Nuclear Power and the JI

I've been reading the OpEd pieces in the JI.  I have to say that I have not seen ANY op-ed piece that takes any kind of a measured response to the nuclear issues that Japan is having.

First, let me say that the situation in Japan is terrible, and that I pray for the people suffering there.  The nuclear woes add to an already heavy burden on Japan.  And I'm praying that everything comes out okay there. 

Next, let me say that I'm appalled at the news coverage of the terrible tragedy there.  It's almost as if people have forgotten that Japan suffered the largest Earthquake in its history, and that it then suffered an amazingly huge tsunami as a result.  Somehow, the fact that these disasters have caused the nuclear crisis there have been forgotten, or at least, that somehow they "should have known"

Well, they did know that earthquakes and tsunamis happen in Japan.  In fact, the earthquake doesn't seem to have damaged the nuclear plants in any meaningful way.  The tsunami that resulted is the real culprit here.  Essentially, the plants are in the state they are in because:

• The power lines into and out of the plants were taken down by the tsunami - removing the primary way to recover from the reactor SCRAMs that the plants underwent when the earthquake happened.  The power is needed for cooling pumps.
• The backup system for the primary power was diesel generators.  These were taken out by the tsunami.  Thus the secondary system failed as a direct result of the tsunami.
• The backup for the backup system was a bank of batteries sealed in an underground crypt.  These functioned perfectly, but ran out of electricity.

So far, three people have been hospitalized as a result of exposure.  All were workers on site that were wading through contaminated water.  All are expected to recover.

Let's all pray that these are the only injuries. 

Now, let's look at what the JI op-ed pieces said.  They all boiled down to this message:  Nuclear power is inherently unsafe, and we should abandon it.  It makes nuclear "wastes" that are long lived and dangerous for thousands of years.  And we ought not make any more of it.

There have been NO op-ed pieces with contrary views... So here's one:

POPPYCOCK!

Nuclear power is NOT inherently unsafe.  It is extremely unforgiving of mistakes, however. 

Even so, it is extremely safe!  Even counting in the deaths from Chernobyl, which so far, is 56 people, and may be 4000 by the time long term affects have been included in that death toll, nuclear power is BY FAR the safest form of energy generation.  Just to put it in perspective, 20,000 Chinese die EVERY YEAR mining coal.

But what about all that nasty nuclear "waste" that we keep making.  Well, we ought to put a sign over each of those spent fuel rod pools.  It should say "DANGER:  FUEL"... that's right fuel not waste!

See, there are lots of kinds of nuclear reactors.  The ones causing trouble in Japan are some of the earlier generation ones... notably the GE Mark I reactor.  Have you noticed that you don't hear much about reactors 5 and 6?  GE Mark III reactors.  But those are just the ones in production today.  And those are all of essentially the same type - low enriched uranium reactors.  They don't burn plutonium.  They don't make plutonium.

There ARE reactors that we could build that would breed fuel and burn the "waste" of these plants which are known as PWR (Pressurized Water Reactors) or BWR (Boiling Water Reactors).  They can use up all this spent fuel, and what they can't burn will be around for 500 years, not 500,000 years.  The US had designed one called the IFR.  Clinton cancelled that.  In fact, the whole "breeder" reactor type was essentially put off limits by Jimmy Carter.  But breeder reactors can safely burn nuclear fuel for years to come. 

And we don't even need to figure out where to put them.  We should just build them on existing nuclear sites.  We should build one at Millstone.  It could use the waste from the existing plants, burn them up, and make power to boot.  By adjusting the breed ratios, we can add abundant Uranium 238 and make nuclear power for the lifetime of the plant. 

It's the perfect solution - and we won't do it.  We won't do it because rags like the JI have already made up their minds on this issue.

And then, as Japan and other countries switch to other sources of energy, like coal and oil and natural gas, the JI will excoriate evil corporations and bungling governments for contributing to "climate change"

They get to help create the next problem that they can sell newspapers with!