yeah right - let's go nuclear again ...

[welshTerrier2]

we learned our lesson about nuclear power the hard way ... we almost lost Pennsylvania ... of course, with all the talk about peak oil and global warming and off shore drilling and OPEC, the mad scientists are at it again ... don't worry about all that negative talk you used to hear; that's all been taken care of now ...

and on top of all this, safety programs for nuclear power plants have been scaled back by the anti-government party ... gotta watch those big government Democrats - if you're not careful they'll want to put a bunch of expensive nuclear power plant inspectors on the public's tab ...

we are on the brink of a major battle in this country between "green" (i.e. planet friendly) innovation and centralized, corporate, dangerous sources of non-oil and gas alternative energy ...

the "soft energy path" will lead in many new directions ... it will create jobs ... it will give America a product to sell to the world ... it will save the earth from global warming ... it will "work with nature" and be renewable ... and it may not come from just one or two sources ... most importantly, it will distribute the wealth it creates so that the entire society will reap the benefits rather than a greedy few ...

Democrats should stand up and start talking about our energy future to Americans ... i'd like to see that energy future exclude nuclear no matter how safe they pretend its use will be ... let's bury the nuclear waste and spent fuel rods in their backyards and make them put up or shut-up!!

source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0710-05.htm

An internationally renowned nuclear expert is calling for nuclear reactors in the United Kingdom to be immediately shut down after government documents revealed they contain cracking in the bricks of their reactor cores. <skip>

"There is significant uncertainty in the likelihood and consequences for core safety functionality posed by graphite component and core damage," the documents read. <skip>

Regardless, almost all scientists agree that the risk of a nuclear disaster are increasing annually as reactors--most of which came on line in the 1970s--pass their 20th and 30th birthdays. <skip>

Already, there have been a number of "near-misses" involving American nuclear plants, Lochbaum says, including radioactive releases at Indian Point Unit 2 in New York, cracking in the nozzles at Oconee Unit 3 in South Carolina, and the failure of jet pumps at Quad Cities Unit 1 in Illinois. The Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant is currently being demolished because of multiple leaks. The Troy nuclear power plant in Oregon shut down twenty years early, after a cracked steam tube released radioactive gas into the plant, in 1992. <skip>

According to the private firm Good Night Consulting, corporate-sponsored safety inspections are also down, meaning that as nuclear plants get older and more accident prone, they're being inspected less and less. "Aging reactors with less monitoring is a dangerous combination," Lochbaum says dryly.