I swear to Christ, you can't please these fucking environmentalist types.
They want clean power, yet they don't want nuclear power.
The push for new nuclear plants is full of irony. The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, made it clear no reactor can be protected from a jet crash. The first plane that hit the World Trade Center flew directly over the Indian Point reactors, 45 miles north of New York City. Had it hit the nuke complex, the death toll would by now be in the hundreds of thousands, based on a study by the environmental group Riverkeeper.
Unfortunately for them, they're wrong. What they are talking about is the cooling towers for those reactors. Those reactors can and sometimes are, built underground. That's more then adequate protection from hijacked aircraft. Plus, the death toll wouldn't be "hundreds of thousands". Chernobyl's death toll wasn't that high and it had a massive failure.
Meanwhile, a major earthquake has hit the world's largest reactor facility, at Kashiwazaki, Japan. The quake exceeded the reactors' design safeguards, and caused radiation releases and a significant amount of damage to the reactors. Experts are concerned about much stronger quakes there in the future. At least one U.S. reactor -- at Perry, Ohio -- was affected by an earthquake two decades ago, as well as last year. The nuclear facilities at Indian Point, at Seabrook, New Hampshire, and at Diablo Canyon and San Luis Obispo, California, are also on or near major fault lines.
Meanwhile, a cooling tower at the Vermont Yankee reactor has simply collapsed, spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons of hot water into the Earth. The reactor was recently allowed to upgrade its power level, and the collapse may have been caused by improper supports, rotted wood beams and an "insufficient" inspection program. Twenty-one other towers there are at similar risk.
So here's a thought: Don't build reactors in earthquake zones. The quake they are talking about happened 20 years ago and safety and building codes have been revamped significantly. Just like 20 years ago, building codes for homes was very different then what it is now.
But that's just one aspect. If they don't like nuclear power, what do they like? Well they don't say. They don't mention solar, wind, or hydroelectric power.
Environmentalists even have a problem with hydroelectric power. I don't mind if we build a bypass stream for the salmon and other wildlife, but how can you possibly have a problem with hydroelectric power? You're harnessing the power of a flowing river.
What about solar? Surely we can use the power of the sun in bright areas like California, Texas, Arizona, and Florida. What about wind? In Washington state, along the border with Oregon, there's one of the consistently windiest places on earth. The Columbia River Gorge is very popular with wind surfers, so why not bump the electrical grid with that? They have wind farms out in that area, but why not bump it up significantly?
If people want to be taken seriously for their protests, don't just complain, come up with an alternative.
Travis
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