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From: renner@uiucdcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Sevener vs. Wheeler on nuclear power - (nf)
Message-ID: <36200126@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Apr-84 03:56:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.36200126
Posted: Fri Apr 13 03:56:00 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Apr-84 07:14:57 EST
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Nf-ID: #R:azure:-268100:uiucdcs:36200126:000:2786
Nf-From: uiucdcs!renner    Apr 13 02:56:00 1984

#R:azure:-268100:uiucdcs:36200126:000:2786
uiucdcs!renner    Apr 13 02:56:00 1984

>  b) According to Ralph Nader, nuclear plants are more polluting than
>  their fossil fueled equivalents if you look at the total picture.  That
>  is, if you take into account the exposed tailings from uranium mines,
>  the environmental impact of a nuclear plant is greater than a
>  coal-fired plant.  And when you begin to consider the possibility of an
>  accident, well, I don't think that there's much of a contest.
   
Ralph Nader is a dangerous man; he says incredibly stupid things, and many
people take him seriously.  This is the man that gave us the seat belt
interlock circuit.  (Interlock circuit lobotomies were one of the most
popular auto repairs for the year or so that these devices were inflicted
upon us.)  This is the man that with great fanfare switched from an
electric typewriter to a manual "to save electricity."  (He saved perhaps a
quarter-cup of imported oil per year.)  

Anyway, he's flat wrong about the hazards of nuclear power.  The only
viable alternitave *today* is coal, and coal is incredibly deadly.  I
have misfiled the newspaper clipping, and so cannot give a reference
for this, but a statistical study analyzed death rates from respiratory
disorders vs air pollution from coal burning, and decided that coal
burning caused 100,000 deaths annually in the U.S.

The environmental impact of coal burning is *huge* when compared to fission
power.  In 1982 power plants burned 600 million tons of coal.  Think of the
size of the strip mines needed for this.  Think of the air pollution this
will cause.  Think of all of the ash -- more than 600 million tons -- that
must be disposed of somewhere.  (It's poisonous -- it contains mercury,
arsenic, lead -- and somewhat radioactive, since the coal contains uranium,
and probably would require low-level waste storage if it came from a nuclear
power plant.)  By contrast, the wastes from all of the nuclear power plants
to date would fit into a large barn.  We can *afford* to store that sensibly,
whereas there's just so much coal ash that it gets stacked somewhere, and to
hell with what happens to the ground water.

>  c) Nuclear power provides 4% our nation's total energy needs (this is a
>  1977 figure, but it has got to be close to the current figure).  I
>  think that we could probably shut down most of the existing plants if
>  we had an aggressive, national conservation effort coupled with a
>  program to convert some of the literally thousands of existing dams to
>  hydro-electric.

Nuclear power is used only to produce electricity.  Nuclear power provides
over 12.6% of the nation's current electricity; in 1977, it provided 11.8%.
[Source: World Almanac & Book of Facts, 1984.]  In parts of New England the
figure is as high as 50%.

Scott Renner
{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner