Upload
peter-riva
View
217
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
8/6/2019 Atomic Energy, Yes or No: It’s Your Call
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/atomic-energy-yes-or-no-its-your-call 1/2
July 5, 2011
Atomic Energy, Yes or No: It’s Your Call
Part of the problem with evaluating atomic energy as part of our daily lives is that most people are
too poorly educated (not stupid, just ignorant) on the science involved to really understand how it all
works and, because they don’t get the science, they are left listening to politicians (themselves pretty
ignorant) who are pushing an agenda often without any long term scientific assessment or, worse,
dependent on lobbyists who have told them what to think. I am sorry Chuck Schumer, the one issue you
have consistently been wrong on is atomic energy. Chuck was all for the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant.
$4 billion to build, $4 billion to take down. Chuck thought it was safe. Since that time, he’s been
rethinking, thankfully.
Look, a nuclear power plant is like a large teakettle. The atomic reactor makes heat, loads of it in a
controlled runaway reaction of atoms bumping into each other, smashing into the sides of their
container, bash, smash, loads of heat buildup. Put a water vessel on top of this heat and it makes steam.
The steam whistles out of the top of the kettle passing through a propeller (turbine), making it spin
which turns a generator making electricity. The water cools and is piped back into the kettle where it
reheats. Okay? Got it? Simple really. Except that anything coming in contract with either the reactor, the
fuel rods, the water that’s heated, the kettle, or anything in the vicinity needs to be kept away from
every living thing for, oh I don’t know, a thousand years. Maybe more.
There are so many of these reactors and power plants that the world is seriously worried about such
“cheap and affordable” electricity’s after care. So, hidden in government budgets, are a whole host of
agencies whose sole job is to check up on the power plant operators. Their job is to make sure the
power plants employees do not goof and send out global contamination. A plant in, say, Nebraska is just
as a big a risk as one in, say, Chernobyl.
That’s why Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) is angry. Sure, they say, the US Atomic
Energy folks can waltz into the Ukraine and tell us that we’re goofing up, but when the US has a near‐
catastrophic meltdown, not only do they not tell their citizens a few miles away, they refuse to allow
independent inspectors to verify the conditions. And what’s worse, the Administration, to keep the
public confidence high in these economic times, orders blanket censorship on all news media. How’d the
news get out? Six different international nuclear regulatory bodies have finked on the US. Meanwhile
the US’s own agencies, servants to the public, maintain “all’s well.”
8/6/2019 Atomic Energy, Yes or No: It’s Your Call
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/atomic-energy-yes-or-no-its-your-call 2/2
Located about 20 minutes outside Omaha, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a “catastrophic
loss of cooling” to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on June 7th after this plant was deluged with water
caused by historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted in a fire with radioactive gasses escaping
into the air. The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) issued a “no‐fly ban” over the area. The press was not
allowed to ask why. Media blackout.
Russian atomic scientists, however, point out that all nuclear plants in the world operate under the
guidelines of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) which clearly states the
“events” occurring at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant put the danger at “Level 4.” This is an
emergency category of an “accident with local consequences” thus making this one of the worst nuclear
accidents in US history.
Now that you know a little more, care to voice your opinion? In the next years, you’ll be asked to
vote on atomic energy at the ballot box, so it is a good thing to know something, even if it is just the
basics.