Pandora's Atomic Box Score: On the Nuclear Industry's Total Meltdown

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/11-7



The first prophetic sign to follow CNN's irrelevant Pandora's Promise is this: the Dallas-based Luminant Power Company has cancelled two mammoth reactors.

Pandora's box score for atomic America 2013 is five announced early reactor closures, nine project cancellations and six ditched uprates. Today, 100 U.S. reactors operate where 1,000 were once promised. New orders are zilch.

Even more critical: For decades the nuclear industry said zero commercial reactors could explode. When Chernobyl blew, they blamed it on the Soviet design. Now, three General Electric reactors have exploded at Fukushima. Unfortunately, as they age and deteriorate, there may be more to come.

Here are some more numbers to tally. More than 1,300 fuel rods sit in a damaged fuel pool 100 feet in the air at Fukushima 4. They contain radioactive cesium equivalent to 14,000 times what was released at the bombing of Hiroshima. There are some 6,000 rods in a common fuel pool nearby. There are some 11,000 rods scattered around the site. The three melted cores from units One, Two and Three are missing. There are roughly 1,000 tanks holding billions of gallons of hot radioactive water that are leaking and will collapse in the next big earthquake.

[pscot]

1. My god, what have we done?

[Ghost Dog]

4. Yeah. I'm going to have to advise my niece (a journalist)

and all her family to get the fuck out of Tokyo, like, NOW. Even if they have to lose their jobs in the process.

'Course, she won't take my advice. But at least I can make her think about it, deeply. Last Christmas she had little clue... So I did mention the fact that I could see that those supposedly responsible were lying.

[PamW]

2. The strawman lives...

From above:
For decades the nuclear industry said zero commercial reactors could explode. When Chernobyl blew, they blamed it on the Soviet design. Now, three General Electric reactors have exploded at Fukushima.

The strawman fallacy lives. First MISQUOTE the opposition, and then attack.

The nuclear industry was attempting to allay the fears of people who thought that reactors could explode like atomic bombs.

It was the full-scale nuclear explosion that was said to be impossible; and that is true.

Even Chernobyl, which was a BAD design; was NOT a full-scale Hiroshima / Nagasaki nuclear explosion. For goodness sakes; the BUILDING is still there. Do you not think that a full-scale nuclear explosion wouldn't level the whole building like it levelled the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

The Fukushima explosions were NOT nuclear explosions either. When zirconium, a component of the core; overheats in the presence of water; it oxidizes. The zirconium grabs the oxygen atom away from the water molecule and that leaves a molecule of hydrogen, H2 behind. It was the build-up of hydrogen in a building with free oxygen in air; that resulted in an explosive mixture yielding the chemical explosions seen.

I always judge the credibility of a claim by the degree the claimant has to distort the truth in order to make the point.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[kristopher]

3. Pandora's Promise is entirely built on strawmanarguments

Nuclear energy film overstates positives, underplays negatives
By Ralph Cavanagh and Tom Cochran, Special to CNN
updated 5:25 AM EST, Wed November 6, 2013

After the disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, anti-nuclear groups take issue with a new film about nuclear energy.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Natural Resources Defense Council: "Pandora's Promise" a "love song to nuclear power"
NRDC: Film overlooks scientific statistics on radiation impacts
"Star of the film" is the Integral Fast Reactor, but the movie fails to mention downsides

(CNN) -- The new film "Pandora's Promise" is a love song to nuclear power that claims to be a documentary, but like all good propaganda it omits key parts of the story, overstates the positives and underplays the negatives.

Built around the (false) proposition that improved quality of life requires commensurate growth in energy use (a recurring visual theme is a globe that glows brighter and brighter), the movie presents nuclear power as the only plausible solution to global warming.

No American utility today would consider building a new nuclear power plant without massive government support. Of 29 power plants on the drawing boards in 2009, only a handful are going forward, with government help, and even those are experiencing delays and cost overruns.

No major U.S. environmental group endorses nuclear power as a solution to climate change caused by fossil fuels, but this movie lionizes environmental activists who have become nuclear power enthusiasts, led by Michael Shellenberger and Stewart Brand. Shellenberger notes in the film that he at one time worked for NRDC and other major environmental groups in a consulting role. Their narratives are juxtaposed against unflattering, decades-old clips of veteran anti-nuclear activists like Helen Caldicott, Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader, suggesting that being pro-nuke is modern and hip.

One of us...

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/06/opinion/pandora-nuclear-energy-opinion-cavanagh-cochran/


Editor's note: Ralph Cavanagh is co-director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's energy program and formerly served as a member of the U.S. Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board. Tom Cochran is an expert on nuclear energy and an NRDC consultant. He sits on three subcommittees of U.S. Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee. CNN Films' presentation of the nuclear power documentary "Pandora's Promise" airs Thursday, November 7, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

[PamW]

6. 100% WRONG!! AGAIN!!

kristopher,

Evidently you may not have heard the news that the top climate scientists say environmentalists need to support nuclear power:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists/index.html

and as I have been saying, this is true of 98% of the scientists in general, especially the physicists.

You can quote from the same of "policy wonks" who haven't succeeded in advancing the climate change agenda.

However, I will go with the scientists every time; as my tag line states.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[caraher]

7. As they say on Wikipedia...

"this is true of 98% of the scientists in general, especially the physicists."
citation needed

[kristopher]

9. Don't hold your breath waiting... nt

[PamW]

10. I'll get you the cite

caraher,

I'll get you the citation; I'm attempting to remember which study I read that made the claim.

As I recall, the support among physicists / engineers for nuclear power was about 98%. The support among scientists of all disciplines is about 70%:

http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-5-evolution-climate-change-and-other-issues

About half (51%) of the general public favors building additional nuclear power plants compared with 70% of scientists...

http://sciencerelief.blogspot.com/2013/05/there-is-scientific-consensus-on.html

Nuclear physicists are also for nuclear power yet an alarming number of environmentalists are skeptical or even in outright denial - and the general public also has beliefs in stark contrast to physicists about nuclear power, just like the public does not agree about genetic modification to the same degree biologists do.

However, one can read the position statements of the scientific profession societies like the American Physical Society:

http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/93_7.cfm

A balanced energy policy, however, also requires that the Department of Energy have strong programs to keep the nuclear energy option open, through: (a) the continued development of nuclear reactors which can be built, operated, and eventually decommissioned in a manner which is simple, safe, environmentally sound and cost-effective; (b) the development and implementation of programs for the safe disposal of spent fuel and radioactive wastes; and (c) the development of an effective public education program to allow a more informed debate on the strengths and weaknesses of nuclear power. The American Physical Society is deeply concerned that the current progress in these areas is inadequate.

http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/00_3.cfm

The Council of the American Physical Society believes that the use of renewable energy sources, the adoption of new ways of producing and using fossil fuels, increased consideration of safe and cost effective uses of nuclear power, and the introduction of energy-efficient technologies can, over time, promote the United States' energy security and reduce stress on the world's environment.

PamW

[caraher]

11. It's important to note exactly what position societies and scientists are agreeing with

The main thing to acknowledge is that it's not something like 98% (or some other smaller majority number) say we need to go full-bore nuclear for electricity. These statements are about continuing to develop nuclear plants, or keeping nuclear plants in the mix, without any implication that other non-fossil fuel energy sources ought to be ignored. I'd certainly consider it probable that a majority of physicists would consider continued use and development of nuclear energy to be something they'd support.

At the same time, I'd say a majority of physicists would also support a whole constellation of wind, solar and other non-nuclear fossil fuel technologies. For instance, the sentence preceding your excerpt from the 1993 APS statement is, "We therefore endorse increases in federal funding and general support for programs in conservation and in the development of renewable energy sources," and of course your excerpt from the second statement kicks off with an endorsement of renewables." It's a true "all of the above" stance, rather than a privileging of nuclear above possible alternatives.

As I understand your position, it is that fossil fuel alternatives other than nuclear are essentially pointless distractions. I'm quite sure you won't find 98% of scientists, or 98% of physicists and engineers, assenting to that extreme position. I do believe the Pew result showing 70% of scientists supporting nuclear power on some level; I'd imagine the same scientists would also support renewables at an even higher level had they been asked.

[PamW]

12. Then you misunderstand my position...

caraher states
As I understand your position, it is that fossil fuel alternatives other than nuclear are essentially pointless distractions.

Then you misunderstand my position.

I'm not saying that non-nuclear fossil fuel alternatives are pointless distractions.

I'm saying what the National Academy of Sciences is saying; which is that those alternatives can't do it all.

The NAS has derived a number of limits on what can be done with those alternatives. That's also what the 4 pro-nuclear climate scientists are saying.

There has been this "credo" that wind / solar can do it all; we just have to go "do it".

The NAS, other scientists and I say that there are limits on what wind / solar can do.

That means there is a big chunk of our electric demand that can't be met by those technologies; and we need a low-carbon energy source to fill that need.

Nuclear should be that low-carbon energy source.

I'm not saying that our energy portfolio should be all nuclear with regard to electricity. I'm part of the "all the above" crowd.

It's the wind / solar crowd that wants to eliminate one of the alternatives a priori and for no good reason.

PamW

[pscot]

5. You may be right, but perception is reality

Investors are like Mark Twains cat, which having sat on a hot stove was thereafter unwilling to sit on any stove, hot or cold.

[madokie]

8. Fact of the matter is

we have a situation in Fukushima that is completely, totally out of control on so many levels and no amount of trying to explain any of that away will not change anything. Any attempts toward that end only looks foolish on the one hand and down right stupid on the other.
Facts are facts