dagblog - Comments for "Disaster Flick"

And there's the sequel:NRC

Donal — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:31:01 +0000

And there's the sequel:

NRC issues new license for Yankee
BRATTLEBORO -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a new license on Monday for Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon to operate from 2012 to 2032.
The issuance was temporarily put on hold following the earthquake and tsunami that crippled the safety systems of a set of nuclear reactors in Fukushima on March 11.
"The Yankee license renewal application has had more than five years of review, a safety evaluation, an environmental assessment and a hearing that lasted for several years," said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC. "This application has received as much scrutiny as any license renewal proposal we have considered to date."
Vermont's congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., issued a statement immediately following the issuance of the new license.
"It is hard to understand how the NRC could move forward with a license extension for Vermont Yankee at exactly the same time as a nuclear reactor of similar design is in partial meltdown in Japan," stated Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. "We believe that Entergy should respect and abide by Vermont's laws and the (memorandum of understanding) signed with the state in 2002, which requires approval by the Vermont Legislature, and then the Vermont Public Service Board, for the plant to continue to operate beyond 2012."

The Limits of

Donal — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 01:01:22 +0000

In reply to Disaster Flick

The Limits of Incantation

Still, far and away the most colorful use of incantations in response to the Fukushima disaster has been in the media and the blogosphere here in America, where proponents of nuclear power have worked overtime to try to put their particular spin on a situation that seems to take a perverse pleasure in frustrating their efforts. It’s likely that much of this is being bought and paid for by the nuclear industry; using paid internet flacks to saturate social media with a desired message has already become a standard tactic in the worlds of politics and big business.

Still, whether they’ve issued from paid cyberflacks or unpaid true believers, the incantations in question make an intriguing spectacle. They started out, in the early days of the crisis, presenting rosy estimates of the situation, even claiming that the results of the tsunami showed just how safe nuclear power is. When reactor buildings started blowing up and made that last claim a bit hard to defend, insisting that the problem was a matter of one obsolete reactor design, and trotting out various pieces of untested vaporware as the wave of the future became the order of the day. When the situation started really spiralling downhill, it was time for rants about the evils of coal, as though that’s the only alternative, and then, inevitably, claims that the only alternative to nuclear power is to slink back to the caves.

There is, of course, another alternative. It’s the alternative that we’re all going to take anyway, as fossil fuels deplete and the various subsidies that make nuclear power and most of the other alternatives look economically viable go away forever. That alternative is to use much less energy than we do today. Here in the United States, it bears repeating, we use three times as much energy per capita as people in most European countries, to prop up a standard of living that by most measures isn’t as good. Fairly modest conservation measures, of the sort discussed in recent posts here, could render every nuclear power plant in America surplus if they were applied nationwide; a more serious national effort aimed at getting down to European levels of consumption could probably manage to turn most of the coal-fired plants into museum pieces as well.

Again, this is what we’re going to do anyway, whether we choose that route or not. The vast government subsidies that currently prop up not only nuclear power, but most of the rest of America’s energy production and consumption, are not going to be sustainable for all that much longer; neither, of course, are the “energy subsidies” that every other energy source derives from the immense quantities of cheap petroleum that are used to mine, transport, and provide raw materials for everything from solar panels to nuclear power plants. Equally, the American imperial presence in the Middle East and elsewhere, which currently backstops a global economic system that provides the 5% of us who live in America with 25% of the world’s energy resources and around 33% of its raw materials and industrial product, has a relatively short shelf life ahead of it, and as that comes unraveled, we are all going to have to learn to live with much less.

Japan’s Long Nuclear Disaster

Donal — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:53:23 +0000

In reply to Disaster Flick

Japan’s Long Nuclear Disaster Film

This B-movie fare is widely mocked, often for good reason. But the early “Godzilla” films were earnest and hard-hitting. They were stridently anti-nuclear: the monster emerged after an atomic explosion. They were also anti-war in a country coming to grips with the consequences of World War II. As the great saurian beast emerges from Tokyo Bay to lay waste to the capital in 1954’s “Gojira” (“Godzilla”), the resulting explosions, dead bodies and flood of refugees evoked dire scenes from the final days of the war, images still seared in the memories of Japanese viewers. Far from the heavily edited and jingoistic, shoot’em-up, stomp’em-down flick that moviegoers saw in the United States, Japanese audiences reportedly watched “Gojira” in somber silence, broken by periodic weeping.

[Introducing Tommy - our

Donal — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 12:29:00 +0000

In reply to Sorry - forgot to sign up !

[Introducing Tommy - our mothers were childhood friends, and so were we, and we have reconnected through Facebook.] To me, nuclear energy is like the girl with the little, little curl, right in the middle of her forehead - When it's good, it's very, very good, but when it's bad it's horrid. Putting reactor plants in the ring of fire seems to have been a short-sighted decision. Storing spent fuel near the reactor cores also seems to have been a short-sighted decision. I used to watch you work with machinery, so I know that you know that mistakes will happen. The problem with nukes is that small mistakes can lead to long-lasting disasters.

Sorry - forgot to sign up !

Tommy Holmes — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:32:46 +0000

In reply to Disaster Flick

Sorry - forgot to sign up ! lol

I'm betting dollars to donuts Mobil is on the side of OMG nuclear is so dangerous, lets decommision all the reactors, NOW. Well for anyone buying into this prime example of taking advantage of a situation for personal gain, just let me say that if you look it up, overall nuclear power has proven to be one of the safer forms of power. If this country would open it's eyes and go nuclear coupled with geo-thermal (yellowstone) with electric for transportation and heating we would be free of oil. Total renewabel energy !! Also there is a process called cold fusion, which is a nuclear reaction, creating heat with no radiation, which should be explored and developed. Back in 1989 two scientists claimed they had achived it, but either they didn't or it was suppresed when their results could not be duplicated. Let the people lobby for freedom from oil for real before they break our backs with this hostage situation to fossil fuels

Donal, I like what you have

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:06:22 +0000

In reply to Disaster Flick

Donal, I like what you have written here. You may recall that I posted a blog a ways back that suggested we should take a new look at nuclear energy.

http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/do-you-believe-magic-7422

You responded with a comment that you were against it. So far, the evidence is piling up in favor of your stance. I will say this. I have driven Japanese motorcycles since 1962 and my best cars have been Japanese makes. I have formed the impression that they, the Japanese, are superb at technology. If there is a sequel to the Japanese nuclear power plants I hope that they will have stumbled onto the fact that when you put a nuclear plant in an earthquake zone and it is close to the ocean, you should not put the diesel back-up generators that power the emergency cooling pumps ON THE GD BEACH!
I am available as a nuclear power plant consultant, at a very reasonable rate, when it comes to this tricky stuff. Other areas of expertise as the occasion arises.

I like this post, in that

LisB — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:49:00 +0000

In reply to Disaster Flick

I like this post, in that it's not dark humor so much as it makes one think. Well done, Donal.

You are right on the sequel.I

Richard Day — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:42:18 +0000

In reply to Disaster Flick

You are right on the sequel.

I was just listening to rush making fun of the Japanese today at mediamatters.

This is all soooo very sad!