Nuclear greenwashing

[jpak]

http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=3718&catid=&volume_id=254&issue_id=299&volume_num=41&issue_num=35

Patrick Moore's presentation isn't as slick as Al Gore's. The slides he shows lack a certain visual panache and don't compare to the ones in An Inconvenient Truth. Moore himself seems a little frumpy, particularly as he peers out across the audience recently gathered in the Warnors Theatre in Fresno.

But attendees paid $20 to hear the former Greenpeace leader extol the benefits of nuclear energy as a clean, safe, reliable, economic, and — perhaps most important to the current political and media focus on global warming — emissions-free source of power.

It's hard to imagine Moore at the helm of an inflatable boat steering into the line of a whaling ship's fire, but that iconic Greenpeace image is exactly what he wants you to associate with him. The Vancouver, British Columbia, native is quick to tell you he's a former leader of one of the most effective international activist organizations ever.

But he said he's older now and wants to be for things instead of against them.

What's Moore for? Warding off the warming of the world. What does he think will do it? More nuclear power plants.

<much more>

[Vincardog]

1. When did carcinogens that will be active for the next few hundred thousand years = emissions-free?

[Nihil]

7. When they are compared against the alternatives.

Just thought I'd tell you even though I know you wont pay any attention
to the facts ...

:hi:

[struggle4progress]

2. Great article and well worth the read!

Thanks for posting!

[philb]

3. Price of uranium fuel going up extremely fast; implies nuclear option depends on spent fuel recycli

ng; so look for a big push for spent fuel recycling very soon.

[immoderate]

4. Pretty well fucked -- these guys never stop!

--IMM

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jpak]

6. Some more info on the Nuclear Energy Institute - Patrick Moore's and Christie Todd's boss

The NEI was an enthusiastic participant in Dick Cheney's "Energy Task Force"...

Nuclear Power Convention Applauds Cheney, Energy Program

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines01/0523-01.htm

The nuclear power convention sported the bold slogan "A Flourishing Renaissance," and Vice President Cheney went before the reactor executives yesterday to accept their adulation and underline the administration's enthusiasm for nuclear power.

Vice President Cheney was greeted by two standing ovations at Tuesday's Nuclear Energy Institute's annual conference in Washington Tuesday, May 22, 2001. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)
The energy policy President Bush released last week includes promises to speed up relicensing for safe and efficient nuclear reactors and take a number of other steps to encourage production of nuclear power. The report refers to it as a "clean and unlimited source of energy."

Cheney was the policy's architect, and was greeted by two standing ovations from the crowd of 375 at the Nuclear Energy Assembly. The annual conference is sponsored at a Washington hotel by the industry's major trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute.

<snip>

"We want, as a matter of national policy, to encourage continued advancements in this industry -- improved safety and efficiency in nuclear plants, safe disposal of nuclear waste and perhaps even technology that reduces the amount of toxicity of waste going forward," he said.

<more>

more NEI Cheney-love here...

Vice President Cheney Describes Nuclear Power as 'Very Important Part' of Energy Policy

http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=4&catid=335

<snip>

NEI President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Colvin said Cheney’s remarks provided “an exhilarating rallying point for the industry at a time when Americans are looking for energy solutions. The nuclear energy industry is poised to increase its role in the nation’s mix of electricity sources, and it was tremendously valuable—substantively and symbolically—to have Vice President Cheney speak before us today and voice the Administration’s support for nuclear energy technology.”

“We applaud the leadership that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are providing in recognizing that nuclear power is an indispensable component of our energy mix,” Colvin said.

<snip>

The Nuclear Energy Institute is a major GOP/Bush/Cheney contributor...

Data Shows Industry had Extensive Access to Cheney's Energy Task Force

http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020521.asp

WASHINGTON, DC (May 21, 2002) -- A close examination of more than 12,000 pages of documents provided by the Energy Department confirms that energy industry lobbyists enjoyed extraordinary access to Vice President Cheney's energy task force. NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) has finally compiled from Energy Department documents a comprehensive, quantitative analysis of outside contacts during formulation of the Bush administration's national energy plan. (Contact NRDC's press office for a copy.)

During the course of its operation -- from January to September of 2001 -- the energy task force received input from hundreds of corporations, organizations and individuals. The data, which validates NRDC's preliminary assessment that industry had the most access, shows that industry representatives had 714 direct contacts while non-industry representatives had only 29. NRDC could not definitively categorize another 105 direct contacts.

"A year ago the Cheney task force issued recommendations that read like a wish list for energy companies," said NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino. "When it came to developing the administration's environmentally and fiscally reckless energy policy, it was all industry all the time."

<snip>

Nuclear Energy Institute had contact with the task force 19 times. (NEI contributed $437,404 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002.)

<more>

and that's just between 1999 and 2002.

So what did the NEI and the nuclear industry get for their millions in GOP contributions???

Billions in subsidies....

The Best Energy Bill Corporations Could Buy: Summary of Industry Giveaways in the 2005 Energy Bill

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/electricity/energybill/2005/articles.cfm?ID=13980

<snip>

Section 1306
Production tax credit of 1.8-cent for each kilowatt-hour of nuclear-generated electricity from new reactors during the first eight years of operation, costing $5.7 billion in revenue losses to the U.S. Treasury through 2025. Considered one of the most important subsidies by the nuclear industry.

Section 638
Authorization of $2 billion in “risk insurance” to pay the industry for any delays in construction and operation licensing for six new reactors, including delays due to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission or state agencies, litigation, sabotage or terrorist attacks, or other events. The payments would include interest on loans, operation and maintenance costs, the price of power, and taxes.

<snip>

Title XVII
Unlimited taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for up to 80% of the cost of an “innovative” energy technology project, including building new nuclear power plants. Authorizes “such sums as are necessary,” but if Congress were to appropriate funding for loan guarantees covering six nuclear reactors, this subsidy could potentially cost taxpayers approximately $6 billion (assuming a 50% default rate and construction cost per plant of $2.5 billion, as Congressional Budget Office has estimated).

Title VI, Subtitle A
Reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act, extending the industry’s liability cap to cover new nuclear power plants built in the next 20 years.

<more>

So does Patrick Moore really give a "rat's ass" about global warming???

Nope...

Greenpeace co-founder praises global warming

http://web.archive.org/web/20060207170119/http:/www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060113/BUSINESS11/601130327/1071

Global warming and nuclear energy are good and the way to save forests is to use more wood.

That was the message delivered to a biotechnology industry gathering yesterday in Waikiki. However, it wasn't the message that was unconventional, but the messenger — Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore. Moore said he broke with Greenpeace in the 1980s over the rise of what he called "environmental extremism," or stands by environmental groups against issues such as genetic crop research, genetically modified foods and nuclear energy that aren't supported by science or logic.

<more>

As EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman told New Yorkers that Ground Zero was "safe"

(not)

Lawmakers Say Ground Zero Workers Unsafe

NEW YORK -- Lawmakers said federal officials failed to protect ground zero workers as they clambered over the smoking pile of toxic debris and have not properly cared for them in the years since.

In a daylong House hearing Friday, lawmakers criticized the government's public assurances about the air around the World Trade Center site.

Christie Todd Whitman, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, stressed in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the air in lower Manhattan was safe, although she also said workers at the World Trade Center site needed to use protective breathing gear.

Whitman is being sued over her public assurances, and she was accused Friday of doing too little to protect workers.

<more>

So we should believe the Nuclear Energy Institute and Christie T-W when they tell us that nuclaer power is "safe and clean and green"????

Really?????

So is Patrick Moore and Christie Todd Whitman the only spokepeople for the NEI???

Nope.

They have a flock of bloggers that cruise the Internets spreading the NEI "good news" about nuclear power...

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/

and a bizzare cyberworld it is (to say the least)...

[Dogmudgeon]

8. So, this is your argument?

Let me see if I got it right:

• Dick Cheney supports nuclear power, so it's bad.
  
  
• The 2005 Energy Bill contains goodies for the nuclear industry. (It also contains goodies for the "green" industry, which ethanol speculators have grown rich on.) Therefore Patrick Moore is a bad person.
  
  
• Christie (sic) Todd Whitman bungled the safety at the World Trade Center clean-up, therefore nuclear energy is bad.

Actual, real, verifiable information on the costs, risks, value, and safety of nuclear energy: Zero. Nada. Nothing. It's all about how bad Cheney, Whitman, and Moore are. And by some magic, that is supposed to indict the physics and technology of nuclear energy.

Y'know, Kary Mullis is a major-league acid head -- and darn proud of it. Daniel Gajdusek is, unfortunately, a sexual predator. Bill Shockley, unfortunately too, was a racist. None the less, Mullis' PCR (polymerase chain reaction) chemistry has revolutionized biochemistry and is a major tool in the fight against diseases like AIDS; Gajdusek's studies of Kuru have led to advances in understanding prion diseases; and Shockley's transistor works for racists and progressives alike.

George Bush exercises quite often. I guess that cardio-vascular health thing is a Republican plot, too.

Is this what the anti-nuclear position has come down to? Non-sequitur arguments? Arguing the politics of people instead of evaluating the engineering and physics and their relationship to society? Claiming that nuclear energy is evil because some of the people who support it are jackasses, ninnies, and tyrants? I would remind you that the government of Austria has been anti-nuclear for decades, but it's also one of the most socially conservative countries in Europe. Both Arnie and Adolph came from Austria. That "jackasses, ninnies, and tyrants" thing has never been limited by political belief. More than a few anti-nuclearists have taken the low road in politics and life -- Ted Kaczynski, for example. But that still has nothing to do with nuclear energy pro or contra.

I have it on good authority that Dick Cheney also takes a shit a couple times a week, but I'll be damned if I'm going to stick a cork in my ass just to spite him.

--p!

[phantom power]

9. Cork. Ass. LOL.

:rofl:

[NNadir]

11. This is a classic.

[jpak]

12. The Nuclear Energy Institute trucks in corruption and influence peddling

no physics and engineering required for that.

Obviously oligarchical GOP corruption does not bother nuclear power advocates in the least.

And there were plenty of "numbers" in that post (just to refresh your memory)...

<snip>

Nuclear Energy Institute had contact with the task force 19 times. (NEI contributed $437,404 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002.)

United States Enrichment Corporation had contact with the task force 12 times.

Westinghouse had contact with the task force nine times. (Westinghouse Electric Company contributed $65,060 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002.)

Southern Company had contact with the task force seven times. (Southern contributed $1,626,507 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002.)

Exelon Corporation had contact with the task force six times. (Exelon contributed $910,886 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002.)

<end>

<snip>

Section 1306
Production tax credit of 1.8-cent for each kilowatt-hour of nuclear-generated electricity from new reactors during the first eight years of operation, costing $5.7 billion in revenue losses to the U.S. Treasury through 2025. Considered one of the most important subsidies by the nuclear industry.

Section 638
Authorization of $2 billion in “risk insurance” to pay the industry for any delays in construction and operation licensing for six new reactors, including delays due to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission or state agencies, litigation, sabotage or terrorist attacks, or other events. The payments would include interest on loans, operation and maintenance costs, the price of power, and taxes.

<snip>

Title XVII
Unlimited taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for up to 80% of the cost of an “innovative” energy technology project, including building new nuclear power plants. Authorizes “such sums as are necessary,” but if Congress were to appropriate funding for loan guarantees covering six nuclear reactors, this subsidy could potentially cost taxpayers approximately $6 billion (assuming a 50% default rate and construction cost per plant of$2.5 billion, as Congressional Budget Office has estimated).

Title VI, Subtitle A
Reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act, extending the industry’s liability cap to cover new nuclear power plants built in the next 20 years.

<end>

I'm glad that the NEI Greenwash crowd is represented by freaks and wackos - makes my job much easier.

Finally - ghost write much?????

[NNadir]

13. Actually no physics or engineering is required for anything you say.

I think anyone with a knowledge of physics or engineering would immediately know how to regard your posts, all of which are at the scientific level of the consumer organization Greenpeace. As is clear, this is not a complement.

I think you can't get into Greenpeace if you know anything at all about science or engineering.

Your argument relies wholly on smear and innuendo. The fact is that the antinuclear industry had its most success in Germany - under the reign of Gerhard Schroeder - who is now being paid hundreds of thousands of Euros per year by the fossil fuel industry. I remind you of this disgrace frequently, but you don't exercise the same innuendo engine. You ignore it.

Why?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0ebc673e-68f0-11da-bd30-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=d4f2ab60-c98e-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html

What's your spin? Is the architect of the German nuclear phase out now in the pay of the fossil fuel industry or not? Would I be justified in saying that this stinks like a pile of rotting fish floating the Gulf of Mexico's agricultural run-off dead zone - you know that one - the one ADM pays big bucks to generate?

Did the coal industry support the Republicans? What? You don't care?

How about the semiconductor industry, the industry that makes solar cells? Did you ever hear of Michael Dell?

How about the wind industry? Have you ever heard of Sam Wyly?

What about the world's largest solar company, the fellows over at "Beyond Petroleum" BP? Do you spend much time worrying about whether they met with Dick Cheney?

Saying "Dick Cheney" ten thousand times will not do a single thing to address climate change. Either nuclear energy is safer than the coal and natural gas on which Germany plans to rely - with your cheering - or it is not. I say, by appeal to concepts like external energy, that nuclear energy is infinitely safer than fossil fuels, even if the "Green" party in Germany has pushed fossil fuels to worse heights.

In fact the countries that are leading the world in nuclear energy development in these times are not ruled by Dick Cheney. In fact no one has done quite so much as Dick Cheney in making uranium a dirty word. Do you remember that business about Niger? Oh I forgot, you don't give a rat's ass about Africa.

I note, by the way, that your knowledge of economics is about on the same level as your knowledge of physics and engineering. I'll bet you're completely clueless about the difference between a subsidy and a loan guarantee, just as you are completely clueless, to all appearances, between a subsidy for rich trust fund brats with solar hydrogen generators (several hundred thousand dollars of my tax money was recently spent subsidizing such a system for one trust fund brat in my neck of the woods) and a loan guarantee designed to produce clean, safe energy for everyone, including those living at a poverty level. Similarly you are apparently very confused about what a tax credit does. If a nuclear power plant - or for that matter a solar manufacturing plant - gets a tax credit for say, ten years, for the rest of the time it operates it generates tax revenue, unless of course, it goes out of business.

It rather bugs me that New Jersey taxes are being spent to subsidize rich boy toys in Hopewell while the Trenton High School's roof leaks and it's books are all more than ten years old.

For the record, I think the world should spend a few trillion dollars of public money (if necessary) building vast new nuclear power infrastructure. Why? Because climate change is an international emergency of the first order and the first order of good government should be to protect the people. Such a program would go a long way to fostering the development of wealth, wealth being the only tool with which poverty can be addressed. (Note I am not talking about the distribution of wealth, which is a different thing.) Any politician who is against nuclear energy will be failing to protect people from climate change.

And now for the intersection of physics and economics:

There is an interesting branch of power economics that is called Thermoeconomics which is unquestionably yet another disipline about which you know zero. An interesting discussion entitled "On Exergy Analysis of Power Plants" in the journal Energy Conversion and Management 2001, 42, 2053-2059. I don't know many people at the NEI yet, but I'll bet they have someone there who reads this journal. It's clear in the meantime, that you don't.

[jpak]

15. Taxes are used to fund New Jersey's solar rebate program??? Absolutely not

You haven't a clue...

http://www.njcep.com/html/faqs/solar-transition.html

How does New Jersey’s Solar Financing Model work?

New Jersey’s Solar Financing Model relies on five sources of revenue that work together to drive investment in solar and provide a payback within ten years:

* Societal Benefits Charge (edit: utility charges - not taxes)
* Fed Tax Credits (edit: to homeowners that install PV systems)
* Electric Cost Savings thru Net Metering (edit: to homeowners)
* Renewable Energy Certificates sold to RPS & Voluntary Markets (edit:to homeowners)
* Out of Pocket Equity (edit: to homeowners)

<end>

And the rest of your post was nothing more than "smear and innuendo".

The facts are these...

The Nuclear Energy Institute is in league with Dick Cheney.

Anyone that blogs for the NEI is a stooge.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

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[Vogon_Glory]

19. At the Risk Of Catching It From Both Sides...

At the risk of catching it from both sides, I'd like to say that I favor both solar/renewable energy AND nuclear power. I don't believe that solar and renewables can sideline the filth-belching fossil plants currently emitting carbon dioxide and far more noxious pollutants just by themselves.

To paraphrase a local anti-nuclear bonehead from back in the 1980's (From whom not much has been heard of lately), anything is justifiable to sideline a fossil fuel power plant.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dogmudgeon]

21. Alas, the same old lies ("ghost write much?????")

Since I support using nuclear energy, I must surely be getting money to write about it.

Right?

jpak, jpak, jpak ...

At one time, I thought you were actually capable of making a coherent argument against nuclear energy. But it has become painfully obvious that you can't. This is all a catfight to you -- your gang against my gang, or something like that. You get high-school-snarky when you lose an argument, and that's been happening a lot lately. I personally have no pride on the line, and it's sad to see that so many people do. I want to be convinced about any topic in a dialog. That's why I participate. I'm not online to get my ass kissed. Peak Oil and King Coal scare the living shit out of me. The fact that yet another bunch of industry executives ("freaks and wackos") is schmoozing the Boy-King fails to move me.

If you are concerned about oligarchy and corruption, why attack a method of energy production? This is like attacking Iraq for the Saudi- and Afghanistani-supported attacks on 9-11-01. I would like to see this administration in the dock at the Hague for a long list of offenses, but business irregularities rank pretty low. They may bother me, but election theft, gutting the Constitution, and killing 600,000 people over a criminally fraudulent casus belli bother me more.

Imprison the criminals, not the atom.

And, yes, imprison nuclear energy executives who break the law. I doubt that you will find a single pro-nuclearist who will shed a tear over it. But will you cheer, or rage, if, for instance, Vinod Khosla is indicted for business improprieties? Though to my knowlege, Khosla, a venture capitalist, followed the law when he financed the promotion of CA Prop 87, which lost. If it had won, he would have made millions of dollars -- but it would not have made ethanol, wind, and solar power any more or less workable.

If you're looking for someone to blame, look in the mirror. Your case against nuclear energy has failed. Is that because THE case against nuclear energy has failed -- or because YOU failed to make the case?

Don't feel bad. NONE of the hard-ass anti-nuclearists around here can cut it. They shout, they sputter, they moralize and they ALL end up whining that those of us who do not fear and loathe reactors are being paid off by Dick Cheney, the Ghost of Ken Lay, and Satan. Failure to accept the anti-nuclear line earns one a charge of collaboration from any or all of at least five of the anti-nuclearists here. Soon you'll be calling us child molesters, "luddites," and Nazis.

When you are unable to sell your rhetoric linking nuclear fission to the GOP and Dick Cheney, you accuse ME of being on the take. I'll go easy on a lot of bullshit arguments -- but not the personal accusation.

In fact, if there are any anti-nuclearists who are able to make the case, they aren't on the Internet at all. Believe me, I've looked -- not for a fight, but for the truth of the matter. Da shizznit. In return, all I've seen is rhetoric, posturing, 70s nostalgia, fashion statements, phonied scientific studies, self-referential arguments, and accusations of payoffs. And I have politely refrained from ramming it up the various assholes who have lied about me.

So the next time you (or anyone else) accuse me of being on the take, you'd better have a copy of the canceled check, because I won't even stop to remove the cork.

--p!

[july302001]

10. got a real estate question for you

Hi jpak -

Let's say we want to replace coal and, I'll bet you're also in favor of that silly idea of a nuclear "phase out."

Show me how you can obtain 100,000 MW of carbon-free, nuclear-free power, in a practicable manner, within 5 years. Remember, we need to keep everybody's lights on. We need at least that much power to replace a significant amount of coal.

How much land will be required, at what real estate cost basis (or rental cost basis) for the windmills and solar panels? Do give me some figures.

How does comparative real estate market analysis impact these decisions. Remember that real estate in California and Arizona, two sunny states that are politically amenable to your ideas, is quite high in market price.

[jpak]

14. Here's your answer

First of all, no energy technology - not even nuclear - can replace 100 GW of coal-fired capacity in 5 years.

The average time required to build a US nuclear plant was 7 (and up to 23) years.

New nuclear facilities aren't any better. Finland's new nuclear plant is more than 18 months behind schedule and $1 billion over budget.

The NEI Cheney Kneepad Squad will tell you that Japan has built reactors in 4 years time, but conveniently forget to mention the long lead times (years) required to manufacture reactor components and acquire and preposition other construction materials.

The US doesn't have the ability to forge large reactor components - building those facilities on the scale required would take many many years.

In contrast, a large (100-600 MW per year) PV manufacturing or polysilicon production plant takes only 1-2 years to construct.

The same for large (200-600 MW) US wind farms.

So how much real estate would be required for PV or wind power to replace all US coal-fired capacity????

A lot less than you think...

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/myths.html

Myth 1: Solar electricity cannot serve any significant fraction of U.S. or world electricity needs.

PV technology can meet electricity demand on any scale. The solar energy resource in a 100-mile-square area of Nevada could supply the United States with all its electricity (about 800 gigawatts) using modestly efficient (10%) commercial PV modules.

A more realistic scenario involves distributing these same PV systems throughout the 50 states. Currently available sites—such as vacant land, parking lots, and rooftops—could be used. The land requirement to produce 800 gigawatts would average out to be about 17 x 17 miles per state. Alternatively, PV systems built in the "brownfields"—the estimated 5 million acres of abandoned industrial sites in our nation's cities—could supply 90% of America's current electricity.

note: this assumes a PV conversion efficiency of 10%. Many PV modules available today have conversion efficiencies of 12-22%. Concentrating PV modules have achieved efficiencies of 40%. Using 22% efficient modules would reduce the area required by 50%, using concentrating PV would reduce it by a factor of 4.

As coal produces 50% of US's electricity - cut the above area values in half.

Placing PV modules on *existing* roofs would not require the purchase of additional land and the market price of brownfield acreage is significantly less than prime real estate in Malibu.

How much real estate would be required for wind turbines to replace US coal-fired plants???

http://www.eere.energy.gov/states/alternatives/wind.cfm

<snip>

The wind energy resource in the United States is plentiful. Good wind areas, which cover 6% of the contiguous U.S. land area, could supply more than 1.5 times the 1993 electricity consumption of the entire country.

<snip>

That's 2% of the area of the US. Much of the land currently used for US wind farms is leased at a far lower price than the actual purchase price. These are confidential deals between wind farm developers and land owners - how much money traded is not known.

edit: and that figure doesn't include offshore wind potential...

Finally, the Electric Power Research Institute estimated that 1980's vintage energy efficiency technologies could reduce US electrical demand by 24-46% - or half to nearly all US coal-fired electrical production...

...without requiring the purchase of a single square inch of land.

Does that answer your question????

[MH1]

18. Thanks for this

It seems obvious to me - a non scientist - that if every residence had a solar roof and used geothermal to the extent it could, plus more efficient appliances and generally an energy smarter lifestyle, we could go a long way toward meeting our energy needs. Probably not all the way, but when people want to talk about how we have to build power plants out the wazoo and they aren't willing to talk about these other solutions, then I start to wonder why.

Considering that centralized power plants concentrate profit, and these other solutions would tend to reduce that potential profit....hmmm.....

[Dogmudgeon]

22. Who makes the solar cells?

Semiconductor companies make the solar cells. Intel, Motorola, Raytheon, GE, Thompson, Allied, with a thousand interlinked (i.e., same owner, different corporate name) chip foundries from Boston to Beijing. They are THE premier centralized corporate oligarchies. Many, of course, do not make solar cells -- they all specialize -- but the industry completely controls solar electric power.

Semiconductor manufacture is also heavily dependent on toxic chemicals and metals -- mercury, cadmium, arsenic, lead, molybdenum, germanium, etc. Unlike nuclear waste, there is almost NO tracking of chemical waste. And also unlike nuclear waste, which decays over time (>99% of all "radwaste" decays to background level in 500 years or so), toxic metals are toxic forever.

In case you were wondering, they, like the nuclear industry, give a lot of money to the GOP. Not that that changes anything, but it's important to some people.

Right now, let's assume that solar energy supplies about one-twentieth of one percent of our electrical power. That is probably a high estimate, since nearly all solar energy use is thermal, and about two-thirds of that is used for heating swimming pools. If we want to make large-scale use of solar power, we will have to ramp up PV cell manufacture by a factor of 50, 100, or even 1000. Now, what do you think will happen when we have 50, 100, or even 1000 times as much mercury/arsenic/lead/etc. waste from semiconductor factories?

Surely wind power is better than that! But that isn't a cottage industry, either.

GE, Mitsubishi, Siemens, Toko, and a small number of other multinational conglomerates own and control nearly 100% of wind power turbine manufacture and installation. Wind power supplies, and I will be generous, about 1/2 of 1% of our power. (It was about 0.15% in 2004 according to the EIA.) Let's assume we will install big-assed 1 MW turbines, like Toko or Siemens makes, and we want to go to 1000 GW, about 10% of our baseload electrical power demand. We then need on the order of one million of these big wind turbines, each of which require hundreds of tons of concrete, steel, copper, and an acre of land each to build.

Anti-nuclearists often argue that we can't possibly build enough reactors to make a difference. But the scale of our challenge is enormous by ANY standard. A million wind plants. Millions of tons of semiconductors with tens of millions of tons of toxic waste. And deep geothermal, a technology I favor, isn't even out of the proverbial cradle. If we can't build a thousand reactors, we will never be able to build solar and wind power on a similar scale.

"... but when people want to talk about how we have to build power plants out the wazoo and they aren't willing to talk about these other solutions, then I start to wonder why."

You should wonder why wind and solar are being promoted as "alternative" and "green" technologies when they are major industrial undertakings. Every pro-nuclearist here at DU whom I can identify has also posted strongly in favor of non-nuclear development. Your perception about that just isn't accurate.

Don't be deceived. Energy is big business. The nuclear genie isn't the only one out of the bottle, we've unleashed a whole army of them in the past century and a half, and we can't stuff them back in without lobotomizing every last semi-intelligent person on the planet.

The only real choice we have is to take command -- nukes, wind, solar; chemicals, corporate law, public investment and profit, and environmental stewardship.

--p!

[Terry in Austin]

16. The fallacy

> we need to keep everybody's lights on.

There just aren't any "substitutes" that will scale. Not even all the substitutes put together.