From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Radioactivity and Superstition (and the *Real* Problems)
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 23:28:46 GMT

In article <53037@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>In article <1992Sep4.010529.26023@nuchat.sccsi.com> kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>>In article <52907@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
[...]
>>>And what about if you looked "deeper" into the motives of those who
>>>are against wind and solar technolgies? 
>>
>>Let's have a show of hands here.
>>
>>How many of us are actually *against* wind and solar technologies?
>
>Sarcasm is obviously out of place in this forum, so let me make my point
>directly. That is: it is factually incorrect to argue that opposition
>to nuclear power is a symptom of hatred of science and technology or that
>the anti-nuclear movement is created by and kept alive by some machiavellian
>plot. I note that it requires a certain willful ignorance to claim that
>either George Kendall or Lovins is anti-scientific or against technology.

I know of few people who are against all technology, since such people
would, it follows, favor living like a caveman (or worse!  Even cavemen
had technology).

Rather, most people who speak out against certain technological things
often seem to be against certain forms of technology, for whatever reasons.

Whatever these reasons are, they rarely seem to be entirely rational.

>And, there are many people like myself who are in favor of technology
>and science, but who are not impressed with nuclear power technology.

A technology doesn't need to be impressive to be useful.  :-)

If I had a strong desire to live in an ideal world, I would probably have
something against nuclear power as well.  But this isn't an ideal world,
and nuclear power seems far superior to other conventional means of generating
power (hydroelectric aside, and even *that* has its share of problems) and,
in many cases, seems to be superior to nonconventional means as well when it
involves generating multiple gigawatts from a single source.

>Furthermore, it is at best spectacularly naive to argue that the
>anti-nuclear side is the sole source of the vast amounts of nonsense
>and outright lying present in this debate. 

Who said this?  Not me.

There is *of course* going to be misinformation on both sides.  The question
is: what is the nature of that misinformation and how far off the mark is
it?

My impression, right or wrong, is that the greatest degree of misinformation
comes from the anti-nuke side.  The reason for this is that much of this
misinformation is simply dead wrong, e.g. the statements of the effects of
the TMI accident.  To be sure, similar statements have been made by people
on the pro-nuke side, e.g. "*this* containment structure is burstproof", but
such statements can easily be interpreted to mean "this containment structure
is designed such that a core of the size and density intended to be used in
it cannot generate enough steam to rupture it".

Either way, my *basic* impression is that *most* of the anti-nuke types are
*religiously* anti-nuke, whereas most of the pro-nuke types are, at least
for the most part, pro-nuke strictly due to scientific and engineering
considerations.  A person in the pro-nuke camp, I think, can much more easily
be convinced that his views about nuclear power are incorrect than someone
in the anti-nuke camp.

This may not be true, of course, but I can unequivocally state that, at least,
*I* am one such person.  Give me sufficient evidence that nuclear powerplant
designs that are currently on the drawing board are, in fact, relatively
likely to cause widespread damage, and I'll switch sides.  Convince me that
nuclear waste, on a per-joule basis, is more damaging than the waste from
a coal-fired plant, and I'll again switch sides.

> The nuclear power lobby, the
>NRC/AEC and all sorts of pro-nuclear hangers including some in this forum
>have been repeatedly guilty of authoritatively insisting on some falsehood
>or half-truth. 

Such as?

Which things have they insisted upon that are *blatantly* false?

>>station being proposed is to be sited on the northern part of the east
>>coast and must generate 1 GW, solar technology will probably be
>>inappropriate due to the lack of continuous sunlight.  Wind technology
>>might fare better, but this depends on whether or not the wind patterns
>>are consistent and favorable.  That leaves you with coal, hydroelectric,
>>coal, nuclear, and possibly natural gas (there any 1GW natural gas
>>stations?  I was under the impression that NG was primarily used to
>>deal with peak-load situations only, rather than baseload).  Hydroelectric
>
>Why don't you familiarize yourself with the UCS alternative energy program
>before you refute it? I'm sure that the UCS recommendations are eminently
>debatable, but they have already been informed of the fact that the
>Northeast is sometimes not particularly sunny and have taken that into
>account.

Indeed?  Have they also taken into account such things as the change in
reflection coefficient of the surface when you put up a large solar-based
plant, and how this will affect weather patterns and the greenhouse effect
(I expect the effect on the greenhouse effect will be pretty much negligible,
but I don't know if the same can be said of weather patterns)?  Have they
taken into account the possibility (if it cannot be called a likelihood)
that demand for power will increase?  Have they taken into account the
maintenance required for large solar arrays (most designs I've heard about
have to be kept clean, though this may not be true for the ones the UCS has
in mind, in which case this is a non-issue)?

Fair is fair.  Are *all* the costs, both economic and environmental,
accounted for?  This is, after all, what the anti-nuke types demand of
nuclear proponents.

If it's not too much trouble, would you be so kind as to describe the UCS
alternative energy program?

>yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu


-- 
				Kevin Brown

			    kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
			    kevin@taronga.taronga.com
Newsgroups: sci.energy