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Energy
So,
we have some long term energy problems with our dependence on
fossil fuels. There really isn't much question about that.
And the talk about reviving
the nuclear energy industry has started. The energy industry now
says we need
to start licensing and building nuclear power plants to reduce
our dependence on petroleum power. There are a
few problems with this approach that won't get much airtime
because the business of building nuclear power plants is going
to have some serious support from industries that stand to make
a profit in the construction. But here is at least part of the
downside:
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We still don't know of a safe place to store
radioactive
waste. We have tried storing it in big underground
tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Guess what?
The radioactive waste has a half-life of several thousand
years and it appears that the tanks have a full life of less
than 100 years. Many of these tanks are leaking and
there is a radioactive plume of
contaminated groundwater
heading for the Columbia River.
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Hanford is pretty much shot for nuclear storage at this
point. Washington State passed
Initiative 297 by a 69% to 31% vote tally to bar
importation of more nuclear waste to the Evergreen State.
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Thank goodness the waste is headed to a safe place like
Yucca Mountain, right? Well
maybe it's a safe place to store radioactive material
for ten thousand years. And maybe it's not.
Do we have other choices? Could we choose
power sources that are clean and safe? Power sources that will
still be producing power when our grandchildren are enjoying
time with their grandchildren? Instead of getting a
national energy policy that could serve us all well and move us
toward a sustainable future the United States Federal Government
has passed an energy policy in 2005 that is aimed at continuing
burning fossil fuels. There is apparently no consideration
for the impact of global warming in this energy bill. This
is really the energy industry bill of 2005.
The
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
continues to be a battleground between the
energy
industry and folks who think it may be time to planning for
a post fossil fuel world. The conservative
estimate is that there are about
6 billion barrels of oil to be pumped in this pristine
wilderness. Sounds like a lot, right? Guess what, 6
billion barrels is one year of
United States oil consumption. The most optimistic estimate
is that ANWR can produce about 20 billion barrels of oil.
That is three years supply for the United States. The actual
ability to pump oil out of the ground at ANWR will actually only
produce 10 to 40 days of United States oil consumption per year.
That's not a piddling amount, but if you factor in the 1 to 3
year reserves at ANWR, and if you stop to think about global
warming, it becomes increasingly obvious that the oil at ANWR
should stay right where it is. We really have no use for
it. We are burning oil to run bigger air conditioners to
battle the global warming caused by burning oil. We are
creating war zones, committing mechanized military units to
areas of the planet where there are significant oil reserves
that are not under our control. We have the military and
military hardware, but guess what? Our military runs on
the very fossil fuels that we are seeking to control through the
use of our military might. Anybody
see any problems with our planning? Is there a
better way?
The greenhouse gas issue is actually
more complex than global warming and will come to be known more
appropriately as global climate change. Some places are
probably going to get colder.
Hurricanes are
likely to get stronger. But if you are Australian, the
outlook is for heat. And if you lived in
Phoenix in the summer of 2005, or if you live in
California in the summer of 2006, global warming could seem
like an apt description. The temperature in California at
one point: 132 degrees. Here are the stats for heat deaths
from 1999-2003:
54% increase in rate of deaths.
So there will be lots of
discussion about the fact that nuclear power does not create greenhouse gases
like the fossil fuel power industry, and that is true, but just remember the
nuclear waste problem. One of the ways around the
storage problems of nuclear waste is to just let in leak into
the ground water. We wouldn't let that happen, would we? Well,
maybe a little
tritium here and there won't be noticed, right? So,
what can we do with groundwater contaminated with tritium?
How about just piping it out and
dumping it in the Pacific Ocean? Folks, we really
should not build any more nuclear power plants until the
industry shows that they can manage the process, control and
contain the waste products, and come up with a reliable plan
that shows that the nuclear waste is going to be recycled into
all kinds of terrible weapons.
Here is a really distressing
slide
show about the long term human impact of the human errors at
Chernobyl. You have to put your mouse over the pictures to
open the commentary. This is pretty awful. If you
are already a believer that nuclear power is not safe for our
grandchildren and their grandchildren, maybe you should skip
this one. If you think Chernobyl was not that big a deal,
you really should review these slides. Nuff said.
Check out our friends at the
Energy Outreach Center. Ideas and projects that are good for
a business cycle or two, then dangerous for ten thousand years
may not be the way we really want to go.
If you are visiting the Olympia area and
have an interest in the green life, consider laying over at
Fertile Ground Guesthouse.
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