In this program you’ll hear about the new nuclear renaissance. The lobbyists, and the greens, who want you to accept more reactors, to prevent catastrophic climate change.
I’ll toss in one slightly tarnished hero, Dr. James Hansen, and a new interview with another combative doctor, Helen Caldicott. And running throughout, a stimulating podcast from Shelly Thomas, urging us to “Drop the Nuke Bias”
And I introduce you to your new nuclear neighbors: the United Arab Emirates. Where torture is legal, debtors are thrown in jail, and most of the population are immigrant workers with few rights. Why did South Korea get the deal to build 4 new nukes in the Gulf? Read on….it’s dark and dangerous.
But first, a message for the idiots who made Al Gore snowmen in the Netherlands, to prove there is no global warming. And all the American gumbos who posted snowfall in Texas, and Fox News who announced the end of climate change during a brief interlude of cold weather.
Yes, it’s time for the new “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” from Peter Sinclair. Peter explains why it gets cold in the winter time – and has a scientist explain that there will still be a few records for cold even in the year 2100 – while almost all other days set records for heat. Meanwhile, on January 15th, much of the Mid-West was 20 degrees above normal, as a warm snap spread across the U.S. Does that prove global warming? No, it’s just weather, like the previous cold. Deniers who try to sell you weather as proof of climate are just dumb.
The temperature in the Netherlands on January 15th? Seven degrees Celsius, or 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Guess what happened to the Al Gore snowman protest? It kind of melted away in the heat, just as most of these amateur denier sites will disappear in a few years.
Let’s get back to nuclear as the salvation of the world’s climate. Before we hear Dr. Caldicott from Australia, I want to introduce you to climatefilesradio.com. That’s a good podcast from Shelly Thomas, who also runs Futurism Now and a blog called “civilianism“.
I like Shelley’s new climate podcast. You really get your hour’s worth of news, followed by useful clips and information. For example, I like Shelley’s take on a greener internet. I had no idea our exchange of electrons was so damaging to the climate.
In the same podcast climatefilesradio #55, Shelly makes her case that we need more nuclear power, and especially new atomic tech, to replace American dependence on coal fired power plants. I play a clip, including a jazzy piece she snapped off the net, on Thorium reactors.
Is it as great as it sounds? Why are green busybodies opposing this wonderful invention? Shelly doubts that a pediatrician could know enough about nuclear technology. Yes, a pediatrician with 30 years investigating nuclear affairs, many books, even more honorary degrees. What would she know? Let’s talk with her now, Dr. Helen Caldicott on Radio Ecoshock.
[Caldicott interview]
Then I introduce you to your new nuclear neighbors: the United Arab Emirates. Were you wondering why Korea got this sweet deal to build four new nuclear reactors in the troubled Gulf, while France and others lost out? A Pakistani source quotes Korean newspapers saying the South Koreans topped up the project with a deal for arms. And not just any weapons: cruise and ballistic missiles, drone aircraft, and even EMP electrical bombs.
Read More here.
In the past, Earth has almost frozen over. Dr. James Hansen tells us there will never again be another snowball Earth, or even another ice age, as long as humans have technology. In the program, I look into Hansen’s very recent conversion to advocating nuclear technology, and who his new friends are. When Hansen wrote an open letter to President Obama, calling for more nuclear funding, he became a lobbyist himself.
His climate science is impeccable. But now he’s calling for desperate measures.
Without your action, the climate can go very wrong. No better way to end this show than the song simply called “Earth” by Imogen Heap.
Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock
http://www.ecoshock.org
You quoted Hansen out of context. You claimed he was supporting nuclear reactors that produced
"transuranic elements… radioactive material with a lifetime of about ten thousand years – what a nuisance that is! Along with our having to babysit the nuclear waste…"
when the argument he was making was to move from nuclear technology that produces waste like this to nuclear technology that consumes wastes like that, i.e. the 4th generation reactors promoted by Tom Blees and others.
See page 197 – 204, "Storms of My Grandchildren", James Hansen.
One thing Hansen is scrupulous about is to cite sources for his data or for the conclusions of others that he uses to support his own conclusions, in his scientific papers, and in his work aimed at the general public.
Caldicott, on the other hand, is way out there on her own.
Who else in the world will say that the Argonne design will become a twenty tonne plutonium nuclear bomb under any circumstances? She cites no one.
One article I found interesting to understand the arguments of those, like you, who state that no country can build nuclear without massive cost overruns was cited by Al Gore in his book "Our Choice".
This article was written by James Cook, is called “Nuclear Follies,” and was published by Forbes, February 11, 1985.
I think people on all sides of the nuclear debate would do well to read it.
Here's the quote Gore used: "Nuclear power is dead – dead in the near term as a hedge against rising oil prices and dead in the long run as a source of future energy. Nobody really disputes that". You can see why Gore would want to take that quote.
I wonder why he didn't also take this quote, from the same article: "It wasn't the technology that doomed nuclear power in the U.S. As experience everywhere demonstrates, the technology is as sound and productive as its promoters always have claimed it would be".
The article didn't describe that nuclear power per se was dead: it described that it was dead in the United States. It was written to answer the question: "why did the U.S. fail where the French, Germans, and Japanese succeeded?" The article quoted Commonwealth Edison's Chairman O'Connor: "American engineering, American equipment, American constructors are building plants all over the world and bringing them in at roughly one-quarter to one-third the cost of plants in the U.S. We can do it technically. We have to learn to do it institutionally".
Food for thought for those such as you who assert that nuclear can't be built anywhere without massive, ruinous cost overruns.
If you believe humanity can't use technology and it is time to move to not using electricity at all, as you stated, do you really believe you will convince civilization to do this as a way to deal with climate change?
What are your views on nuclear medicine?
In contrast to Caldicott's assertion that using nuclear power produces more CO2 than it saves, consider this:
"Total life-cycle GHG emissions per unit of electricity produced from nuclear power are below 40 gCO2-eq/kWh (10 gC-eq/kWh), similar to those for renewable energy sources (Figure 4.18). (WEC, 2004a; Vattenfall, 2005). Nuclear power is therefore an effective GHG mitigation option, especially through license extensions of existing plants enabling investments in retro-fitting and upgrading" – IPCC AR4.
So, Caldicott, and you, would have us accept what the IPCC has to say about climate change, they are authorities on that subject, but they are morons when it comes to nuclear energy. Have I got that right? They are far seeing, brilliant scientists on the subject you happen to agree with their conclusions on, and they are morons when it comes to the subject where you disagree with them?
Contrast Caldicott's fearmongering with Hansen's advocacy. Why is Hansen pro nuclear now? He cites a source – Blees, and a research project, i.e. the Argonne design. Have you read Blees' book, or any material assessing the Argonne design? Its an interesting book – "Prescription for the Planet".
Here is my thinking for why I "support" nuclear power. Over all for a long term source of energy I don't think it is the way to go. But it is a cleaner source than coal. With burning coal not only do you get heavy metals as a wast product you also get radio active wast. So with nuclear you get the radio active wast that has a half life compared to coal which in its coal ash has concentrated heavy metals that don't decay over time and up to 100 times the radioactive wast of the nuclear plant. That's not even looking at the emissions. So while I would rather have alternative energy sources replace coal, it would appear that the political reality is that this will not be the case. So my thinking as someone with a Bachelors of environmental geography, and environmental studies (so take it how you want) is if getting rid of coal involves replacing some or a lot with nuclear that is a fine trade off for the time being.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html
An recent artical from the New Yorker relativly related to this.
Some Nukes
by Hendrik Hertzberg
The New Yorker March 22, 2010
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/03/22/100322taco_talk_hertzberg