Snowstorm shuts down expensive nearly useless solar plant in Massachusetts.

[PamW]

29. Actually it doesn't have to be...

The following article in the Wall Street Journal was written by University of California - Berkeley Physics Professor Richard Muller, the author of the book "Physics for Future Presidents":

The Panic Over Fukushima

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444772404577589270444059332.html

Denver has particularly high natural radioactivity. It comes primarily from radioactive radon gas, emitted from tiny concentrations of uranium found in local granite. If you live there, you get, on average, an extra dose of .3 rem of radiation per year (on top of the .62 rem that the average American absorbs annually from various sources). A rem is the unit of measure used to gauge radiation damage to human tissue.
...
But over the following weeks and months, the fear grew that the ultimate victims of this damaged nuke would number in the thousands or tens of thousands. The "hot spots" in Japan that frightened many people showed radiation at the level of .1 rem, a number quite small compared with the average excess dose that people happily live with in Denver.

What explains the disparity? Why this enormous difference in what is considered an acceptable level of exposure to radiation?

Professor Muller accurately points out that the additional radiation levels around Fukushima that are deemed "unacceptable" are actually one-third the additional natural radiation levels to be found in Denver, which we deem "acceptable". Go figure! When people "think" with their politics instead of their brains, it doesn't have to make sense logically.

PamW