Lest we forget: Policing Plutonium: the Civil Liberties Fallout (1975)

[jpak]

As the Chimp is expected to announce in the SOTU address that the US will lift the current ban on spent fuel reprocessing (and is actively pursuing a Pu/MOX fuel cycle), I thought it would be amusing to revisit the Days of Yore and reexamine some of the arguments that lead to the ban....

...and frankly, I find the Plutonium Nirvana more than just a little frightening....

Policing Plutonium: The Civil Liberties Fallout

Harvard Civil Liberties and Civil Rights Law Review
Volume 10, Number 2,
Spring, 1975

http://www.ccnr.org/harvard_on_mox.html

<snip>

4. The Demise of the Fourth Amendment

To the extent that traditional doctrinal guarantees of privacy are swept away in the face of a plutonium threat, the decision whether to accept the risks and burdens of plutonium recycling ought to take into account, in advance, the strains which it will place on the fourth amendment.

Little in the way of judicial supervision of police conduct in searching for plutonium appears to be in prospect; <263> in particular it does not appear that widespread area search programs would either be declared unlawful <264> or enjoined. <265>

Although broad, highly offensive searches for stolen plutonium would be constitutionally "justified" in the sense that courts would probably uphold them, there would nonetheless be a sense that important constitutional interests had been sacrificed. By examining alternative characterizations of the fourth amendment which seek to legitimate searches for plutonium, one can conclude that the amendment itself commands a forward-looking review of the effects of plutonium recycling on individual privacy.

One such alternative would rely on a theory of consent suggested in part by United States v. Biswell. <266> There the Court held that a warrantless search of a locked storeroom of a firearms dealer as authorized by the Gun Control Act of 1968, <267> did not violate the fourth amendment. The Court found that the invasion of the dealer's privacy was justified since "hen a dealer chooses to engage in this pervasively regulated business and to accept a federal license, he does so with the knowledge that his business records, firearms, and ammunition will be subject to effective inspection." <268>

<more>

Enjoy...

[Massacure]

1. What the hell does plutonium have to do with search and seizures?

Plutonium is not a commonly available material that any ordinary citizen would have hanging about.

[jpak]

2. If ChimpCo and nuclear advocates have their way,

it will become a common article of commerce.

read the review...

[bananas]

3. Let's keep it that way.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=silkwood+plutonium&btnG=Google+Search

[NNadir]

4. Japan, France, Belgium, Germany and Great Britian all use plutonium

with no effect on civil liberties in their countries.

http://www.uic.com.au/nip42.htm

The argument made by the Harvard Law Review reflects both the fact that, as lawyers as opposed to techically educated people, they are used to making specious objections, and that their 1975 predictions have not been borne out by experience. We will add this claim therefore to the list of energy predictions that were incorrect.

Currently about 2% of the world's nuclear reactors use plutonium resources.

[jpak]

5. Plutonium + Patriot Act + Unitary President = Police State

The UK Royal Commission on the Environment came to the same conclusions as the Harvard study.

http://www.ccnr.org/Flowers_plute.html

Canadians have similar concerns...

http://www.ccnr.org/cost_disadvantages.html

The National Academy of Sciences concluded that the transport of MOX fuel would require the same level of security as th transport of nuclear weapons.

http://www.nap.edu/books/0309051452/html/R1.html

Belgium has ended its MOX fuel program, in part, due to concerns over the extraordinary security associated with plutonium transport.

Antinuclear groups are under police surveillance in many countries - including the US - even though they have every right to express their concerns and have committed no crime.

Hundreds of nuclear workers in Belgium, France, Britain and Russia have had their civil liberties curtailed and are subject to police surveillance.

Can they freely express their political opinions, or associate freely with individuals or political groups that might prove "troubling" to plant operators or government programs????

Can you say Karen Silkwood????

Are they subject to inappropriate questioning during lie detector tests????

Yup.

ChimpCo has used the Patriot Act to jail an individual - without trial or hearing - that it suspects "might" be planning a radiological attack.

Whistle blowers in the DOE have been fired, demoted and harassed for their actions..

....and I'm sure that my googling of nuclear-related websites has caught someone's attention.

Hi Agent Mike!

:hi:

...and all this will get worse if ChimpCo successfully implements its reprocessing and MOX fuel programs.

[NNadir]

6. Again, I merely note that many countries are already using plutonium.

Japan ships its spent fuel across the world. Japan is not a police state, nor or any of the countries I mentioned previously.

The United States, which does not recycle plutonium, is potentially becoming a police state and none of the reasons involve plutonium although arguably they do involve oil.

Generally theory that disagrees with experiment is discarded as useless.

[jpak]

7. There is significant and growing opposition to MOX fuel in Japan

and the central government ignores it.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020705a2.htm

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj01burnie

http://www.atimes.com/japan-econ/AI18Dh01.html

http://www.geocities.com/JIMGREEN3/mox.html#JAPAN

Authoritarian is as authoritarian does....

[NNadir]

9. There is considerable opposition to global climate change in the US.

It is also ignored by most state governments and the central government in this country.

That many citizens of Australia oppose global climate change and still the government does absolutely nothing about it, does not make Australia a police state.

I could produce many thousands of links to newspaper articles and websites showing that people oppose global climate change. (I know that I do.) Not all of them live in police states.

I have personally been to France many times, a plutonium recycling country, and I have seen no evidence whatsoever that it is a police state. I have been to Great Britain many times, also a plutonium recycling country and have not noticed that it is a police state.

I also note that police state tactics are often involved in oil economies. Nigeria is an example that immediately springs to mind. Savak era Iran is another.

The question of global climate change will not be solved by taking polls or finding people who exist (and asserting without any evidence that they are in the majority) who have particular opinions about technology. If, in fact, it will solved at all, the question will be addressed by providing energy on a scale measurable in exajoules that is produced with minimal release of global climate change gases. As of 2006 only two such technologies have been demonstrated on a significant scale: Hydropower and nuclear power. Of these, only nuclear

I personally believe that wind power is another promising option, although as an electrical generation scheme, it is still in its relative infancy. Other than NIMBY issues, there seem to be no significant hurdles to it and I regard it as an excellent opportunity to replace natural gas - a dirty and dangerous fuel, especially from a global climate change persepective. (I note in passing that the use of wind power for shipping is many thousands of years old, and the use of wind power for pumping has been known since antiquity - thus it is hardly a "new" technology.)

Still I believe that humanity would be making a serious error in relying on technologies that have little history.

I am of the opinion that the attachment of spent fuel recycling to police state tactics is itself a tactic. It is not a very convincing one and should easily be dismissed.

[jpak]

10. French plutonium transport security ain't so great...

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/man/2004/03/05/life/study.reveals.risk.of.accident.terror.attack.on.france.s.plutonium.route.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7148

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:x8hm-_dO5L0J:www.wise-paris.org/english/reports/030219TransPuMAJ-Summary.pdf+france+plutonium+transport+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7&ie=UTF-8

http://www.ieer.org/ensec/no-3/morimox.html

A terrorist attack on a French plutonium convoy would bring a swift and authoritarian response from the French government and future plutonium transport would entail security measures which would indeed infringe the civil liberties of French citizens.

The contention that MOX fuel or plutonium transport does not pose a unique security risk is false - as are claims that security measures response to those risks will not impose on the civil liberties of US citizens.

After 9/11 Trent Lott proclaimed "When you're in this type of conflict, when you're at war, civil liberties are treated differently."

That is why we have the Patriot Act and NSA eavesdropping and illegal detentions of American citizens and illegal surveillance of groups opposed to Bush administration policy.

So, when ChimpCo gets its reprocessing facilities and MOX-fueled reactors and regular shipments of plutonium on American highways become reality, will our liberty and security be enhanced or diminished??????

And who will profit from all this??????

[NNadir]

11. France has been recovering plutonium for decades.

There have been no incidents of terrorism at all. Neither have any conspiracies to attempt such an event ever been shown to exist.

All arguments in opposition to nuclear power end up being discussions of what "could happen." My opinion on this is very clear. Global Climate change is not something that "could happen." Global Climate Change is something that is happening.

An event that is occurring is no longer governed by probabilistic analyses, since its probability can be shown without calculation to be 100%. Since global climate change is a certainty there is no possibility of it being free of consequences.

Therefore I believe that all of humanity will profit by employing nuclear technology, which has a small risk, to fight global climate change which is a certainty.

It is often incumbent upon me to note that largest event of terrorism on US soil was not about nuclear issues at all. It was about oil. The largest group of 9/11 terrorists did not come from the countries that have the world's largest uranium reserves, Australia and Canada. They came from the country that holds the largest oil reserves, which of course, is Saudi Arabia. The erosion of American Civil liberties has not been justified by events precipitated by Canadians or Australians. Rather the (specious) justification cites events in which Saudi Arabians were participants.

These facts have been widely reported in the news and can easily be verified by independent checking.

Therefore it is experimentally observed that the occurrence of oil terrorism is greater by a factor of infinity than nuclear terrorism. This is demonstrated that oil terrorism incidents have already occurred, whereas incidents of nuclear terrorism have not occurred. Moreover, there has only been one nuclear war in history stretching back 60 years since the discovery of plutonium and petroleum was very much involved in that war, as the primary justification internally for war in Japan involved the US decision to embargo Japanese oil. The Japanese therefore determined to conquer what was then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) for its oil fields and considered that, in order to do so, the United States naval fleet needed to be eliminated. Since the Pacific War, World War II, there have been several major oil wars but no nuclear wars.

I further note that Saudi Arabia has never participated in commercial plutonium recycling as France and Britain have done for decades. Neither for that matter, did Iraq. Despite determined efforts to prove the opposite, no evidence for a nuclear capability has been uncovered in Iraq. It is now widely believed in many circles - to the persistent denials of the Bush administration - that Richard Cheney, George Bush et al made the whole thing up and were, in fact, looking to secure Iraqi oil fields, a task in which they have failed.

The United States has never considered attacking Britain, France, Belgium, since the discovery of plutonium nor, since 1945, Japan. In the latter case the attack on Japan was contemplated before the discovery of plutonium had been announced to the world. To my knowledge the United States has never justified the de facto suspension of the constitution because of concerns about French nuclear terrorism or British nuclear terrorism or Belgian nuclear terrorism or Japanese nuclear terrorism.

These facts may also be verified for anyone who is interested independently analyzing them.

I believe that thoughtful, reflective persons rationally contemplating the nature of risk cannot help but to recognize the following truth:

There is no such thing as risk free energy. There is only risk minimized energy. That energy is nuclear energy.

[jpak]

12. Nuclear power plants were on the original 9/11 target list

and the US is preparing for military action against Iran over its uranium enrichment program.

Deny deny deny...

[NNadir]

15. The modern United States always claims its military actions are about

uranium.

They are not. They are about oil. I recently detailed in another thread the long history, dating back to 1953, of the United States and its participation in Iranian politics, all of which involved oil. I do not feel compelled to repeat these posts here, but can simply refer interested parties to the original posts, which are numbers 49 and 50 in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=39403&mesg_id=39403

Similarly people often claim that terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants are likely and that they will also succeed as the attack on the World Trade Center succeeded. However with over 430 nuclear plants operating worldwide, such an attack has never been attempted or observed. The number of nuclear terrorist events remains at zero.

I merely note that the risks with events that are happening (global climate change) are higher than the risks of events that "could" happen.

It is, in my opinion, very doubtful that a 9/11 type attack on a nuclear plant would breach a containment building, but even if it did, it is known by experiment (the experiment being Chernobyl) that the loss of life from any radiation leaks as might occur would be comparable to the loss of life that is annually observed from air pollution or the loss of life that is associated with global climate change. Almost the entire inventory of nuclear fission products of a nuclear reactor at the end of its fuel cycle have been released to the environment and the consequences have apparently been less than advertised at the time of the accident.

I note that the cores of American nuclear powerplants do not contain flammable graphite as Chernobyl did. Therefore a breach in a reactor is not likely to burn for weeks.

[jpak]

17. LOL!!!!

Nuclear Plants Are Still Vulnerable, (Nat'l Academy) Panel Says

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32383-2005Apr6.html

Three and a half years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the government has failed to address the risk that a passenger plane flying at high speed could be deliberately crashed into a commercial nuclear plant, setting off fires and dispersing large amounts of radiation, a long-awaited report by the National Academy of Sciences has concluded.

Officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have maintained that such an attack is improbable and that detailed analyses of the consequences of such attacks are unnecessary. Experts at the nation's premier scientific body said those judgments are flawed.

"There are currently no requirements in place to defend against the kinds of larger-scale, pre-meditated, skillful attacks that were carried out on September 11, 2001," a panel of scientists said, even as it agreed such an attack would be difficult to pull off.

<more>

Spent fuel pools at many US nuclear power plants are NOT housed in containment structures - and at some of the older BWR plants (Oyster Creek for one) the spent fuel pool is located ABOVE the reactor.

http://www.energybulletin.net/2178.html

Some of the new generation of nuclear power lack the robust containment structures of previous designs.

http://www.neis.org/literature/Reports&Testimonies/full_terrorist_report_10-22-01.htm

But there is nothing to worry about - "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile..."

:rofl:

[NNadir]

18. Again, I simply note that no nuclear terrorism event has ever occurred.

All anti-nuclear arguments attempt to invoke a statement of about what could happen, which is inherently probablistic, to ones that are happening and which are therefore no longer probalistic.

Even where events are probablistic, all probablistic assertions need to be compared and thoroughly debated. Internationally, this has been done, and the conclusions have been acted upon after rational deliberation.

The world is building many nuclear reactors designed to produce energy on an exajoule scale. These decisions reflect a consensus rejection of the notion that nuclear power is more dangerous than its alternatives.

I have long explored and detailed the probablistic nature of energy decisions and have noted that many concerns and claims asserted in the past have proved not to be as exigent as was originally claimed. In any case, any mathematical analysis, probablistic or otherwise, must conform to experiment to be validated. I note that many tens of thousands of reactor years have been accumulated in the last several decades, and few of the risks formerly alleged by nuclear detractors have been realized. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the anti-nuclear arguments will prove any more prescient than they have proved in the past. Indeed there is good reason to assume they will be less prescient.

On the other hand, global climate change is now an observable.

For this reason, it is my policy to continuously restate this experimentally observed truth:

There is no such thing as risk free energy. There is only risk minimized energy. That energy is nuclear energy.

[jpak]

20. Yup - no terraist would EVER think to attack a nuclear facility in the US

Homeland Security should be informed of this...

:rofl:

[NNadir]

21. Thinking is not the same as doing.

Many people think about nuclear terrorism. Indeed they talk about it all the time.

Many people also think the immanent return of Jesus. Indeed they talk about it all the time.

Although these events are widely discussed, neither has ever occurred, nor has any evidence been demonstrated that they are likely to occur. This should give pause to anyone who is evaluating the claim that nuclear terrorism is easy to accomplish or that Jesus is likely to return.

My personal opinion is that people who operate on fear, whether it be nuclear terrorism in particular, terrorism in general, or fear of retribution from an angry Jesus, are avoiding rational thought. This is why I object to the existence of the Department of Homeland Security and the Bush administration in general, since they operate by mysticism and appeal to fear.

It does seem to me based on my life experience that these attempts to evoke fear preclude rationality and are often deliberate attempts to obscure the realities that must be inherent in the evaluation of alternatives. As noted in the epigraph that I have long attached to all of my posts here, the Roosevelts, in particular my political heroine Eleanor, rejected appeals to fear, much as I do.

[jpak]

23. Unbelievable

n/t

[jpak]

25. According to ChimpCo anti-nuclear activists are the real threat...

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/15/155219

Pentagon Caught Spying on U.S. Anti-War and Anti-Nuclear Activists

Newly leaked Pentagon documents have confirmed the military has been monitoring and collecting intelligence on anti-war groups across the country. Peace protests are being described as threats and the military is collecting data on who is attending demonstrations. We speak with William Arkin, the former Army intelligence officer, who obtained the secret Pentagon documents.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Earlier this week NBC News exposed the existence of a secret Pentagon database to track intelligence gathered inside the United States. The database including information on dozens of anti-war protests and rallies particularly actions targeting military recruiting.

The list included: counter-military recruiting meetings held at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Forth, Florida. Anti-nuclear protests staged in Nebraska on the 50th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki. An anti-war protest organized by military families outside Fort Bragg in North Carolina. And a rally in San Diego to support war resister Pablo Parades. The Pentagon database described all of these events as threats.

The documents obtained by NBC also indicate the Pentagon is now conducting surveillance at protests and possibly monitoring Internet traffic. One Pentagon briefing document stamped "secret" concluded: "e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the nternet." The same document indicated the military is tracking who is attending protests in part by keeping records on cars seen at protests.

<more>

All acceptable behavior to the anti-Greenpeace crowd...

more....

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archold.cgi?id=13692

http://www.publiceye.org/huntred/Hunt_For_Red_Menace-07.html

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archold.cgi?id=13820

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/18713prs20041202.html

[NNadir]

26. I find all Bush claims of threats absurd. Again, I am not interested

in irrational appeals to fear.

Ideally they would simply be boring, but since such appeals to fear do real harm, they manage to be worse than boring.

In any case the attitudes of members of the Bush administration towards protestors of any type do not change the laws of physics or the experimental facts about nuclear power in any way.

I simply point out that the contention that plutonium recycling depends of the existence of a police state is not contingent upon the case of the United States.

The logical fallacy involved here is known as "Affirming the Consequent." The proposition that is being offered is this, "Plutonium recycling requires a police state." The (illogical) proof for this assertion consists of the following argument. "The United States is becoming a police state. Therefore the United States is recycling plutonium."

However the United States is not recycling plutonium and the origin of police state tactics in this country are clearly independent of industrial intentions towards plutonium recycling, since again, the origin of police state tactics can be shown from many sources to have originated in a clearly defined and widely reported series of events that began with oil politics.

Actually, although I tire of repeating it in various ways, I note that the statement "Plutonium recycling requires a police state" can be falsified by demonstrating the existence of one placse where plutonium recycling occurs that is not in a police state. I contend that neither France nor Britain nor Japan nor Belgium are police states. All participate in the use of recycled plutonium. Unless all of these states are police states, the proposition is falsified. I leave it to readers to contemplate whether in fact, the four states mentioned are or are not police states.

Here is a similar type of argument that one sees from time to time:

Someone asserts "I am a Democrat," and "I oppose nuclear power" and then (again, illogically) "All Democrats oppose nuclear power." The logical fallacy here is "hasty generalization." The instance of one Democrat who approves of nuclear power falsifies the conclusion. The form of this fallacy is "some a is b, a, therefore b." This has long been known to be contrary to the most simple rules of logic.

Here is yet another related form: "Dick Cheney is evil." "Dick Cheney supports nuclear power," "Therefore nuclear power is evil."

Recently in a forum that is no longer available because of my own fault, I elucidated the logic of this argument by reproducing it with more illuminating set of antecedents: "Adolf Hitler liked dogs." "Nicolai Ceausescu liked dogs" "George W. Bush likes Dogs." "Adolf Hitler, Nicolai Ceausescu and George W. Bush are all examples of evil." "Therefore liking dogs is evil." The logical fallacy in this case is "guilt by association."

Here by the way is a report that points to the truth of all the antecedents:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1541707.html?menu=news.quirkies.animaltales

Actually the entire question of new nuclear power is largely irrelevant to the internal politics of the United States. The vast majority of the 178 new nuclear reactors in various stages of development are not in the United States. Only 13 new reactors are contemplated here. The demonstration of one instance of a nuclear power plant that is not being built through the agency of Dick Cheney falsifies the statement that "Dick Cheney is responsible for the renewal of interest in new nuclear power plants." Actually there are 165 such instances.

The use and abuse of rhetoric is covered extensively in one of my favorite sites on the internet, www.fallacyfiles.org. I often feel compelled to refer to this site and take the liberty of doing so.

[jpak]

27. Orwellian Logic, Ostrich Behavior and Denial

Dick Cheney and GWB and the GOP Congress ARE responsible for the spate of new nuclear power plant proposals in the US.

No one can deny this.

Under the provisions of ChimpCo's Energy Bill....

Taxpayers pay 50% of the licensing costs.

Taxpayers guarantee up to 80% of the cost of construction.

Taxpayers will pay nuclear plant owners $2 billion if regulatory problems delay construction.

Taxpayers will provide nuclear plant operators $6 billion in production tax credits (1.8 cents per kWh).

Anyone that supports these new plants supports ChimpCo energy policy.

Anyone that supports ChimpCo's spent fuel reprocessing schemes supports ChimpCo energy policy.

Anyone that supported de-funding solar energy projects as part of the 2005 Energy Bill supports GOP anti-solar philosophy.

Anyone that supports illegal surveillance of anti-nuclear "twits" supports ChimpCo domestic surveillance policy.

Period.

[NNadir]

32. I have explicitly explained the logic by which I think and am satisfied

with it. I feel they are reasonably clear and completely acceptable. I am therefore loathe to repeat this criteria which is commonly understood by logicians and will not do so in the present case.

My political philosophy includes the belief that government should be an economic participant in matters of the common good. I am still an admirer of the set of historical initiatives under Roosevelt With this in mind, I remark that I would personally prefer it if the government, rather than have conducted the Halliburton oil war, had taken $500 billion dollars (or whatever amount has actually be spent) and purchased 250 nuclear power plants out right. Such is the level of my concern for global climate change and my sense of urgency about it. Therefore it is my opinion that any subsidies to the proved nuclear industry are insufficient and should be subject to increase, not decrease.

This because nuclear power, as I have indicated in many posts on this web site using the rules of logic I have reiterated in this thread, is a well understood mature technology that has been, is being and will be developed throughout the world in order to provide exajoule quantities of energy with minimal global climate change risk. Nuclear power works.

I merely note that such an investment in 250 nuclear power plants would have constituted an investment in infrastructure and would have left some hope of survival at the end of the day. I note that war is a destructive force that reduces infrastructure and capital, human and otherwise. Investment is always to be preferred to war, because while investment is sometimes associated with unethical acts, war is always totally immoral.

I will now turn to an assertion that is continually repeated through the application of the logical fallacy "Guilt by Association," noting that I have already discussed the nature of this type of discourse:

The COL process is in part defined by 10 CFR Part 52 which dates to 1989 and existed notably in the period between Jan, 1993 and Jan, 2001. CFR, for those who may not be aware of it, stands for the Code of Federal Regulations. Under the now vanishing constitution, the Federal Code of Regulations in part represents administrative rulings by the executive branch that are designed to support Federal law as written and passed in congress and approved by the President of the United States - excepting cases of over-ridden vetos, such vetos during the Clinton administration never having been issued for the purpose of preventing the use of nuclear power.

10 CFR 52.1 was amended, for instance, during the Clinton Administration to read as follows:

General Provisions
§ 52.1 Scope.
This part governs the issuance of early site permits, standard design certifications, and combined licenses for nuclear power facilities licensed under Section 103 or 104b of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (68 Stat. 919), and Title II of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 (88 Stat. 1242). This part also gives notice to all persons who knowingly provide to any holder of or applicant for an early site permit, standard design certification, or combined license, or to a contractor, subcontractor, or consultant of any of them, components, equipment, materials, or other goods or services, that relate to the activities of a holder of or applicant for an early site permit, standard design certification, or combined license, subject to this part, that they may be individually subject to NRC enforcement action for violation of § 52.9.

<63 FR 1897, Jan. 13, 1998>

10 CFR 52.2 and section 52.3 , also amended during the Clinton administration read:

§ 52.17 Contents of applications.
(a)(1) The application must contain the information required by § 50.33 (a) through (d), the information required by § 50.34 (a)(12) and (b)(10), and to the extent approval of emergency plans is sought under paragraph (b)(2)(ii) of this section, the information required by § 50.33 (g) and (j), and § 50.34 (b)(6)(v) of this chapter. The application must also contain a description and safety assessment of the site on which the facility is to be located. The assessment must contain an analysis and evaluation of the major structures, systems, and components of the facility that bear significantly on the acceptability of the site under the radiological consequence evaluation factors identified in § 50.34(a)(1) of this chapter. Site characteristics must comply with part 100 of this chapter. In addition, the application should describe the following:

(i) The number, type, and thermal power level of the facilities for which the site may be used;

(ii) The boundaries of the site;

(iii) The proposed general location of each facility on the site;

(iv) The anticipated maximum levels of radiological and thermal effluents each facility will produce;

(v) The type of cooling systems, intakes, and outflows that may be associated with each facility...

...(c) If the applicant wishes to be able to perform, after grant of the early site permit, the activities at the site allowed by 10 CFR 50.10(e)(1) without first obtaining the separate authorization required by that section, the applicant shall propose, in the early site permit, a plan for redress of the site in the event that the activities are performed and the site permit expires before it is referenced in an application for a construction permit or a combined license issued under subpart C of this part. The application must demonstrate that there is reasonable assurance that redress carried out under the plan will achieve an environmentally stable and aesthetically acceptable site suitable for whatever non-nuclear use may conform with local zoning laws.

<54 FR 15386, Sept. 18, 1989, as amended at 61 FR 65175, Dec. 11, 1996>

I note in passing that no Federal Emergency plans apparently existed for the evacuation of New Orleans during the recent event associated with global climate change that destroyed that city. Therefore the criteria established for nuclear power plants is once again much higher than the criteria for fossil fueled plants even though the risks associated with nuclear power plants is much lower than for fossil fueled plants. As a Democrat who believes in well regulated capitalism, I would be very happy to see a section corresponding to 10 CFR 52.17(c) applied to coal plants that required planning, in advance of building, of the utility plans to restore the earth's atmosphere to its original conditions during and after its operations.

Appendix A of 10 CFR 52 includes the following statement, dated March 4, 1997, again during the Clinton administration, includes the following administrative ruling on the GE ABWR (Advanced Boiling Water Reactor.) At this time the construction of 2 such ABWR units was already underway in Japan. These units, each operating at more than 1300 MWe, were built from the first pouring of concrete until integration with the electrical grid in just over 3 years.

Thus the United States was lagging Japan in approval of this type of Gen III reactor.

III. Scope and Contents

A. Tier 1, Tier 2, and the generic technical specifications in the U.S. ABWR Design Control Document, GE Nuclear Energy, Revision 4 dated March 1997, are approved for incorporation by reference by the Director of the Office of the Federal Register in accordance with 5 U.S.C. 552(a) and 1 CFR part 51. Copies of the generic DCD may be obtained from the National Technical Information Service, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161, Web site at http://www.ntis.gov. A copy is available for examination and copying at the NRC Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, telephone [phone], e-mail [e-mail]. Copies are also available for examination at the NRC Library, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, telephone [phone], e-mail [e-mail], and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). For information on the availability of this material at NARA, call 202–741–6030, or go to: http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/code_of_federal_regulations/ibr_locations.html.

B. An applicant or licensee referencing this appendix, in accordance with Section IV of this appendix, shall incorporate by reference and comply with the requirements of this appendix, including Tier 1, Tier 2, and the generic technical specifications except as otherwise provided in this appendix. Conceptual design information, as set forth in the generic DCD, and the "Technical Support Document for the ABWR" are not part of this appendix. Tier 2 references to the probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) in the ABWR Standard Safety Analysis Report do not incorporate the PRA into Tier 2.

C. If there is a conflict between Tier 1 and Tier 2 of the DCD, then Tier 1 controls.

I have selected modifications to 10 CFR 52 as amended during the Clinton administration to support my contention that being a Democrat is inconsistent with acceptance of the need for nuclear power. In no place in the 10 CFR 52 does a regulation exist that is intended to ban nuclear power. On the contrary, the regulatory environment is explicitly stated so as to strengthen the already strong position of nuclear technology. The approval of the GE AWBR certainly represents a serious step in the right direction. The logical underpinnings of these statements demonstrating the obvious reality that one can simultaneously be a Democrat and support nuclear power, are perhaps peripheral to the argument initially raised in this thread. To review, the original assertion addressed here was the claim that nations that produce plutonium must necessarily be police states, but I feel to my own satisfaction that the police state claim has been substantively demolished under the rules of generally applicable logic. I therefore offer this, again peripheral, post to address similar extraordinary claims that are not clearly supportable except through the continued exercise of logical fallacies of various types.

10 CFR 52 is available on the internet and is free to all interested parties to peruse:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part052/full-text.html#part052-0013

10 CFR Part 52 has been amended quite a bit during the Bush administration and we can be sure that at least some of the changes in regulations are meant to streamline the funnel for graft and corruption. On review of recent history such a suspicion cannot be avoided. However I am personally of the opinion that there are no energy schemes of any type anywhere on the face of the planet that operate in a climate of ethical purity. As I and many others have noted repeatedly elsewhere it is increasingly clear that the most ethically scandalous energy industry is the oil industry. At least the nuclear industry is regulated.

However none of this has any bearing on the subject of whether nuclear energy is safer than its alternatives. The Mobutu capitalism of the Bush administration is not specifically applied to nuclear power but instead exists for all transactions of all types now conducted in the United States. Once again the attempt to apply "nuclear exceptionalism" is found wanting. To the extent that opportunities for graft in the Bush administration result ultimately in infrastructure, they are to be preferred to opportunities for graft in the Bush administration that are applicable to the destruction of infrastructure, property and human lives, such as now is taking place in the Bush Oil War in Iraq.

As a Democrat, I address all of my comments in this forum to my fellow Democrats in the firm expectation that we will be returned to power, that we will be called upon to save our country and our planet and most importantly that we will fulfill our obligation to govern wisely. Governing wisely under the circumstances includes, as I have argued at length, the need to expand the nuclear infrastructure to address the crisis of global climate change.

Under all circumstances the general applicability of this truth remains:

There is no such thing as risk free energy. There is only risk minimized energy.

[jpak]

33. Dissembling nonsense and pathetic

Under Clinton no one applied for a license to build a new nuclear plant - amendments or no amendments.

They just cost too damned much to build and operate.

...and wannabe nuclear plant owners had to pay ALL the application fees (millions of dollars per application).

Under ChimpCo, the taxpayers pay half the cost of the license application.

...and take on most of the financial risk of building the plant...

...and pay nuclear plant owners if the NRC delays construction for any reason...

...and heavily subsidize the production of nuclear electricity...

...AND nuclear plant operators will charge taxpayers as much as they can for this electricity - WTF does this do for the Common Good????

...AND a recent study indicated that life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power plants are greater than natural gas-fired plants of similar capacity - WTF does this do for the Common Good????

The US doesn't have the uranium enrichment capacity to support 250 new nuclear plants.

...and it doesn't have the uranium resources to support 250 new nuclear power plants...

...and it doesn't have a repository to accommodate the spent fuel from 250 new nuclear power plants...let alone what is on hand now...

But there is room in the Democratic Party for vegan pro-nuclear anti-solar anti-Greenpeace inventors of Magical Super Secret Molten Salt Breeder Reactors who believe in radiation hormesis, and who support Bush administration energy policy.

We gotta Big Tent....

:rofl:

[NNadir]

34. It is incumbent among persons making extraordinary claims to offer

extraordinary proof.

I have offered evidence that the Clinton Administration approved the ABWR, and left in place the COL process. I have noted many times that the Clinton Administration was instrumental in the decision to have HEU from the former Soviet weapons stockpile and bring it to the United States.

I note that the failure of anyone to order a nuclear reactor in the 1990's may have only been a function of the spectacular improvements in nuclear production with existing capacity.

I frequently produce the numbers for nuclear production from the EIA for nuclear production in the United States, which increased by nearly 2 exajoules in the period between 1980 and 2000.

This can easily be shown in the following spreadsheet which I often need to link here to allow interested parties to appreciate the merits of various arguments.

Here are the nuclear production figures, produced yet again:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table27.xls

These show that nuclear production in the period produced 544 billion kilowatt-hours (1.97 exajoules) more in 2000 than in 1980, mostly from ironing out the bugs and improving capacity loading and fuel management.

A 1000 MWe running electrical plant of any type produces at 90% capacity loading about 0.085 exajoules of electricity per year. Thus we see that nuclear production increased so much in this period that it was the equivalent of building 23 new nuclear plants for free.

In the same period electrical consumption rose by 1562 billion kilowatt-hours, or 5.62 exajoules. Thus 34% of the new electricity produced in that period derived from nuclear energy.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table62.xls

People who appreciate energy will immediately understand that the primary function for nuclear power is for base load supply. Since we have no information about the base/peak mix for the other 66% of the electricity increase in that period, we cannot say that nuclear plants were "too expensive," especially because Japan was building two ABWR of the type approved by the Clinton administration. It may simply be a matter of older assets increasing their performance enough to cover increase in demand. In short, the plants were not necessarily needed.

Consciousness of global climate change and the natural gas pike peak were also in the future: Until recently, gas was the path of least resistance if, and this is an important caveat, one ignores the external cost of global climate change and acid pollution.

In any case, even if nuclear plants were more expensive over the long run to operate - and they are not - their extraordinary environmental benefits make them desirable. We need to shut coal plants down before they kill us. However utility executives will not do this unless they are so forced by law. By construction of a punitive carbon tax we can make this happen and we should. If it requires subsidies - so be it. Subsidized infrastructure is perfectly OK with me: I am a liberal.

Solar energy was of no help in this period, increasing only by 0.015 exajoules in that decade. Thus people who advocate the use of solar energy to address global climate change are engaging in the logical fallacy of "wishful thinking."

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table5a.html

0.015 exajoules of new solar energy addressed only 0.2% of the increase in demand.

In fact biomass burning actually fell more than solar increased.

The matter, of course, is not really economics however, it is environmental and in Al Gore we had the last powerful figure in the United States who was motivated to do something about global climate change.

Al Gore has been to Chernobyl, on July 30, 1998 during one of his biannual visits to discuss nuclear issues with the Soviets - including the blend down of Soviet Weapons material to make US reactor fuel - he spoke of seeing the reactor and walking through the abandoned amusement park there. And he said this:

http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1998/319818.shtml

"The lesson of Chernobyl is not an indictment of nuclear power as such. Nuclear power, designed well, regulated properly, cared for meticulously, has a place in the world's energy supply. And certainly the lesson of Chernobyl is not that we should retreat from new technology. Technology used for human reasons, in humane hands, holds the promise of improving the quality of our lives. Today, for example, Liubov Kovalevska's prophetic warning about Chernobyl would have been instantly spread on the Internet throughout Ukraine and the rest of the world. Wisely used for compassionate purposes, technology is part of the answer, and not itself the problem.

I hope President-elected Al Gore runs for President again. He knows what he is talking about, and of course being a clear and undistracted thinker, he is able to make balanced and capable decisions about the most environmental issue ever to have confronted humanity: Global Climate Change.

[jpak]

31. French security agents bombed the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor

and killed a Greenpeace activist for daring to protest French plutonium-related activities in the South Pacific.

Terrorist attack or just desserts for Greenpeace Twits??????

[jpak]

8. Here's some food for thought

http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=75151

[NNadir]

13. Whe I use a text search to find the word "plutonium" in the linked article

I find that the word does not occur once.

Speaking only for myself, I fail to see any connection to the discussion of whether or not plutonium recycling always leads to a police state breaking out in the country practicing that particular bit of separations chemistry.

A two second scan of the article seems to include some remarks about vegans. I am a vegan and have never felt that my personal choice involves police state tactics either.

It also seems that the article is about events in the United States. The United States does not recycle commercially produced plutonium although I frequently argue that it should do so.

[jpak]

14. Anybody that opposes Bush administration policy is a threat

New nuclear power plants, MOX fuel and reprocessing are Bush Administration policy.

Oppose these policies at your own risk....

[NNadir]

16. The relationship seems like a stretch to me, but I invite all parties who

are interested to draw their own conclusions about the relevance.

I note that many nuclear plants are under construction world wide that have no connection (beyond diplomatic relations) with the Bush administration, and as I have pointed out elsewhere, many plants outside the US already burn MOX. In addition I have offered evidence that countries exist where these policies are in place that are not police states. Interested parties are perfectly free to evaluate my claims to see whether they are correct.

Right now there is only one nuclear plant in the United States where construction is taking place (Brown's Ferry unit #1 is being refurbished) and I have heard of no evidence that this plant has been used as a justification to suppress civil liberties.

I have no evidence for the relationship between the use of MOX in any country and official policies toward vegans and I am still at a loss to see the relevance of vegan suppression in the United States to worldwide nuclear policies.

However, to repeat, people who do see this connection are unrestrained from doing so and are unlikely to be dissuaded from making the connection, whatever it might prove to be, by anything I might say.

[jpak]

19. I attended local anti-war rallies and protested at a Bush rally in 2004

I was carrying a Kerry/Edwards yard sign....

I was photographed and videotaped by law enforcement for simply participating in a peaceful lawful constitutionally-protected activity.

I was told where to stand and was marched around from sidewalk to sidewalk by the local police.

I was opposed by phalanx of police in full body armor and armed with submachine guns.

and I was scoped by snipers from the roof of a nearby building.

None of the counter-protesters were photographed and the Bushbots entering the rally venue had free access to all the sidewalks and streets.

How will those protesting reprocessing plants and MOX fuel shipments be treated?????

There are those that support Bush administration nuclear policy (and despise anti-nuclear protesters) who think this is just OK.

But anyone that entrusts the Bush administration with their Liberty is a fucking fool.

[struggle4progress]

22. Britain's Official Secrets Act covers plutonium reprocessing there.

The razor wire fence that surrounds Sellafield is the first indication that this is not your average chemical works. Each day thousands of incoming workers have to pass slowly through police checkpoints to reach their workplace. Because of their potential, nuclear materials create the need for extra police and security provisions. In Britain the UK Atomic Energy Authority constabulary number just over 500. They recruit and operate independently of the civil police. Under the AEA (Special Constables) Act of 1976 they were given far greater powers. They can now carry arms at all times; have the power to enter any house or premises at will; they can arrest anyone on suspicion anywhere in the UK. This police force is accountable to the Atomic Energy Authority, who in turn are responsible to the Secretary of State of the relevant government department. Officers do take the similar Oath of Allegiance to the Crown as the civil police. The AEA police carry weapons to patrol certain areas inside the razor wired perimeter of Sellafield. They have their own firing range inside the Drigg nuclear dump site and their own team of trained dog handlers. Armed officers accompany sensitive secret movements of material to and from Sellafield. These movements, in unmarked vehicles, include plutonium from Sellafield, tritium from BNFL Chapelcross near Carlisle, movements of MOX (plutonium and uranium) fuel to Carlisle Airport and to Barrow docks ...

All employees at Sellafield have to sign and agree to the terms of the Official Secrets Act ...

http://www.lakestay.co.uk/top.htm

I do eagerly await your defense of the Official Secrets Act ... :evilgrin:

[jpak]

24. Does the Official Secrets Act apply to PV manufacturing plants too????

:evilgrin:

[struggle4progress]

29. * gosh * I hadn't thought about terrorists spreading PV cells around!

[jpak]

30. What's the critical mass for silicon anyway????

two, three kilos????

[jpak]

28. Typical ad homnium bullshit and wrong

Legal scholars are absolutely qualified to analyze the legal and civil implications of the Plutonium Economy.

Other legal scholars in other countries have come to similar conclusions as this author.

and they were correct:

" Stringent security programs designed to insure the loyalty of civilian employees having access to plutonium <25> and wiretapping and other forms of covert surveillance designed to monitor the activities of suspected terrorists <26> may seem necessary in order to prevent thefts of plutonium. "

That's reality at Sellefield in the UK - All employees at Sellafield have to sign and agree to the terms of the Official Secrets Act. They relinquish their civil liberties for the right to work there - as do plutonium workers at the DOE.

...and then there is Karen Silkwood....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A634213

ChimpCo is currently conducting illegally surveillance of antinuclear activists and anyone they feel is a threat to their authority.

The widespread introduction of plutonium into the US economy, as well as the shipment of spent fuel to Yucca Mountain, together the rise of a Unitary Presidency will most certainly threaten to our civil rights and freedoms.

period