear power is the control rods and the reactor vessel have lower melting point than the nuclear 'fuel' itself. And where the half life's of all these are insane. Uranium is between a quarter million years and billions of years, depending on the isotope. The amount of waste listed in those articles are scary and there is no serious funding nor plans to realistically process it all.

[womanofthehills]

37. It would take 12 or more small reactors to equal the MW of one new wind farm

Corporations will not go there because it’s all about making money.

[NNadir]

18. In other news, the Minnesota coal plants at Cohasset will continuous spew carcinogens until 2035...

...without interruption or note by dumb shits obsessed with tiny amounts of tritium.

Minnesota Power will close coal plants by 2035 under new agreement

Unlike the low level tritium, the coal plants participate in actual killing, since air pollution kills about 7 million people a year and tritium, um, doesn't kill anyone.

This hullaballoo is straight out of the ignorance factory; the sort of thing in which completely ignorant people focus on what doesn't matter at the expense of ignoring what does matter.

One sees this sort of thing all the time around here. There are for instance, barely literate people who think that making hydrogen from coal is "green," and that it represents a form of primary energy.

The hyping of scientific illiteracy is extremely problematic; it's literally killing the planet, and tritium doesn't have a fucking thing to do with it.

We do have coal advocates here at DU; they play a game of Three Card Monty in which they applaud the use of coal to make hydrogen, and then call it "green."

[twodogsbarking]

20. Electricity will be free with nuclear. A big selling point, years back.

[The Jungle 1]

22. I remember

They were also going to melt the snow on sidewalks with the hot water.

[NNadir]

24. Nah, that's just a fantasy that antinukes have because of their fondness for a right wing hack...

...back in 1950's who they love to quote with complete disregard for reality.

It was a remark made by the neofascist Lewis Strauss, who was neither a scientist, nor an engineer, but felt it within his purview to unjustly persecute one of the most important scientists in the United States at the time, Robert Oppenheimer.

(Energy Secretary Granholm recently made a symbolic gesture to rescind the formal determination still on record. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm Vacates the 1954 AEC Decision in the Matter of Oppenheimer.)

It was Strauss who made the remark in the 1950's, referring to fusion energy, as making electricity "too cheap to meter."

Anti-nuke morons have focused on this remark for decades, thus killing people.

This idiocy has been played to the max by the anti-nuke morons as a symbol of their selective attention, selective attention that I note has driven the planet to a disaster represented by climate change. We're now at 420 ppm of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere, less than 10 years after we first hit 400.

I note that the same people fixated on this stupid remark from about 80 years ago do not complain that dangerous fossil fuels aren't "too cheap to meter" nor about the rape of the poor by driving energy prices higher because of solar and wind fantasies that have done nothing to address climate change, and represent an environmental disaster of the first order.

This selective attention is the similar to the selective attention is similar to that by which anti-nukes kill people by not giving a rat's ass about the 7 million people who die each year from dangerous fossil fuel waste (aka "air pollution) but carry on endlessly about so called "nuclear waste" even though they can't identify anyone killed by its storage.

What's been a big selling point for the de facto supporters of dangerous fossil fuels - which is what every anti-nuke is effectively - is the ease by which they embrace ignorance.

[twodogsbarking]

27. I wasn't stating it as fact but it was said repeatedly, by many.

[NNadir]

29. Yeah. Believe me, I hear it repeatedly, usually recited by the moral equivalents of antivaxxers...

...which is what anti-nukes are.

Like antivaxxers they apply their ignorance to kill people, although to be fair to antivaxxers, antinukes have killed more people, vastly more. In the last ten years about 70 million people have died from antinuke rhetoric.

[womanofthehills]

38. Why are people who live near dying & running nuclear reactors given free potassium iodide tablets

Gee! I don’t know. NJ shore Oyster Creek reactor now shut down - no more free iodine pills. My cousin’s house is on one of the canals Oyster Creek dumped their radioactive water into. 30 yrs ago, he could swim in it - now, nothing loves it it. He’s not in good health either.


https://www.ochd.org/2022/03/24/ochd-reminder-free-potassium-iodide-ki-pill-program-discontinued-after-oyster-creek-shutdown/

[womanofthehills]

42. Looks like your "anti nuke morons" - are ahead of the race

Why go backwards.

Sun Zia Wind farm = 3500 MW

New Small nuclear reactor = 1 to 300 MW

[womanofthehills]

47. I read that because the new reactors at the Georgia plant cost so much more than planned

They might need to up the price of their electricity to customers. 30 billion plus $4 billion to buy from another company = $34 billion

[The Jungle 1]

23. That community needs to worry.

We were lied to when the Three Mile Island plant went south. Gov Thornburg did not evacuate and said all it was safe.
When the government says everything is just fine. RUN
The people running that plant had no idea what was going on. Finally someone showed up who did know how to run the plant and saved the east coast.

[NNadir]

25. Bullshit.

[The Jungle 1]

32. Let us have a reasonable debate

Instead of just flaming I will present some facts.

https://www.ecowatch.com/36-years-of-three-mile-islands-lethal-lies-and-still-counting-1882023488.html
*****1. When about half of TMI’s fuel melted on March 28, 1979, the owners, industry and regulators all denied it, and continued to deny it until robotic cameras showed otherwise.******* (they knew)

4. When animals nearby suffered mass mutations and death, the industry denied it. When the plague was confirmed by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the Baltimore News-American, the industry denied the damage could be related to radiation.

5. Industry “experts” assured the public radiation doses to downwinders were similar to a single x-ray, but ignored well-established findings from Dr. Alice Stewart and others that a single x-ray to a pregnant woman could double the chances of childhood leukemia among her offspring.

7. When humans nearby were born with Down’s Syndrome and other mutations, and then adults began dying, the industry denied it, then denied any connection to TMI, but then did pay at least $15 million in out-of-court settlements to affected families on condition they not speak about it in public.

They all lied and continue to lie. It is not bullshit, if the government and the industry says it is safe RUN. EcoWatch is a respected source. Please rebut with respected sources.
Just for disclosure, I have worked in the nuclear plants.

[NNadir]

34. Let's not have a "reasonable" debate.

A "reasonable" debate would be based on facts, not specious innuendo from a nonsensical circle jerk of ignorance.

Here's something called "facts."

In 1986, a major reactor without a containment building and a graphite core blew apart in a steam explosion. The graphite core burned for weeks releasing a huge amount of volatile fission products, notably iodine, cesium, strontium. Maybe our barely literate easily distracted anti-nukes haven't noticed but Kiev is still there, although it's been attacked viciously be a dictator funded by money provided by German anti-nukes.

The city of Kiev was 90 km from Chernobyl. It's still there, inhabited by brave people fighting off a fossil fuel funded dictator.

There was military operations in the Chernobyl area in the last year, and one concern that I personally had was that military action would damage the rare species living in the exclusion zone.

I drive through Harrisburg frequently. It's also still there. It's closer to my home than Chernobyl is to Kiev. Some of my neighbors lived here in 1979.

Do you know what I do for a living? Every fucking day, I have discussions, on a high level, of molecular biology. I spend every damned day of my life not on idiotic websites for radiation paranoids who know zero science, but in the primary scientific literature.

My journal in this space is dominated by discussions of things I encounter the primary scientific literature.

I recently posted, in the science section, where in general, we're blissfully uninterrupted by antivax and their moral and intellectual equivalents, anti-nukes, this discussion of radiation biology: A systematic "omics" (molecular biology) approach to the effects of radiation on living tissue.

Antivaxxers have a circle jerk of ignorance that they consider "reasonable," basically breaking down to absurd conspiracy theories. So do anti-nukes. The major difference between antivaxxers and antinukes, is that antinukes are responsible for vastly more deaths.

Every time I hear this kind of absurd crap I point out how many people have died from anti-nuke rhetoric by citing, not some dumb shit website, but the primary scientific literature:

To wit: Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249). This study is a huge undertaking and the list of authors from around the world is rather long. These studies are always open sourced; and I invite people who want to carry on about Fukushima to open it and search the word "radiation." It appears once. Radon, a side product brought to the surface by fracking while we all wait for the grand so called "renewable energy" nirvana that did not come, is not here and won't come, appears however: Household radon, from the decay of natural uranium, which has been cycling through the environment ever since oxygen appeared in the Earth's atmosphere.

Here is what it says about air pollution deaths in the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Survey, if one is too busy to open it oneself because one is too busy carrying on about Fukushima:

The top five risks for attributable deaths for females were high SBP (5·25 million [95% UI 4·49–6·00] deaths, or 20·3% [17·5–22·9] of all female deaths in 2019), dietary risks (3·48 million [2·78–4·37] deaths, or 13·5% [10·8–16·7] of all female deaths in 2019), high FPG (3·09 million [2·40–3·98] deaths, or 11·9% [9·4–15·3] of all female deaths in 2019), air pollution (2·92 million [2·53–3·33] deaths or 11·3% [10·0–12·6] of all female deaths in 2019), and high BMI (2·54 million [1·68–3·56] deaths or 9·8% [6·5–13·7] of all female deaths in 2019). For males, the top five risks differed slightly. In 2019, the leading Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths globally in males was tobacco (smoked, second-hand, and chewing), which accounted for 6·56 million (95% UI 6·02–7·10) deaths (21·4% [20·5–22·3] of all male deaths in 2019), followed by high SBP, which accounted for 5·60 million (4·90–6·29) deaths (18·2% [16·2–20·1] of all male deaths in 2019). The third largest Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths among males in 2019 was dietary risks (4·47 million [3·65–5·45] deaths, or 14·6% [12·0–17·6] of all male deaths in 2019) followed by air pollution (ambient particulate matter and ambient ozone pollution, accounting for 3·75 million [3·31–4·24] deaths (12·2% [11·0–13·4] of all male deaths in 2019), and then high FPG (3·14 million [2·70–4·34] deaths, or 11·1% [8·9–14·1] of all male deaths in 2019).

The Three Mile Island event took place in 1979. The President of the United States at the time stood in the control room, some 25 years after he was one of the first human beings ever to go into the core of a melted reactor.

President Carter is among roughly 350,000 "liquidators" involved in nuclear reactor "clean ups."

The citation above, suggests that since 1979, about 300 million people died from air pollution, probably more, since the clean air act was not operable at the time, and someone want to have a "reasonable" debate about some Down's syndrome fantasy provided with no references, no information other than ignorant "fiat" announcements.

I'm a scientist. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I work on serious genetic and viral diseases, as well as other diseases. I live and breathe molecular biology. I'm not some clueless person making wild attributions pulled out of thin air.

I'm not in a circle that would find such a discussion as even remotely "reasonable." It is, in fact, given the death toll that is now arising not just from air pollution and climate change, insane.

Nuclear energy saves lives: Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

It follows that opposition to nuclear power kills people.

Have a nice Sunday tomorrow.

[The Jungle 1]

35. Well clearly I am an ignorant fool. Who knew.

This fool knows one thing. You sir have not refuted one thing I presented.
My first and only point was the the government and industry lied during and after TMI. When you called bullshit I presented a good source to support my points. You went off into the weeds and ignored my point! You got mad and flamed me. You did not refute anything I presented. The industry and the government **lied**. It was clear then and is clear now.

It is a shame you think I am clueless. My daddy always told me when they start calling you names you have won the argument. But he was just a carpenter. What could he know. He wasn't a smartly scientist.

Solar, wind and tides or ? can save the world. Burning things is not the answer. Nuclear is not the answer. Nuclear is as much an antique as the steam engine. Oh wait, a nuclear plant is a steam engine!!! How fucked up is that?

How about this off point new question. In all the years nuclear energy has been around have the smartly scientists figured out how to dispose of the WASTE??? No they have not. It sits dangerously on many plant sites. Waiting on an earthquake and disaster. Safe so safe. For decades it has sat there.

This debate is worthless because we are debating two different issues. You are ignoring the point I made. I say if the government or industry tells you yer safe run! Remember when industry told us asbestos was safe. Wasn't smoking also good for you. Oh wait now I am off in the weeds.

Do have an enjoyable Sunday. I will spend my Sunday trying to find a clue.
Again what I presented is that the government and industry lied to the public during and after TMI. That sir was my only point. Now who is clueless again? I am not smartly like yuns is but I know the point I presented and I know everything you presented is bullshit unrelated to my point.

[womanofthehills]

48. "Do you know what I do for a living?" cracks me up

Yea! We are all clairvoyant!!

When I was young, taking a skiing lesson in upstate NY, one of the female students was really rude to the instructor - I said something to her and she looked at me incredulously and said “Don’t you know who I am? “. Still wondering who she was. Obviously, someone famous.

[twodogsbarking]

28. The ugly facts were covered so well that they are labeled as being false.

[Torchlight]

46. I remember the absurdities of being told, "we have to look at...

these windmill cancer clusters carefully. We cannot simply discount them!" They were ironically, the loudest voices of extremism and alarm I've ever encountered, so of course I immediately discounted them.





As wind and solar provided almost 70% of new US electrical generating capacity in first half of last year alone, and in total, almost 25% of US energy generating capacity is now clean energy, I'm pretty confident we're going to achieve parity with Germany, UK & Sweden sooner rather than later.