[Peace-discuss] Nuclear power?

[C. G. Estabrook]

All technical questions are interesting (I worked for Buckminster Fuller once, 
long ago) but nuclear power is not just a technical question.

I am distrustful of the discussion of this issue in the public press because 
it's hardly disinterested. The US media are owned by corporations 
(CBS/Westinghouse, NBC/GE, etc.) that have a direct interest in the vast riches 
that they hope are available from nuclear power.  GE and Westinghouse e.g. are 
both huge, diversified multinational companies heavily involved in both weapons 
production and nuclear power.

The USG is also using nuclear power for immediate advantage.  Consider the 
planned natural gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan into India. The "peace 
pipeline" would have tied the region together and opened the possibilities for 
further peaceful integration. But the US set out to sabotage it by its nuclear 
deal with India.  It tried to isolate its Iranian enemy by offering India 
nuclear power in place of Iranian gas.

The US in fact violated the Non-proliferation Treaty by offering India nuclear 
power.  India, like US clients Israel and Pakistan (but unlike Iran), is not an 
NPT signatory, and developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty. The USG 
effectively endorsed and facilitated this outlaw behavior.  The agreement 
violated US law and bypassed the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45 nations that 
established strict rules to lessen the danger of proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The agreement committed Washington to help New Delhi secure fuel supplies from 
other countries even if India resumed testing. It also permitted India to free 
up its limited domestic supplies for bomb production. Israel, the regional 
nuclear superpower, has been lobbying Congress for privileges similar to 
India’s, and has approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group with requests for 
exemption from its rules. Now France, Russia and Australia have moved to pursue 
nuclear deals with India, as China has with Pakistan.

Like all US Mideast/energy  politics,  the Indo-US deal mixes military and 
commercial motives. Chomsky: "In most of the world, few can fail to see the 
cynicism. Washington rewards allies and clients that ignore the NPT rules 
entirely, while threatening war against Iran, which is not known to have 
violated the NPT, despite extreme provocation." The threat of nuclear war is 
extremely serious, and growing, and part of the reason is that the nuclear 
states, led by the US, simply refuse to live up to their obligations or are 
significantly violating them -- risking disaster.  --CGE


Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> Conclusion: All who see beneficial aspects to nuclear power are shills. As
> are almost all the scientists and engineers who have studied the issue, i.e.,
> experts. There's a kind of head-in-the sand phenonenon at work here, a
> legitimate distrust , but carried to extremes: Two orthogonal cultures, where
> there should be a meeting of the two. . --mkb
> 
> On Feb 12, 2009, at 7:01 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> I'd be glad to see a serious discussion on the subject by people who are
>> not shilling for the interests of corporations, the military, or academic
>> institutions. Physicists from the Manhattan Project through the Cold War
>> and the first generation of nuclear power plants have shown themselves
>> generally subservient to those interests -- from Oppenheimer and Teller to
>> the contemporary Department of Energy, perhaps including Steven Chu.
>> 
>> Serious -- and successful -- criticisms of nuclear weapons and nuclear 
>> power have come from people outside of those institutions.  I'd like to
>> hear more of that. Democracy should be skeptical of experts with interests.
>> --CGE
>> 
>> 
>> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>> But the fact is, Carl, that you know nothing of the science that 
>>> convinced the author to change his mind, and in your ignorance of these
>>> matters, you just pooh-pooh them, a not admirable knee-jerk reflex.   I
>>> have been in contact with scientists at Argonne National Laboratory who
>>> had been working/designing on the fourth generation reactors mentioned,
>>> and they are justly receiving an increasing amount of attention because
>>> of the advantages they potentially present. There are problems in
>>> constructing such reactors, of course, and it won't be tomorrow that they
>>> will be built, but they are very promising from various points of view,
>>> especially if one looks a couple of decades ahead, when energy and
>>> climate issues will probably be even more critical than they are now.
>>> --mkb On Feb 12, 2009, at 1:16 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>> The author spends most of his article complaining about how unpleasant
>>>> Greens are to him, rather than presenting the argument that led to his
>>>> "Damascene conversion ... a month ago."  He relegates that to a
>>>> reference to "Prescription for the Planet, a new book by the American
>>>> writer Tom Blees."
>>>> 
>>>> Timeo hominem unius libri ("I fear the man of one book") said Thomas 
>>>> Aquinas. We've been hearing the science-has-made-nuclear-power-safe 
>>>> argument since the Eisenhower administration, but very little about the
>>>> cui-bono argument.  The persecution should contest both points. --CGE
>>>> 
>>>> PS -- I appreciate your paying attention to my letter, Wormwood, but I
>>>> had less Lewis in mind than the bitter herb (parallel to Sage) that
>>>> some say is the translation of Chernobyl...
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> John W. wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 12:28 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu
>>>>> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu>> wrote: Did you read the article,
>>>>> Wormwood? Yes, I did.  It said that advances in technology have
>>>>> rendered nuclear plants much safer than they used to be, even to the
>>>>> point of being able to use "spent" nuclear fuel that up to now we
>>>>> haven't known how to store or get rid of. Of course I have no
>>>>> independent scientific proof either for or against the author's
>>>>> claims.  I figured that Mort, being a physicist, might be a credible
>>>>> source.  But perhaps you have greater knowledge of things scientific,
>>>>> Screwtape? Wormy John W. wrote: On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 11:54 AM, C.
>>>>> G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu> 
>>>>> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu>>> wrote: 
>>>>> 'Persecution' seems to be just what the guy deserves.  --CGE Care to
>>>>> elaborate, O Sage One? Morton K. Brussel wrote: For those on the list
>>>>> who are critics or distrustful of nuclear power generation, you might
>>>>> want to read this: -- from the U.K. Sunday Times, last September.
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4836556.ece 
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