Is Nuclear the Bomb?

Once the price of oil started to affect the economy, the nuclear energy folks started seeing light at the end of the tunnel. "Hey," they pointed out,"why don't we switch from oil to nuclear? It's cheaper, safer, and keeps jobs in the good ole US of A." So, let's look at the nuclear option as an alternative. The graphic to the left shows the location of plants today. I'm sure this post misses some issues, so don't hesitate to let me know. I was surprised by what I found in my research already!

1. Costs ($ varies since some references are a few years old; figure higher)

• Stockpile of Potassium Iodide pills for the entire population (a drug capable of preventing radioactive iodine from lodging in the thyroid.)
• Transport or reprocessing of spent fuel rods--costs unknown, since the US has never reprocessed spent fuel rods.
• Building of nuclear plant itself--takes 7-12 years to build at a cost of $8 billion
  
• Operating Costs of plant have decreased but profits risen; includes cost to hire, train & manage employees (couldn't find this online but assuming 1600 employees averaging $40k= $64 million (and that's not including bonuses, high-paid CEO's, lobbyists & advertising).
  
• Decommissioning the plant--$300 million
• Mining, processing & transport of uranium. The price of uranium has jumped and the world currently produces about 100 million pounds a year. In order to supply new plants alone, we'd need 135 million pounds a year.
  
• Water usage--didn't think about this one, did you? All energy-generating stations require massive amounts of water; water is a valuable resource and costs money to pump in & out. Nuclear power currently uses the most.
• Enrichment facilities--just one of these, in Paducah, KY, requires the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants. These plants emit a ton of carbon dioxide which is the gas responsible for much of our problems regarding climate change.
  

2. Safety

• The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) doesn't know--even today--how much radiation was released at Three Mile Island.
• At the time, the public was told there was no meltdown in the core; a large portion of the fuel did melt.
• The government promised meticulous studies on the health impact after the accident at TMI; in fact, the state of PA did it's best to hide data & the feds failed to track the health histories of residents. Why would we think differently today?
• Ongoing research by radiologist Dr. Ernest Sternglass & statistician Jay Gould indicates that releases of radiation far less than those at TMI would have catastrophic impacts on local populations
• Transport accidents can and will happen.
• Michigan's Fermi 2 just closed for a month because of vibrations
  

3. Job Creation

• Construction workers to build the plant--~2300, depending on size. Though this is questionable given the new modular building techniques--they could be shipped from China.
• Engineers to plan the project--and there's a shortage of these
• Employees on the job= ~800-1600/plant

4. Security

• A terrorist attack on any nuclear plant would be like the meltdown at Chernobyl.
• Imagine a terrorist attack while nuclear materials are in transport in a major city.

5. Waste

• Spent Fuel Rods--4 options for spent rods exist: transport, store, vitrify or reprocess. Chicago alone is sitting on 1000 tons of highly radioactive fuel from the scuttled Zion Nuclear Power Station. Spent fuel rods from a nuclear reactor are the most radioactive of all nuclear wastes. U-238 has a half-life of 4.6 billion years; the half-life of plutonium is about 24,000 years.
• Industry waste--paper, gloves, equipment, etc. that needs to be disposed. One problem: they're radioactive.

6. Transport
Transporting of construction equipment, employees, radioactive materials, spent rods, etc., has a myriad of costs, environmental, and safety issues. Just to build Yucca Mountain is estimated by the DOE at about $96 billion. Under the current administration's budget cuts, Yucca may be all but killed. So that means the expense of local containment or reprocessing.

(Data at left from USA Today, 3/30/09)

Liberalism, Socialism, Communism and other 'isms'

Over the past 8 years, if you paid any attention to the news and politics at all, you soon realized that the "response du jour" was "if anyone criticizes us, let's do a character assassination." Let's not show evidence of our actions, but attack the person who dares to question them. Some examples:

Joe Wilson (found no evidence of "yellowcake" from Niger which the admin. ignored)1
Valerie Plame (wife to Joe Wilson & a CIA operative, outed by Libby & Cheney) 2
Cindy Sheehan (populist protester villified by the right) 3
Dan Rather (for accusing bush of being a deserter) 4
Michael Moore (for going to Cuba even though journalists are allowed to) 5
Saddam Hussein (accused of WMD's & involvement in 9/11, none of which was true)6
Jimmy Carter (opposed to the Iraqi War) 7
Keith Olbermann (on just about any topic) 8

There are so many, the list seems endless. So now the tables are turned and the right-wing dominated media 9 is on the attack against liberals. Some examples:

• Hannity falsely asserted Dems "voted for those bonuses" while GOP did not
• Limbaugh defends AIG bonuses following attacks on "insane" UAW benefits
• Beck says it is "absolutely wrong" that AIG bonuses are "wildly unpopular"
• Limbaugh thinks it's "hilarious"that three "idiots" are about to die in the North Pole looking for evidence of climate change
• Savage claims the "radical left" including Obama, dreams of a "Maoist revolution" with "death camps" 10

The conservative media is accusing Obama, his administration, and anyone else in support of the administration, of "McCarthyism, socialism, ponzi-scheming, political grand-standing, and class warfare" to name just a few. 11 And horror of horrors, when actual clips are replayed later from these "talking heads" in the media, they freak out and attack those who replay their clips! Like Media Matters' president Eric Burns. 12 Heaven forbid someone airs their lies and misinformation! Now that the White House no longer replies to its critics with personal attacks, the media has apparently taken up the gauntlet.



Sources:
1. http://www.nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm
2.http://www.nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm
3. http://www.democraticwings.com/democraticwings/archives/politics/002059.php
4. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/19-2
5. http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/27/subpoena-moore/
6. http://www.nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3119676.stm
7. abcnews.go.com/GMA/Story?id=2513387&page=1
8. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15147009/
9. http://media.eriposte.com/2-8.htm
10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPzQR2nfMSI
11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPzQR2nfMSI
12. http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200903190037?lid=951962&rid=24477954

What are we doing in Afghanistan?

As we send additional troops into Afghanistan (55,000 total), what will they do? When the US first went into this country, it was for the purpose of finding Osama bin Laden (responsible for 9/11) and for eliminating the extremist Taliban. The population is over 70% illiterate, over 60% of its children are born malnourished, and they provide about 90% of the world's opium. The country is a poor country with a mix of clans where rival militias vie for influence.

In Sept of 1994, Pakistan appointed the Taliban (Sunnis) to protect trade convoys. Two years later, the Taliban is strong enough to take over the city of Kabul & order a strict interpretation of Islamic rule. They also offer shelter to Osama bin Laden. After 9/11, the Taliban are scattered, but not eliminated. Many reside along the Afghan-Pakistan border and, once the US is distracted by the illegal Iraqi invasion, began to expand its influence again.

Many in the Taliban are trained in religious schools in Pakistan. A large part of their support comes from the Pashtun community (where most hail from) and because of early successes stamping out corruption in the country. Their biggest goal, however, was to set up the world's purest Islamic state. This meant banning television & music, forbidding girls from going to school or working, eliminating women's access to healthcare (in a country where a large percentage of healthcare workers were women) and reinstating public executions & amputations for crime control.

Despite this, both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia continued to support the Taliban. After 9/11, they halted their official support. Additionally, Iran is suspected of helping the Taliban, though experts disagree on the amount of involvement.

You can check out a couple short videos about the situation in Afghanistan at YouTube. Frontline also did a series in 2006 (credit them with the photo on this post).



You can view Part 2 here:


Sources:
1. http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/taliban/index.html
2. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taliban-time.html
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/144382.stm
4. http://www.cfr.org/publication/10551/
5. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/17/obama.troops/

Did you know?

It's Friday the 13th, one of my favorite days. Since Friday's are when politicians & certain news folks usually release the Big News of the day or week (so no one will see it because everyone has moved into weekend mode), let's do a recap.

Did you know...

1. That the US imported 339 million barrels of oil in Feb. '09, 62% of it from foreign countries, sending $13 billion overseas?
2. That the wealthiest Americans now have 35% tax rate (soon to be upped to 39.6%) while under Ronald Reagan they had 50%, under Nixon 70% and under Ike 91%?
3. That buildings in the US are responsible for 30% of the greenhouse gas emissions and 72% of all electricity use?
4. That Citigroup spent some of the $50 billion bailout money to organize big companies to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act (a bill that makes it easier for employees to form unions & bargain for higher wages)?
5. That the health care industry (insurance companies, etc.) has spent nearly $1 billion over the last 2 years just in lobbying?
6. That one in six homeowners will face foreclosure over the next 4 years?
7. That 1,4-dioxane, formaldehyde, or both were found in over 1/2 the samples tested for infant bubble bath & shampoo.
8. That coal plants are the single largest source of airborne mercury emissions in the world?
9. That US unemployment rose from 7.6 to 8.1% in February, with payrolls declining by 2.6 million in the past 4 months?
10. That over 1,180,207 hectares of arable land is lost due to soil erosion this year (the data keeps changing as the year progresses)?
11. That the US spent $2.4 trillion on health care (about $1928 per person) in 2006--that's 2.5 times more per person than any other developed country, yet the health of Americans lags behind those nations?

Sources:
1. The Pickens Plan at http://www.pickensplan.com/oilimports/.
2. The Washington Monthly, March 8, 2009.
3. Repower America, http://www.repoweramerica.org/plan/energy-efficiency/.
4. Credo Action via Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/12/citigroup-enters-union-fr_n_174106.html.
5. The Washington Post, March 8, 2009.
6. Credo Action, 3/10/09.
7. The Washington Post, 3/13/09.
8. Kansas Chapter Sierra Club, http://kansas.sierraclub.org/Wind/Coal-MercuryFactSheet.htm
9. Bureau of Labor Statistics, USDL, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
10. Worldometers, world statistics updated in real time, http://www.worldometers.info/.
11. Reported by AP from Business Roundtable, 3/14/09 (ok I cheated a few hours on this one).

Key Features of the Jobs (Stimulus) Bill

You can find information (including the actual bill) at recovery.gov. The above was posted (w/sources) by Daniel Mintz at moveon.org (click on the post title to go straight to the full article).