Alexander Cockburn attacks Gore with mythology.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

Alexander Cockburn is live on C-Span right now. He said a little while ago in response to a question about Gore and a potential candidacy in 2008, that global warming is an excuse for promoting nuclear power. This guy is smoking crack with John McCain!

He is obviously well read, but appears so ideological as to be anti-scientific. Absolutely weird.

[Mabus]

1. Global warming advocates are shills for the nuclear power industry

:silly:

Catalytic converters aren't necessary, 'cuz global warming is a myth. :eyes:

[Vexatious Ape]

2. Thanks for the heads up.

[whistle]

3. Well, the 4th nuclear plants are safer and far more efficient

....than any of the previous plants. These are the thorium based high temperature gas-cooled reactors being built in China and India to be operational by 2010. Then by 2015 the following generation of fusion reactors promise not only unlimited sources of cheap safe power, but numerous isotope elements, hydrogen fuel and desalinization of sea water to curb the world's fresh water shortage. We must move in the direction of nuclear power, or we will surely fall back into an economic dark age.

<snip>
Advantages of Nuclear Power
by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD
by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD



Artemus Ward, Mark Twain’s predecessor, once said: "It ain’t the things we don't know that gets us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain’t so." Regulators know that exposure to ionizing radiation, even in very low doses, is harmful. They say that no amount of radiation can be proclaimed safe. There is no threshold below which the deleterious effects of radiation cease to appear. This "knowledge" has, indeed, caused us a lot of trouble, and it turns out not to be true. The actual truth is this: Not only are low to moderate doses of ionizing radiation not harmful, low doses of radiation are good for you. It stimulates the immune system and checks oxidation of DNA through a process known as "radiation hormesis" – and thereby prevents cancer. And irradiated mothers bear children that have a reduced incidence of congenital deformities. (See my article Afraid of Radiation? Low Doses are Good for You.)


Colombia Generating Station
Hanford Site, Kennewich, WA
Output: 1,150 MW

Owing to the public’s fear of radiation, abetted by the nuclear protection industry and the media, nuclear power in the United States is at a standstill, just when we most need it. Construction on all nuclear power plants ordered after 1974 has stopped, and no orders have been placed for any since 1978. In the last 15 years, 8 nuclear power plants in the U.S. have been shut down because of escalating regulatory costs and public fears about radiation (103 remain).

The U.S. uses fossil fuels, mainly coal and natural gas, to produce 70 percent of its electricity. Nuclear power generates 19 percent and hydroelectric dams the other 11 percent. (Energy obtained directly from the sun, gathered by mirrors or photovoltaic cells, and from wind turbines generates less than one-tenth of one percent of our electricity.) Production of electricity consumes 36 percent of the energy we use.

Oil is now used primarily for transportation – to run our automobiles, trucks, airplanes, ships, and most buses and railroad trains. Overall, the U.S. obtains 85 percent of its energy from fossil fuels – about half from oil and the other half equally from coal and natural gas. (Before drilling for oil began in the 1800s, humans had just two main sources of energy, other than their own manual labor: wood and animals. Today, rather than ride horses, teenagers compare the horsepower of their automobiles.)
<MORE>

http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller13.html

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. Gee whizz. Immediately after stating, "We must move in the direction of nuclear power,

or we will surely fall back into an economic dark age," you quote Donald W Miller, Jr, MD's words,

"Artemus Ward, Mark Twain’s predecessor, once said: "It ain’t the things we don't know that gets us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain’t so."

Economic dark age? I should have thought we knew quite enough to avoid that. The biggest problem by far in that regard is already in the pipeline, and it has nothing to do with opportunities afforded by technological advances being eschewed, but everything to do with the politics of corporatism of the far-right in the West, in the thrall of which its citizens now find themselves. War and economic ruin are its hall-marks. Just one more expression of Einstein's dictum quoted in my signature.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

5. In Gore's testimony to Congress

he rightly discounted nuclear power because of the many drawbacks, some inherent.

First, uranium tailings on the *front end* of the nuclear cycle have caused extensive ecological damage to several river eco-systems and birth defects in Indian country. Also, nuclear power naturally leads to nuclear weapons proliferation. Without a "peaceful" nuclear program in Europe, Pakistan and India would not have the bomb.

Finally, nuclear power gives no relief for at least 15 years. Becaause it is so capital-intensive, it moves us economically in the wrong direction and further favors big energy corporations, when they already have a dangerous amount of economic and political power.

Gore instead is advocating an Electra-Net, where people can create their own energy and sell it to the grid. It will lead to a lessening of reliance on corporations and will diminish the number of power plants required.