by rmercure » Sun Jun 26, 2011 4:19 pm
So, does it take (sorry for the mockery, I'm "in a mood") an extremely enlightened, fully vested with eye-in-pyramid-tatooed-on-forehead, to realize that these heavily subsidized, far too complicated for levels of employee paid to safely manage them, "steam kettles" are truly stupid idea "as fucked up as a football bat?"
For some reason (perhaps where the jobs are; where the congressional bribes - oops, meant "contributions" are; where the university chairs endowed by the industry are; and where the massive amount of "sunk" - and sinking rapidly - is) we keep on being fascinated with these monsters despite the fact that we still don't know what to do with much of the low level waste much less the "refinable into bomb stock" (fission, fusion, or "dirty" - does it really make a shit?).
If you read and listen to the press - even much of the respected science press - you'd think the idea is still viable but at some point you have to cut your losses and stop simply throwing away joules of energy flippantly. It's been a long time since I was truly versed this stuff - back when Ronnie Ratzass was ready to launch the "boomerang" ICBMs - and since then, like many of us, we've been lulled by continuous false promises designed to quell our justified fears and concerns. After all, in the USA, no commercial nuclear plant would have ever been constructed if congress had not assumed all of the accident liability. Imagine what any of us could with capital if were were insulated from all responsibility? The only reason the industry was created was to provide sufficient high grade fissionable material to threaten the USSR. But the USA's cultural mythos is of a "peaceful" people (although I'd be hard pressed to point to a spot on the globe we haven't put troops into) and "PPs" don't make threatening jestures (when you finish laughing please read on) so we had to find another reason for the massive nuclear infrastructure.
As said, I'm out of date on the issues but during the late 1980s a respected "poison ivy" league university economist looked at the entire costs of the USA nuclear fuel cycle and concluded that with the incredible electrical demands of gaseous diffusion enrichment the industry had not produced a net watt of electricity until around 1982-83 (most of the enrichment power came from coal plants) and that if the "externalities" of mining reclamation (much less land than coal - much, much more expensive to make safe much less productive) and final clean up and entombment of the reactors and waste were taken into consideration that no net power would ever result - merely shifting around air pollution sources. I can't say that this prof (who's name I'll try and find - I do remember the source material) "is" right but I remain confident he was then and for a long while afterward.
It would be a "joke" of the sickest and most cruel - and so very believable in this "economy" - if it turned out that the whole mess was just another "redistribute the wealth upward" scheme that actually managed to "forward redistribute" current liability to future generations.
Hope yer still awake - before moving to Wise at 12 I lived in Erwin, TN, where Nuclear Fuel Services is and I've got at least one interesting and scary first hand experience I can relate if you're interested.
Rob
"Hell Buddy, What's time to a hog?"