Seven Generational Ruminations

Amory Lovins has a very intriguing proposal... Increase of Nuclear Power use would cause an increase in Global Warming. That's kind of a puzzler but it turns out he has an interesting analysis. And, to be real, Officialdom is presenting increased nuclear power as a method to solve some of the 'energy' problems the U.S. is facing. Not just Washington Officialdom but some head scratchers like Stewart Brand and other environmentalists have been suggesting nuclear power because it doesn't emit carbon.

It's so tempting to just shout NO NUKES in a knee-jerk reaction to any suggestion of any sort of nuclear power. Nuclear anything produces radiation and is dangerous, or so goes the stereotypical claim. But...

Th Better than Uranium discusses the advantages of Thorium over Uranium. It comes down to the side effects that come from using one over the other. Uranium run through nuclear reactor systems converts to a variety of other elements, some are benign while others are dangerously poisonous for 10's of thousands of years. To adequately protect ourselves from the latter elements we have to think about building facilities like the Yucca Mountain storage facility, where the location is hopefully geologically stable over a drastically long period of time. Thorium on the other hand has byproducts that become safe within a relatively short period, and some of the byproducts are directly usable in commercial products.

Why can't we make a bold project like this in the U.S.??? Why instead do we have to beat up smaller countries for their oil???

There's been a continuing confrontation between the U.S., the E.U. and Iran over Iran's nuclear power program. Iran has been building nuclear reactors, some of which weren't initially disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Commission, and whose designs could be used to build weapons grade nuclear material. They've promised up and down, those reactors were purely for "peaceful" purposes, but then why would they choose a nuclear reaction that produces weapons grade material if they had a peaceful purpose? Especially as they hid the existance of the reactors?

It's interesting to look at an investors viewpoint on "energy" and the oil supply issue. The Potential Emerging Energy Crunch (by Sol Palha) He lists several potential energy sources and points out how they all have problems preventing wide use right now. The issue is the high oil prices we saw over the last year, and he is trying to say the energy prices will continue to be high for the forseeable future, and that there is one solution: Uranium and Nuclear Power.

I suppose "people" are a little sensitive right now to warrantless searches by government law enforcement people. We're in the midst of the snoopgate scandal, in which the Bush administration has admitted to spying on Americans. And, in which, the Echelon system has been implicated in being used in snoopgate by the NSA to vacuum up all communications for analysis by the NSA.

Here's a pointer to several studies and claims around depleted uranium. The most interesting is a U.S. Defense Department study concluding there's little harm from using DU weapons. Of course, what else do you expect from the people who are most liable for damage caused by the weapons.

Depleted Uranium All That Deadly? (defensetech.org November 21, 2005)

Their claim is that DU weapons show little increase in cancer among military personell.

Our dear president has been pushing a general strategy of preemption. That was the justification for invading Iraq, that there was a perceived threat, a possibility that Iraq was a danger, and hence they were a worthy target. But we know what happened there, it has become a total boondoggle, the perceived danger was nothing but lies spun by Iraqi dissidents who hadn't set foot in the country in decades, the U.N. Secretary General has declared this an illegal war, and the President deserves impeachment.

As I write this, the U.S. has invaded Iraq in a boondoggle of a war that supposedly was meant to remove "Weapons of Mass Destruction" from Iraqi hands. This weekend is also the 60th anniversary of the only use of nuclear weapons in wartime, done by U.S. hands supposedly to hasten the end of WWII.

Interesting that this anniversary seems to be absent from the news coverage. (Or is that because I don't watch TV?) I mean, the first and only use of nuclear weapons in actual war was a major turning point in Human history. Isn't that worth being covered in the news??

What I'm talking about is the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.