Newsgroups: alt.activism.d,sci.energy,talk.environment From: John De Armond Subject: Reprocessing Re: EDITORIAL: Japan: What's the Plutonium For? Message-ID: <7lzqrwb@dixie.com> Date: Mon, 30 Nov 92 18:00:59 GMT ems@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith) writes: >This is my major complaint with BOTH the 'environmental movement' AND >the nuclear power industry. The Greenpeace folks want all Pu burried >rather than (nuclear) burned up. The nuke industry wants to just stuff >spent fuel rods in a hole in Nevada and call it waste disposal, when >they should really be reprocessed to remove the fuel. (I know, some >of the nuclear industry is pro-reprocessing, but most of the power >structure seems to be Gung-Ho on burial for reasons beyond me...). I thought we'd been over this once before. The industry "wants" to put fuel in holes ONLY because that is the method the goverment has told them MIGHT be acceptable and thus MIGHT have a stable regulatory environment. Run your Wayback Machine back to the administration of the Georgia White Trash. Remember that HE killed reprocessing under the guise of a proliferation risk. The subsequent 12 years of non-policy did nothing to fix things. Here is what the utilities want. They want to make power: * As inexpensively as possible. * In as stable a regulatory environment as possible. * Using materials whose acquisition and disposal is well-defined and stable. * in any manner that does not cause a ruckus and makes a little money for the stockholders. In the 60s utilities (and their stockholders) were willing to innovate and take risks. After the bloody 70s (both nuclear and fossil), that's all gone. If the government wants them to waste government money on demonstration projects with no hope of commercialization, so be it. If the government wants them to burn cow shit and spray the ashes across the sky and they can make money doing it, so be it. Given that nuclear is a part of the production scene, if the government wants the utility to store the spent fuel in a water-filled pit and will let them recover the cost, so be it. If the government wants them to drill holes in the ground and dump the fuel in, so be it. That one method is "right or wrong" doesn't seem to enter into the discussion anymore. The only concern is whether the government likes it and whether they can keep the stockholders happy. A real 90s way of doing business. John From: John De Armond Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?) Message-ID: <vxdm22h@dixie.com> Date: 21 Jul 92 15:21:12 GMT In article <1992Jul17.163846.15871@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU:, gsh7w@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes: : When the regulations are properly followed, nuclear power is : reasonable safe. When regulations are properly followed, medical waste : is reasonable safe. ... : When will happen WHEN someone shady operator dumps radioactive waste : somewhere? It has happened before (Brazil) and will happen again. Based on 50 years of experience, that simply will not happen in the US. The licensing requirements are so stringent for every entity that touches the stuff and the fines for even paper transgressions so severe that shady operators don't exist. Consider that the NRC considers liability for FUPs to be joint and several, meaning that all parties involved are fully liable for the FUP. Further consider that $100,000 fines from the NRC for even simple things like paperwork foulups are not uncommon, and what we have is a rather draconian and grossly expensive system of disposal that nontheless works. Interesting to try to make a point by comparing what might happen in the US to events in one of the more environmentally disasterous third world countries. John |