Going Nuclear
Kevin Drum has a piece up today highlighting some comments made by "one of the founders of Greenpeace," Patrick Moore. Moore is advocating going nuclear. He says wind and/or solar and/or other sustainables simply will not cut it:
And, it is an absolute certainty that there are about a trillion uncertainties in going nuclear on the scale that Moore is talking about, certainly not many of them very pretty.
But what do I know? I'm just a guy that goes to work every day, antes up a third of my income for Internet porn, eats packaged meat products that come from hundreds and thousands of miles away, argues with my wife about things I don't remember saying, pays my taxes, mows the lawn, curses the DVD player, yells at the kids, genuflects at the sight of my boss's posterior, drinks myself to sleep every night, fantasizes about being the hero, dreams of nuke-scorched Armageddons, fills up my gas tank with regular, worries about the kids' futures, worries about my own health, accepts my lot in life, rejects my lot in life, puts money into a 401K, roots for the home team, takes prescription drugs for acid reflux, gout, and depression, is punctual, is likeable, was good-looking, had ambition, wanted more, wants more-- the smiling, wrinkled American face on the one-dollar virtual coin.
Nuclear, though? No, there I won't go. All scientific and cost questions aside, this is a moral issue, and it's time to take a stand for humanity. Reaching peak oil should be a wake-up call, not a call-to-arms for a race to the bottom that will inevitably lead to peak uranium in the not-so-distant future. The denseness in Moore's gray matter must approach that of plutonium-- the plutonium, however, will live a half-life of somewheres-about 35,000 years. These would-be Prometheuses will be long gone. Let's make sure their litter is too.
UPDATE: Go read Hunter at Daily Kos for a rundown on "One of the founders of Greenpeace," Patrick Moore.
Because they are intermittent and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric.
Excuse me if I sound crass, but what the fuck isn't "unpredictable" about going nuclear?
Well, allow me to answer my own question:
- It is an absolute certainty that there will be more "minor accidents" like the one in Chernobyl (And, please, no glib retorts filled with annual statistics about car crashes).
- It is an absolute certainty that the nuke waste will be here for thousands of years.
- It is an absolute certainty that the industry will have praise (in the form of government subsidies) lavished upon it by our neocapitalist/oil baron (cheer) leaders.
- It is an absolute certainty that same industry will downplay safety concerns, exaggerate effiiciency claims, cost-cut for profit margin, etc., etc.
And, it is an absolute certainty that there are about a trillion uncertainties in going nuclear on the scale that Moore is talking about, certainly not many of them very pretty.
But what do I know? I'm just a guy that goes to work every day, antes up a third of my income for Internet porn, eats packaged meat products that come from hundreds and thousands of miles away, argues with my wife about things I don't remember saying, pays my taxes, mows the lawn, curses the DVD player, yells at the kids, genuflects at the sight of my boss's posterior, drinks myself to sleep every night, fantasizes about being the hero, dreams of nuke-scorched Armageddons, fills up my gas tank with regular, worries about the kids' futures, worries about my own health, accepts my lot in life, rejects my lot in life, puts money into a 401K, roots for the home team, takes prescription drugs for acid reflux, gout, and depression, is punctual, is likeable, was good-looking, had ambition, wanted more, wants more-- the smiling, wrinkled American face on the one-dollar virtual coin.
Nuclear, though? No, there I won't go. All scientific and cost questions aside, this is a moral issue, and it's time to take a stand for humanity. Reaching peak oil should be a wake-up call, not a call-to-arms for a race to the bottom that will inevitably lead to peak uranium in the not-so-distant future. The denseness in Moore's gray matter must approach that of plutonium-- the plutonium, however, will live a half-life of somewheres-about 35,000 years. These would-be Prometheuses will be long gone. Let's make sure their litter is too.
UPDATE: Go read Hunter at Daily Kos for a rundown on "One of the founders of Greenpeace," Patrick Moore.
