Re: [Marxism] Cockburn contrarianism

[dave.walters@xxxxxxxxxxx]

I'd like to do a series of more or less short replies to what has 
been written.

#Haines served on a nuclear submarine...

Yes, I think so. It makes him an expert of sorts. He lived 
probably six months a year underwater, 100 feet from a 
nuclear reactor that supplied his water, air and power and 
lived to tell about it! What do you know? He doesn't appear 
to be any worse off for it. And that's the point.

#Louis and Joaquin both pointed out the problems of nuclear 
energy under capitalism and Tony (another pro nuclear list member,
it seems, "under certain circumstances") agreed. 

I agree some.  If there was some evidence to back up the 
contention that "capitalism" makes it unsafe and "socialism" 
makes it safer let me know. I think neither are really true 
since nuclear energy has proven safer than ANY form of 
electric power production regardless if it was in "socialist" 
Russia or under capitalism (and this includes Chernobyl 
and TMI). There is an evolution of safety, production and 
engineering changes that occurred after these two accidents 
that completely changed the way nuclear energy is run.

#Tony brought up the issue of accelerator fission Generation...V? 
reactors being inherently safe. 

I agree but we are very far away from this. Much closer 
are other forms of reactors including ones under construction 
today that don't rely on tons of pumps and piping but 
can use ambient temperatures and passive systems to 
lower core temps. Most of these reactors STOP fissioning 
if the temperature gets too hot thus eliminating the 
chance the of a meltdown. Liquid Salt Reactors (actually 
a very old 1950s technology) are even safer than that 
since they work at one atmosphere and there is no 
"pressure" to push out radioactive material from core 
even if there was a breach. You don't even need 
containment in this case and can easily be built 
underground. I helped write the Wiki entry on this if 
you are interested (represents a lobbying effort by 
some of us to get R&D oriented to this instead of 
the current kind of nukes: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_reactor )

#Waste. 

Probably the biggest discussed issue. It really isn't "waste". 
The US gov't, the nuclear industry that has caved into anti-
nuclear activistsm, and Greenpeace, et al, all believe it's 
"waste". It's waste if you throw it away. It is not waste if 
you reuse it. Only in the US is this a serious "problem" 
because Ford and Carter killed off the US reprocessing 
program in the 1970s. Other countries recylce the 97% 
of the energy left in spent nuclear fuel and thus reduce 
tremedously the actual "waste" that is left over. You 
can actually burn the waste up almost completely if 
you reform it and use it in Canadian style heavy water 
reactors.  Or mix with plutonium from weapons. If you 
use the above mentioned accelerator or MRS driven 
reactors with Thorium (somehting Rod Holt has 
been harping on, correctly I now see, for the last few 
years here) there is about .1% of the amount of waste 
that is now produced. That's a good thing, isn't it?

How much of this stuff is there? In the US, after 50 years 
of commercial production, there is 77,000 tons of the 
heavily radioactive spent fuel that is supposed to last 
100,000 years. Think about that. 77,000 tons after 50 
years. There are 1 MILLION TONS of waste (laden 
with heavy metals that NEVER decay) and CO2 from 
ONE year at ONE coal large plant! "77,000 tons" of 
spent nuclear nucler fuel after *50 years*. Don't 
have to get excited. Just think about it. Secondly, 
the *volume* of all this spent fuel, sitting around 
unused, or unburied, or unrecycled, would fill up 
the floor of your local Home Depot about 7 feet. T
hat's it. It hasn't killed anyone or leaked, either. It 
can be managed like the Europeans and Japanese 
do. In fact it is managed even here in the center of 
the imperialist beast. I think a really nationalized 
electrical industry could do even a better job.

But the real question is what is YOUR plan for this 
waste? What is your plan for the remaining 30,000 
nuclear warheads in the world sitting on top of nuclear 
weapons? The anti-nuclear activists out there 
(Wasserman, Caldicott, Green Peace, Green Party, 
etc, etc) have "no plan". None. Zilch. Zip. Why? 
Because ANY plan to deal with nuclear waste is 
a plan that pro-nuclear activists and the industry 
world wide can use to show there is a solution to 
the "waste problem". It's a huge conundrum for 
them. Pro-nuclear activists have a plan. They want 
to continue the program of turning nuclear 
megatons in nuclear megawatts. The US nuclear 
program is currently fueled up to 50% by burning 
up Russian nuclear weapons. Socialists should 
be arguing "Yes!"...and ADD the US arsenal of 
20,000 warheads to the mix! But you will not here 
this from many (or any) anti-nuclear activists 
because they are so afraid of nuclear energy 
they just assume not deal with the waste issue or 
the weapons issue. If they shutdown nuclear enegry 
tomorrow...the "waste" and weapons are not going 
to simply disappear? So....how will any of you deal 
with the spent nuclear fuel issue?

#Joaquin brought up the issue of terrorism and/or 
if the direct targeting of nuclear plants.

Harder to respond to. I don't accept the category of 
'terror' as a serious argument. Attacking a nuclear 
power plant with anything other than military 
munitions would be foolish. If I'm going to "hit 
something" I'd hit Yankee Stadium during playoffs 
or any of the hundreds of chemical plants in northern 
New Jersey because it would kill far more people.  
An airliner would crumple like a tin can on the 
ground if it hit the containment building. Even if 
an engine breached containment, it would have 
to hit the pressure vessel down below the dome 
and even then it would have to explode. And 
someone would have to be good enough a pilot 
to actually HIT the building at the exactly right 
angle...it's not a 1100 foot building standing up 
where any place would be good to hit.

I noted that I wouldn't put it past Israel to hit an 
active nuclear power plant with bunker busters. 
So that's a question of policy and opposing war. 
If a country were going to do that, it would, and 
could, just as easily us tactical nukes or a bigger 
strategic nuke and trigger a war. My answer, 
Jaoquin, and I know it's an honest question on 
your part, is that only a political solution that 
eliminates the threat of war can really solve this 
"potential" problem...that NOT building nuclear 
power plants is a lot more frightful to me than 
building them.

We are killing and destroying vast areas of the 
world over fossil fuel and the wars that ensue 
because of it. I really don't believe people understand 
how deadly fossil is in all it's extending circumstances.

We do know one thing. Nuclear energy in the US hasn't 
killed a soul. At least not that we know of. We do 
know...and this is my biggest negative reason for nuclear 
energy, is that coal kills 30,000 people a year due to 
respiratory and cardiac problems. It is estimated that 
400,000 die a year in China because of the worse 
pollution from coal. We also know that coal is the biggest 
disperser of mercury in the environment than anything 
else. I'm in this because I want to get rid of coal now. Most...
*most* anti-nuclear advocates don't realize that their 
opposition to nuclear engenders the further production 
of coal burning, which again, I repeat, kills thousands 
right NOW. Not "maybe" or "if" scenarios...now. And 
there is the question of it being the biggest stationary 
source of carbon emissions in the world. Even under 
capitalism, if we didn't have the 20% of US power and 
16% world wide of nuclear, most likely we'd be burning 
coal and that is evil and unnecessary. More people 
would be dead. The anti-nuclear movement has been, 
objectively, responsible for all these continuing deaths 
over the last 3 decades. That, and capitalism's inability 
to build a serious national strategy of nuclear energy, 
allowing capitalism's high cost for everything to destroy 
the building program in the US (fortunatly, not in other 
countries). 

None of the current crop of 'renewables' has replaced a 
single fossil fuel plant. And they won't, either. Only nuclear 
can replace the base load reliable power coal and gas 
produces. Joaquin in a previous post noted that 'we use 
too much', meaning material, the way we produce things, 
power, etc etc. I agree. Certainly it's wasteful. But no 
scenerio I see, including his very elaborate plan really 
addresses what we do here and now and, for the future. 
There exists a growing number of nations now interested 
in stopping the use of burnig fossil and therefor killing 
people and causing climate change, raising their people's 
standard of living, and using nuclear to do this. (One can 
include Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa 
and every Gulf state among them) This is why people 
are warming up to nuclear again, everywhere. This 
alone should be a reason to discuss it, again.

David

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