-=> LEONARD ERICKSON wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 WC> Really now, last I looked the half lives of plutonium
 WC> and uranium ran into hundreds of millions of years.

 LE> Sure, and they aren't *dangerous. Or no more dangerous than the
 LE> original ore.

Plutonium isn't found in ore, it's bred in reactors.
Plutonium is deadly dangerous, a speck of plutonium oxide
in your lungs and you're dead.
The amount launched in the Cassini space probe to power it's
RTG power source if equally dispersed could have killed most
everone on the planet. Much was mentioned about this at the time
of launch. Now refined uranium fuel pellets previous
to their use is actually safer than uranium ore
just because of those short half-lived isotopes
you mention in the next sentence.

 LE> The intensity (and thus *hazard* of a radioactive material is
 LE> inversely proportion to the halflife.

 Yes and I was most unhappy when I found out my brother the geologist
 had stored a significant amount of pitchblend in the basement where
 I loaded my 35 mm film developing canister.
 I lost hundreds of dollars in film and chemicals never
 guessing what lay right behind me stored on a shelf.
 Radioactive strontium, cesium and iodine are rather deadly and 
 concentrate in different parts of the body but I fear not finding them
 in nature but in a reactor breach.

 WC> In fact it is these very daughter products that make uranium
 WC> and plutonium used in a nuclear reactor so much more deadly
 WC> in the first place. It's a fact you can hold a freshly
 WC> manufactured near pure uranium pellet in your hand for
 WC> a couple of minutes with no significant harm.

 LE> Actually, you could probably hold it there for a *lot* longer than that
 LE> without exceeding the exposure limits.

I'll allow 30 minutes or so. I don't believe there's a minimum
safe level. Airline stewardesses die from a greater proportion 
of cancers because they fly high and so part of the Earth
atmospheric shelter is bypassed.
Theoretically a single cosmic ray striking just the right place 
in one's DNA could doom one to a deadly cancer.

 WC> Don't try this with the same pellet at the end of it's fuel cycle
 WC> as you'll wind up dead. Plutonium isn't safe from the get go because
 WC> it  can spontanously burst into flames generating plutonium oxide
 WC> fumes easily inhaled and quite deadly, examples avaialable
 WC> by researching Rocky Flats and other sites where such has occured.
 WC> Yucca Flats permanent nuclear storage facility is not geologically
 WC> stable having had a quake there that caused significant damage to
 WC> surface buildings just 18 years ago. Scientists have said
 WC> this site may never be suitable for permanent storage yet
 WC> politicians have given it the go ahead.

 WC> Bear in mind this stuff only needs to be jarred around some so
 WC> that a sufficient quantity generates enough heat to cause
 WC> a steam, non-nuclear, explosion sreading this crap far and wide.

 LE> That's utter bullshit. The waste that is that active is still stored
 LE> underwater at the reactors. After a year or two (maybe less, I don't
 LE> have references handy) the most active (and dangerous) daughter
 LE> isotopes have decayed. And the rods are less radioactive and not
 LE> generating anywhere *near* the heat required for that.

Put enough of it in a confined space and it will.
Dan Rather spoke atop a huge concrete dome on a Pacific atol
where debris from a bomb test was stored and he declared
he had at most 30 minutes safe there and it would remain
deadly for tens of thousands of years.
I don't have the half lives for cesium, strontium or
iodine at hand but they are not hard to look up and I 
know plutonium remains dangerous for a VERY long time.
It's worth noting that plans under way anticipate
using a uranium - plutonium mix in reactors making such
expended fuel rods far more dangerous for far longer
as well as to create a nuclear weapons proliferation
nightmare.

 LE> It's only going to be moved to the long term storage sites *after* it's
 LE> gotten to that point.

So far as I know NONE has been moved to a permanent storage site.
Nor am I aware of any such safe permanent storage site nor
means to transport it. Casks designed to transport
such materials and designed to withstand enormous heat
and collisions have already been found to have sagged in the middle
with resulting cracks rendering some of them unusable.

 WC> This DID happen in the USSR during their weapons development program
 WC> and there are very questionable storage tanks at the Hanford
 WC> Washington site as well.

 LE> Yes, and they hold very different sorts of waste. Stuff that happens in
 LE> weapons production and research isn't dealing with
"spent" fuel either.
 
One word, MOX, latest thing in long term projections for nuclear
power generation and it produces just these sorts of very hazardous
wastes.
 
 LE> It's dealing with enriched uranium or plutonium. Enriched to 90% or
 LE> better. Power reactors don't use fuel that's anywhere *near* that
 LE> level.

 It ain't the uranium I'm worried about, it's the transuranics,
 proposed MOX fueled reactors and fast breeders.

 LE> You are comparing apples and oranges.

I'm unaware of apples or oranges being used in either 
nuclear reactors or weapons.

 LE> Reactor waste from regular power reactors isn't liquid either.

Not what I meant by "soup", I was speaking of all thise nasty 
transuranics produced during the fuel rod's time in the reactor.
And yes there have been spillages of liquids at lethal levels.
One worker opened a valve on a supposedly sanitized storage cask
and out poured contaminated liquid. Later readings indicated
being in close proximity for 30 minutes would have been lethal.
Another cask was found to be externally contaminated but
one smart fellow decided, hey why not just paint it
to immobilize the contamination?
Good idea, would have been better if it hadn't been _water based_
paint and it hadn't rained during transport contaminating
hundreds of miles of roadway.

 LE> And such liquid waste as is going to need long term storage is going to
 LE> be converted to something solid before they try storing it.

Ya huh, you mean like at Hanford?
Where the stuff is sitting adjacent to the Columbia river?
They _talk_ about cleaning up that mess but has anyone
_done_ anything?
I do agree however most liquids will be solidified but that presents 
it's own problems.
Were you aware critical masses of liquids have occured
in laboratories by using improperly shapped containers
resulting in the grizzly deaths of some unfortunates?
Then to the incident in Japan where workers striving
to increase efficiency put 5 times the amount of
material to be reprocessed into a bucket?
Result, critical mass, alpha, beta, gamma and neutron radiation
as well as blue air. Two workers died rather quickly, 30 or
so other later and estimates for the neighborhood run to
a few thousand possible related deaths over the years.
How long did that reaction go unchecked? Something like a
day? Hey nuclear fuel reprocessor workers... ever hear of
_criticality_. Not in this celibrated case.
 
 LE> Those tanks at Hanford are a royal mess. Mostly due to nobody wanting
 LE> to spend the money on doing something better.

 Right next to the Columbia river too :-(
 Hey it was handy for cooling those graphite reactors and such
 during the weapons program but a bit of a liabilty now
 don't you think?

 WC> You say these radioactive elements only remain active and dangerous
 WC> for three hundred years?

 LE> I said that after 300 years theyt werre no more radioactive than the
 LE> original *ore*. That's not the same thing.

Once again, transuranics and plutonium.
Radium has a very short half life but it's created by the decay
of other unstable materials. Just where in the world does one find
plutonium ore pray tell and tell me again it's as safe as
_plutonium ore_? after three hundred years?

 LE> The point being that if its no more active than the original ore, then
 LE> it *doesn't* need the insane levels of protection that people are
 LE> calling for.

MOX fuel, Plutonium.
Now the location of that plutonium mine is exactly where?
Hey while you at it where can I mine some americium or einsteinium
while I'm out and about?

 WC> Well a great deal of the heat
 WC> from the Earth's core is generated by nuclear material, thorium
 WC> perhaps as my recollection isn't perfect.

 LE> Actually, much of it is generated by potassium-40. and it's generated
 LE> in the *mantle*, not the core.

 LE> Much of the heat is leftover heat from the formation of the planet.
 LE> Thing is, a few hundred miles of rock provides a *lot* of insulation.
 LE> So the (rather small) quantity of heat generated by radioactives deep
 LE> in the earth is trapped and accumulates. Which raises the temperature.

Uh, my reference for this is Marty Leipzig a world renowned
oil petrogeologist along with another degree or two and 
expertise in both palentology and Earth's geology.
Marty it seems ran the math one time for someone in 
in a religious skeptic echo and converted the heat released
by radioactive decay over the biblical 8,000  year
old biblical Earth. We melted. IIRC tungstun melted as well.
Marty gets to play with substantial amounts of man made 
radiologicals in his explorations.

 LE> Look up the rate at which heat flows from the interior of the earth to
 LE> the surface. Look up the heat capacity of the type of rocks in the
 LE> mantle. Work out the mass of the mantle. WWork out how much heat is
 LE> trapped in there. And then work out how long it'll take for that mucjh
 LE> heat to escape at the given transfer rate. The answer will be billions
 LE> of years. Lots of them.

 And the Sun burns coal as a source of heat.
 Sorry my H.P. scientific died and to be honest I'm not up to
 the challenge just now.
 Guess what, I was once pro-nuclear but then I started to READ.

 WC> Guess the world is only three hundred years old written history
 WC> not withstanding.

 LE> No, the problem isd that you (like the people I'm complaining about)
 LE> can't be bothered with *details*.

Have a chat with Martin Leipzig, he'll drowned you in details.

 LE> I didn't say that the stuff totsally decayed in 300 years. Hell, it
 LE> won't be "totally" decayed for trillions of years for the
longer lived
 LE> isotopes. So what?

So what, transuranics. Killed Marie Curie after destroying her health.

 LE> *Everything* is radioactive to some extent. What matters is *how*
 LE> radioactive it is.

 Yes I know, played with a cloud chamber in junior high, encapsulated
 radioisotopes too. An ordinary lamp mantle makes for an interesting
 display in an easily constructed cloud chamber.
 Waiting for a naturally occuring cosmic ray requires a bit of 
 patience though.

 LE> And in 300 years those high level wastes will be no more radioactive
 LE> than uranium ore. Uranium ore is far more radioactive than a piece of
 LE> granite. But it's not a hazard unless you plan on living surrounded by
 LE> it.

 I'm still rather worried about the enormous volumes of such materials
 and their transuranics.
 Where is that plutonium mine again?
 
 LE> and granite is just as radioactive as those rocks in the mantle that
 LE> help maintain the internal temperature of the earth.

 Well that explains those sweltering winters including
 one where the harbor open to the north atlantic froze over.
 Marblehead MA. is built on one huge honking chuck of granite
 and plenty of people had boulders of the stuff taking up
 half their basements. 
 
 WC> Do a net search on "nuclear accidents."

 LE> Which is irrelevant to the topic of the long term storage site and how
 LE> long it needs to be "safe".

Which requires other information, how MUCH radiological material
and in what proximity. Enough spent fuel rods in close enough
proximity spells trouble, either steam explosion or criticality.
That's why Yucca Flats being geologically unstable is unsuitable.
There's a LOT of spent nuclear fuel assemblys sitting in cooling ponds.

 LE> Why don't *you* do some research (and it'll take a lot more than a
 LE> simple web search) on the number of accidents every year due to mining
 LE> porocessing and transporting coal. Then add in the problems with
 LE> disposing of the ash and the sludge from stack scrunbbers. \
 
Don't have to as I'm aware of this. In fact our illustrious
President has just deemed coal can be burned with LESS
use of scrubbers releasing MORE toxins into the atmosphere.

 LE> also find
 LE> out how much radiuoactive material (from naturally occuring
 LE> radioactives in the coal) is released into the air by a coal fired
 LE> power plant every year (hint it's huindred or thousands of times what a
 LE> nuclear plant is allowed).

Allowed and reality are different things, even Three Mile Island vented
radiation that would put a coal plant to shame during it's "burp."

 WC> You'll get hits on everything from an entire town in
 WC> Mexico contaminated by a single source that killed dozens,

 LE> Due to improper disposal of a piece of *medical* equipment. And due to
 LE> uneducated peoiple deciding that the piece of *glowing* (from air
 LE> ionization due to *extreme* radiation levels) metal was "magic" and
 LE> showing it off to everyone.

 That's the incident. IMHO more radiation in the environment 
 isn't better.

 WC> 20,000 sources lost annually at Logan airport alone. Radioactive
 WC> seeds being left in cancer patients who died as a result.
 WC> A missing H-bomb off Thule Greenland, Spain and in a swamp
 WC> in the southeastern United States. Many thousands of more examples.

 LE> And none of them have a thing to do with nuclear power or disposal of
 LE> waste from nuclear plants. Those would all still happen (or not happen,
 LE> in the case of some of the nuclear bomb items you mention, since the
 LE> bombs were located)

Ah to the best of my knowledge only the bomb lost off the coast
of Spain was recovered. There's dispute about the Thule incident
with many maintaining one skipped off into the ocean while
two others made for a real mess to clean up.
Had heard the search for the one dropped by air into the swamp 
had been discontinued. Plenty of other reactors and bombs, nuke
torpedoes in the ocean too, mostly Russian but some American too,
Thresher and Scorpian. Some of the Russion torpedoes are of concern
as they ARE leaking in commercial fishing grounds.
 
 WC> Near me in Mulberry Florida people die at an accelerated
 WC> cancer rate from radon gas at a rate of three to six times
 WC> the national average depending on who you take as a reliable source
 WC> and this is a daughter product of your natural uranium
 WC> you claim is so safe and it's not even high grade uranium
 WC> ore but merely the trace amounts found along with
 WC> phosphate mining. Plenty of dead uranium miners too.

 LE> Which is my exact point. This has nothing to do with nuclear waste
 LE> disposal.

 My point is a little radiation is bad, lots more is lots worse.
 See Chernobyl or Windscale at Sellafield  England.

 LE> People have higher cancer rates from living at high altitudes, from
 LE> living where there's more igneous rock, from dozens of other *natural*
 LE> sources.

Name one natural source that's in the ballpark with
a plutonium - uranium MOX fuel assembly.

 LE> If after 300 years, the waste is no more dangerous than a naturally
 LE> occuring material, and is buried deep underground, then I say we've
 LE> done enough. There are *millions* of equal hazards that anybody digging
 LE> or drilling could expose. so why waste the extra effort.

Because the technology simply isn't there and man is stupid.
Reactor vessels are becoming embrittled far faster then expected
and this would only be worse with MOX.
We got damned lucky with Three Mile Island and luck it was
considering some 1/3 - 2/3rds of the nuclear material
ended up in the bottom of the reactor.
Did you see the NOVA episode on the journey into the 
Chernobyl sarchophgous, big honking chunk of core
sitting in a room that one could only peer into for seconds with
protective gear.

 LE> LIFE IS NOT SAFE. PERIOD.

So let's spread around some more deadly toxic compounds.
We're already killing off hundreds of species, the day will 
come where we exceed the capacity of the planet to take it
and still sustain life.
Where to go? Got a superluminal space ship drive handy?
I like wind, solar, and the vastly underutilized wave action power
that's actively being developed overseas.
The U.S. has a LOT of coastline and there's a LOT of energy to be had
there. No CO2, no sludge, no radiation to speak of and best of
all it's renewable powered by the Sun's impact.
Imagine if you will if every rooftop in the U.S. was half
covered with solar panels. Prices for solar ARE dropping,
efficiencies are going up and fossel fuels are finite
as well as destructive and will increase in price as they run out
making alternatives attractive.
Take a note from nature, it seems to utilize energy in freely
available forms, convert and utilize it.

 LE> Trying to make this safer than the natural ore is wasting time effort
 LE> and money that could better be spent elsewhere.

MOX, transuranics, plutonium ore?

 LE> I could go on about other things, such as Three Mile Island being proof
 LE> of how *well* designed US reactors are. They had far more things go
 LE> wrong, most due to human error,

 WC> You mean human error such as the stuck pressure relief valve
 WC> and defective indicator light on that same valve at TMI?
 WC> The human reactors operators were performing precisely
 WC> according to the book by draining reactor water under
 WC> the assumption the reactor was _overfilled_ and thus the low
 WC> pressure when in fact _two_ simultanious  _technological_ failures
 WC> led to this erronious pressure reading.

 LE> And accordiung to all the "experts" in the antinuclear
camp *before*
 LE> that accident, any one of the *several* things that went wrong were
 LE> "guaranteed" to have resulted in somethinhg worse than Chernobyl.

Got a quote on referencable credible source for "Guaranteed"
and if you really read the material on that incident it was 
FAR closer to catastrophic then generally known.

 WC> Here's another example, read "We Almost Lost Detroit",
 WC> a rather interesting read about a nuclear reactor outside
 WC> Detroit over which operators fussed and fumed over a month
 WC> afraid to do ANYTHING because it might disturb a near critical
 WC> mass at the bottom of the reactor. Eventually
 WC> the entire reactor was dismantled, shipped off in containers
 WC> and buried. The same thing nearly happened at TMI both
 WC> between the hydrogen bubble of unknown size and the
 WC> melted mass of enriched uranium at the base of the reactor
 WC> of which no-one knew how close it was to criticality.
 WC> These are _technological_ errors not human ones and
 WC> who the heck cares where the fault lies anywy when the consequences
 WC> are so terrible?

 LE> Scaremongering. The fact is that reactors have to have critical mass to
 LE> *work*. They *can't* explode like a muclear bomb. The worst you can get
 LE> from an accidental assembly of a critical mass is a "squib"
 LE> explosion. Which would be nasty enough if you were standing next to it
 LE> but is well within the specs for the containment vessel.

Squib aside what about a meltdown? TMI was well on it's
way and at Chernobly they tunneled under placing boron
moderator under the plant as well as dropping it from helicopters.
From my reading no contaimnet vessel would have restrained Chernobyl.
Hell the reactor refueling door weighing some ungodly number of tons
was thrown 800 feet ito the air.

 LE> Try finding a copy of "The Health Hazards of NOT Using Nuclear
Power".
 LE> (I think that was the title.

 I've read similar if not that specifically.
 Ever think enviromentally friendly renewable energy?
 Or is the thrill of the gleaming technology the thing?

 LE> It does a comparison between the health effects of generating power for
 LE> the entire lifecycle. That means mining the fuel processing it,
 LE> transporting it, using it and disposing of the wastes. The hazards of
 LE> coal, both as increased cancer risks, black lung, mine cave-ins, train
 LE> accidents, etc are so much higher it's not even funny.

That's why I like environmentally friendly sources and conservation.

 WC> It's been soft peddled but look at the projected death tolls
 WC> from Windscale in southern England as well as those from
 WC> Chernobyl. Speaking of human error, how about transporting
 WC> all that rad waste across the country?

 LE> How about transporting all that coal that will be needed to replace it?
 LE> And disposaing of the toxic sludge from stack scrubbers?

Seems to me England has quite a coastline too and all that tidal
action going to waste :-(

 WC> I've spent literally hundreds of hours reading up on actual
 WC> nuclear accidents either on the net or in books and I've not
 WC> even breached the subject of a dirty bomb or terrorists
 WC> getting their hands on weapons grade materials.

 LE> Pity you haven't read up on the science involved and the facts as
 LE> presented by the *rational* folks. 
 
Guess you don't include the Union of Concerned Scientists as rational,
not impressed with degrees?
I read varied sources including one idiot that said he's willing
to *eat* plutonium to prove it's safe.
I say let's grind it up and let him snort some.
The dude _might_ pass some metallic plutonium safely if the
material didn't react with acids and some remain in the body 
but particulates in the lungs would surely kill him.

 LE> Nor considered that *everything* is
 LE> hazardous and tried comparting the risks of nuclear to the risks of
 LE> other things.

 Florida power is now utilizing some solar generated power
 in it's grid. Doesn't seem too dangerous to me and safer chemical
 have been found to manufacture the cells as well as other
 solar cell materials.

 LE> 9/11 kill more people than Chernobyl (and the fumes from the fire will
 LE> probably kill more from long term effects). You going to ban airliners?

Reasonable estimates I've seen on Chernobyl are 130,000 and many 
maintain that's quite conwservative.

 WC> We're still storing spent fuel rods on sites at nuke
 WC> plants because there is nothing else we CAN do with it
 WC> and think what a lovely terrorist target all that contaminated
 WC> soup would be.

 WC> We protect football stadiums with concrete barriers
 WC> to keep out truck bombs but as yet do no such thing at
 WC> nuclear plants in populated areas.

 LE> Do your research. a truck bomb wouldn't *scratch* the containment
 LE> vessel. You *might* crack it by crasshing an airliner into it.

 I was thinking about a dirty bomb using the fuel rod storage
 and the material i've read on containment says NOTHING
 about it being designed to withstand a fully fueled jumbo jet.
 Of course a well equipped terrorist migh use HE shaped charges
 and kill water circulation as well as drop the local grid.
 Or you could detonnate a compressed magnetic device and kill
 all electronic controls and monitors in the area.
 These devices are remarkably simple.
 Are all containment buildings also constructed
 as Faraday sheilds?

 LE> than any "worst case" put forth by the
 LE> anti-nuke camp and yet all that happened that "shouldn't"
have was the
 LE> release of an amount of radioactive material that's dwarfed by both
 LE> natural radiation and by the radioactives released *hourly* by
 LE> coal-fired power plants (which produce far more waste than nukes do and
 LE> it is toxic *forever*)

 WC> Yeah,  a trivial amount was released by Chernobyl,

 LE> We were talking about Three milre Island. Which had a proper
 LE> containment vessel.

Everything I read on chernobyl said western style containment would 
have failed. Don't forget England's Windscale.

 LE> Chernobyl is an classic example of how *not* to design a reactor. 
 
See Hanford Washington U.S.A., see Sellafield England.

 LE> *No*
 LE> containment vessel whatseover. If that reactor had been inside a US or
 LE> European design containment vessel there'd have been *zero* radiation
 LE> release.

 Not from dozens of rather lengthy paper's by experts I've read.
 How many of the U.S. graphite reactors at Hanford have containment?
 Fact is the Chernobyl reactor catastrophic failure
 exceeded what engineering designers consider a credible
 accident. Cost DOES play a factor in design consideration.

 LE> Again, you compare apples to oranges and shift the subject when the
 LE> facts are against you.

 I proclaim to you and the world I am not afraid of apples and oranges,
 in fact I've had them in my house.
 I do NOT have radioactive cesium, strontium or plutonium in my house
 and being from the northeast during the above ground nuke tests
 damned little in my bones.
 I do have a tiny amount of Americium on hand however.
 
 LE> Even so, compare the eeffects from Chernobyl (arguably the worst
 LE> possible accident), With the effects that were predicted for "a major
 LE> accident" by the anti-nuke people before that time.

 What's 130,000 people dead give or take.

 LE> I believe you'll find that again, their predictions far exceed the
 LE> reality. Though part of that was due to the Russians not having the
 LE> reactor near a major population center.

 We've got reactors in New York, one just had a numnber of steam
 tube failures and engineers said a few more would have led to a 
 radiation release. The government a few years back _relaxed_
 the safety standards for steam tube replacement and they can now
 be corroded 2/3rds ofthe way through before requiring replacement.
 This was done for ECONOMIC resons and obviously not safety
 because even existing reactors are not economical without
 subsidy or ignoring waste disposal or decommissioning costs.

 LE> But a "Western" reactor *cannot* go up that way.

 I never said a graphite reactor and light water pressurized reactor
 could "go up" the same way.
 A light water reactor can still uncover the core and melt
 down.

 WC> radiation alarms, mass killings  of raindeer herds due to
 WC> contamination

 LE> Please be clear. The herds were killed BY HUMANS because they were
 LE> contaminated. They were not killed *by* the contamination.

 Never said they were however they were used as food by locals so had
 to be killed to prevent people being contaminated and dying
 from cancers.

 WC> Windscale in England had everyone guzzling iodine tablets so not
 WC> as to take up the radioactive isotope in their thyroids and the
 WC> English killed most of their dairy cattle in Southern England
 WC> because they were way above supposed safe levels of contamination.
 WC> Strontium and Cesium are't too nice either and are taken
 WC> up and concentrated in different body parts and these
 WC> are just a few of the istopes that come out with those
 WC> spent fuel rods.

 LE> And look up the deaths from the "Black Fogs" in London back before
 LE> pollution controls were placed on coal burning.

Again who said I support the use of coal?
I like renewable sources that will soon be quite economical 
as finite fuel sources dry up.
I also support conservation technologies.
Nuclear power has NEVER been "cheap dependable nuclear power" nor
"too cheap to meter" as it was first touted.
Costs of nuclear power DO NOT take into account permanent
waste disposal, power plant decommissioning nor
real liability costs as the government has artificially capped 
that. Seems to me some bean counters and engineers had to first figure
a catastrophic failure would be uninsurable before lobbyists 
pushed for that government liability cap which is just another subsidy
thus not reflecting the true cost.
That the government imposed the liability cap seems to indicate
they consider catastrophic nuclear plant failure credible.

 WC> So answer this question, since nuclear power is so
 WC> cheap, dependable and technologically mature why are no new
 WC> nuke plants being built in the U.S. and why did the U.S.
 WC> government find it necessary to place a unrealistically
 WC> low insurance liability cap on the industry?

 LE> No new powerplants *period* were being built for a while in the US.
 LE> That's because the anti-nuke folks got laws passed that made it illegal
 LE> for a power utility to get any of the cost of a power plant paid out of
 LE> the money collected from ratepayers (ie power customers) until after
 LE> the plant was online and producing power.

 So the way we're currently producing power is cheaper, got you.
 Still I'm for renewable power not nuclear or fossil fuels.
 As I use a mere 32 dollars in power in an average month
 for the last year I suspect alternate energy would be
 a real credible alternative for me.

 LE> Since it takes a good 10 years to build a plant (and a moderate chunk
 LE> of that time is getting permits and doing "environmental impact
 LE> statements", and it's *very* expensive, this means that the utilities
 LE> would have to borrow the money for construction and have to borrow at a
 LE> nasty interest rate because they couldn't make reasonable payments
 LE> until *after* the plant was online. at which time, the customers will
 LE> be paying about *double* what they would have if those laws hadn't been
 LE> in effect.

Got a local plant here, Crytal River, spent it's first five years
or so online about 30 percent of the time, then it required
many millions in major safety upgrades. Been doing better lately
but of course it's reactor vessel is getting embrittled
and power users here will soon be paying for it's decommissioning.

 LE> Oh yes, the same people got a law passed in my state making it iollegal
 LE> to store "low level waste" (defined as being more than some truly
 LE> miniscule level of radiation) without all sorts of complex and
 LE> expensive safeguards.

 LE> Shortly after it passed, a companty got cited under the law. They had
 LE> nothing to do with radioisotopes otr the like. They produced certain
 LE> rare metals from monazite sand. And the "sludge"
(non-toxic, btw) from
 LE> the processing was radioactive, due to the refining out of the other
 LE> metals esentially concentrating (*not* "enriching") the *natural*
 LE> radioactive elements in it.

 Well then the world is going to starve because Florida is 
 THE leading export of phisphate used in fertilizers and 
 the mining of it does release radiation into the environment.
 I would not live in Mulberry or Bartow FL, in fact it
 was one of the reasons, not the biggest, 
 I didn't follow a former employer there.
 
 LE> So they had to pay huge amounts of money to move the settling ponds
 LE> (which might get flooded by the nearby riover once every few hundred
 LE> years) aand do a bunch of other stuff. They damn near moved out of the
 LE> state over it.

 LE> The pont being that all these laws were written to *sound* reasonable
 LE> to voters, but were intended to make it impossible to do things that
 LE> (rather small) anti-nuke groups didn't want done. What they actually
 LE> did was impose totaly unreasonable burdens on various things.

 Rather then the impossible burden both economic and health
 rad waste poses.

 LE> Oh yes, that law about paying for power plants after the fact is why
 LE> power companies were so willing to *pay* people for buying more energy
 LE> efficient appliances, and sent out compact flourescent bulbs and the
 LE> like. They couldn't afford to build more capacity, so they had to
 LE> reduce demand.

 My biggest bill in the last three years has been 53 dollars
 and I'm about to replace my air conditioner with one with a higher 
 energy efficientcy rating.
 
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