The time 6 liberal Nobel Laureates were angry with Union of Concerned

[NNadir]

"Scientists."

Searching around information about the interaction between on of my heroes, the liberal Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe, and one of the organizations for which I have almost zero respect, "The Union of Concerned Scientists," I came across this precious tidbit from Richard Wilson, who is the Mallicrodt professor of Physics at Harvard University. The Context is the following letter to the editor of of The American Physical Society which can be found here:

http://phys4.harvard.edu/~wilson/publications/pp884.html

"I must disagree most strongly with the implication by Professor Salpeter in your April issue that Hans Bethe was being a moderate liberal scientist in his discussions of nuclear bombs but not being a moderate liberal scientist when he supported the development of nuclear electric power and disagreed with the positions taken on nuclear power by the Union of Concerned Scientists from 1973 on. It is an interesting paradox that in the 1960s it was liberals, usually Democrats, who supported nuclear power development and Republicans who were reluctant. Now liberals, although mostly not liberal scientists, have rejected nuclear power and by default the globe may be warming somewhat faster! To many of us, the Union of Concerned Scientists was, in 1973, incorrect and counterproductive. By taking a very public position against nuclear power, UCS deflected attention from their important position of opposition to the arms race. Bethe remained consistent...

...Hans was a conciliator. When in 1988 half a dozen liberal Nobel laureates were upset with the Union of Concerned Scientists for using their names (as they had used Hans' name) in a position paper against nuclear power, and one was threatening legal action, it was Hans who calmed them down..."

Italics are mine.

I cannot help but to point up the long term existence of pronuke liberal scientists like myself.

[wurzel]

1. Isn't the real problem disposing of nuclear waste?

I don't think anyone is against nuclear power itself. It has mostly been the handling of radioactive waste. Of course Three Mile Island didn't help. But I think that may have been hubris leading to carelessness.

[NNadir]

4. This is not the problem so much of nuclear energy as it is of all energy.

The real problem is that people focus on the problem of so called "nuclear waste" while ignoring waste from all other forms of energy related waste.

No one ever dies from the storage of nuclear waste. Many people die each year from air pollution from coal waste. Possibly everyone will die from CO2, which is the waste of all fossil fuels.

A few months ago 13 guys were killed in a refinery explosion in Texas. Nobody died or was even seriously injured at Three Mile Island.

Nuclear is a magic word, in a pavlovian universe.

[phantom power]

2. the Union of Concerned Nobel Laureates?

[thegreatwildebeest]

3. I think the heavy focus...

...by many on the issue of power generation, mostly influenced by heavy talk on peak oil and global warming, has lead to a generally myopic view from BOTH sides on the issue at hand. On the one hand you have renewable energy advocates who tend to ignore the fact that the system as it is cannot run off renewable energies. On the other you have people who insist nuclear is the only other option besides coal and natural gas that can provide power generation on a vast scale suitable to keep things running how they are, ignoring I think the fact that things cannot, and should not, be currently run the way they are. Does cutting carbon emissions matter if we have no forests left, have depleted our oceans of fish, and have damaged and desertfied acre upon acre of soil? Not really I think.

Another issue at hand that I think tends to be glossed over is where we get our energy sources from, and I don't mean just the fact that we get oil from the middle east. Some people have taken others to task for "NIMBY-ism" in regards to LNG terminals. While I oppose NIMBY-ism I don't like the idea of squeezing out the last little bit of natural gas from every pocket available just so we (ie: the developed world) can keep things operating and save our own skin by using the last remaining bits as a crutch to a transition. Increasingly large and egregious natural gas projects are being proposed in South America in order to supply the LNG market, including the highly damaging and dubious Camisea project, which plans to tear like a scar right through some of the most untouched and intact rainforest left in the world, plus displace indigenous tribes. To me I see no reason why people whose traditionals way of life does not involve huge resource extraction, profligate consumption, and lack of responsibility should be screwed because other people can't get their act together. People who tend to wax romantic about civilization (particuarly the west) seem to ignore that taht it was and is sustained off the backs of other people, and off ridiculous abuse of natural resources.