Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!princeton!allegra!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci
Subject: Nuclear power: Petr Beckmann
Message-ID: <529@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Jul-86 20:41:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.529
Posted: Thu Jul 17 20:41:19 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jul-86 04:41:43 EDT
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Distribution: net
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 54
Xref: watmath net.politics:17467 net.sci:1295

My principal objections are aimed not at the view that we should
expand the use of nuclear power, but at the grossly simplistic way in
which the extremely complex issues of energy policy have been
presented by some of the nuclear advocates on the net.   

A case in point of gross oversimplification of the issues is the
uncritical citation of the pro-nuclear views of Petr Beckmann and
Bernard L. Cohen as if their publications were uncontroversial and
widely accepted.  Let us first consider Beckmann.

Beckmann is an electrical engineer who "went into early retirement in
1981 to devote himself fully to the defense of science, technology
and free enterprise through his monthly journal, *Access to Energy*."
He contributed an article on "Solar Energy and Other `Alternative'
Energy Sources" and one on "Coal" to *The Resourceful Earth:  A
Response to Global 2000*, ed. Julian L. Simon and Herman Kahn (1984).
This volume was reviewed in the February 1985 *Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists* by the respected biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich.  Here
is what they said about Beckmann's contributions:

 The remaining three chapters on energy -- two by Petr Beckmann on
 solar energy and coal and one by Bernard Cohen on the hazards of
 nuclear power -- fall squarely into the embarrassingly incompetent or
 deliberately misleading category.  Beckmann begins with a muddled
 discussion of what deserves to be called a "renewable" resource, then
 follows with a flat understatement of average insolation at moderate
 latitude by about a factor of two.  He posits a collection efficiency
 of 0.00008 for biomass, which is about 30 times lower than the
 correct figure for all terrestrial plants, and 60 to 300 times lower
 than the efficiencies achieved by the types of plants used or under
 investigation for energy supply.  The rest of his analysis of
 renewables is of similar quality.
 
 Beckmann's chapter on coal contains a variety of confused assertions,
 one of which is that "in the United States, for example, the
 fertility rate has dropped below the `Zero Population Growth' level,
 but its population is still expanding." ...
 
 Beckmann also dashes off one of the least valid comparisons in the
 annals of inept environmental commentary:  "A political campaign has,
 for example, succeeded in frightening the public over a minuscule
 quantity of temporarily toxic nuclear wastes while glossing over an
 annual billion tons (in the US) of coal wastes with an infinite
 lifetime, a considerable part of which is diposed of into the
 atmosphere."
 
 What billion tons could he be referring to? ... Only a tiny fraction
 [of the overburden removed in surface mining] is either particularly
 toxic or long-lived.  If it is to be included in a coal-nuclear
 comparison, so also must be the voluminous overburden from surface
 mining of uranium and the bulky and toxic tailings from uranium
 mills.  [Paul and Anne Ehrlich]

Richard Carnes