From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@MSX.UPMC.EDU)
Date: Sun Jun 03 2001 - 10:25:37 MDT
> A few simple precautions - barriers to prevent a
> straight-line approach to
> the containment, at a minimum - should prevent any vehicle borne
> non-nuclear blast from compromising the containment.
>
Non-nuclear - yes, but in case of a war nuclear power plants would be prime
targets, allowing a significant amplification of the destructive capacity of
weapons - the blast wouldn't be any bigger but so much more dirty. A nuclear
terrorist with one nuke from his friends in a "rogue country" wouldn't have
to worry about running his truck through concrete barriers - he could just
park it in the employee lot.
Which still doesn't mean I oppose the use of nuclear energy - especially if
it's more than 30 miles from my home.
> I think an ethanol economy is an awesome idea... it's renewable, you
> can make it from any organic matter, if you use natural organics (lawn
> and tree clippings, kelp, reeds and rushes, farming byproducts, waste
> paper, and organic city refuse (a terrible problem in of
> itself), you end
> folks.) Actually this is good, because you can scale production right
> down to local municipality, and that makes communities energy safe
> and independent, and eliminates the cost of fuel transport
> (this is one
> more reason that energy cartels hate ethanol.)
Somehow I can hardly imagine that locally produced ethanol (read - in a
small and inefficient plant, supplied with lawn clippings :-)), could
compete economically with nuclear power, much less coal and other sources.
The problem with many alternative energy sources is not that the evil
establishment hates them but rather they tend to be expensive (today's
photovoltaics), or downright nonexistent (space based schemes).
> We need to look at all the cost/benefits when picking a viable energy
> source... producing nuclear power for pennies isn't cheap if you're up
> to your eyeballs in government subsidized cleanup messes, and eco
> disasters that take your tax dollars to fix. We need to be
I fully agree - the government shouldn't subsidize anything here except
investigator-driven basic research.
Rafal Smigrodzki MD-PhD
Dept Neurology University of Pittsburgh
smigrodzkir@msx.upmc.edu
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