[Vision2020] but will the public fall for it

[lfalen]

Thanks Glenn
The extreme environmentalist view on nuclear energy is absurd. It as you pointed out is much better in terms of the environment than coal. We should also be working on other forms of clean energy.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: "Glenn Schwaller" vpschwaller at gmail.com
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:14:28 -0700
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] but will the public fall for it

> Anti-Nuclear Forces Manufacture
> Pseudo-Scandal<http://www.dailytech.com/AntiNuclear+Forces+Manufacture+PseudoScandal/article8546.htm>
> Michael Asher <masher at dailytech.com>
> Daily Tech - August 22, 2007
> 
>  ...but will the public fall for it?
> 
> In rural Tennessee lies a small uranium processing plant. In operation since
> the 1960s, its primary activity today is converting nuclear warhead material
> into a form no longer usable for weapons, but suitable for nuclear power
> plants.
> 
> Last year, the facility experienced a leak in a transfer line, spilling some
> nine gallons of uranium solution onto a floor. The company took appropriate
> cleanup measures, and immediately notified the Nuclear Regulatory Committee,
> which investigated.
> 
>  Their conclusions? Had the leak not drained onto a floor, but into some
> sort of bowl-shaped container, the fluid might have been able to amplify its
> own weak level of radiation. Had a worker not wearing protective gear been
> nearby at that particular moment, they might have received a dangerous, or
> even fatal dose. None of these events happened, of course, but even if they
> had, the risk to the public at large would still have been zero.
> 
>  Zero. None.  Zip.  Nada. Zilch.
> 
>  The NRC issued a reprimand to the plant operator, Nuclear Fuel Services
> Inc, and ordered the hiring of an outside team of experts for to review all
> safety practices. Ordinarily the action would have gone into the public
> record immediately. But because NFSI supplies fuel to the U.S. Navy, the DOE
> had previously required all documents sealed for further review.
> 
>  You might think this is the end of an amazingly boring non-story.  Not so.
> A year later, that review finally happened, and the commission decided there
> was no national security threat from disclosing the event. And so our
> alarmist media learned of it.
> 
>  Reaction was swift. "Uncontrolled Nuclear Reaction Possible!" screamed news
> stories. "Public Kept in Dark!" "Veil of Secrecy Must Be Lifted!" Papers in
> London and Paris even picked up the story, repeating the alarmist calls
> verbatim. While some of the more responsible journalists eventually admitted
> there was no risk to the public, they usually did so in the final paragraph
> of a lengthy story, ensuring most of their readers would not be burdened by
> that inconvenient truth.
> 
>  Environmental groups were even more shrill. The Sierra Club's anti-nuclear
> task force went into immediate overtime, demanding to know why the company
> wasn't fined, or even shut down. A SWAT team of Sierra Club activists
> descended upon the site, where they promptly organized public meetings for
> "concerned citizens," and called for the NRC to hold public hearings to
> explain their actions. Combining innuendo and hand-waving, they attempted to
> convince area residents their property and very lives were at stake.
> 
>  This, ladies and gentlemen, is why clean, cheap, safe nuclear power is dead
> on the vine in this country. It's why we still burn millions of tons of coal
> each year, despite the horrendous cost in environmental damage and the
> thousands of lives lost to coal mining. It's why widespread use of electric
> cars will still result in enormous amounts of toxic emissions, and why the
> "hydrogen economy" can never be practical.
> 
> 
> 
> To those of you who care about the environment, I say this. If you want to
> do some good -- go and protest the Sierra Club. Demand more responsible,
> biased reporting by your news media. And let your government representatives
> know you're too educated to fall for such manipulative fear tactics.
> 
> GS
> 
>