Charlie Rose

SharkswithfrikingLazers  06/29/2011 07:19 PM Report

PROBLEM: 100,000 metric tons/26 million gallons of radioactive water.

SOLUTION: Process it.

STORY:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/at-stricken-japanese-nuclear-plant-water-is-the-bigg est-worry/2011/05/31/AGLe01HH_story.html

Issue: Water is not only radioactive but is also full of debris, oil and salt.

Issue: Airborne radiation readings mean workers get a years worth of radiation in only 15 minutes.

Issue: Massive volume of water.

Issue: Heterogeneous chemistry.

Issue: Greenpeace is finding radiation in seaweed and shellfish 12 miles from the plant.

Zeolite: use it to absorb radiation.

Bitumen: add to radioactive sludge, then seal in drums, put drums deep into the earth.

Company called in to do all this: Areva

http://www.areva.com/EN/news-8775/earthquake-and-tsunami-in-japan.html

http://www.areva.com/EN/news-8775/earthquake-and-tsunami-in-japan.html

Weltraumhamster  04/05/2011 09:46 PM Report

Honestly, this was one of the worst interviews I have seen in a long time. Not only seemed all of the participants to be poorly prepared, but also the arguing made a comedy-like impression on me with all these non-arguments...

Since Germany was characterized as some stupid and hysteric people, I would like to share my country's view on this issue. Germany has a long anti-nuclear tradition which eventually brought the Greens into the Federal Government in 1998. Under the leadership of Gerhard Schröder the Social Democrat-Green coalition decided to end the nuclear age in a well defined timeline so that the last plant should be switched off around 2025. That is what the majority of the German people agreed with because everybody in this country knows that one blast of a nuclear powerplant can make half of the country uninhabitable. Mrs. Merkel meanwhile overwhelmed by lobbyists extended the time of this "bridge technology", as conservatives like to call it, for another 5 years. After Fukushima this will be taken back for sure if she wants to stay in power.

During the Schröder admistration, the parliament passed the "renewable energy law" which basically guarantees a certain price per kw/h of renewable electricity. Of course, that's not your so-much-liked free market, but it created a heck of a lot of new jobs and even energy companies were happy because they had a guaranteed minimum price for energy from their new investments in wind farms - on-shore and off-shore -, pumped-storage hydroelectricity, solar technology, bio gas facilities and so on. Today, Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates in its history and is among the biggest exporters of renewable energy technology worldwide. Every expert on energy in Germany agrees that the country can be totally independent of nuclear power within the next 10 years and be independent of any fossil energy in the medium run. Of course one has to admit that if the nuclear exit happens even faster - as many politicians suggest right now - there will be need for some more coal energy. But this would be only temporary.

So why on earth did Merkel try to extend the nuclear age in Germany? It's not the often heard argument that nuclear energy is eco-friendly and cheap - both arguments are misleading and stupid anyway: if you want to know how cheap nuclear power really is, try to get it covered by insurance and if you want to know how eco-friendly it is try to "recycle" the waste - good luck. No, the reason why Merkel agreed to extend the life of nuclear plants is plain and simple that major German corporations wanted to have lower electricity bills and to get the public pay. Mrs. Merkel ignored the will and the wellbeing of the German people since it surely had slowed down innovation and growth in the renewables sector. But that was not more than a simple principal-agent-problem. Her decision backfired just one week ago when her Party lost a major election in the land of Baden-Württemberg. The home of Daimler and Porsche will now be lead by the Greens.

Summed up: Germans are neither hysteric nor stupid. Fukushima brought back to mind what is important to them and that they don't want to give away their country's wellbeing to some interest groups. Building on renewable energy makes sense because it's safer, it's cheaper in the long run and it makes us independent and it also brings us technological advantages in the world market.

Black98  04/05/2011 04:27 PM Report

Mr. Tucker's statements about France's reprocessing were false and unchallenged. Breeder reactors do not recycle all fuel. Waste is shipped in thousands of tons per year to Russia for reprocessing. Additionally there have been radioactive waste leaks from French reactors resulting in concern for toxins in the North Sea and the Champagne region.

FRE0  03/31/2011 08:24 PM Report

Usually I like Charlie Rose's interviews. However, in this one, he totally omitted a very important nuclear technology.

Reactors that use thorium instead of uranium are much safer, but they were not even mentioned!!! That was an exceedingly serious omission.

Information on using thorium instead of using uranium is all over the Internet; you can find hundreds of articles by doing a google search on "thorium" or "LFTR" for liquid fluoride thorium reactors.

The LFTR circumvents almost all of the problems associated with uranium reactors. Here are some of the advantages:

1 It is safer - because the fuel is a liquid, no melt-down is possible.

2 Because it operates at atmospheric pressure, there is no pressure. vessel. That also contributes to safety.

3 It is considerably less expensive.

4 Because it can operate at higher temperatures, it can use the Brayton cycle instead of the Rankine cycle and eliminate the need for cooling water.

5 It eliminates the nuclear weapon proliferation problem.

6 Because thorium is a waste product from mining rare earth elements, no mining for thorium is necessary.

7 Thorium is 3 or 4 times as plentiful as uranium

8 The LFTR produces less than one percent as much waste as uranium reactors and, because the waste has a shorter half-life, it needs to be sequestered for only a few hundred years instead of thousands of years.

9 Because the LFTR is physically smaller, it can be installed underground for better protection.

Considering the above, and how readily available information is on thorium reactors, I do not understand why they were not even mentioned on the program. The omission is so serious that there should soon be another interview that includes an expert on LFTR technology.

davedewirks  03/25/2011 03:06 PM Report

And to think that just one day before the earthquake, Mr. Tucker would have been pointing to Japan as an example of a country that has been safely using nuclear power for years. I also read with interest his "letter to McCain" on the site referred to by another post. His remarks about solar power are total nonsense.

dhinds  03/24/2011 08:09 PM Report

Regarding the question : "How is this different from fire"?

It's the same as the difference between a Bed of Glowing Coals and the Surface of the Sun.

One you can walk across (if you have faith), but the other will evaporate you before you (and your faith) even get close.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/21/2011 07:08 PM Report

Charlie, look how close this one is to you:

http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/ip3.html

At Chernobyl, emissions fell on the grass, which in turn was eaten by cows that then produced milk containing radioactive iodine. Thousands of children who drank the milk later developed thyroid cancer. Almost half of all atomic bomb survivors in Japan -- known in Japan as "hibakusha" -- have developed some form of thyroid disease since the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. http://thyroid.about.com/od/radiationnuclearexposure/a/japanatombomb.htm

Radioactive emissions can have an effect on the skin, but that can be handled by taking a shower.

Radiation kills rapidly dividing cells. The cells in the bone marrow and gastrointestinal tract are the two rapidly dividing normal cell populations--you get blood count drops and symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Children are most at risk because they're growing and have more rapidly dividing cells.

Genetic effects have been seen in laboratory animals such as fruit flies and mice, but it was never demonstrated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors.

Radioactive iodine doesn't last very long. It has a relatively short half-life - about 8 days.

A greater health risk from taking iodine potassium pills unnecessarily than the threat of exposure.

Map of US REACTOR SITES: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/map-power-reactors.html

http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/

Article plus 9 comments:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/health/7483614.html

Radiation oncologist downplays Japanese health risk

JohnGelles  03/19/2011 12:39 PM Report

"I just don’t think that a species like ours that MAKES MISTAKES can play with fire like this." -- Jonathan Schell

This should end all discussion -- if the FIRE LIKE THIS is as dangerous to all future life as fission clouds are.

Of course it is -- clouds of fission products are the problem; and the FACT that solar, wind and other perfect power sources, (including TRULY SAFE nuclear designs) are the solutions we need, should rule out all nuclear designs with risks like we are now exposed by the nuke freaks who have allowed plants like the ones in trouble now.

Putting aside the TRULY SAFE nuclear future, our current response ought to be trillions for the hydrogen economy that will create and store hydrogen from the ocean for piping to decentralized cells that create all the electric power humanity may ever need.

Such a hydrogen economy will cost nothing because building it will help to create the jobs that are essential to economies based on working for a living.

When we arrive at economies where robots do all the work and humans do the living -- where they play and if they also work, their work is more popular than play, -- THEN we will have the time and need to discover nuclear machines that may be based on fission, or otherwise are as attractive to life preserving cultures as any other science.

The failure to talk-up the hydrogen economy, with gigantic safe capture of sun and wind as electric current that turns sea-water into hydrogen and oxygen for storage and transfer to where it can solve all energy needs is a disgrace. I blame President Obama and Charlie Rose for that.

Why blame Rose. Can't he talk about the things he thinks are important? Must he listen to me and follow my advice? The simple answer is yes.

He talks NOT about the hydrogen economy, functional finance that solves all deficit problems (but the deficit in Rose's store of ideas), and the critical unsatisfied need to curb the human ambition for success that risks planetary suicide as a matter of course. Before you reach for another toothy smile and narcissistic pleasure please ask yourself if you're really on the path that leads to a decent future for the human race.

NeilMacCallister  03/19/2011 04:51 AM Report

Mr. Tucker's positions have been long stated:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/225996/going-nuclear/william-tucker?page=1

NeilMacCallister  03/19/2011 04:42 AM Report

This show's title read: "The Future of Nuclear Power".

I hoped something might be said about Bill Gate's reported recent investment of "tens of millions of dollars" into TerraPower's "traveling-wave" fission reactors (self-contained, smaller than a tract-home in size, minimized waste, no maintenance for 100 years, and powers more than 100,000 homes!).

Or I thought I might hear something encouraging regarding Europe's ITER and DEMO fusion reactor experiments, ..or something for that special ICF hydrogen-fusing electricity-generating device now leading a path in California, USA.

Wikipedia says some of these technologies are expected to "come on line" for societal use by 2050. Why aren't we talking about them? ..Why can't we look ahead to them? ..Isn't fusion technology a step-forward every bit the equal to walking on the moon?

Mr. Tucker is right: We can assist in leading the way, ..or we can sit on our thumbs, and just accept the results provided to us by others in the world who will be more-than-happy to choose our future for us.

President Obama has just designated $853 million dollars for nuclear research. Let's use it to get some more work done!

fccm  03/19/2011 04:05 AM Report

William Tucker "runs with scissors."

Mr. Tucker is exhibiting neurological problems. He needs to seek medical attention for long term exposures to radiation. Clearly he has survived radiation levels lower than what is required to induce acute radiation sickness, but he is exhibiting long term radiation exposure symptoms which includes neurological problems.

worldwatcher  03/18/2011 09:06 PM Report

trag: "Congratulations to Mr. Tucker for an excellent presentation"

Surely you jest! With all his logically SILLY "parallels"?

Had William Tucker been captain of the Titanic, instead of at least trying to slow down or turn the ship from the looming danger ahead, or even contemplate the looming dangers, he would have shouted, with the typical human arrogance that blithely believes in the perfection of human technology, "FULL SPEED AHEAD!!! ...LETS RIDE THIS CRASH OUT!!! ...*NNNOTHING* CAN SINK *THIS* SHIP!!! -- AAHHH, NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT!!"

Fortunately, not only did over 2,000 people who were *NOT* on board, let alone *NOT* the over 1,500 people who *did* drown, have to miserably suffer when the Titanic sank, but half the state of New York (Titanic's destination) did *NOT* have to be evacuated, or perhaps abandoned for *decades* or almost *forever*, and millions of people, irrespective of national borders, did *NOT* face being contaminated with cancer-causing radiation plumes (causing thousands, tens of thousands, or perhaps even millions of excess cancers of various organ varieties, especially if there's an aerosolized *plutonium* fire release), and enitre agricultural and aquacultural food supplies were *NOT* contaminated (reconcentrated in the higher life forms), when the *Titanic* sank. And that's why we didn't stop building and using other ships -- both conventional and supposedly "unsinkable".

And there's two dozen other General Electric nuclear reactors of the same kind in the U.S. alone -- yes, those were *U.S.* designed -- as the one in Japan who's safety systems and reactors were so critically design-flawed, that even the AEC said that GE design represented an unacceptable safety risk -- i.e., *first* of all, what happens if you lose all electrical power? -- and the NRC warned about the reactor design itself; and even a few GE safety engineer whistleblowers resigned (or were force out) over those and other *IGNORED* safety risks; and Japan already knew of the danger of a huge tsunami from the *Indonesian* earthquake tsuname and, before that, the *Sakalin* earthquake tsunami. As usual, there were often plenty of warnings -- some we knew and others we weren't told about, all ignored by human technological arrogance.

Tucker's attitude could also be metaphored as a traffic cop who sees a drunk driver speeding on a highway and recklessly veering and from lane to lane and weaving between traffic, but the cop blithely decides not to stop the drunk driver because the drunk "hasn't killed anyone yet!", let alone caused a traffic accident pile-up, let alone if the drunk hasn't already driven some other people off the road into a crash!

William Turner is drunk on the idea of nuclear power: "Nothing to worry about" -- we've heard this since the 1970's! -- from a source of power that was supposed to be environmentally almost cost-free and "too cheap to meter"! And people *have* been killed, besides the excess cancer deaths in the region. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED in nuclear plant gas explosions or from lethal radiation exposure while trying to stop those otherwise runaway nuclear catastrophes: there are personnel at the Japanese plant who are probably already dying, in a few days, weeks, months, or few years, as they sacrifice their lives to try to save the public.

(I like Jonathan Schell, but Charlie should have had someone with expert knowledge, like Professor Lloyd Dumas from the University of Texas, or one of those fired/resigned whistleblowers who actually has an engineering background, and doesn't work for the nuclear industry/lobby, or Charlotte Mijeon from the French anti-nuclear movement, or someone from Greenpeace who's has more deeply and technologically studied the issue -- because some of Tucker's lies/propaganda, as intellectually pitiful as his demeanor was, were left hanging unresponded to by Schell and Levi.)

We aren't able to pull all the nuclear power plants offline right now, but with all the dangers of a system where the margin of error is almost razor thin, and the consequences of error -- design errors, inspection errors, regulatory lapses, and human operator errors, not to mention operators and plant officials, falsifying records and lying about equipment failures and even smaller operating damages to the reactors, and regulators not doing enough inspections or enforcing regulations -- is enormous -- and certainly in countries where there are alternative power technology capabilities available or can be developed -- and now we have (in addition to the other HUGE direct *&* indirect govt subsidies) the huge national costs of protecting them from terrorism -- the biggest potential "dirty bombs" in the world(!!) -- THEN AT LEAST WHY BUILD, OR LEAVE OPERATIONAL, A SINGLE NUCLEAR REACTOR -- ESPECIALLY THOSE MUCH OLDER SEMI-OUTDATED ONES -- THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO HAVE AND THAT THE WORLD DOESN'T NEED?

And what always happens, there is not just *one* error or flaw that can perhaps be designed out -- if that flaw is even recognized (and usually it's something *so* basic that it's not recognized in the blizzard of major technical design details, although a smart *non*-engineer, but naturally analytical/logical person, could probably spot it) -- but it's always A **CONCATINATION** of errors and/or design flaws and/or overlookings that lead to a catastrophe. And now the biggest danger for international contamination are the over *700* nuclear fuel rods that aren't even *in* a containment structure, but just packed in a glorified swimming pool.

We can't even build a single space shuttle that won't explode (one shuttle, when even *I* knew it shouldn't have been launched at the time); we can't even build a single massive deep sea oil platform that won't explode with devastating environmental and economic results; Amtrak can't even prevent major train crashed (and how long have *trains* been around to learn the lessons from?); PG&E, which operates a nuclear power plant, can't even build a gas pipeline that won't explode and take out an enitre neighborhood; Chinese industry cuts corners on so many things that it can't even produce milk, baby food, pharmaceutical agents, or even pet food that won't poison its ingesters; what happens when the likes of Romania, or Bulgaria, or some Whatchastan want to build nuclear power plants?

BBecker  03/18/2011 08:46 PM Report

The answer to William Tucker's dismissive, supposedly rhetorical question, "How is that different from fire?" might be that a "conventional" fire's devastation has not prevented subsequent generations from rebuilding. By contrast, a fire that derives from a nuclear accident leaves us to deal with toxic radiation, some of which is projected to last hundreds of thousands of years and causes unwelcome mutations.

Also, history is filled with stories of lost and found civilizations. To me, it seems unrealistic to believe that an uninterrupted trajectory shall exist where for thousands upon thousands of years subsequent societies shall be informed of what sort of waste we have left behind.

machngunjoe  03/18/2011 06:11 PM Report

Lots of arguments here for NP because, "it hasn't killed a whole lot of people." As I scroll down I see arguments making comparisons with Car accidents to NP. These comparisons are irrelevant at best. If all one does to wage whether NP is safe or not by weighting the loss of human life, then one is not looking into the whole picture and with such a weak comparison as 'car accidents' as I see below, one is not even looking within the frame.

The conversation above talks about waste, waste is a massive issue that humans haven't grappled with yet, like always it is a "wait and see" approach, which always gets governments/countries into a lot of trouble.

Security and natural disasters will always play a role in whether humans can use this power effectively. I should remind everyone that the Planet has had 3 Nuclear catastrophes in less then 40 years. 40 years is not a long time, I hope everyone can agree on that.

machngunjoe  03/18/2011 05:49 PM Report

I find William Tucker arguments to be incredibly weak. "How is Nuclear Power different form Fire" and the like. It is just absurd

penoversword  03/18/2011 05:04 PM Report

Jeff Walther, do you work for the nuclear industry?

You criticize Mr. Schell, but your own statements seem to bear little resemblance to the facts.

For example, you claim that nuclear energy isn’t heavily subsidized. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) studied the matter and found that “Nuclear power subsidies vary by type of ownership (public or private), time frame of support (legacy, ongoing, or new), and the type of cost (or “attribute of production”) they address—from startup capital to decommissioning and waste disposal. Subsidies can take many forms, including tax breaks, accident liability caps, direct payments, and loan guarantees. While the exact value of these subsidies can be difficult to pin down, even conservative estimates add up to a substantial percentage of the value of the power nuclear plants produce—approaching or even exceeding 100 percent in the case of legacy subsidies and subsidies to new privately-owned reactors.” A chart in the report indicates that in recent years, the total of these subsidies has amounted to about 6 cents per kilowatt hour, or $60 per megawatt hour. They project that the subsidy/power ratio will stay close to this level in the near future, at least through 2024. The fact is, without generous subsidies - especially caps on liability - and the ability to pass costs on to captive consumers (one particularly egregious example being the case of the Shoreham plant that never even opened, yet the private company - LILCO - was allowed to recoup $3.5 billion of its $5 billion cost overruns by means of rate increases to Long Island residents), the nuclear industry would never have gotten off the ground.

You seem incredibly sanguine about the problem of nuclear waste. Should we really be relieved that the waste only has to be quarantined for 1000 years? People rightly think in timeframes relevant to civilization, not geological timeframes. Of course, the waste from the reactors is only part of the nuclear waste stream, which includes mining tailings and byproducts of the enrichment process. Repeating the industry mantra, you state that “the problem is political, not technological” but there is little evidence to back that up. The proposed storage regime at Yucca Mountain failed because proponents could not make a convincing case to counter legitimate concerns related to seismic activity, potential for corrosion, and transport.

Mr. Walther, your misrepresentation of the facts is a case in point as to why advocates of nuclear power can’t be trusted. The whole industry has never been honest with the public and has always put profits ahead of safety, exacting an especially high price on future generations that have no voice but have to live with the nuclear mess we leave behind.

CraigL  03/18/2011 03:45 PM Report

The Insanity, Sociopathy and Greed of Nuclear Power is shadowed by the homocidal disregard for human life and future generations! The Emergency Plans of most Nuclear Plants is fictitious at best, possibly worse than BPs Deepwater Horizon Emergency Plan.

I heard Charlies guests equivicating, misleading, excusing and ignoring, even laughing at the dangers of Nuclear Power! Shameful performances! Thank God for Jonathan Schells cool and reality based arguments.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/18/2011 03:09 PM Report

Great show Charlie! Loved the format.

For those who want more watch Barbara Boxer "go to town"

About two hours:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/JapanNu

MY NOTES:

Dry Storage Casks to replace densely packed spent fuel rod pools--reduce heat load in the pool. Japan recycles their spent fuel in France. America likes to store it all together.

Blackouts--must look at on and off site power. Are only four to eight hours of emergency power adequate? No, not when there are several disasters together like both an earthquake and a tsunami.

50 mile radius or 10 mile radius for the gold standard. It appears 50 miles but in America we are only prepared for 10 miles. (American ships at 60 miles off the coast of Japan turned away because they detected radiation. So even at 60 miles it was too close. This means the potential for millions to die is too great.)

Are there enough supplies of Potassium Iodine in areas close to nuclear plants & do we have the proper zones of emergency--the proper distances.

There have been Safety Margin Reductions!!!

WOW! NO ONE KNOWS HOW MANY AMERICAN NUCLEAR PLANTS ARE AT OR NEAR (within 50 miles) SEISMIC ZONES OR SEISMIC ACTIVITY! Barbara Boxer had a field day with this and asked everyone who appeared.

Nuclear plant in Japan was built for a 7.5 and got a 9.0 but still stood up. It was the tsunami that knocked out the diesel fuel tanks. WOW again! The stupid fuel tanks are the weakest link in the back-to-back disasters? Really?

charlizecourriers  03/18/2011 02:57 PM Report

In 2004, worldwide, two million 400 thousand human beings died in automobile accidents. This topic is more targeted hysteria, a mainstay of left rhetoric, and perfect for this show.

trag  03/18/2011 02:48 PM Report

"This is responded to by another rude interruption, hands waving, funny faces and the exasperated “. . Aw, come ON!” retort from the author Tucker - rather than anything intelligent....People who cannot define and outline their position , or know their position is weak, behave this way."

People also behave that way when they watch someone tell a bald faced lie on national television.

And then Tucker could not engage in counterpoint, because with only equal time, Tucker did not have enough time to carefully dispel Schell's lies (or ignorance). Yet he still experienced the emotion one has when faced with someone telling such bald faced lies in public.

The greens have been lying about nuclear power for over thirty years. Schell just trotted out the same well worn lies that have served them so well over the years.

Effective waste disposal methods do exist. The only thing preventing their implementation is liars (or the ignorant) such as Schell and MartyFunkhouser.

The most effective method is "waste" recycling. I put waste in quotes because more than 90% of nuclear "waste" is actually usable uranium. That waste is extremely valuable -- about $130/lb. Once the impurities are removed the true waste for a year's operation at a nuclear plant would fit under your desk.

Your 100,000 year figure is five half lives of Plutonium. Either the waste is recycled, in which case the Plutonium is separated out and used. Or the waste is not recycled, in which case the plutonium contained in the waste is so diffuse, it is not adding measurably to the radioactivity.

The 100,000 year claim by the greens is and always has been a lie. But if it wasn't, fuel reprocessing would deal with it handily.

Other lies include cooling water shortage, "peak" uranium, government subsidies, cost. etc.

The real world fact remains that nuclear is subsidized fifteen times less than solar and wind, and is still half to 1/4 as expensive as so-called "renewable" source and has a better overall safety record than natural gas (about as much electricity generation as nuclear) and coal (about twice the electricity generation as nuclear).

You would have to cover hundreds of square miles with wind mills or solar panels to get the electricity generation of a nuclear plant that fits on a few score acres. (640 acres to the square mile). Nuclear is more environmentally friendly than solar or wind.

A little over 100 nuclear reactors supply 20% of the USA's electricity. We stopped building new ones in 1980. If we had completed ten reactors a year, since 1980, our electricity production now would produce zero carbon dioxide. That would be a 28% reduction in our carbon emissions right now, plus the accumulated reduction over those thirty years as those plants came on line.

Imagine what that would do to the total carbon emitted into the atmosphere!

But the greens killed new nuclear plant construction.

The Greens caused global climate change.

MartyFunkhouser  03/18/2011 02:03 PM Report

This was an interesting discussion. Unfortunately one panelist (Tucker) resorted to the tired and worn Hannity/CrossFire debate tactics of interrupting and histrionics exactly when the other panelist (Schell) was making a pertinent point.

For Example, Schell’s fact: “. . . someone needs to baby-sit the waste for 100,000 years”, (which is true, not a lie). This is responded to by another rude interruption, hands waving, funny faces and the exasperated “. . Aw, come ON!” retort from the author Tucker - rather than anything intelligent. The fact is the nuclear power proponents do not care what happens to the lethal and toxic waste – that is future generations problem ( kind of like the national debt).

Mr. Tucker was a good ‘face’ to represent the pro-nuke crowd; bullying, rude, greedy, and irresponsible. People who cannot define and outline their position , or know their position is weak, behave this way. Rather than engage in respectful counterpoint, they resort to trying to shout down and stifle the conversation. Besides the rude interjections, Tucker’s entire argument pretty much boiled down to; “ Everybody’s doing it”. This is the same weak explanation a high school kid tells his parents when asked why he or she is experimenting with drugs.

Mr. Tucker did reveal the crux of the pro-nuclear lobby; “These things are gold-mines”.

so what we have, or the nuclear energy lobby wants, is: Private Profit - Public Risk. Who is going to insure and underwrite a ‘factory’ which can fail and cause an entire county, state or country to be devastated, and rendered useless for hundreds of years? The fact is it is ratepayers, taxpayers, or people with their health and lives in that county, state or country.

He was basically arguing for socialism: The public takes all the risk, and a handful of people get all the proceeds. That is a huge ‘subsidy’ so a few can play with and profit from the very hard to control atomic chain reaction (i.e; Japan right now).

I would like to see the insurance policy from a “private insurance” company who is willing to pay for all the clean up and cost of the potential disaster these things can cause.

trag  03/18/2011 12:50 PM Report

The really sad thing about this panel is that while Mr. Rose gave the guests approximately equal time, it only took Schell a few seconds to tell lies, which Mr. Tucker needed minutes to refute. Of course, if it was acceptable for Mr. Tucker to simply call Schell a liar, that would have sped the proceedings, though Mr. Tucker was probably too much of a gentleman to do it.

Besides Schell may simply be ignorant (despite his credentials) rather than a liar. I see nothing in his credentials to indicate that he has even a basic understanding of physics. He is probably not even qualified to have an opinion on this topic.

Amongst Schell's lies (or ignorance):

Nuclear power is not heavily subsidized. Subsidies per megawatthour for natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and refined coal are respectively: $.25, $.44, $1.59, $23.37, $24.34, and $29.81.

Nuclear waste is not dangerous (for any rational meaning of the word) for 100,000 years. After less than 1000 years it is no more radioactive than the original pitch blend ore removed from the ground. While 1000 years is long in civilization's context, it is a very short time in a geological context.

Effective waste disposal methods have been developed. The obstacles to their use are political not technical. Essentially, people like Schell oppose nuclear power because of waste disposal and oppose every attempt to implement effective waste disposal, and then use the lack of waste disposal as a reason to oppose nuclear power.

I don't know what Mr Levi's problem was. I think he's so focused on some obscure State Department goal, that his opinions are essentially insane on the topic of fuel reprocessing. That is, he's so far removed from reality that his responses are utterly non-sensical. However, it was interesting to hear a relatively young man spouting canards from the Carter administration, which did not make any kind of sense back then either.

It was refreshing to see that there is at least one public figure out there who has a rational and balanced perspective on the topic and is able to put nuclear power into the proper position in the contexts of technology, risk, and civilization's needs. Congratulations to Mr. Tucker for an excellent presentation and for not leaping across the table and strangling Schell as he clearing was considering.

Jeff Walther

davedewirks  03/18/2011 12:45 PM Report

William Tucker was arrogant and annoying in this interview. And rude. He raises some of the most silly arguments in favor of nuclear power ("What about fire? How many people die in fires?") It's the same argument as "People die in car accidents every day, why not ban cars?" Because if I wreck my car, I don't cause 3,000 people to get cancer and cause a 100-square-mile area of the earth to be uninhabitable for 100,00 years. I'm so tired of these trite, cynical answers to very legitimate questions. If the United States isn't smart enough to learn from Japan on this one, maybe we deserve to fry.

REMant  03/18/2011 11:16 AM Report

Well, the thing about this is that burning fossil fuels has caused global warming, the polar ice caps to melt, shifting the continental plates, and causing the earthquakes and tsunamis, which destroyed these power plants. While it is true that nuclear is at present more expensive than fossil and we haven't kept up with the technology to make it safer or cheaper, most especially re-processing, being more interested in Hummers and going to the moon and such, the events in Japan needn't necessarily have happened, tho they will no doubt serve to further delay any change in this country, and per usual it will be the same ppl who caused the crisis that will insure that it continues. As will their stupid attempt to outlaw atomic weapons, which no doubt only serves to make them more certain. If, on the other hand, we had continued to build the plants, and avoided the warming, attendant food riots and natural disasters - not least because energy self-sufficiency might have stemmed our desire to print money to buy things we couldn't otherwise afford - we might also have been able to control the wars and the spread of nuclear weapons more effectively, as well as, the overpopulation that will make them inevitable.

BTW, while it is being said the Japanese are stoic, it is not the self-abnegation or fatalism we take it for. Rather they are stoic in the original sense of being cooperative, socially considerate individuals. They have, however, been so successful because of this that their birth rate has declined leaving them with a lot of elderly to look after, particularly as a result of the post-war baby boom, and they have grown somewhat lax and self-indulgent.