RE: GP: tick tock

["kirk" <kirk@3rivers.net>]

>They have been running some very interesting advertising recently talking
about how they are
>the world's largest solar company and how they have invested more than half
a
>billion dollars over the past five years in solar projects.

BP green = Astroturf.

The track record of man's relationship with nuclear materials and processes
is abysmal. I have heard the sophist arguments re nuclear "green" and I'm
not impressed.
Nukes have another crippling flaw. They are high tech centralized power.
That is the reason they are built, they fit in the centralized power
paradigm which is a huge cash cow to a select few. Any analysis of
centralized power should not restrict its scope to just CO2 and soot.
Excluding evaluating the fragility of centralized systems in the light of
terrorists, war, earthquake, civil unrest etc. etc. ignores potentially
devastating consequences to society in general. I suppose we won't accept
them as real until we experience a tragedy in the US.

Unfortunately the debate is "which centralized power do you choose?" When an
ice storm takes the lines down for a week you will learn to appreciate some
of the real benefits of distributed renewable power. I hope this forum will
concentrate on what can be done to make the individual free of corporate
centralized and often polluting power. I hope we will concentrate on
technology supportable without high priests in white smocks. If we concern
ourselves with what we can do at a community level arguing the pros and cons
of nuke power is an epsilon minus. We need to do something real and detach
from the existing paradigm. I was told the definition of insanity is when
you continue doing the same thing but expecting different results.

Kirk







-----Original Message-----
From: AtomicRod@aol.com [mailto:AtomicRod@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 8:35 PM
To: tomgray@igc.org; green-power@crest.org
Subject: Re: GP: tick tock



In a message dated 10/10/02 11:44:42 AM, tomgray@igc.org writes:

>> A dirty energy source causes visual pollution also but not to the some
>
>extent
>
>> a wind farm does because a wind farm is spread out over many miles where
>a
>
>> coal fired plant or a nuke plant has a small foot print.
>
>>
>
>> John D'Angelo
>
>
>
>Correct.  All they do is change the climate, generate mountains of waste,
>
>pollute and poison the air and water, spoil the pristine views with haze
>. .
>
>. but
>
>that small footprint, ya gotta love it.
>
>
>
>Meanwhile, the clock ticks on.  I buy green tags.

Tom:

You were obviously talking about coal with your above statement. The grand
total waste produced so far by all US commercial nuclear plants would
comfortably fit into a single football stadium without reaching much past
the
10th row of seats. Not exactly a mountain, even though the federal
government
and the nuclear industry stupidly insist that it will take a mountain to
house this "waste."

(I put the word in quotes since supposedly spent nuclear fuel still retains
95-97% of the initial potential energy. For some reason, many people that
would hate to throw away a single aluminum can get shudders when I tell them
that nuclear fuel should be recycled.)

Rod Adams
www.atomicinsights.com

PS: As I was writing the above a "Beyond Petroleum" aka BP (the company
formerly known as British Petroleum) commercial came on. They have been
running some very interesting advertising recently talking about how they
are
the world's largest solar company and how they have invested more than half
a
billion dollars over the past five years in solar projects.

This TV commercial stated that the company is investing $15 BILLION to find
oil and gas in North America. My parish priest (I am not Catholic but we use
the same terminology) used to tell us that he could tell where a person's
heart was by watching where he put his treasure. I suppose the same comment
applies to multinational companies.

____________________________________________________________________________

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____________________________________________________________________________
This discussion group is sponsored in part by: 
  * Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology, http://www.crest.org
  * Global Environmental Options, http://www.geonetwork.org
Archives and related documents can be found at at: http://www.green-power.com