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Senator Hillary Clinton on Nuclear Energy

The following comes from a campaign rally held in South Carolina:

Comments

Matthew66 said…
I wonder if this is the same message she'll take to the folks in Westchester and Putnam counties. Of course the good citizens of Buchanan would love to hear this message.
Rod Adams said…
Not half bad.

I think I feel a big shift coming, now we just need to continue with measured haste the long process of actually building new plants.
Anonymous said…
Hi,

Senator Clinton raises two legitimate issues: the real cost of post 9/11 security that the industry/NRC have to date been unwilling to afford and the mountain of unmanaged nuclear waste including that first cupful generated more than a half century ago.

Two of the most glaring and untenable issues of nuclear power of the more which she did not allude to.

gunter, nirs
Anonymous said…
Hi,

Senator Clinton raises two legitimate issues: the real cost of post 9/11 security that the industry/NRC have to date been unwilling to afford and the mountain of unmanaged nuclear waste including that first cupful generated more than a half century ago.

Two of the most glaring and untenable issues of nuclear power of the more which she did not allude to.

gunter, nirs
Anonymous said…
I don't agree Gunter. There is no "...unmanaged ncuelar waste..." mountain. This is totally false, every bit of it is managed, tracked and inventoried. This a fake-green 'myth' about nuclear energy. In fact, nuclear is the only energy source that every bit of it's waste is totally, and safely, managed.

David Walters
leftatomics.blogspot.com
Rod Adams said…
Gunter:

It is a really tiny mountain - if you start with a base the size of an NFL football field you would only get about 10 feet high if you put all of the high level used nuclear fuel that has been produced in the US in the same place.

Based on recent events, it seems to me that we had better increase the security patrols at municipal swimming pools. The chlorine storage areas a sources for some really nasty "dirty bombs."

A quick search of Google News reveals more than 2400 references to chlorine bombs. More than 500 of those stories have been published within the last week.
Anonymous said…
In spite of the knee jerk evocation of the (so called) "waste problem," she really didn't say anything objectionable in this clip.

In fact she said some very nice things.

-NNadir
Anonymous said…
Hi,

It is a lie to say that the industry does not manage it's waste. In fact, it is one of the few industries that does manage it's waste. You've got coal plants spewing uncounted tons of effluents to the biosphere, to be blown by the four winds to who knows where. In my state alone the landscape is dotted with abandoned coal mines, both strip mines and subsurface tunnels, to cave in on unsuspecting landowners. There are steel mills sitting around rotting away, leaching untold poisons into the water and land. There are mountains of tires and batteries piled up as the refuse of the automotive industry, and Gunter utters nary a peep about those. While nuclear plants keep their spent fuel safely sequestered, paying money ahead of time for eventual permanent disposal, and Gunter and others have the gall to say it is unmanaged. I'm getting tired of this crap going unchallenged.
inmarkco said…
I hope Hillary will reconsider the fast integral reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor. It "burns" the fuel so efficiently that it generates nearly the maximum power possible and leaves waste that is less radioactive than the original ore. I also hope she will come up with a Democratic alternative to Republican nuclear power, mine is: cookie cutter reactors run by the US Navy buried at least 1000 feet underground - zero footprint, safer, protected from terrorist attack.
ETSpoon said…
As a stopgap measure, until something better comes along, nuclear generating technologies should be pursued.
Nuclear power is not managed. The mining is filthy and kills indiscriminately. The waste is used in weaponry and kills thousands including thousands of our soldiers. The liability and decommissioning costs are thrown off on us and any melt down would be horrendous. The cancer plumes surrounding plants are not a concern of the companies or the government and when chernobyl melted down our government was more concerned about bad pulicity for the industry then the elevated danger and death toll - in America! Hillary is right in there on the side of a corrupt industry instead of supporting us. As usual. She is Dick Cheney in a skirt.
Are you out of your minds? The "industry" pawns everything off on us. The waste from mining is not managed, it blows around killing indiscriminately. The waste from processing is not managed, it is the same filth as any other plant. The depleted uranium is purposely scattered all over the globe killing millions including many of our servicemen who fire it in the course of armed robberies like Iraq and Afghanistan. The liability is all on us as well as the eventual decommissioning and the cancer plumes surrounding plants are not managed, thats just their tough luck. When Chernobyl melted down our death toll went way up, and that was not even a concern to our government which was far more interested in the concerns of the industry. THAT IS IN FACT HILLARY'S ONLY CONCERN AS WELL! She is a disaster, Dick Cheney in a skirt.
Anonymous said…
Is she for it or against it? Hard telling. Like everything else she is for it and against it, that way, all voters are happy.
Anonymous said…
Nuclear Waste is a political, not scientific, creation. When nuclear fuel rods are "consumed" in the steam generation process, they still have most (up to 90%) of their potential for generating power left.

We can reprocess the high level waste, separating and reusing the high level material to generate more power. The low level material can be sorted and either re-reacted in the cladding of the reactor or just safely stored until even the low level risk is gone.

France accepts spent fuel rods from all countries for reprocessing. We don't because past presidents prohibit it by presidential directive - this makes as much sense as prohibiting the reprocessing of aluminum.

We can address the safety of transport of high level waste by building reactors in clusters of 4 or more and co-locating a reprocessing facility.

The remaining low-level waste, similar to medical waste, carries a risk that can be managed. Loss of low level waste is serious - but it doesn't present a bomb threat and thus isn't as attractive to terrorists.

The United States should:

1. Begin manufacturing reactors that are built and operated by the Government - to a standard design - selling the resultant steam to utilities for power generation and process heat.

2. Co-locate four or more reactors and an on-site reprocessing plant. The policy should be "no high level material leaves the protected power company campus."

3. Build and sell fuel rods to any country that agrees to international inspection and the return of the spent fuel rods to the US (or other acceptable country) for supervised reprocessing.

4. Begin immediately to reprocess the significant amount of nuclear material no longer used by our strategic nuclear force. The cold war ending has moved a several year supply of high level nuclear material from the strategic bombers into storage. We should literally beat our swords into plowshares by using this valuable material for fuel rather than for bombs. This is the only scientifically suitable way to "get rid" of our retired bombs.

Thank you for reading this far. This proposal can truly help the US become energy independent when combined with increased efficiency and reasonable use of solar, geothermal, tide, wind and other renewal sources.
Anonymous said…
Thank you CaptStu. Your comments are the only ones I saw that made any sense at all. I work in the Nuclear Industry and have a good understanding of just how safe Nuclear Energy is. If people really want to see what Nuclear Power is capable of, they should look at Japan and France. The majority of their power comes from Nuclear Energy. When is the last time they had a serious accident with Nuclear involved?
teqtom
Anonymous said…
I do hope we have a fair national discussion about energy. Importing energy isn't good for the country in the long (or even the short, if you follow the stock market) run.

There are risks on every form of power generation - dams fail, coal pollutes, oil creates significant risk of war and economic disruption - and obviously, nuclear has economic and environmental risks.

But, if we count the life loss of mining and waging a Gulf war - and the economic disruption caused by our balance of trade problems, nuclear is, I believe, the least bad of the good.

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