Media Matters reported Monday that the right-wing media kept pushing for accelerated permitting of nukes and removal of “obstacles” even in the wake of Japan’s nuclear crisis.
Now ThinkProgress has compiled a video of GOP Senators’ “frighteningly blas© and contemptuous attitude towards the severity of nuclear power’s dangers and the regulations necessary to address them”:
Commenting on the unfolding nuclear reactor crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, John McCain (R-AZ) said recently:
I think what happens now to this power plant as to whether the damage is contained or not will have a direct effect on the future of nuclear power in the United States. Let’s have a little straight talk.
… Not surprisingly, the crisis has also inspired renewed debate over the future of nuclear technology here in America. It’s worth noting that, before offering “straight talk” on nuclear energy, McCain and fellow Republicans “” including Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) “” were displaying a frighteningly blas© and contemptuous attitude towards the severity of nuclear power’s dangers and the regulations necessary to address them [as the video shows].
McCain is probably regretting that his views on nuclear safety did not advance sooner beyond “blah blah blah.”
The worst-case scenario seems to be playing out more and more these days, and it remains foolish to downplay the risks.
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It seem to me that in our technological hubris, we fail to consider the consequences of our own mistakes. Very complex systems fail and the lessons of Fukushima seems to be that we are not as good as we thought in doing our risk assessment and we still don’t know how to engineer around human failure.
Even as the catastrophe plays out to it’s inevitable conclusion in Japan, the Madera County (CA) Board of Supervisors endorsed a plan to circumvent California’s nuclear moratorium and build 2 reactors into an energy park near Fresno.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/03/15/2311653/madera-co-oks-nuclear-support.html
Perhaps Sen. Infofe needs a little less hubris and a little more common sense.
Hi Joe, Did you happen to catch Chris Mooney’s blog a couple of days ago.
“Are Liberals Science Deniers? Now’s A Good Time to Find Out”
http://www.desmogblog.com/are-liberals-science-deniers-now%E2%80%99s-good-time-find-out
I believe his implication is that you’re anti-science if you oppose nuclear power generation. I would be really interested to hear your opinion on this. Have a good day.
[JR: I can't figure out what he means, actually.]
Sure, that’s “straight talk”, Senator, and misinformed or deceitful.
In case there is confusion of the gamma radiation distribution in some parts of the world, that to my knowledge is just a signal that an exposed nuclear reaction has happened somewhere in the world, not a cause for immediate concern…
Consider that the real problem is that we need to leave the Steam Age, regardless of fuel. Nuclear plants are built near large bodies of water to use to cool the steam back to water, this is direct heat-pollution and means it directly heats the planet with two watts of waste-heat for every watt delivered over the wire.
The design flaw was not being able to cool the latent heat with the emergency systems, but the need to co-generate the lost heat is still not being addressed so we continue to overheat the planet this way.
To actually build co-generation means you have to transfer that heat to the end-use before it dissipates as heat-pollution. A ton of plumbing is required to move that heat to homes, so, too costly, so, give up the Steam Age, regardless of fuel.
Entropy affects brains as well when it gets near politics, the thermal energy can come from the sun daily if you store enough for a daily cycle for on-demand use of thermal needs, ammonia refrigeration uses heat to produce cold.
If wastewater is purified using fresh-water plankton, biomass, at the end the water is almost pure so treated and recycled, the biomass squeezed for biodiesel and worth about 2-gallons a day per person on a municipal system, the biomass cakes soil enhancers preserving soil moisture along with some minerals.
Phoenix, AZ, produces 10-million gallons a day, 83-million pounds of nutrients the biomass must consume before tomorrow and is worth about 3-million gallons a day of biodiesel, nearby Glendale produces the same amount, wastewater engineers are on a budget and this turns a huge expense into a revenue stream.
As of this moment, this video could go either way, by which I mean it could be a major embarrassment or end up being called just another alarmist propaganda tool. I think its premature and here’s why:
As of the moment I type, CNN Reuters and BBC all seem to be saying they have so far avoided a Chernobyl scale major release. If, thanks to the sacrifice of the personnel risking their lives onsite, that tragedy is avoided, then the pro-nuclear folks will say “See? The systems stood up to a combined force 9.0 earthquake and major tsunami! How much safer do you want?”
This isn’t to say of course, that I want to see the worst case scenario. Far from it. Its just that premature release of this type of stuff runs risk of becoming backfiring ammunition.
AIUI, Mooney is saying that today’s liberals won’t react to the prospect of nuclear power in so knee-jerk a fashion as those in the 1970s did, but will accept that nuclear has benefits and will base their counter-arguments on science rather than emotion.
I hope that’s true, but I suspect some (e.g. the Sierra Club) will maintain their strident opposition. The Sierra Club was once pro-nuclear, but flip-flopped quite rapidly at some point. The story makes interesting reading.
McCain’s last statement in the video: “Obviously this is an event no one has ever really anticipated outside of science-fiction movies…”
And the worst-case scenarios of the nuclear power industry — which, as Chris Mooney reminds us, were used by liberals in the 1970s to scare up opposition to nuclear power.
So it seems the “Straight Talk Express” remains off the rails…
Here’s how they deal with nukular safety in Oilahoma:
“It is alleged that Karen Silkwood was negligently or purposefully contaminated with plutonium, while working at Kerr-McGee’s Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site investigating safety violations at the plant. Her activism and November 1974 death were the subject of the 1983 film Silkwood. In a civil suit against Kerr-McGee by the Estate of Karen Silkwood, Judge Frank Theis told the jury, “If you find that the damage to the person or property of Karen Silkwood resulted from the operation of this plant, Kerr-McGee is liable.”[42]
The jury rendered its verdict of $505,000 in damages and $10,000,000 in punitive damages. On appeal, the judgment was reduced to $5,000.[43] In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court restored the original verdict (Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U.S. 283 (1984)).[44] The suit was headed for retrial when Kerr-McGee settled out of court in 1986 for $1.38 million, admitting no liability.[42][45]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerr-McGee#Nuclear_production