I for one, appreciate the efforts of these musicians.

Bonnie R. and Jackson B. have been on the no nuclear power beat for a long time now. I saw them in concert over 25 years ago and they had the same message. At that time, nuclear power didn't make it into the mainstream largely because of efforts by people like this. (The others may have been too, only B.R. and J.B. were at the concert I attended.)

Nuclear power is a terrible boondoogle. Widespread nuclear power would be a disaster. To call that clean energy is like calling dog poop clean. but of course the PR industry can spin any lies and make most Americans fall for it. It's going to be a lot harder to defeat nuclear power this time around but we need to.

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Radioactive smokestacks? Give me a break! This is nothing more than idiotic hyperbole. Nuclear power plants emit neither radiation nor smoke!

"Why would we want more nuclear power facilities built if the safety of those already in operation is in question?" Questioned by whom? NukeFree.org? Not exactly an objective authority.

A loan guarantee is not a "blank check" at "taxpayer expense." It's just not.

And the worst part of all: The reason there's not yet an implemented "solution to the problem of safely storing or transporting nuclear waste," is in large part due to this kind of insubstantial rhetoric.

It's not as though these problems are intractable.

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There are some countries in Europe who are capable of running safe nuclear plants because they ACTUALLY TRAIN the personnel who run these places. Do you trust ANY of our energy companies to run them here? HELL, NO!

NO NUKES HERE! NOT NOW, NOT EVER!

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No-Nukes Musicians
What would musicians know about anything nuclear? NOTHING

bailing out the nuclear power industry.
Said need for a bailout having been caused by the protests of innumerate people
who know nothing about anything nuclear.

radioactive smokestacks
There are no radioactive smokestacks.

fact that reactors are vulnerable to terrorist attacks,
WRONG Read my other posts under Alternet/environment

human error in operation
Pebble bed reactors cannot melt down. Human error is no longer a factor.

earthquakes
Nonsense.

there is also no solution to the problem of safely storing or transporting nuclear
waste.
Wrong. It isn't waste. it is fuel that needs to be reprocessed. We used to
reprocess fuel in this country and we should do so again.

Why would we want more nuclear power facilities built if the safety of those
already in operation is in question?
The safety of other American-built reactors is NOT in question. They are safe.

nuclear power is not a "clean alternative"
Nuclear power IS a clean alternative. Enough uranium goes up the stack of a
coal fired power plant to fully fuel an equal nuclear plant.

truly safe and reliable renewable energy from wind, solar, bio-fuels, geothermal
and other green technologies.
Wind reliably DOES NOT work when the wind is not blowing.
Windmills can fall and kill you.
Solar reliably fails every evening as the sun goes down.
Geothermal brings up pollution from the volcanoes they get their heat from.
Geothermal pollution plugs up the machinery and makes it unworkable.
wind, solar, bio-fuels, geothermal together cannot replace the electric power we
are using already.

I will call my Senators and Congresspersons and urge them to "KEEP THE
NUCLEAR INDUSTRY LOAN GUARANTEES IN THE PENDING ENERGY
BILL."

At that time, nuclear power didn't make it into the mainstream largely because of
efforts by people like this.
Exactly. How much coal company stock do those musicians own?

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Why terrorists can't rob radioactive materials from
nuclear reactors:
Suppose a gang of terrorists tries to do a bank robbery type
of operation against a nuclear reactor. What problems do
they encounter that they wouldn't when robbing a bank?
1. There is no nuclear fuel within reach of any human.
2. The fuel is inside a containment building that is harder
to penetrate than a bank vault.
3. The fuel is inside a machine that was not made for
human access.
4. The fuel is not like money in several ways:
a. The fuel is radioactive enough to kill the robbers
immediately.
b. The fuel is far too heavy for the robbers to carry.
c. The fuel is sealed in steel capsules inside steel rods
inside the reactor core inside a coolant system, etc.
d. the temperature of the fuel is more than hot enough to
burn them.
e. If they got the fuel out, they would have to carry it in
lead containers that would weigh many tons.
f. etc.

To get fuel out, the reactor must first be shut down. The
robbers don't know how. The reactor must be allowed to
cool. Cooling takes time, like days. The fuel can only be
removed by a robot. The robot may not be present. The
robbers don't know how to operate the robot. The robbers
don't have a way to move fuel rods out of the containment
building. The robbers would have to have a big truck with
a lead container to carry the fuel in. Big trucks are not
good getaway vehicles, especially when heavily loaded.
IF the robbers knew how to do all of the required jobs, it
would still take them weeks to rob a reactor. Do you think
the cops and the army are going to give them weeks? The
result of such an attempted robbery would be robbers killed
by bullets.

Terrorists cannot cause a meltdown of our newest
[pebble bed] nuclear reactors because shutdown is
accomplished by a law of nature rather than by control
rods. Stopping coolant flow removes the space between
fuel pellets. The space between fuel pellets must be filled
with moving water. The water is the moderator to slow
down the neutrons so that the reaction can take place. No
coolant flow, no reaction.

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There are 3 choices: Nuclear power, freeze in the dark and extinction
when global warming results in hydrogen sulfide bubbling out of the
oceans.

I would rather not go extinct because of global warming. The Existential
Risk that is virtually certain to happen is the same as the End Permian
mass extinction: Hydrogen Sulfide. It is possible to avoid it, but we have
to stop burning coal and cut down on other carbon sources.
download from:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00037A5D-
A938-150E-A93883414B7F0000&sc=I100322
from the October 2006 issue of Scientific American
Article: "Impact from the Deep"
"Strangling heat and gases emanating from the earth and sea, not asteroids,
most likely caused several ancient mass extinctions. Could the same killer-
greenhouse conditions build once again? "
By Peter D. Ward
The last paragraph of the article says:
"The so-called thermal extinction at the end of the Paleocene began when
atmospheric CO2 was just under 1,000 parts per million (ppm). At the end
of the Triassic, CO2 was just above 1,000 ppm. Today with CO2 around
385 ppm, it seems we are still safe. But with atmospheric carbon climbing
at an annual rate of 2 ppm and expected to accelerate to 3 ppm, levels
could approach 900 ppm by the end of the next century, and conditions
that bring about the beginnings of ocean anoxia may be in place. How
soon after that could there be a new greenhouse extinction? That is
something our society should never find out."
The hydrogen sulfide will finally put an end to the mining of coal. Nuclear
power is the safest available that will actually meet our needs.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation

Background radiation is the ionizing radiation from several natural radiation
sources: sources in the Earth and from those sources that are incorporated in our
food and water, which are incorporated in our body, and in building materials and
other products that incorporate those radioactive sources; radiation sources from
space (in the form of cosmic rays); and sources in the atmosphere which primarily
come from both the radon gas that is released from the earth's surface and
subsequently decays to radioactive atoms that become attached to airborne dust
and particulates, and the production of radioactive atoms from the bombardment
of atoms in the upper atmosphere by high-energy cosmic rays. Since 1945 it also
comes from low levels of global radioactive contamination due to nuclear testing.

............shortened.............

Natural background radiation

Natural background radiation comes from three primary sources: cosmic radiation,
terrestrial sources, and radon. The worldwide average background dose for a
human being is about 2.4 mSv per year. This exposure is mostly from cosmic
radiation and natural isotopes in the Earth.

Cosmic radiation

The Earth, and all living things on it, are constantly bombarded by radiation from
outside our solar system of positively charged ions from protons to iron nuclei.
This radiation interacts in the atmosphere to create secondary radiation that rains
down, including X-rays, muons, protons, alpha particles, pions, electrons, and
neutrons. The dose from cosmic radiation is largely from muons, neutrons, and
electrons.

The dose rate from cosmic radiation varies in different parts of the world based
largely on the geomagnetic field and altitude.

Terrestrial sources

Radioactive material is found throughout nature. It occurs naturally in the soil,
rocks, water, air, and vegetation. The major radionuclides of concern for terrestrial
radiation are potassium, uranium and thorium. Each of these sources has been
decreasing in activity since the birth of the Earth so that our present dose from
potassium-40 is about 1⁄2 what it would have been at the dawn of life on Earth.
Some of the elements that make up the human body have radioactive isotopes,
such as potassium-40, so there is also a very small amount of internal radiation.

Radon

Radon gas seeps out of uranium-containing soils found across most of the world
and may concentrate in well-sealed homes. It is often the single largest contributor
to an individual's background radiation dose and is certainly the most variable in
the United States. Many areas of the world, including Cornwall and Aberdeenshire
in the United Kingdom have high enough natural radiation levels that nuclear
licensed sites cannot be built there—the sites would already exceed legal radiation
limits before they opened, and the natural topsoil and rock would all have to be
disposed of as low-level nuclear waste.

............shortened.............

The exposure for an average person is about 360 millirems/year, 80 percent of
which comes from natural sources of radiation. The remaining 20 percent results
from exposure to artificial radiation sources, such as medical X-rays and a small
fraction from nuclear weapons tests.

............shortened.............

Reference:
http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2000_1.html

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Bombs are completely different from reactors. There is nothing similar
about them except that they both need fissile materials. But they need
DIFFERENT fissile materials and they use them very differently.
A nuclear bomb "compresses" pure or nearly pure fissile material into a
small space. There is no other material in the volume containing the nuclear
explosive. The fissile material is either the uranium isotope 235 or plutonium.
If it is uranium, it is at least 90% uranium 235 and 10% or less uranium 238.
There is no isotope separation problem if the fissile material is plutonium. These
fissile materials are metals and very difficult to compress. Because they are
difficult to compress, a high explosive [high speed explosive] is required to
compress them. Pieces of the fissile material have to slam into each other hard
for the nuclear reactions to take place.
A nuclear reactor, such as the ones used for power generation, does not
have any pure fissile material. The fuel may be 2% uranium 235 mixed with
uranium 238. A mixture of 2% uranium 235 mixed with uranium 238 cannot be
made to explode no matter how hard you try. A small amount of plutonium
mixed in with the uranium can not change this. Reactor fuel still cannot be
made to explode like a nuclear bomb no matter how hard you try. There has
never been a nuclear explosion in a reactor and there never will be. [Uranium
and plutonium are flammable, but a fire isn't an explosion.] The fuel is further
diluted by being divided and sealed into many small steel capsules. The fuel is
further diluted by the need for coolant to flow around the capsules and through
the core so that heat can be transported to a place where heat energy can be
converted to electrical energy. A reactor does not contain any high speed [or
any other speed] chemical explosive as a bomb must have. A reactor does not
have any explosive materials at all.
As is obvious from the above descriptions, there is no possible way that a
reactor could ever explode like a nuclear bomb. Reactors and bombs are very
different. Reactors and bombs are really not even related to each other.
Reccomendation: Nuclear power is the safest kind and it just got safer.
Convert all coal-fired power plants to nuclear ASAP. See the December 2005
issue of Scientific American article on a new type of nuclear reactor that
consumes the nuclear "waste" as fuel.

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Odds of Dying from X according to the 2003 National Safety council

1 heart disease 1 in 5
2 cancer 1 in 7
3 stroke 1 in 24
4 motor vehicle accident 1 in 84
5 suicide 1 in 119
6 falling 1 in 218
7 firearm assault 1 in 314
8 pedestrian accident 1 in 626
9 drowning 1 in 1008
10 motorcycle accident 1 in 1020
11 fire or smoke 1 in 1113
12 bicycle accident 1 in 4919
13 air/space accident 1 in 5051
14 accidental firearm 1 in 5134
15 accidental electrocution 1 in 9969
16 alcohol poisoning 1 in 10048
17 hot weather 1 in 13729
18 hornet, wasp or bee sting 1 in 56789
19 legal execution 1 in 62468
20 lightning 1 in 79746
21 earthquake 1 in 117127
22 flood 1 in 144156
23 fireworks 1 in 340733

Causes that are missing from the above:
nuclear power plant accident
medical mistake
meteor impact
cold weather
starvation
dehydration
smallpox
war
terrorist strike
boredom

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I am so tired of all the "fresh" red raspberries in the grocery
store being dark from mold. Red raspberries are supposed
to be light, bright red, not quite pink. Neither the shoppers
nor the grocers know what raspberries are supposed to
look like and taste like. They buy the moldy ones, thinking
that darker means riper. The dark ones lack the tartness
and taste that raspberries are supposed to have.
Raspberries are very high priced because they spoil very
quickly if not frozen. So Please, seal the raspberries in air
tight transparent containers and gamma ray them within 1/2
hour of picking them. I picked and ate wild raspberries as
a child.

Likewise for strawberries.

A really bad taste thing happens to milk. A lot of the store-
bought milk tastes of the detergent the farmers use to wash
the bulk tank. The detergent is very harsh and
intentionally toxic to kill germs. Detergent is a pseudo-
estrogen. The fact that the detergent is pseudo-estrogen
means that it is a gender bender. It makes boys into girls.
All of the milk that comes in plastic bottles tastes like
plastic. I will not drink it. I have the advantage of
knowing what milk is supposed to taste like, having tasted
milk that was still warm from the cow.

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A scientist/engineer from Oak Ridge National Lab wrote to me: "The reactor that
had the accident at Chernobyl was very out-of-date (1st generation) design that
has to be precisely controlled to prevent cooling water from boiling. Water
carries away heat and moderates far better than bubbles, and as bubbles form in
water, the reactor goes increasingly unstable. What caused Chernobyl to blow its
top was residual water in the core suddenly going to high pressure steam and
erupting into a steam explosion. Since the building top was simply resting by its
weight on the walls, not a containment vessel at all, the steam explosion burped
the top off its position allowing outside air in, subsequently igniting a carbon
fire." The United States and other Western countries DO NOT now build and
do not now posses or operate ANY reactors of such primitive design. Nor do we
allow containment buildings to have easily removable tops. Containment
buildings in the Western hemisphere are required to be pressure vessels."
The Chernobyl accident released only 200 tons of radioactive material, as
much as a coal-fired power plant would release in 7 years and 5 months. The
Chernobyl accident had a shorter "stack" than coal-fired power plants. The
radioactive material was released in a short time at ground level. That is why the
Chernobyl accident had impact. Only 52 people died at Chernobyl , mostly fire
fighters, a hazardous job in any case. The Three Mile Island incident did NOT
release a noticeable amount of radiation into its neighborhood, it was just
expensive to clean up the inside of the reactor. Nobody died and nobody was
injured at Three Mile Island.

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Nuclear "waste" is valuable fuel that is being wasted. Nuclear "waste" should be
reprocessed into fuel and put back in nuclear reactors. We already have enough
fuel stored in Yucca Mountain to last for centuries. It just needs reprocessing
and breeding. Thorium can be bred into fissionable Uranium233 and
Uranium238 can be bred into Plutonium. Plutonium is excellent fuel. We also
have thousands of bombs that could be converted to fuel.

Refining and reprocessing use trivial amounts of energy. Building wind turbines
and solar cells uses energy also.

Reference:
OUR NUCLEAR FUTURE:
THE PATH OF SELECTIVE IGNORANCE
by Alex Gabbard
The truth is, all natural rocks contain most natural elements. Coal is a rock.
The average concentration of uranium in coal is 1 or 2 parts per million. Illinois
coal contains up to 103 parts per million uranium. A 1 billion watt coal fired
power plant burns 4 million tons of coal each year. [The difference between coal
and nuclear is the 4 Million tons of carbon/coal which makes 14.7 Million tons of
CO2. Of course, Mining 4 Million tons of coal takes a lot more energy than
mining 1 ton of uranium.] If you multiply 4 million tons by 1 part per million,
you get 4 tons of uranium. Most of that is U238. About .7% is U235. 4 tons =
8000 pounds. 8000 pounds times .7% = 56 pounds of U235. An average 1
billion watt coal fired power plant puts out 56 to 112 pounds of U235 every year.
There are only 2 places the uranium can go: Up the stack or into the cinders.
Since a reactor full fuel load is around 11 tons of 2% U235 and 98% U238, and
one load lasts about 10 years, and what one coal fired power plant puts into the
air and cinders fully fuels a nuclear power plant.

Compare 4 Million tons per year with 1.1 tons per year. 1.1 divided by 4 Million
= 2.75 E -7 = .000000275 =.0000275%. Remember that only 2% of that is
U235. The nuclear power plant needs 44 pounds of U235 per year. The coal
fired power plant burns coal by the weekly trainload. The nuclear power plant
consumes U235 in such small quantities yearly that you could carry an equal
weight in a brief case. [Actually, nuclear power plants are not fueled that often.
In some designs, the fuel is left in the reactor for ten years and then changed all at
once. In other reactors, 10% of the fuel is changed once each year. That is why
terrorists can't steal nuclear fuel. It stays sealed inside the machine for long
periods of time.] We can fuel our nuclear power plants just by extracting
uranium and thorium from coal cinders and smoke.
See: http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-34/text/coalmain.html

At least 73 elements found in coal-fired plant emissions are distributed in
millions of pounds of stack emissions each year. They include:
Aluminum Chromium Molybdenum
Antimony Cobalt Nickel
Arsenic Copper Selenium
Barium Fluorine Silver
Beryllium Iron Sulfur
Boron Lead Titanium
Cadmium Magnesium Uranium
Calcium Manganese Vanadium
Chlorine Mercury Zinc

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