Obama and Energy: A Cure Worse than the Disease

Think about the strong men you've seen. Those whose body is the envy of all other men--not that they'd admit it. What do they eat? Real food in a balanced diet that includes veggies, carbs and protein.

America is like that--or it has been. We've been the strong man. The envy of other countries with men, women and children sneaking into America to enjoy what we have here.

As the bumper stickers we have available through CARE advertise: Energy Makes America Great. What separates America--and the rest of the civilized world--from the third world countries is not that we are better or smarter than those in other countries, but we have the energy to allow us to excel. We have electricity and liquid fuels--in abundance. Or at least we did.

However, there are forces at work who want to make America not only “vegetarian,” but “vegan” when it comes to energy. These forces want us to live on greens only. Salad is nice--but not when it is all you eat! We’d no longer be the “strong man.” We’d be susceptible to attack from terrorist factions. On a balanced diet, we are strong, we can fight off those who wish to annihilate us.

This posting is from frequent contributor Paul Driessen. Here he looks at the energy plans of the new administration and how they will impact America. Read on!

Economic Bloodletting--Some proposed energy and environmental policies are akin to eighteenth century medicine
Doctors once prescribed bloodletting to eliminate impurities that they believed caused disease. When George Washington was stricken with malaria and a throat infection in December 1799, his physicians bled a quart of blood from his weakened body, and administered laxatives and emetics.

A few hours later, Washington died – from a cure far worse than the disease.

Today, our nation is in a recession. Millions are unemployed. The financial meltdown has hammered incomes, consumer spending, savings, profits, tax revenues, charity, remittances and foreign aid in America and across the globe.

Congress and the White House have responded with promises to spend $1 trillion or more, to bail out banks, homeowners, taxpayers, auto makers and other beleaguered groups; fix roads and bridges; and weatherize buildings, develop renewable energy and create “green jobs.”

The economic situation is so dire, they say, that we can’t worry about deficits. The “patient” needs a large “blood infusion” stimulus to “get the economy moving.”

But many worry that the proposed infusion is artificial blood: government loans, grants, mandates and debts. Reduced taxes and regulations would stimulate far more private sector initiatives and jobs, argue many economists; but those curatives enjoy limited support among current political leaders.

Worse, there is a real danger that the stimulus actions will be followed by the economic equivalent of medical practices that killed our first president.

Precluding access to oil, gas, coal and uranium would deprive America of fuels that produce 93% of the energy that makes jobs, living standards, food, health and transportation possible. It would force us to continue spending our children’s inheritance on imported energy – and forego trillions of dollars in leasing, royalty and tax revenues that could help pay for stimulus, defense, renewable energy and other programs.

Some want even more extreme bloodletting administered in the name of global warming. President-Elect Obama wants to slash carbon dioxide “impurities” by 80% by 2050, via cap-and-trade programs. He says any company trying to build a coal-fired generating plant will be “bankrupted” by greenhouse gas fees.

If Congress fails to act expeditiously on cap-and-trade, the Obama Administration could unleash the Environmental Protection Agency’s newly proposed rules – and regulate virtually our entire economy under the Clean Air Act. Those rules would immediately impose even more draconian restrictions on carbon dioxide and methane released from almost every office and apartment building, power plant, factory, farm, hospital, school, car maker and dealership, train and airline in the nation.

However, that would severely impact two dozen mostly Southern and Midwestern states which use coal to generate 47-98% of their electricity – and ensure lower utility and manufacturing costs, more jobs and better living standards. Moreover, modern coal-fired power plants emit 95% less pollution than 1970s-era plants, per unit of energy produced.

Restrict hydrocarbon use, and millions will lose their jobs. Mortality rates will rise, if people cannot afford proper heating, air-conditioning, nutrition and medical care. In minority areas, restricted hydrocarbon use would hobble economic opportunities and civil rights.

A cap-and-trade bill like Warner-Lieberman would cost 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs and $7 trillion in lost GDP, by taxing hydrocarbon energy, the Heritage Center for Data Analysis calculates. The EPA regulatory regime would be even more onerous and costly.

Either action would drain the energy lifeblood from our economy, prolong the recession and kill jobs, for little environmental gain.

Renewable-energy economic superpowers are as rare as body-building vegans. America needs a balanced energy diet, to ensure security and prosperity: raw “green” energy vegetables like wind and solar, proteins and carbohydrates from hydrocarbons and nuclear, and a full allotment of iron-rich energy lifeblood.

Some say we are heading for climate disaster. But thousands of scientists vigorously disagree. A US Senate Minority Report features 650 climate experts (including many current and former UN-IPCC scientists) who say there is no evidence to support climate cataclysm hypotheses.

Computer models are not evidence, they stress – and not one has accurately predicted climate conditions even one year into the future, much less fifty. Actual, measured temperature, hurricane, flood, drought and sea level changes are completely within the realm of observed variability over the centuries.

Satellite measurements show that planetary warming stopped in 1998, even as global CO2 levels continue to rise. Even eliminating US greenhouse gases would reduce 2050 global temperatures by only 0.2 degrees F, assuming CO2 controls our Earth’s constantly changing climate.

China and India are building new coal-fired power plants every week – and their expanding greenhouse gas emissions now dwarf even economy-killing reductions under cap-and-trade or EPA. Europe’s emissions are well above 1990 levels and even further above promised reductions under Kyoto. Yet, the Poznan agreement delays and dilutes EU pledges even more, to avoid jeopardizing jobs in a hydrocarbon-dependent Europe.

Politicians violate their oath of office when they impose policies based on climate disaster scenarios, despite real-world evidence to the contrary – and regardless of the grievous harm that their “cures” would exact on poor, elderly, minority and working-class families.

Americans everywhere should demand solid evidence, robust debate, honest congressional hearings, and responsible energy and environmental decisions. We need to prevent further economic bloodletting, preserve freedom and opportunity, and restore our nation’s prosperity.

Paul Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power ∙ Black death (http://www.eco-imperialism.com/) and senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, whose new book (Freezing in the Dark) reveals how environmental pressure groups raise money and promote policies that restrict energy development and hurt poor families.

Fueling the Future's Electric Cars

As a part of the uranium battle in which CARE has been engaged over the last 10 months, Executive Director, Marita Noon, frequently says, “Even if we could suddenly wave a magic wand and turn all of America’s personal transportation fleet into electric cars, we’d still have a problem--we are going to need more electricity and we are already facing an electricity shortage. The only logical and “clean” way to generate the massive amounts of power needed is through nuclear power. But, with the current amount of nuclear power plants we have in America, we use more uranium than we produce here. Ninety percent of the uranium we use is imported with the largest percent from an increasingly unfriendly Russia. Getting off of gasoline and on to electricity is really just trading one boogey man for the other.”

With that background, you can see why the following posting caught our attention when it landed in the in-box. (This article appeared in Reuters.com on December 18 2008)

It has been more than a year since we had a posting from Diana Furchtgott-Roth, but they are always insightful and we appreciate her passing them on to us. If you’ve not read her previous pieces we have on the CARE Blog, please check them out. Her commentary on CAFE Standards is a CARE favorite.

As you read on, you’ll see that the energy situation in America is much more complicated than getting electric cars on the road. Do you think they are part of the solution?

Electric Cars Will Not Cure Environmental Woes
The world is falling in love with plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars. President-elect Obama wants to put 1 million on the road by 2015. GM features them, particularly the Chevy Volt, in its new business plan for a debut in 2010. The EU wants them to shrink greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 by 20% from 1990 levels. This month the Chinese auto company BYD began selling the world’s first commercially-available plug-in hybrid sedan.

No matter that these cars are not widely available; that they are priced far above traditional models; that many have a short range, making them useful only for local trips; that batteries may be prone to catching fire; and that many motorists park on the street, where charging is impractical.

For some, these issues pale in importance to saving the planet from harmful emissions of carbon, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide--all of which are released from internal combustion engine vehicles. If battery powered cars reduce emissions, environmentalists argue, they should be produced and consumers should be enticed to buy them.

But whereas electric cars don’t pollute when they’re running on batteries, they’re not pollution-free. Making the lithium-ion batteries is pollution-intensive and recharging the batteries uses electricity. And most electricity generation, from coal- and gas-fired power plants, still causes pollution.

Which means that pollution from the extra electricity for car batteries has to be weighed against savings from burning less gasoline. Whether battery power can trump the internal combustion engine, which is continually getting more efficient, depends on when drivers decide to charge their future cars, as well as how the electricity is made.

A 2008 study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory projected U.S. power needs in 2030 if 25% of the car fleet used some form of battery power.

If drivers charged vehicles after 10:00 p.m., when household power consumption is at its lowest, then at most eight extra power plants would be needed for electric cars. In contrast, if drivers charged cars in early evening when household use is peaking, 160 new power plants would have to be built.

At issue here is the way that America will generate its electricity when Obama’s 1 million plug-in hybrids hit the road in 2015. Nuclear power plants do not generate harmful emissions, and are a far cleaner source of electricity than oil, natural gas, or coal. Yet America has refused to build them for fear of accidents and because of controversy about where to dispose of spent fuel. A third problem is long delays in winning government licenses for new plants.

Private companies don’t want to face litigious American consumers, trial lawyers at the ready, and so do not dare embark on nuclear power plants. Until Congress makes serious efforts to shield companies from liability, nuclear power won’t be viable. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not licensed a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years.

France, on the other hand, does have nuclear power; it generates 78% of its supply from splitting the atom, far more than America’s 19% share. Electric cars in France, therefore, if they can overcome problems of range, safety, and price, would be more environmentally friendly than their American counterparts.

Until America can resume construction of nuclear power plants, it might be that the way to energy efficiency on the road is not through the electric car but by making improvements in the way cars burn gasoline. That would be a good use of the $25 billion that Congress gave to the auto industry last year to improve efficiency.

Call it a dual-highway route to saving energy on the road.


Ms. Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Farm Animals, Methane Gas and Global Warming

Those of us who follow the climate change agenda recall the news stories a year or two ago touting cow flatulence as the largest producer of methane gas—a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Perhaps you saw the political cartoon that showed an uncomfortable looking cow with what looked like a catalytic converter protruding from its backside. It became a comedic point since we all know that flatulence is a naturally occurring gas.

However, this only gave the "Glo-Bull Whining" crowd fuel for their fire as the vocal climate change alarmists have other beefs with the fat and happy Americans. This source of methane gas could be minimized if we’d quit eating beef or drinking milk, eating cheese—or any dairy product including ice cream. Forsooth!

Today on the news, there was a piece about the Endangered Species Act and the changes made to it in the last days of the Bush White House. The news clip featured a comment from the Pacific Research Institute. That rang a bell as we at CARE regularly receive their updates. We dug through the “in-box” looking for something from them. There we found an unopened piece from them introducing a new approach to the farm animal methane gas dilemma. We had not heard much about the “cow-tax” lately and found this piece to be thought provoking—if not down right entertaining. Worthy of posting.

We e-mailed them to ask for something current on the ESA. Maybe tomorrow. Read on!

Will the EPA Have a Cow?
In response to an April, 2007, Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently ended the public comment period on “proposed rulemaking” for regulating greenhouse gases. Buried within the proposal is a controversial measure for regulating methane from agricultural and livestock operations. While EPA bosses claim they do not intend to implement a “cow tax,” dairy and livestock producers are understandably nervous.

Methane is a greenhouse gas, and thus could be among the emissions regulated by the EPA. While the largest sources of methane emissions in the United States are landfills and natural gas systems, the EPA estimates that 21 percent of methane emissions are from “livestock enteric fermentation.” This somewhat euphemistic phrase refers to the natural digestive process of ruminant animals like cows, sheep, and goats, which produces methane as a by-product exhaled by the animal. Production of other types of livestock – pigs, for example – also generates methane through the breakdown of manure products.

Never mind that ruminant animals and their burps are naturally occurring. The proposed regulation could impose a fee on farms with livestock operations that emit more than 100 tons of carbon equivalent per year. This would mean that dairy operations with more than 25 cows, according to the proposal’s calculations, would be subject to regulation. In California the average dairy herd is 850 cows, and only 16 percent of dairies have fewer than 50 cows. At a potential annual fee of $175 per cow, the average California dairy would pay nearly $150,000 per year in greenhouse gas fees. Undoubtedly, this cost would be borne by people who consume dairy products. The story is similar for the proposed fees on cattle and hogs.

Burping cows and other ruminants, however, may not be as critical as originally thought. According to a joint program between the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the link between ruminants and atmospheric methane seems to have broken down. Since 1999, atmospheric levels of methane have leveled off, with emissions being equivalent to removals. Yet from 1999 onward, global ruminant populations have been increasing at a rate of almost 17 million head per year, faster than the increase prior to 1999 of about nine million head per year. It may be that improvements in animal husbandry and ruminant diet in developing countries have decrease per-head methane production, or there may be other factors.

Like all agricultural activity, livestock production has environmental impacts. On the other hand, livestock production offers a number of benefits, including a source of renewable fertilizer, and high-quality dietary protein in milk or beef, not to mention the livelihood of 13 million people worldwide. A cow tax would adversely affect those people, and could also wind up a slippery slope. Water vapor accounts for 60-70 percent of the greenhouse effect at any given time. Is it a far stretch to wonder if creatures that exhale water vapor might be next on the fee schedule? Those creatures would include dogs, cats, and human beings.

The idea of regulating cows comes as politicians seek a surge in EPA clout. California Senator Barbara Boxer is pushing to elevate the EPA to presidential cabinet level. Former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman is on record that such a move “would deliver a strong message as to the importance of the agency.”

Scientific research, meanwhile, is identifying a number of strategies through which the environmental footprint of livestock production can be decreased while maintaining productivity. Strapping the industry with fees would certainly not promote any of that. Happy cows may come from California, but if a revamped EPA deploys greenhouse gas emission fees, it will create unhappiness for producers and consumers alike, with negligible benefits for the environment.

Pacific Research Institute Environmental Studies Fellow Amy Kaleita is an assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering at Iowa State University. Dr. Kaleita is involved in scientific research on impacts of agriculture on the environment, as well as on environmental monitoring and modeling.

The Big Three Bailout and Global Warming: Is There a Connection

With the Holidays nearly upon us, it seems that all our favorite experts are out celebrating (or shopping) instead of pontificating. Or, perhaps the news has not been as conducive to our issues—after all Blagojevich has little to do with energy. Nor, did we think, does the auto bail out. And then this posting arrived in our in box.

It has been a while since we’ve had an opinion piece from one of our most prolific contributors: Dennis Avery. Here, he’s managed to connect the Detroit bail out with global warming. Interesting. What do you think? Has he hit on something? It is certainly worth thinking about.

Green Cars For Cheap Gas
Now we’re going to give Ford, GM and Chrysler billions of dollars so the Feds can order them to build more “green” cars—with gas now costing $1.49 per gallon. How many Americans will pay $30,000 for one of these new high-mileage lightweights instead of getting a family-protective SUV for the same bucks? Or a pickup to pull the boat? At $1.49 per gallon, not many. So Detroit will go broke again, unless the Feds slap on another $3 per gallon in gas tax.

Haven’t we just been there? And we didn’t like it much. We demanded, “Drill, baby, drill.” We forced a liberal Democratic Congress that hates oil to end the drilling ban on public lands. Thus, we could pump more domestic gas and oil and bring down the price—so Detroit’s old lineup of SUVs and big pickups would sell again.

Which way are we going? And why?

My sister is a GM widow in Michigan; I understand the problem of Big Three pensions and medical insurance. But that doesn’t really have much to do with the sort of cars we build. The costs the United Auto Workers saddled onto the Big Three years ago makes their cars non-competitive today no matter how tiny and fuel-efficient they get.

On the other hand, if we want globally competitive U.S. auto companies, it is clear how to get them. Let the Big Three go bankrupt, so some enterprising investors can reorganize all of those plants, skilled workers and infrastructure into a new company—or two— that can compete with Volkswagen and Hyundai.

Let the UAW organize its own cost-effective health insurance for the retirees, where the doctor visits aren’t “free” and the insurance kicks in for the big stuff. That’s what the rest of us already have to do. None of our health insurance should be tied to a job. Everybody should get the tax break for buying health insurance, so we could all get care without the lobbyists and lawyers loading up the systems with the frills that pay off their clients.

The joker in today’s deck is global warming. That’s the real motive behind the Federal bailout of the Big Three. But most of our global warming came before 1940—too early to be blamed on global industrialization. After 1940, the warming stopped for 35 years—during the very period when the Greenhouse Theory says the temperatures should have soared.

Now, it’s been ten years since the last warming, and temperatures have just dropped back to about their 1940 level. NASA’s Jason satellite says the Pacific Ocean has shifted into its cool phase; the warm phase ended in the last hot year, 1998. The satellite is predicting global cooling for the next 25–30 years. The alarmists have been wrong about the warming.

Nor will Detroit run out of oil to burn. The Bakken formation in the Dakotas gives the U.S. more proven oil reserves than Saudi Arabia—400 billion barrels. Not to mention six trillion barrels of oil in the world’s tar sands, half of them conveniently located in nearby, stable Canada. No Muslim extremist takeovers, and none of Vladimir Putin’s tanks either.

In Europe, 11,000 metal workers demonstrated in Brussels against CO2 limits forcing their jobs to India. In Britain, 40 percent of the electricity will disappear in the next eight years, supposedly replaced by 7,000 wind turbines with a reliability of 15 percent.

The new administration is selling an insurance policy against the planet overheating. But what if the insurance premium costs more than your house and the earth is cooling on its own schedule.

DENNIS T. AVERY is a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC and is the Director for the Center for Global Food Issues. (http://www.cgfi.org/) He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 2442 or email to cgfi@hughes.net

Obama's Global Warming Policies Are Not Based on the Scientific Evidence

This just arrived in CARE's in-box from Kevin Lundberg, Representative to the Colorado House for District 49. He is also a member of the Republican Study Committee of Colorado .

It has been a while since we posted anything on the Climate Change issue. This piece, connected to our President-elect Obama, gives the topic fresh newsworthiness.

What do you think will happen to this issue in the Obama admistration?

Where are the Facts?
The Republican Study Committee of Colorado (RSCC) is challenging Obama to provide any evidence that the facts he cited in his first major policy statement on global warming are based in reality.

It sounded more like something a Hollywood speech writer would put together for a movie script, rather than a serious policy statement for a president-elect.

On Tuesday, November 18, President-elect Obama laid out his policy intentions concerning the issue of global warming in a speech to a global climate summit, convened by the governors of California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Wisconsin.

His speech was politically correct, but the facts were simply not there. Just about every "proof" he cited was, at best, an outdated myth.

Where are sea levels rising? Which are shrinking coastlines? Where is there any scientific evidence that hurricane storms are either larger, more frequent, or related to any long term global warming patterns? A careful analysis of the details reveals that each of these examples is without merit and that there is significant and growing debate about whether or not anthropogenic global warming has had much effect at all. There are also serious doubts that radically restricting and restructuring industrial activity can meaningfully alter any long term weather patterns.

The RSCC has conducted several hearings on global warming and our nation's energy resources. We have looked at the facts and will not be deceived by such shallow rhetoric.

An example of the serious doubts many scientists have can be found in Christopher Monckton of Brenchley's article published by the American Physical Society. The facts reported are that globally-averaged land and sea surface absolute temperatures have not risen since 1998, and may have even been falling since 2001.

The only fact that is indisputable is the severe stress that Cap and Trade tax schemes, unrealistic renewable energy mandates, and Kyoto-like treaties will have on our faltering economy. We cannot afford to squander our children's future on outdated notions from global warming alarmists.

We expect more from our nation's next leader and call on him to correct these errors.

Is Nuclear Power Safe?

With President-elect Obama looking to energy sources other than oil and gas, and threatening to bankrupt any new coal-fired power plant someone might attempt to build, nuclear power is sure to be part of what fuels America’s future. While his initial support for nuclear power was weak, he softened his position and even stated that he supported nuclear power. This is apt to bring about many questions and revive old fears.

Here, we offer you a thoughtful posting from a team of scientists who have spent their lives--long lives--working with nuclear power.

CARE was introduced to the Los Alamos Education Group (LAEG) through our efforts to support uranium mining. This is their first piece to be included in the CARE Blog--though it will probably not be the last. If you have specific questions about nuclear power, please post them here. The LAEG will be happy to provide answers for you that we’ll post here.

Reactor Safety
If you’ve ever wondered "Is there anyone out there willing and able to educate us about nuclear power in a balanced fashion?" you’ll want to read on.

Many people have expressed ill-defined fears about radiation, fission products, and the dreaded core, or nuclear meltdown, all of which derive one way or another from the use of nuclear weapons.

The Los Alamos Education Group has qualified members active in reactor and radiation safety. Many of us are retired WW II veterans that recall the entire postwar nuclear era, including knowledge of nuclear explosions.

One of the group was a member of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Committee on Reactor Safeguards for nine years and took part in the committee’s review of three fourths of the US reactors in operation. In 1979 he was appointed to the staff of the President’s Committee on the Accident at Three Mile Island (Kemeny Commission). The task of figuring out what happened in the core, e.g., what fraction melted, what happened to fission products and in particular why did iodine not escape, became tasks he was given.

With the help of consultants from other national laboratories, universities, and industry the problems were solved.

The report of the commission and working groups are in the public literature. These reports stimulated Nuclear Regulatory Commission studies that demonstrated the same conclusion: nuclear electric power plants are much safer than had been believed.

Another member has been and still is active in radiation studies, health physics, and associated activities. The LAEG provides factual answers--conclusions belong to the questioner. We contend that nuclear electric power is safe by any reasonable standard of safety and has a history of operational safety that far exceeds other comparable industrial activities.

Of the 104 commercial nuclear power stations now operating in the US all are pressurized or boiling light water reactors; most of the 339 reactors in 32 other countries are of a similar design. Exceptions include some pressurized heavy water of Canadian design, a very few sodium cooled plants, some old graphite moderated reactors (UK) scheduled for replacement and the Chernobyl design in Russia. The total reactor-years of operation world wide is over 3000 and increasing by 443 each year. The basic light water design concept was developed and chosen by the Naval Reactors organization on the basis of perceived safety superiority. About 500 reactors of the naval design have been used, each one for several years with no accident. The evolution for commercial operations led to the pressurized and boiling water reactors that we see all over the world. The commercial plants are larger physically and produce more electric power and with more safeguards to protect the public. No person has been harmed by radiation in all these reactor years of operation light water reactors.

To defend this assertion of safety of the light water reactor we must discuss the accident at Three Mile Island, the Davis Besse incident and the Chernobyl accident.

The accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 was, initially, a minor "scram." The reactor shutdown was caused by workers on a part of the cooling water system outside the reactor and containment. The reactor shut down properly, the control rods went in and stopped the production of power, the high pressure emergency cooling system turned on automatically (as was proper), and that should have been the end of the incident. However, the control panel erupted with a dozen alarms, confused the operators who turned off the emergency cooling. A slow leak in a valve in the high pressure system allowed water to slowly escape to the containment, but not to the environment. The containment was not challenged. Of all the actions they could have taken, this was the worst. It was turned on again, later, but too late to save the core of the reactor. Poor, inept press relations by the utility and the NRC and panic by the press did the rest. A great many people were unnecessarily frightened.

The problem of the control panel was recognized and has been redesigned. Simulators resembling airplane flight simulators permit operators practice all sorts of simulated emergencies--their realism is extraordinary.

Did fission products escape? Yes, the first search found some 5-day xenon-135, a harmless noble gas that is biologically inert, but no iodine-131 (half life 8 days), volatile and metabolically dangerous to the thyroid gland. Airborne search teams were activated very quickly, found the xenon, but could not find iodine-131 or cesium-137 that everyone expected. They went back to base, recalibrated instruments, searched diligently again and found traces that could have been as much as 18 curies, a negligible amount.

Essentially no radioactive iodine escaped! That was a puzzle because for twenty years, accepted doctrine had been that given an accident to the core, such as TMI, 50% of the iodine would escape to the containment, half of that would be deposited on surfaces and 25% would be available to escape to the environment.

This was the accepted assumption--it did not happen. Historically, this assumption, accepted without experimental evidence, had been the basis for the incredible consequences predicted by early "safety" studies. The studies subsequent to the Kemeny Commission report incorporated correct physics and chemistry assumptions.

The accident was not a public radiation event. No person was injured--not even a grasshopper received any measurable radiation dose and the measuring equipment is very sensitive. An extraordinary example of the near unbelievable sensitivity of modern radiation detection and chemistry occurred in the summer of 1979. A pike caught in the Susquehanna river showed evidence of cesium. Analyses, however, showed that because of the different decay rate of two isotopes, Cs-134 and Cs-137, the cesium was identified as originating in China, nine months earlier, during an atmospheric test!

The reactor was ruined and the damaged core was removed and shipped to a storage site in Idaho. During the removal of the damaged fuel, samples of the pressure vessel steel from beneath and containing the molten fuel were taken. The steel showed no damage--a big surprise and natural safety factor unrealized before. The event WAS a core meltdown, but natural phenomena intervened and prevented the accident from progressing into the imaginary and dreaded "China Syndrome"--in fact, the "China Syndrome" is an impossible event.

In 2002, the Davis-Besse pressurized water reactor near Toledo, Ohio was found to have a very severely corroded spot on the pressure vessel head or top piece. It was caused by boric acid (boron is a neutron poison used for control in the reactor) leaking at a control rod penetration. Inadequate inspection by staff was the basic problem. This could have been an accident comparable to TMI, but was caught by safety inspection, control panels were of a superior design, and operator training was much better. The importance of periodic inspections by different groups is obviously important. The power station was shut down for a considerable period, the utility fined severely, placed on a special "watch list" by the NRC and is now back in operation

These two events are the only serious ones in the US light water reactor industry. We assert that this reactor design is safe and may be manufactured and used with confidence. No person has been injured in a reactor accident by radiation. Production of electricity by nuclear power is actually much, much safer than by coal or natural gas. The usual industrial accidents, e.g. falls, steam burns, falling objects, etc. certainly will continue.

The Chernobyl accident was a bad one, the seriousness compounded by the incompetence of the USSR public relations organization. For days they would not even admit that anything had happened, and the worldwide panic was caused, again, by news media’s lack of good information, lack of understanding of radiation hazards, and by panicky exaggeration. It was bad--it did not need exaggeration.

Thirty "liquidators," first responders, were killed outright by radiation and/or thermal burns while fighting the fire. Later fatalities increased the total to 58, and some excess thyroid cancers, with three deaths, have appeared in young people in the area at the time of the accident. But because health records were inadequate in that area prior to the accident, convincing epidemiological evidence is difficult to derive.

The accident was triggered by an electrical engineering experiment that required the reactor to be in an unstable condition, unique to the design--it could not happen in a US-designed pressurized or boiling water reactor. A steam explosion blew off the top of the reactor, and the graphite moderator caught fire because it was operated at extremely high temperatures. THERE WAS NO CONTAINMENT. Because of the lack of containment and the steam explosion, some of the iodine and cesium probably escaped as a compound. Fission products were deposited in nearby areas, sufficient to cause extensive evacuation and prevailing winds carried detectable amounts into Europe, and, indeed, around the world.

Prior to the 1970s, France depended in large part on cheap mideast oil for their electrical power. The oil crises of the 1970s caused near panic---the Metro could not run, elevators would not operate and they were seriously worried about riots in the streets. The decision was made to make the electrical network depend on nuclear power. They did and the job was completed in the 1990’s (only 20 years) after construction of about 50 pressurized water reactors of uniform design. Now they export electricity to their neighbors. There has been NO accident and public attitude is supportive.

What now can we add about the new designs that would make them even safer? Adding something to make a nuclear power station even safer is not easy. However, the power station designers have the advantage of operating experience for the past 40 years. The new ones are designed for easier safety and operational maintenance, more components will be manufactured in the manufacturers’ shop where quality control is much better and designs will be optimized for easier safety and operational inspection. But the most important issue of which we are aware is emergency core cooling. Current designs depend on electrical power for activation, either offsite or emergency diesel power. The newer designs will also make use of gravity--a force that never fails, to provide immediate availability of water to the core and pressure vessel. Some of these new designs are under construction abroad. As with existing nuclear power plants, these will be operated with complete safety.

Finally, the safety of spent fuel is a legitimate question connected to reactor safety. Fuel (1/3 of the core) is changed in the light water reactors every year, year and a half, or two years depending on design. The fuel is removed by remote control to a "spent fuel storage pool" where the deep water provides both shielding and cooling and allows visual and instrumental inspection. The pool is essentially a large, deep swimming pool, temperature controlled and very clear. No accident has happened in this operation. After a few years the heat and radiation rate has decreased sufficiently that air cooling with shielding is adequate and can be safely located external to the immediate reactor area. The stuff is thermally too hot to handle and too heavy to steal without obvious lifting and hauling equipment. Another safety factor not generally realized is that volatile iodine-131, the most dangerous of the fission products, has a half life of only 8 days. After 10 half lives or 80 days, the activity is down by a factor of 1000 and is no longer significant. Nearly all other fission products are solids and do not readily become airborne even if fuel pins are damaged. There has been NO accident during transfer in or out of the spent fuel pool or during transportation to a different location. The operation is safe.

Why are we making such a fuss and spending so much money on Yucca mountain storage? The concept of permanent disposal of transuranics and depleted UF6 is viable only if stupidity or antinuclear activity is successful in terminating nuclear power production. Otherwise, recycled, it is worth close to a trillion dollars as fuel in sodium cooled reactors, and Yucca Mountain and WIPP would be adequate for permanent disposal of fission products far into the future.

This is a safe and satisfactory end point for spent fuel and reactor safety questions but a serious problem remains--the finite amount of uranium that can be mined even at a cost much higher than the current price. Estimates of years before we run out of uranium-235 vary from 50 to 100 but are finite. The oceans have enormous quantities of uranium but the cost to retrieve it is certainly high. The answer to problems of fuel availability, waste management, and sodium-cooled reactors is the subject of the next essay.


Bill Stratton has a PhD from the University of Minnesota. He is a retired reactor safety expert with extensive advisory service to the Nuclear Regulatory Commision. As a staff member of the President's Kemeny Commission, he was instrumental in explaining the minimal radiation release from Three Mile Island.

Don Petersen has a PhD from the University of Chicago. He is a retired radiation biologist involved with health effects of radiation, neutron dosimetry and effects of neutrons and alpha particles. He has had first hand experience with investigation, description and reporting of radiation accidents involving injury and fatality.

Both spent their entire careers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

RGF President (and others) Discuss Global Warming Science, Policy

Recently, I appeared on a special on Channel 4 called "The Climate Case" to discuss global warming and what, if anything, should be done about it. The show lasts 30 minutes and can be found below:

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Also, if the current fiscal crisis has any silver lining it is that Congress, according to New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Chairman of the Energy Committee, says that Congress will not act until 2010 on global warming legislation. At least Congress recognizes that the American people view purported climate change as far less of a problem than the economy. Of course, whether government at any level has the right solutions is an even better question.