[Rhodes22-list] Nuclear Energy

[brad haslett]

Bill, 

Your concerns about the nuclear “genie” are precisely
those of the Los Alamos scientists.  An excellent book
on the subject is “Hiroshima in America: A Half
Century of Denial” by Lifton and Mitchell. For some
very recent perspective read;

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-allison17feb17,0,2948408,print.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Bill,


http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0217/p09s01-coop.html

http://wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/nuclear.html

http://realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_13_05_SC.html

The problem with “putting it back in the bottle” is
that a number of responsible countries would have to
give up their primary power supply.  France, for
example, gets 70% of their electricity from nukes.  As
Roger pointed out, Iran doesn’t need nukes.  This
isn’t a matter of “fairness”, it’s a matter of
responsibility.  A nuclear armed Middle East might
have weapons pointed at each other but you can be
assured, they would all have nukes pointed at Israel. 
It shouldn’t be allowed to develop and the recent sale
of bunker busting bombs to Israel was most likely
designed to prevent such a thing.

The CEO of Chevron-Texaco went on record this week
with the statement, “we are running out of cheap oil”.
 While this has been predicted for over a hundred
years, we are just now hearing the largest players in
the industry state it.

Nuclear power plants are “off-the-shelf” technology
that we can implement right now.  And yes, some
nations should be prevented from having them.  The
United Nations is a morally bankrupt institution and
can’t police this issue any more than it could “oil
for food”.  How do you keep nuclear products out of
the hands of untrustworthy nations?  That Sir, IS the
question of the century.

Brad



--- Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:

> Roger,
> 
> Of course I wonder why they want it.
> 
> But that's not the point.
> 
> You and others argued for the continued development
> of Nuclear Energy.  
> That carries with it the development of nuclear
> energy by other 
> countries, as well as us--meaning that everyone will
> figure out how to 
> pack that energy into very small packages that can
> be exported at will.  
> Pakistan, a Muslim military dictatorship, has amply
> demonstrated this 
> capability by exporting bomb technology all over the
> world.
> 
> The President of the United States claims our Social
> Security system is 
> in crisis because it will be underfunded in 75
> years.  If we can look 75 
> years ahead, and plan for the future, why can't Iran
> or any other 
> country do the same thing?
> 
> World problems are complex, and they are not solved
> by simplistic 
> thinking.  I can make a case for Nuclear Energy,
> however any case for 
> nuclear energy must address the fact that everyone
> who learns that 
> technology will inevitably also learn how to create
> devastating weapons 
> using the same knowledge.
> 
> Nuclear weapons are one of the small number of
> genies that can be put 
> back into the bottle.  The whole world knew that
> Iraq didn't have 
> them--only the President of the United States
> claimed to have better 
> information than everyone else, justifying his
> invasion, at a time when 
> weapons inspectors on the ground said unequivocally
> that Iraq did not 
> currently possess nuclear weapons.
> 
> Nuclear power plants can mask the presence of
> nuclear weapons.  That's 
> why Iran wants them.  You can't say that we should
> switch to nuclear 
> energy, but at the same time we should prevent
> everyone else from doing 
> the same thing.  Either nobody gets them, or
> everybody gets them.
> 
> When push comes to shove, I think I fall on the side
> of nobody gets 
> them.  We should work to develop other means to
> harness energy.  While 
> we may run out of oil, the current model of the
> universe predicts that 
> we will always have more energy than we can safely
> use.  Certainly we 
> won't have to worry about that for the next couple
> of billion years.
> 
> So where do you fall?  Is nuclear energy too
> dangerous, or isn't it?  Is 
> it OK for Iran to have nuclear power plants, or not?
>  You can't have it 
> both ways, and people like you are the people who
> will decide how this 
> goes.  If you say the engineering equivalent of
> "Damn the 
> torpedoes--full speed ahead!" this world will be
> awash with nuclear 
> weapons.  If you say "We've got to do better!" you
> and others like you 
> can work to find energy sources that don't have the
> dangers attendant to 
> nuclear energy.
> 
> In a serious discussion of the matter, I don't see
> how you can take one 
> position with regard to "us" and a different
> position with regard to "them".
> 
> Bill Effros
> 
> 
> Roger Pihlaja wrote:
> 
> >Bill,
> >
> >You have to wonder why they want it.  Iran is
> sitting on proven reserves of
> >about 1 trillion barrels of crude oil as well as
> copious quantities of
> >natural gas.  The country has excellent warm water,
> ice-free port facilities
> >to ship their crude oil and natural gas.  They have
> a pretty good
> >intra-country pipeline and refinery infrastructure.
>  They have zero reserves
> >of uranium.  At the present rate of energy
> production & given Iran's current
> >population, GDP, & growth rate, their proven fossil
> fuel reserves will
> >supply all their internal energy and export needs
> for the next 50-75 years,
> >even if the country gets heavily into manufacturing
> petrochemicals like
> >polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon, etc.  That's
> enough time to build and
> >use up at least 1 generation of nuclear power
> plants before they are even
> >necessary.
> >
> >Gee, do you think maybe, just maybe, Iran has an
> alternate agenda here?
> >
> >Roger Pihlaja
> >S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Bill Effros" <bill at effros.com>
> >To: "R22 List" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> >Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 1:52 PM
> >Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Nucular Energy
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> >>Been meaning to ask.
> >>
> >>How 'bout that Iran?
> >>
> >>Do they get to have nuclear energy, too?
> >>
> >>Or is it only safe enough for us?
> >>
> >>Bill Effros
> >>__________________________________________________
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> >>
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >
> >__________________________________________________
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> >  
> >
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