Nuclear Power. Not as Green as They Claim.

Yes, nuclear power does create greenhouse gases.

In fact, during the plant construction, fuel gathering and transportation, extraction, enrichment, and then dismantling the plant at the end of its functional life, creates a lot of greenhouse gases.  The current availability of easily aquired and refined Uranium makes the equation a net saving, but easily obtainable Uranium will be running out, and then nuclear power won't be a good deal say Australian academics according to a BBC report "Nuclear's CO2 cost 'will climb' ".

The academics also suggest that people need to consider other costs in uranium mining and transportation.  

I remember another report I read recently elsewhere showing that earlier uranium miners contaminated a lot of Navajo land and now the tribe doesn't want to let those types back for the next round of fueling nukes. I've found the original series from the Los Angeles Times (pre-Zell, when it was a world class paper) through a Yahoo web search) at Blighted Homeland .

Ah, but, of course we must have nuclear power, right?

No.  Only the politicians must have nuclear power.

They can't extract the huge political donations from the smaller easier to start up solar and wind projects.

Nuclear plants are so expensive that they are instant monopolies.

So they make extraordinary donations to politicians and lobbyists who then promote, not only licensing and subsidizing them, but also protection from lawsuits in case people start noticing the down wind plume of increase cancer cases, or even in case of natural disaster, terror attacks, and plant breakdown causing a release of harmful radiation or other products.

Add to that, they also want billions from the federal and state governments to help them fund the building of new plants.

But we need them, right?  We need them now, because we have no other easy solutions to ease global warming. So we've been told by energy 'analysts' politicians.

Well, first you need to ignore half a century of suppression of green fuel technology to not consider that a contrived question, but still the answer is no.

Within the last couple of years I've seen reports of non-silicon based solar power plants being proposed in the Mojave  Desert and even on the California coast.  The Mojave plant is said to be for the purpose of supplying energy to a local military installation (they said which branch and it's name, but I've forgotten), though I also noticed that it would be located right across the border from that power hog Las Vegas.  The difference might be that California offers money to companies that are creating green sources of power.  According to the plan as presented, the plant would provide the electricity to the base as "too cheap to meter".  I don't doubt that as of now and maybe for the first years of production crossing the border would not be feasible.  I don't doubt that it's a possibility that the company will attempt to make it feasible as soon as they finish construction.

Now remember, I said above that this does not require a lot of expensive silicon cells.  It, and the other solar plants I read about, are using the heat from the sun (yes, even the coast has enough) to create steam from trapped water and then using the steam like a natural gas or coal fired plant does. (If I remember correctly.  The proposed coastal plant may have other enhancements.)

Yes, I know it's a desert.  They didn't explain where they'd get the water.  Apparently, they are (and they'd better be) planning to recycle the steam back or reuse instead of tapping Lake Powell or the Colorado River and then sending the steam out into the air.  We have enough water problems in the Southwest.  But Schwarzenegger and most of our legislature have never seen a donation they didn't like so I'm not sure that would be considered.  Our "Green" Governator needs all the carbon credits he can manufacture, since he takes a jet 350 miles each way, everyday that he works.

 Also, there is traditional solar power.  Yes, it's expensive, but remember the nuclear energy industry wants billions of dollars in subsidies paid by you, taxpayer.  It would be much more sensible to put those billions in a faster, cheaper, and better resources.

 Wind power is also much cheaper and feasible quickly.  Every field can become, not only a crop farm, but a wind farm.  Wind power is cheap and rapidly depoyed compared to nuclear plants, but what's missing are the massive donations from those expecting to benefit.  Their lower costs mean more companies can jump in and therefore the monopoly on power is not likely to be enjoyed.

My search resources here at the blogging site and others are failing to find my post on an earlier report, but here is another, more recent report on a solar power installation to be built in the Mojave.  It may be about the same plant since the report calls the installation a solar-thermal plant, and, this report does not specify the location within what "Brittanica Online Encyclopædia " describes as 25, 000 square miles (65,000 square kilometers) of desert. The site, EcoFuss, has articles on many other alternative energy options, as well.

And even Germany can get enough power from silicon cells. See Washington Post: Cloudy Germany a Powerhouse in Solar Energy.

 Yet, in December, while the congress's new energy bill kept in "13 billion in tax credits" for Big Energy (to avoid a veto), it dropped extending credits to solar and wind power beyond December 2008 (Seattle PI -- Joel Connelly "It's time to change a crazy energy policy ").  Christian Science Monitor report "Wind, solar tax credits to expire  seems to explain better what the cessation of the wind and solar tax credits would mean.

We need to educate our friends and families on this.  Mainstream news has no incentive to drive away ads from
Big Oil and even possible ones from Big Nuclear to give us a balanced and honest look at what we can really do that might hurt the bottom line of those industries.

tags: nuclear power  solar power  alternative energy  

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