Chu should be out---still supports nukes unequivocally---Obama needs to address this immediately!

[wordpix]

This is insane that O is saying nothing about our own plants like Diablo Canyon sitting on an earthquake fault that is going through re-permitting right now.

This whole admin is looking like it's bought and paid for. I supported O big time in '08 but '12 will be different unless he drops pro-nuke, pro-deepwater drilling policies. All we need are more environmental disasters. :sarcasm:

[defendandprotect]

1. Obama supports a new generation of nuclear reactors -- !!! Not to mention more oil drilling !!!

And, think we need to move on in 2012 -- we need to pick up what's left of

this Dem Party and walk off with it --

we need new leadership and we need to rid the party -- if we're going to keep

supporting it -- of any who are pre-bribed or pre-owned by corporations --





The Rightwing Koch Bros. Funded the DLC --

http://www.democrats.com/node/7789

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x498414

If you knew this, why didn't you tell us?

If you didn't know it, pass it along!


:)

[Vanje]

5. AND "clean coal"! nt

[wordpix]

9. +1 ---another insane policy

[grahamhgreen]

2. Obama no longer supports us, I'm afraid.

[Kurska]

3. And your solution is what? Shut down the plant?

Do you have any idea the kind of energy crisis that would cause in so many market? How at minimum it would send energy prices for many families spiraling out of control?

Obviously we should throw out billion dollar plants instead of spending millions to implement more redundancy in cooling systems and further earthquake resist them.

[wordpix]

7. Most of these plants are 40 yrs. old. Decentralize & use solar, wind, biofuels

Nuclear is dead or we will be

[Kurska]

11. You have a couple hundred solar, wind and biofuel plants sitting around in your backyard?

Then by all means hand them over to the Central government. Until then even the most rabid critic of nuclear energy needs to realize going around and shutting down plants would result in nothing more than economic hardship and rolling black outs. If we WERE going to shutdown every single nuclear plant in America you're talking about a decade or longer process and one of the single greatest economic undertakings ever proposed.

Oh and you better not be hoping to reduce fossil fuel emissions from energy generation, because we're going to be so busy replacing the 20% of our energy output that comes from nuclear we're not even going to be able to look the 40% that comes from coal.

[DeadEyeDyck]

24. candles and horses dude

worked before-will work again

[wordpix]

25. Spoken like someone who works for the nuke industry or is heavily invested

Economic hardship, BS---rev up those solar panels and roofing shingles, wind generators and weatherstrip every window and door, and the economy will roar. We won't need that 20% nukes.

And what do you propose for the fuel rods being kept in the "temporary" cooling pools near every nuke plant for the past 40 yrs. b/c no one wants it?

[Kurska]

32. Again, you make it all sounds so simple.

Except it really isn't, you aren't even beginning to grasp the enormity of what you are purposing. Do you even have a GUESS of how much this little project of yours would cost? Or are you really only a 'Big picture" person?

I'm heavily invested in my lights turning on when I flip the switch, something I'd probably have to sacrifice to get rid of Nuclear energy any time soon.

[wordpix]

35. yeah, and nuclear plants are really simple, cheap, safe, it's never happened before...

blah, blah, blah, all the industry talking pts

[Kurska]

40. Nuclear plants are very expensive and take years to build.

Which is what it would take to replace them, very expensive and many years.

[wordpix]

43. they need to be replaced right now, according to experts---they're 40 yrs. old in the US

[Kurska]

45. Your "need" and what is possible do not both exist within the realm of possibility.

I'd suggest revising your needs.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

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

[Tansy_Gold]

38. Is this the old "We can't do it tomorrow so there's no reason to try" excuse?

I haven't seen anyone suggest that we shut down every single nuclear power plant tomorrow and replace it with the massive solar and wind and other renewable energy sources that have been sitting on the sidelines just waiting for their big chance. It's not like football, where the sub goes in the instant the star quarterback is hurt.

We are well aware that transitioning from nuclear, from coal, from oil, even from natural gas, will take some time. But whether it takes a year or ten or twenty, it won't take any less time if we wait.

We're up against an entrenched bureaucracy, to say nothing of an utility industry that exists to provide profits for the stockholders first and power for the consumers almost as a by-product.

Fossil fuels have their downsides, no doubt about it. Oil is driving our wars, and along with coal is spoiling our planet. Both industries cause death and suffering. Rather than pissing and moaning about how hard it would be to transition from them to something better, shouldn't we be taking up the challenge?

I remember when the Soviets were beating us in the space race. I remember when the Sputniks went up. I remember when Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. And I remember John Kennedy's challenge to a discouraged nation that we could put a man on the moon before the Russians did.

Obama could do that sort of thing, too. I'm not saying he will, but I think he could and I think he should. If he can't get congress to go along with him, then he should turn to the people who elected him. Rally the troops, as it were.

Instead, he's kissing the asses of the nuclear industry, telling us not that what we're seeing is dangerous or something to be worried about, but that we should embrace more of what's causing our anxiety.

THAT'S NOT LEADERSHIP.

Then again, I honestly don't think Barack Obama has much leadership in him.



Tansy Gold, TT

[Kurska]

41. We're trying to explain something very simple to you.

If you want to replace nuclear energy, you're going to be derailing progress towards getting off fossil fuels. Even if we build no more nuclear plants, you're still talking about a truly massive undertaking and you're only making it bigger by lumping Nuclear energy in with coal and oil.

[Tansy_Gold]

48. So what? So we make it bigger.

I'm not stupid, Kurska. I may be just full of :sarcasm: but I'm not stupid.

I also understand that people have vested interests in whatever they have vested interests in.

But if the "new energy" is made attractive enough to the consumer, eventually a whole lotta people will switch to the "new energy" and the "old energy" will go bye-bye. Kinda like the horses and buggies and candles someone mentioned up-thread.

"We can't stop using coal! It will devastate my local economy that's based on coal mining!" is one cry I've read on DU in the past couple of days. Yet we know coal and coal mining are horrible things. Mountaintop removal devastates whole valleys, the water supply, the environment. That's part of the price we all pay for "cheap" coal and the "cheap" electricity it produces. Miners die, not only in disasters like Upper Big Branch but from black lung and other related diseases.

Their families live with the fear of a cave in every single day. The type of personal crisis that's being magnified in Japan right now is more or less temporary. The stress level will subside when the bodies of the missing are recovered or hope is given up. The stress level will subside when the nuclear crisis is over (regardless which way it's resolved). The stress level will subside eventually. But for coal mining families, that threat is constantly in the very near background. That's another price SOMEONE pays so we can have cheap coal and cheap electricity.

The mining of uranium also has a devastating effect on the local areas. Would you like a uranium tailings pile in your backyard? Would you like to condemn the uranium miners to a 50% lung cancer death rate just so you can have your cheap electricity?

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has just announced that he's going to close, or recommend be closed, the Indian Point nuclear plant in New York because it sits on a fault line and is vulnerable. It will, I'm sure, take some time to get that plant shut down, more than a few days or weeks. I haven't read all the articles associated with the news -- I just got up and read the headlines, because it's only 5:30 in Arizona. The point is, when we're faced with a challenge such as "Indian Point is going to close and you're going to have to find a way to either replace its output or learn to use less electricity," we do it. It might be inconvenient for a while, and people might gripe, but if they're shown that they really don't have a viable alternative, then they do it.

People are remarkably adaptable.

Our alternative, of course, is to make the active choice to do nothing. Keep building nuclear plants, keep stalling on solar and wind and geothermal, keep digging coal and drilling for oil. Change is scary, but true progressives don't let their lives be ruled by fear. Nuclear power is scary, too, when you look at what's going on in Japan, or when you look at the pictures of TMI and Chernobyl or read about Hiroshima.

Speaking of Hiroshima, I highly recommend Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell's "Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial." Not only does it examine the history and pseudo history of the development and use of the bombs in 1945, but it also examines how we as Americans have been led to accept the whole nuclear power mythos.

It's NOT safe and it's NOT clean. We still don't have a way to safely store the waste -- isn't that what's fueling the reactor #4 meltdown after al? -- and nothing about the production of the fuel is pretty. And lying in wait at every reactor is a TMI, a Chernobyl, a Fukushima.

Think about it, Kurska. Are you willing to trade your children's and grandchildren's and greatgrandchildren's future just so you can have cheap electricity? Is that what it's all about?

Once again, for those who don't know me. I live in central Arizona where we get about 320 days of glorious sunshine every day. There is no reason, other than politics and corporate greed, that we can't put solar panels on virtually every roof in Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert, Paradise Valley, Peoria, Glendale, Buckeye, Litchfield Park, Scottsdale, Goodyear, Avondale, Tolleson, Queen Valley, Queen Creek, Higley, Casa Grande, Coolidge, and Apache Junction and start generating at least SOME of the electricity now being produced by the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Wintersburg.

Can we produce the same output? I don't know. But we won't know until we start trying. We won't know how much more efficient we can make the solar apparatus, what discoveries might be made as we move from Model A to Model T to Fairlane to Thunderbird to Mustang.

That's just active solar installation, and imagine all the jobs it could create. But there is also all the passive solar applications -- everything from better insulation and weatherstripping to earth-bermed buildings -- and throw in wind and geothermal and all of a sudden gee, maybe this can make a difference. Maybe it can shut down one or two or three or four nuclear plants.

But what we also have to do is we have to get rid of the corporate oligarchs who rule in a way to make old power plants -- fossil fuel and nuclear as well -- exempt from the laws that would protect us. Clean air laws that the old coal-fired plants ignore or pay for exemptions. Upgrades to nuclear cooling systems. That sort of thing.

There are zillions of things we can do, as individuals, as communities, as electorates. But if all we're going to do is piss and moan and wail "It can't be done! it'll be too expensive! people will be put out of work!" then we're no better than those who tell us to be afraid.

I'm far more afraid of nuclear power than I am of changes and challenges.

And I write my own speeches.



Tansy Gold, TT

[KoKo]

10. We have aging Nuke Plants built by GE that are the same as the failed ones in Japan.

In fact the Reactor in trouble was scheduled to be phased out in late March this year. It almost made it's deadline for demise...but the Tsunami..intervened.

Germany is inspecting it's older plants and China is putting a moratorium on new plants until they can review the plans. France has protests by citizens over whether it's own plants are safe.

Surely Obama should do something to help make us feel that our plants are getting more intense inspections. I remember the scare over "Three Mile Island" years ago. I had just moved to New Jersey and it was totally frightening living through that.

[wordpix]

15. it's also O's proposal to subsidize the nuke industry to the tune of $38 billion

Letter from Greenpeace:

Our thoughts are with our colleagues, friends and all the people of Japan as they continue to deal with the aftereffects of yesterday’s earthquake and tsunami. And now those living near the nuclear power plant in Fukushima have been evacuated because of the possibility of a nuclear meltdown.

In the past 24 hours, the situation in Fukushima has gone from bad to worse. Reports out of Japan are suggesting that the cooling units on a number of reactors at the plant could fail at anytime. The simple truth is that no matter how advanced the technology and how prepared a country might be to deal with a disaster it doesn’t change the fact that nuclear power is inherently dangerous and always will be.

That hasn’t stopped President Obama from putting $38 billion in giveaways to the nuclear industry in his latest budget proposal to Congress. But it’s not too late. Congress and the President can still take this money out of the final budget but they’re not going to do it if they don’t hear from you.

Tell the President and your members of Congress that there is no place for taxpayer giveaways to the nuclear industry in this year’s budget.

Wall Street refuses to invest in new nuclear plants. Investors know the risks and have decided it’s simply not worth it. That’s why these nuclear companies are turning to the federal government for money to build new plants.

The American people actually agree with Wall Street on this one. In fact, 57% of the public named nuclear subsidies as their most popular spending cut in a recent Wall Street Journal poll. Unfortunately, the events in Japan are a reminder that the risks of nuclear power are not merely financial.

No matter what the industry tries to tell you, disasters like this are going to happen. Let’s hope the worst is avoided in Japan and tell our elected officials that there’s no place for nuclear giveaways in this year’s budget.

No Nukes,
Jim Riccio

Greenpeace Nuclear Policy Analyst

[Kurska]

16. No one is saying don't inspect old plants.

Or that a comprehensive plan to replace them with either newer reactors or some other energy source (hopefully clean) is a bad idea. That said, knee jerk fools who are yelling about shutting these plants down right now must have zero understanding of this country's energy crisis.

[defendandprotect]

14. Do you know that during the ENRON gimmicked energy crisis in CA that wind power was put

in place over less than a 4 month period which serviced 175,000 homes!!

Nuclear power is dangerous -- harmful to the health of citizens --

and when things go wrong as we are seeing again in Japan -- perhaps fatal for many.

And solar batteries for cars -- on and on --

We need to NATIONALIZE our natural resources and protect them from any further

exploitation -- certainly to be drilling into the ocean floors for oil -- to be

removing it - and/or to be drilling into rocks -- Fracking -- to remove gas -- is

insane!!

Oil may be the earth's ballast --

but certainly burning fossil fuels has brought us Global Warming --

it's time to quit all of this nonsense and move on to common sense.

And most of the nonsense is tied up with capitalism and its exploitation of nature --

and humans. Time to call a halt to all of that!!

[Kurska]

23. I'll be looking forward to your comprehensive plan for the replacement of these Nuclear power plants

in 4 months.

Got a ETA on that or are you jut B.S with one example?

[wordpix]

29. How about take O's $38 billion tagged for the nuke industry & put it into solar, wind & conservation

?

It would go a hell of a long way but the nuke industry, apparently, has him by the gonads.

[Kurska]

34. Even that wouldn't be enough to replace the 20% of energy Nuclear power generates.

We're talking bigger numbers than 38 billion.

[wordpix]

42. says you---I say it will go far & create jobs & move cleantech forward

[Kurska]

46. You keep moving the goal posts.

Is the goal to "Create jobs and move clean tech forward' or to "Replace nuclear energy", because the first is entirely doable the second is much harder and 38 billion isn't going to do it.

[defendandprotect]

30. I'll be looking forward to your comprehensive guarantee that radiation

fallout -- now or later as rain -- or in our foods -- won't kill anyone

anywhere in the world!!

:eyes:

[KoKo]

4. I wish he had said he was putting Chu in charge of making sure Every US Nuke Plan is Inspected

Immediately so that the American People can feel safe. I wish he would say that...do that.

[RandomThoughts]

6. What bothers me most about Nuke plants, is not there safety.

It is the capability of a limited power using them to hurt many people. That is also why housing, economic, or health strife is caused, to keep people on an edge where they can be thrown into turmoil easily.

If you have security in many things, you can be braver when defending those that need help.


The Nuke plant basically puts a bomb in a neighborhood if some 'group' decided to try and use it for hurting many people.

I never understood building nuke plants, since as a target in a war, they are devastating when on ones own countries property, so they are not that smart to build for national security reasons.


Side note, and if I did build one, I would add a core ejection mechanism, with an underground containment sections 100s of feet deep and lead and concrete lined. Then above that would be gravel and fill where a door would open it up and poor fill on top of the section that could be ejected. And it could all be kinetic, would not even need power. Just drop, and then pull some pin on a door to add fill on top, then even a meltdown would not matter.

So a core ejection could drop the core into the pit, and then bury it with fill in an emergency. Why people don't think of stuff like that is something I really don't understand.

[wordpix]

8. Barbara Boxer briefly mentioned today the French gov is spending big time to defend nuke plants from

terrorism. She did well.

[KoKo]

12. The French Citizens were in the streets protesting the plants...

and the quote from Barbara Boxer was not exactly what you are saying. I don't have time to look it up...but she's California...and is concerned about the safty of those Nuclear Plants (aging) sitting on the faults what the quote I saw posted earlier here on DU.

[wordpix]

20. yes, she was speaking about the safety of CA plants but also mentioned France

She gave Boehner a dig about his rave re: France operating nukes for years providing 80+% of its energy. BB said Boehner wants to save money and he should go see how the French gov is spending plenty of it protecting the nukes there.

My note: Boehner really sounded drunk during this statement. He also looked awful. Anyone else catch this?

[KoKo]

26. I saw a clip of Boehner on MSNBC this a.m. I didn't think he looked well in the clip.

It was at the end of an interview or something and as he walked off with his aides..it looked like he was not feeling well or about to cry or something. (I know he cries a lot...but walking off with his aides after an interview...seemed sort of a weird time to look like that).

[wordpix]

31. looked awful and slurred his words. Nuke industry must be on top of him:

Get out there and protect our billions in subsidies or you're out next time!

[defendandprotect]

19. We may have to deal with "terrorism" but not with nuclear reactors which could be targets!!

[KoKo]

17. Well...we sure don't want Iran to have one...but India/Pakistan and Isreal/China do ...Soviets and

probably people we don't even know about. But, we should declare war on Iran (NeoCon wishes) because they want to build a reactor. We think that Iran will use fuel to do dirty bombs on us. We though Saddam had access to WMD...(or so we pretended).

Now we know...all we need is an aging GE Nuke Plant built on a fault line anywhere in the USA...and we will blow up ourselves or contaminate ground water and agricultural areas for decades. We, don't need "Terraists with Nukes".....we just have to wait until we get an earthquake anywhere these plants are located ...even in the Southeast USA on fault lines...and we've got our "terror event." :-(

[k2qb3]

18. We Could build much better plants...if we could build plants.

Pebble-bed, Thorium, etc. etc. There are dozens of much better designs than these 1st gen BWRs, we could replace the old plants with modern, safer ones. We're learning a lot from this event too, there will be safety improvements as a result, particularly regarding spent fuel and emergency water supplies.

I'm all for renewable energy and a distributed production system, wind, solar, hydro, and so on, as much as is practical.

We're still going to need large continuous energy plants to provide for base load.

Conservation is also important but we still need more capacity rather than less if we're going to get carbon emissions under control.

[defendandprotect]

22. Nuclear reactors are impractical across the board ... health of citizens, dangers to nation...

and cost vs output --

Additionally no good answers to radioactive WASTE!! -- which happens to be a huge problem

in Japan along with the reactors!!

Plus they need water to run -- what risks in polluting Lake Erie? Or the Hudson?

[Kurska]

28. Don't bother, you can't reason with unreasonable demands.

They want all nuclear energy gone, they want all carbon emission from energy gone and they want it now. Who cares if doing even one of those would be a massive undertaking. Who cares if doing the first makes it nearly impossible to do the next any time soon. They want it and they want it now no matter how impossible it is.

At least they will want it until they forget about this incident in 3 months.

[somone]

13. Chu does what his boss tells him

[Tx4obama]

21. Stop picking on Chu. Hes been staying up late studying all the data.

And why isn't there a link in the OP that shows where he said that he supports nukes unequivocally?
And as far as Obama coming out this soon to talk about Diablo Canyon, you should know by now that Obama does rush to the microphone until he has studied all the details.

[wordpix]

33. Saw it on MSNBC, I think the clip was on Last Word

[wordpix]

39. He should study the data on Chernobyl while he's at it, and TMI. That's why we ENDED nuke energy

decades ago, along with where-to-put-the-spent-fuel/nuke waste issue.

[defendandprotect]

27. They're making themselves sound like idiots!! Same with oil rigs ....

Obama pre the BP disaster in Gulf ... "Oil rigs these days don't leak" --

[wordpix]

37. it is truly disheartening. Maybe O was too young to "get" TMI or Chernobyl

Talk about reading up

[defendandprotect]

44. I think it's more the corporate money problem ... at least that was very clear with health care!!

Obama trampled single payer MEDICARE FOR ALL in making back room deals

with Big Pharma and the private health care industry -- and then Rahm

"crowed" about what they did for business and that they should be "grateful"

to Obama! If you want more on that, I'll be happy to post it --



Meanwhile ....

The Rightwing Koch Bros. Funded the DLC --

http://www.democrats.com/node/7789

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x498414

If you knew this, why didn't you tell us?

If you didn't know it, pass it along!


:)

[Motown_Johnny]

47. they already knew this could happen, having it actually happen

won't change their minds about anything.


This isn't new information to them.

[LWolf]

49. Chus supports nukes because Obama supports nuclear power. nt