Posted at http://www.mngreens.org/node/224. H/T Green Party Watch; reposted to IPR by Paulie.
The Green Party of Minnesota is outraged at the sudden vote on April 2 by which the state Senate seeks to bypass public debate and end the ban on licensing new nuclear reactors. The measure, already defeated in one House committee, was attached as an amendment to another energy bill on the floor of the Senate and passed by a vote of 42 to 24.
“This is another strong-arm play by the energy companies to achieve a deal behind closed doors, as they did in 1994, when a conference committee reversed the clearly expressed will of Minnesota voters,” declared Rhoda Gilman, one of the party’s spokespeople. In that year Northern States Power Company (now a part of Xcel Energy) was allowed to extend the life of its Prairie Island plant by building 17 above-ground casks to store high-level nuclear wastes on the flood plain of the Mississippi River.
Greens believe that nuclear power is neither safe nor cheap. As evidence they point to millions of public dollars spent on the failed attempt to create a secure storage place for radioactive wastes at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. They also cite the failure of private investors to build new plants anywhere in the country since the 1970s. “Reactors are far too expensive,” says Gilman, “but now that the nuclear companies scent taxpayer subsidies in the form of stimulus funds, they are once again interested.”
Greens think Minnesota’s energy needs should be met by stringent conservation and by development of decentralized renewable sources, such as wind and solar energy. They point out that power produced and consumed locally would not be dependent on vulnerable distribution networks nor on plants subject to possible terrorist attack.
Contacts: Rhoda Gilman, (651) 224-6383; Dave Bicking, (612) 276-1213
I don’t see any reasons to accept such as being limitations. There is far more energy available from all these sources than is being used by humans. Capture, storage and transmission require some work, which a true free market would create the proper incentives for.
Regarding a nuclear bomb, I can tell you for a fact that is false. It does not take billions of dollars or anything close to that. Even if it did, there are some available on the black market. Besides the point, however, since no one mentioned a nuclear bomb. As for easier targets…etc., if most people are unaware of them, that might well mean that terrorists would also be unaware of them.
Green Ferret, Paulie,
Nuclear and coal are the only two big answers. (Nat. Gas is also big) You can throw in some wind, but the wind belt is from Texas to N. Dakota, also known as the no people belt, so it requires big changes to the grid, and the intermitancy means you need back up power, with nat. gas. If you want to put it near people, you need to go to coastal waters which is much more expensive, and obstucts the Kennedy view.
Solar Thermal might work in the south west, but it is expensive and suffers from intermitancy like wind.
PV is inefficent and too expensive for large scale use.
Hydro and geothermal are all about location and most of the good spots are already taken.
If we go full steam ahead on these alternatives we may get up to over 10% of our electricity from them, but I think they won’t cover new demand let alone replace any of the old. I believe it is certianly worth the effort, but I understand the limitations.
As far as terrorism goes, terrosts can’t build a nuclear bomb, because it is too difficult to do. That requires a government and billions of dollars. If you are talking about a dirty bomb or crashing into a nuclear power plant, I would say that there are many other nuclear sources all around us that are much easier targets and would cause the same fear/damage. Most people simply don’t know that they exist.
Robert,
That is the same law I was talking about above.
One can have a Libertarian argument against the current nuclear power system that would prevent new reactors from being built.
The US currently limits the amount of liability a plant can have based on an accident. This makes the insurance of the plants affordable. Removing this law for new plants would make it cost prohibitive for building new plants.
If the plants can be made safe enough that the insurance is affordable when normal liability rules apply, then they can build the plant. I don’t believe it would ever happen.
I don’t care who says it.
Not from what Jesse Johnson was telling me about mountaintop removal.
@18 – It’s funny to see a GP advocate playing the “omg terrorists!” card. Seriously.
@19 – More coal is OK by me. My state only stands to benefit from this. It shouldn’t be due to regulations, though, it should be because folks realize that coal’s Just Great. 😉
paulie: Price-Anderson doesn’t limit liability for nuclear plant operators. I know that anti-nuclear groups will tell you it does, loudly and with great confidence, but it’s still not true.
Price-Anderson requires nuclear power operators to take commerical liability insurance to a high level ($300 million today) , and that level sufficied to pay all liability from TMI. There is then an industry cross-payment liability scheme which covers liability to $11billion or so. After which, Congress decides how to fund any further liability – but the operator is not absolved of responsibility.
Do you think Price-Anderson should be renewed? If you do, why?
Less nuclear power means more coal power.
Really, those are the only two options?
I have a dream that someday only those who are capable of passing a high school physics class will be able to comment on nuclear power.
Condescension is very persuasive, isn’t it?
they just smoke pot and smell bad.
Stereotypes are very useful, too.
Too bad the oil/coal companies own all the politicians.
Too bad there are any politicians for them to own.
Nuclear fission is not safe. What can you do with radioactive by-products that are hazardous to all life for hundreds of thousands of years? No one has an answer.
Hundreds of thousands understates it by several orders of magnitude, I think.
Nuclear power plants are sitting ducks for terrorist attacks. Interesting that politicians who like to scream about terrorist attacks act like there’s no such thing when they see a chance to make money for their corporate sponsors.
Good point.
The “free market” has never and will never support nuclear power. New nuclear depends on large government handouts, just like every other over-centralized boondoggle these days.
You are quite correct about the present. Guesses about the future should be left to those with crystal balls and chicken entrails.
It’s time to invest in green technology.
My hunch is that is what would happen in a real free market. I’d love to be able to find out.
Nuclear fission is not safe. What can you do with radioactive by-products that are hazardous to all life for hundreds of thousands of years? No one has an answer.
Nuclear power plants are sitting ducks for terrorist attacks. Interesting that politicians who like to scream about terrorist attacks act like there’s no such thing when they see a chance to make money for their corporate sponsors.
The “free market” has never and will never support nuclear power. New nuclear depends on large government handouts, just like every other over-centralized boondoggle these days.
Wind energy is already more inexpensive than nuclear, and solar is getting better all the time. In the 10 years before a single new nuclear plant can get up and running, solar is going to improve a good deal.
Turn off the corporate news, sponsored by our friends at the nuclear and fossil fuel industries. Placing our bets on obsolete technology will further doom our economy. It’s time to invest in green technology.
Nuclear Power vs. Coal? Kinda like Cancer vs. AIDS eh? Hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal etc. It can be done. Too bad the oil/coal companies own all the politicians. GO GREENS!
Less nuclear power means more coal power. Buring coal means more CO2 in the atmosphere. Buring coal means that the radioactive waste goes out the smoke stack as opposed to going into a sealed and secure storage cask. Nuclear power is safe and abundant. Those who oppose it are fools.
I have a dream that someday only those who are capable of passing a high school physics class will be able to comment on nuclear power. If that day comes, most of the opposition to nuclear power will disappear.
Agitator is right about breeder reactors, but they are a few decades away. As for the plutonium, the amount will be small, easy to store, and nearly impossible to steal.
Also, next generation high temperature reactors can be used to efficiently split water into H2 and O2. These gasses could then be used in coal or biomass gasification, or combined with CO2 to make liquid fuels. Or if infrastructure and storage could be worked out, the H2 could be used directly as a fuel.
So many possibilities, but greens stand in the way, they are completely useless. Hippies, they say they want to save the earth, but they just smoke pot and smell bad.
“People have left the GP all over the country for a reason. Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan will not join for a reason.”
Nader didn’t join the GP because of a promise that he made to his father to never join a political party.
It’s good that the Green Party of Minnesota is working on the nuclear power issue. It’s good that Danene Provencher is working on it as well. It’s unfortunate that Cavlan sees every mention of the Green Party as an excuse to spew more of his venom and hate against the Greens.
Michael Cavlan, are you ok? You sound almost insane as me and Don Lake today.
But I agree with your condemnation of our fascist-stalinist criminal Ralph Nader, even if it was sarchastic.
And I agree with Libertarian Joseph on this; nuclear power is safe and clean. But I disagree about the approach; it should be state-run and regulated by the state, not the free market.
paulie: Price-Anderson doesn’t limit liability for nuclear plant operators. I know that anti-nuclear groups will tell you it does, loudly and with great confidence, but it’s still not true.
Price-Anderson requires nuclear power operators to take commerical liability insurance to a high level ($300 million today) , and that level sufficied to pay all liability from TMI. There is then an industry cross-payment liability scheme which covers liability to $11billion or so. After which, Congress decides how to fund any further liability – but the operator is not absolved of responsibility.
I’m with you 100% on the travesty of law known as corporate personhood. It’s a separate issue from nuclear power though.
Tomcat: good question on why the nuclear build-out stalled, and one which there are a variety of opinions on.
It had certainly slowed before the TMI incident so that is not the whole answer, although it might have reinforced the decision. One other effect which probably started a decline in interest in nuclear power was the stall in the economy and in electriciy demand growth in the 70s following the oil embargo. Then too there was a concerted campaign against nuclear power in which the courts were used to delay builds and drive up financing costs.
There was a blip in plant costs to retrofit additional safety measures after TMI, and also after Browns Ferry fire incident in 1975. I don’t think that this would have affected new build so much, as it was mostly the redoing of work that added cost rather than the measures themselves. But the perception was there of an industry where the final costs were uncertain and that is often enough to make the choice look unattractive.
So I don’t think there’s one simple answer, but a kaleidoscope of factors that gradually knocked nuclear power back from the impetus it had earlier.
Still there should be a nuclear plant starting up in 2012, and hopefully another 10 or so in the rest of the decade. Not enough, but a start that can show whether or not the ghosts of past cost uncertainty are still active or not.
Paulie: Honestly, I have no idea what it’s costs might normally be. I was mostly thinking and typing at the same time. I was curious mostly.
It will only work with forceful, transparent, international regulation of plutonium.
Sounds fail-safe to me…not.
I have been researching this nuclear issue. The only hope for nuclear that I can see is to supplement the conventional thermal reactor with fast neutron “breeder” reactors. One up side of breeders is that they consume the toxic waste from thermal reactors, making it unnecessary to find a place to store toxic waste for 10,000 years. (Only a few hundred years — which is doable)
Another up-side to breeders is that they produce more fissionable fuel than they consume. So there is no chance of having a fuel shortage.
The down-side of breeders is that they generate plutonium, which can be used for making more energy — or else bombs. The countermeasure for this plutonium danger is, I think, a world-wide enforcement authority that is non-voluntary.
So it seems to me that it is possible to have clean safe nuclear energy — but lets not kid our libertarian friends. It will only work with forceful, transparent, international regulation of plutonium.
government regulation may have made it less cost effective than it normally is.
What’s normal? Remove the regime ownership of and investment in nuclear plants, their liability limits under the Price-Anderson Act and nonconcensual limited liability and corporate personhood; then we can start talking about what a free market in nuclear energy might be, or if there would even be one.
As another aside, for those who use the whole Free Market argument (yes Lib Joe including you) I should explain just how this thing came down.
People like Danene Provencher (she is an evil, evil Naderitte in the greenie meanie world) lobbied the Minnesota House on this. They even got somewhere, or so they thought.
However Excel Energy applied their lobbying money and influence and voila, the will of regular Minnesotans became less important. The free market concept does not work when those who have money have more influence on legislators than ordinary people.
In other words those with money, power and influence (using that money to fund the election campaigns of said legislators) then pressured the afore-mentioned legislators to go against the will 0f local people in Minnesota.
Now, who had that central message?
Evil, evil Ralph Nader and all of his “Stalinist groupies..” according to the Minnesota Green Party Political chairman, anyway.
People have left the GP all over the country for a reason. Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan will not join for a reason.
Oh and you are also wrong about windmills only being feasible on desolate farms but that is another discussion.
I’m curious about how much the lack of new nuclear plants since the 1970’s is due to excess government regulation and local blockings of potential plants. I mean, Three Mile Island spooked a lot of folks, and government regulation may have made it less cost effective than it normally is.
More PRIVATE nuclear plants = the better for us. It’s cheap, efficient,clean, and the end result will be that we pay less for energy, and that’s always a good thing!
Windmills might be good on a desolate farm, but it’s not a well thought out solution to this nation’s energy problems. We should leave the energy policy (wheather we use windmills, nuclear, coal, solar, etc) to the free market.
You can’t run a nation on windmills, buddy.
As an aside, Dave Bicking is the father of one of the RNC 8. A very good and decent man.
For those who are concerned about all of our rights, including the First Amendment itself, the case of the RNC 8 is critical.
Take aside Libertarian Joe’s asinine comment.
Wowie, Zowie.
Do you know who has been at the forefront of this?
Danene Provencher, who was the national Greens for Ralph Nader campaign. She and other current and former Greens have been stellar on this. people who see each other as allies, instead of doing things like for example, using Cynthia McKinney’s campaign to attack Ralph Nader or smear and attack others who stand up and pointedly point out (pay attention here kiddies, this is an important point)
The DEMOCRATS complicity in, well name your issue.
Greenie meanies, the word is getting out. Now matter how much you attempt to censor.
Like I said.. Karma man. It’s a drag.
what a pack of morons. nuclear power is very clean and very safe. fuck off