The two big posts everyone was raving about over the weekend come from Depleted Cranium’s Steve Packard and Brave New Climate’s Barry Brook. Steve clearly spent a great deal of man-hours providing a number of reasons Why You Can’t Build a Bomb From Spent Fuel. As well, Barry Brook always gets a heavy conversation going, this time by asking if climate sceptics and anti-nukes matter.
There’s also been quite the discussion lately among many of the nuclear bloggers about natural gas. Depleted Cranium came out with another great piece that refreshes everyone's memories about gas prices by using a colorful graph. Rod Adams, as always, has something to say about gas – his latest on the gas industry’s advertisements and comparing tritium leaks to a methane leak were revealing. And Kirk Sorenson jabs at Climate Progress, the Sierra Club and a little bit at Greenpeace for their lack of acknowledgement of “a catastrophic explosion [two weeks ago] at a natural-gas-fired powerplant under construction in Connecticut.”
It is quite interesting (for lack of a better word) that many of those who are in favor of renewables to reduce emissions have become willing to accept natural gas to achieve that goal (even forgetting that gas still emits). Not only that, they cry foul over any miniscule event about nuclear yet have amnesia when something major happens to their favorite energies as Kirk points out. Well, the nuclear industry is clearly held to higher standards. But I guess that’s a good thing, though, since we definitely work with superior technology.
Hope you enjoy everyone’s posts!
Comments
"A bill introduced in the Arizona Legislature would establish nuclear power as a renewable or carbon-free energy source, angering solar advocates and sparking the ire of the Arizona Corporation Commission."
“The short of it is, it’s disastrous for renewable energy and it would surely be the death knell for advancing solar energy in the state,” [Arizona Corporation Commission Chairwoman] Mayes said.
As in, if utilities aren't required to buy wind and solar, and instead can choose to rely on hydro or nuclear, that'll be the end for solar in Arizona. And I'd expect Arizona's solar energy resources to be about as good at it gets.
The waste water that comes up out of the gas wells couldn't meet EPA standards for radioactivity if anyone cared, if someone was going to inject it back underground, but they just dump it into public waterways because no one looks at the gas industry for radiation hazards.
"13 samples of wastewater brought to the surface... from drilling... contain levels of radium...267 times the limit safe to discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink"
http://www.propublica.org/feature/is-the-marcellus-shale-too-hot-to-handle-1109
Gas emits at least 22 times the amount of CO2 nuclear does, and just using regular average US gas to cook with causes 15 times the additional exposure to radiation than living right next to a nuke plant.
I haven't been able to find out how much additional radiation "fracked" gas taken out of a uranium ore formation would expose a typical cookstove user to because the environmental groups have all bought in to the line that gas is better than nukes.
Gas is great, the Sierra Club tells me. I'm so glad The Club is there to safeguard whatever they are safeguarding as the planet is killed. I feel so much better.