Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
CD98: Adam Liefl - June 17, 2009
http://cd989.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=16702
A local group against nuclear power
wants Norfolk County to make it clear they're not a willing host for a nuclear
power in Nanticoke. Norfolk County Council heard from Grand Erie Energy Quest
at their meeting last night on their concerns for Bruce Power's proposal. Representative
for the group, Jim Elve, says their main concern is spent fuel because it remains
active for hundreds of years and Bruce Power only has plans to store it for
the first 150. Elve says spent fuel requires a paramilitary swat team for those
years its stored here, that's equipped to handle all threats, but he questions
if Bruce will still have an interest in guarding the fuel after the plant's
lifespan is up in 60 years. He says from what the group has heard there isn't
an interest for nuclear power in this area and would like to see ballot done
to see exactly what locals think.
on 2009/6/17 6:42:58 (622 reads)
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
I watched Cuncil last night and low and behold, these people are NOT abti-nuclear after all. Their official spokesperson admitted that they are OK with smaller nuclear reactors but not bigger reactors.
I'm confused. They are adamantly against storage of nuclear waste yet ALL reactors produce waste even the small ones.
Their credibility just went out the window.
sux2bu
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Let's just on with it folks. Where do you think the power we need in the future is going to come from? Windmills that take thousands of tons of cement and steel to erect? Where is the power to produce the energy for production of these materials going to come from? Does coal and other fossil fuels come to mind?
Time to wake up....
JimBob
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Where will power come from?
Smitherman has told us several times that we do not need any of the power a nuke at Nanticoke would provide. Barrett told us again in his blurb last week.
We sucker taxpayers are already paying
for power from Bruce and then paying again to have big industrial customers
take that power from us. Don't believe it? Read the Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/649763
As far as the medical reactors go, there's no comparison to these big power reactors. Ask the folks up in Chalk River how they like that leaky reactor spilling radioactive water into their river. That is, if they get told about leaks. They seem to wait a few months before telling the locals that they had a leak.
If saying you're against power reactors means you're against nuclear medicine, does saying you're in favour of power reactors mean that you're in favour of nuclear war? Let's talk apples to apples.
Yup... it IS time to wake up and realize we're not the ignorant rubes the bigf money boys think we are. A few donations and a buncha slick brochures don't tell us what we're supposed to do with radioactive waste that's gonna make us a target for nutjobs and hotheads and threaten our beautiful biosphere for hundreds or thousands of years.
JB
redgreen
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue
To County
Dear Lordy,
If you watched council last night, why did you not hear the response that there
is a HUGE difference between a Nuclear Power Reactor and a Medical Isotope Reactor
?? I would like you to take a look at a web site called Friends of Bruce - these
are the folks who have Bruce Power in Tiverton as their neighbour.
You really are confused!
earp
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
I also watched the nuclear presentation last night. What I noticed was the mayor using loaded questions to achieve his means, as lordy so eloquently explained above. Mr. Elve responded to the first question from the mayor (something like...) so you are against nuclear waste? Mr. Elve... yes. Mayor... so you are against medical isotopes. Mr. Elve... no. Mayor... well how can you be against nuclear waste when medical isotopes create waste? Mr. Elve... I'm not against medical isotopes as they do great good. I'm against nuclear waste from nuclear power. Nuclear power and it's waste is not the solution to our energy situation. Mr. Elve says he is very much in favour of superconducting linear particle acceleratation, a British Columbia acheivement which creates medical radioisotopes safely and cheaper that the nuclear medical radioisotope. (see below)
Since 2006 Canada's National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics successfully commissions Canada's first superconducting linear particle accelerator these accelerators produce some of the most exotic short-lived atoms in the universe in order to address a wide range of scientific questions, as well as to produce such radioisotopes for use in medical diagnostics worldwide.
brent
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
"Where is the power to produce the energy for production of these materials going to come from? Does coal and other fossil fuels come to mind?"
It's an issue of sustainability. You can get one unit of energy from one unit of fossil fuels one time. But that same unit of energy used to create a clean power creates energy far beyone what the fossil fuel created. It's actually pretty obvious...
Also there are more inputs in creating a traditional power plant (coal, gas, nuclear) than in creating sustainable solutions (turbines, geothermal, solar)
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
I guess this Energy Quest group also believes that you can be a little bit pregnent.
You are either against nuclear or for it. All reactors generate waste - what's so difficult to understand?
The spokesperson got tripped up by his own slavish belief in "No Nukes" at Nanticoke, yet isn't too concerned (like Toby) about nuclear anywhere else.
NIMBY!!!!
JimBob
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue
To County
lordy sez: "You are either against nuclear or for it."
So... lordy, does that mean you're for nuclear weapons and nuclear war? After all, you can't just be for nuclear medicine and not for every other nuclear thing, right?
The spokesman said they were against all nuclear power plants, not just the Nanticoke plant. That ain't NIMBY. He said they were tolerant of the small reactors that produce very little waste and create medical radioisotopes but he also said that there is another way of creating isotopes that doesn't require a reactor. He said he'd rather see Canada using this uniquely Canadian solution -- particle accelerators -- to deliver those medical isotopes. In fact, he said it would be better to invest the millions of bucks into that than into fixing that leaky junkpile up in Chalk River.
The mayor sounded like a caricature of ol' Hamilton Burger and in case you didn't notice, the other councillors were rolling their eyes when he resorted to the same absurd semantics and trickery that you're tryin' to pull here.
Nuclear medicine ain't nuclear energy. If energy reactors were capable of providing medical isotopes, we'd have more than we need -- just like we have more nuclear energy than we need. Do you really like the fact that we taxpayers are paying for energy we don't need and then paying again to get rid of it?
We're still payin' the piper for the fiasco at Darlington 15 or 20 years ago. I reckon you must figger the taxpayers got lotsa money to throw away on stuff we don't need.
JB
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Hey, Jim Bob, I heard from a small group that these here Perticular Cycloatons create them thar Black Holes that can destroy our universe.
I'm against those!! Even small ones!!
sux2bu
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue
To County
JB: "-- just like we have more nuclear energy than we need."
We have more than we need? What's
going to happen when we all have those electric cars that our Governments will
be pushing on us now that we own a share of the car companies?
Do you think a windmill in your backyard will be enough?
Just wondering....
earp
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Who says you have to be for or against nuclear? lordy? The Mayor? Who the hell
is lordy? Ah yes, the guy who fears the destruction of the universe to support
his debate. I also love how "lordy" hangs on to words like "NIMBY"
as if has some purpose.
JimBob
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
sux2bu asks: "We have more than we need? What's going to happen when we
all have those electric cars that our Governments will be pushing on us now
that we own a share of the car companies?
Do you think a windmill in your backyard will be enough?"
Well, sux2bu, lemme try to answer yer questions. One of the arguments people use against wind and solar is that we don't have enough batteries to store that power when the wind's blowin' hard and the sun's shinin' bright. If there are a whack of electric cars out there, then there will be amobile fleet of high-tech, high-capacity batteries storing that power. Most folks drive the chugmobile to work and leave it parked in an unshaded parking lot for 8 hours a day. Solar cell technology is advancing just like battery technology is advancing. Many electric cars will have self-contained solar cells on their roofs, hoods and trunk lids. Additionally, many companies will be doing like Go Transit is already doing and installing solar and wind generators at their parking facilities. This ain't science fiction. It's already happening.
Traveling down the highway, electric cars can recoup some of their energy with wind-powered turbines that spin like a whirligig and deliver a boost to the battery while harnessing the drag that any moving vehicle is subject to.
Who knows, sux2bu, maybe Norfolk County'll even have a little bit of public transit someday and we won't all need to drive our own chugmobiles every dang place we go.
Most of our little towns have dams that used to power the woolen mills and flour mills and saw mills and spinning mills. Them dams also powered hydro-electric generators that were deliverin' power to homes in Simcoe, Waterford, Delhi and Tilsonburg a hundred years ago. Today, we have stuff like permanently lubricated sealed bearings, nylon parts, rustproof alloys and high-output, small scale hydro generators. We don't have any spinning mills but we still have the dams and we got wasted energy flowin' downstream 24 hours a day. That's clean energy and we don't need to build us a $20 billion containment system to store the waste. There ain't any waste.
What's happenin' right now is we taxpayers are buyin' power from Bruce whether we need it or not. That's a sweetheart contract they sucked us into. Since we don't need it, we're paying industrial customers to take it. We've paid as much as 5.1 cents per KWh this year and in April, the price was negative (we paid to get rid of electricity) for 9 full days out of the 30 day month.
Bruce sure would like to have another cash-cow where they can get paid for producing something whether the customer needs it or not. Who wouldn't want a deal like that? Oh yeah... the poor saps who are stuck footin' the bill... the taxpayers.
JB
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Someday...we'll maybe , perhaps have all these nice things all the greenies only fantasize about.
Right now we've got greenies complaining and advocating against wind power generaters and land covering solar "farms". go figure!
Provincial gov't is demanding that all those "private" dams be taken out and maybe we'll be able to fish in the streams again.
brent
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
"Right now we've got greenies complaining and advocating against wind power
generaters and land covering solar "farms". go figure!"
I'm not sure what you are talking about. Environmentalists believe in sustainable energy technologies. No supporter of this is against proper placement of energy generators.
The problem is that there are still too many people in power that ignore the facts about peak oil, and climate change to engage the public in change. In the meantime, Denmark and Germany are emerging as the leaders in this technology. Instead of trying to become the leaders in this we try to defend our antiquated ways.
JimBob
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Whooee! Yer right as rain, BrentFeller. Just the other day, I was readin' about all the jobs they got over in Yerp that's tied to renewable energy an' efficient transportation. The article I seen was here:Renewable Energy Jobs Boom in Europe
I ain't sure what lordy's got against ol' Mother Earth but the fellers an' gals who been investin' in green technologies ain't the ones who we're givin' all our tax money to. The dumba$$ auto companies that refused to see the writin' on the wall an' kept on pumpin' out their gas guzzlin' behemoths is who we can blame fer drivin' us to the poorhouse... in their Hummers.
An' lordyFeller, I wasn't talkin' about little dams on private property. I reckon you knew that. I was talkin' about the dams that been in Simcoe, Delhi, Waterford, Port Dover, Tilsonburg an' nearly every other town an' city in southern Ontariariario fer over a hunnert years; public dams that hold back mill ponds and reservoirs and were tapped for electrical power decades ago but are doin' nuthin' today. That ain't fantasy. The dams are there but we ain't used 'em fer hydro electric fer decades.
The biggest fantasy goin' is the fantasy that we're gonna find a place to store radioactive nuke waste fer a few thousand years an' that we're gonna be able to keep it outta the hands of the terrists.
Read the news about Iran an' North Korea. If you don't see a connection between nuke power an' nuke weapons, you ain't payin' attention. The Merkins an' everybuddy else is worried sick that the Iranian hothead Mockmood Imadinnerjacket is gonna use the spent fuel from his nuke plant to make hisself a A-bomb... like that crazy Kim Jong Il already done.
JB
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
The nuclear weapons produced over the past 60+ years have come from the use of centifuges NOT electrical power plants, so stop the propaganda and scare tactics. North Korea, Iran and other states will move forward with the assistance of larger states who are playing a much larger "chess" game in/with the world. How do you think Isreal got their bombs?
brent
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
I think what JimBob was trying to say in his overly affected, folksy/yokel type of way is that spent fuel from Nuclear waste is used to produce bombs. This is called 'weapons grade' uranium or plutonium.
Nuclear is not going away. So the argument is silly. The decision on energy production should read like a flowchart: if energy can be produced without fossil fuels can it be done? Next, can it be done without Nuclear?, Next can it be done without Hydroelectric? You are then left with energy capture rather than energy production.
JimBob
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
The connection between nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons production has
been a fact of life from the beginning of the "Atoms for Peace" program.
Nuclear power plants produce plutonium
and other
by-products that are the essential ingredients of nuclear bombs. Any country
with a nuclear reactor can, in theory, produce a nuclear weapon. That is why
the US is so concerned about Iran's nuclear program. CANDUs produce the isotope
plutonium 239, making the production of nuclear weapons relatively easy for
host countries.
India manufactured nuclear weapons from Canadian nuclear technology in the 1990s. As well, depleted uranium is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process, and is used in weaponry including nuclear weapons.
The connections linking nuclear power and weapons goes to the source: uranium. It is the same nuclear fuel cycle with its mining of uranium, milling, enrichment and fuel fabrication stages which readies the uranium ore for use in reactors, whether these reactors are used to create plutonium for bombs or generate electricity. In the end, both reactors produce the plutonium. The only difference between them is the concentration of the various isotopes used in the fuel.
During the operation of a reactor, some uranium-238 is converted to plutonium-239. Each year a typical 1000 mega-watt (MW) commercial power reactor will produce 300 to 500 pounds of plutonium -- enough to build between 25 - 40 Nagasaki-sized atomic bombs. Only 8 kilograms of plutonium is needed for an explosion.
With so much plutonium around in the world today some has found its way on to a black market. In the 1990's. an international ring dealing in plutonium, was uncovered in Germany and Italy.
Other byproducts include polonium. Remember that former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned a year or so ago? He was poisoned with a teeny amount of polonium.
Then there's the issue of depleted uranium.
Uranium that is used in electricity generating nuclear reactors is concentrated to about 5%. This is uranium-235. About nine-tenths of the mass of what’s left after enrichment for nuke power plants is called depleted uranium. This is made available to the US to use for the manufacture of depleted uranium (DU) bullets.
Depleted uranium from enriched Canadian uranium is raw material for the U.S. military. Cameco's Port Hope plant ships its leftovers to Paducah, Kentucky, where they turn it into weapons grade DU. DU bullets have been used in several war zones since 1991 and are responsible for escalating birth deformities and childhood cancers in Iraq.
JB
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Because diesel oil and fertilizer are used for terrorist bombs, we should also ban those too. Oh and I heard that the nitrates in the fertilized can cause cancer and deformities.
earp
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
In the fertilized what?
lordy give it a rest, and get a life!
JimBob
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
LordyFeller, you seem to have a real problem distinguishing between the scale of things. Some things are big. Other things are little. I realize this may be a tough concept to grasp. It can be especially tough when ingesting very tiny amounts of something like polonium is more deadly than drinking large quantities of something like beer.
First, you thought that the waste generated by a tiny 5 MWe research reactor was equivalent to the waste generated by a two reactor 2400-3200 MWe power plant. If the two waste stockpiles were equivalent, there would be the same sort of security measures required for each. They aren't the same and I think you finally saw your error.
Then, you equated small particle accelerators, like the ones at UBC and many other universities, with the Large Hadron Collider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider), the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator.
Now, you want to equate nuclear weapons with fertilizer bombs. Fertilizer bombs are not good things. When packed into truckloads, they can and have killed hundreds of people. Nuclear weapons, however, fall into the class known as WMD: Weapons of Mass Destruction. WMD's the size of a suitcase can kill hundreds of thousands, even millions, with a single blast.
While, I certainly do not think fertilizer bombs are benign, your suggestion of equivalency is sort of like comparing a slingshot to a cruise missile.
Here's a little story that might help you with your problem of distinguishing the relative scale of hazards.
The other day, I was in Simcoe and I saw a driver toss a lit cigarette butt out his car window. While that was careless, essentially illegal and potentially dangerous, it was not something that would warrant stopping traffic and calling in the emergency vehicles and HAZMAT squad. If, however, a dump truck full of burning waste were to be emptied on the road, it would be a big problem.
Now, I can see that you like to have the last word, even when your arguments are specious and lack logic. As interesting as it has been to discuss this issue with you, I don't think I'll be answering your next illogical comeback. Go ahead and have the last word.
JB
Spidubic
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
"The Merkins an' everybuddy else is worried"
Might want to change that to Merikans. Then for a laugh do a search for Merkin.
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
I have a very good life and don't need a rest.
Your response is the usual for those who know they can't win an argument.
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
I recently visited the website for this Erie Energy Quest and saw that they have a poll and guess what????
NUCLEAR is the preferred option for Nanticake!!
earp
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Glad to see you educating yourself lordy. However, as true as you are to yourself as being trivial. You used the same argument as Golder by reading the EnergQuest poll as "NUCLEAR is the preferred option for Nanticake!!"
In reality, the poll shows...
35% in favour of Nuclear Power
63.4 in favour of something other than nuclear and
1.6% closing the coal plant without replacement
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Thanks, but no thanks..that's the Liberal/NDP/Separtist argument of the first
choice is really not valid because more voted for some other choice.
I stand by my observation that Nuclear in Nanticoke is the clear choice among many offered.
I suppose they will hide the truth and take the poll down of "fudge" the numbers.
redgreen
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
OMG - an obseravtion that Nuclear in Nanticoke is the clear choice ?? Where DO you get your information from? Please tell!
earp
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
It makes one wonder who they are (EnergyQuest), that they would "fudge" or remove their poll page from their website just because some guy named lordy interprets 35% in favour of nuclear as the one and only energy solution for "Nanticake" when 63.4% have chosen other alternatives to nuclear. lordy your position of self importance and having influence over EnergyQuest paints you as being quite narcissistic.
Spidubic
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Think about it for a minute. lordy may be technically right. Look at the poll:
35% in favour of Nuclear Power
63.4 in favour of something other than nuclear and
1.6% closing the coal plant without replacement
63.4 in favour of something else. But what does that entail? Coal? Wind Farm? Solar? Suppose it entails all three. Then the poll would look like this:
35% in favour of Nuclear Power
21.1% Solar
21.1% Wind Farm
21.2% Coal
1.6% closing the coal plant without replacement
Even if it is only two things Nuclear still wins. Think about it. ;)
Spidubic
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Guess I should have went there first. If I ended up at the same site the poll shows Nuclear clearly winning.
earp
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
I suppose the beauty is in how one interprets. Perhaps EnergyQuest should have created a yes or no question on their poll-site to avoid the debate. If the many alternatives not listed there were added the poll would weigh even heavier in favour of nukes. Regardless, how I read it is 63.4% in favour of an alternative to nuclear power at Nanticoke, which is in line with other polls taken in Haldimand/Norfolk.
Spidubic
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
"I suppose the beauty is in
how one interprets."
True. You could say:
86.4% are in favour of an alternative to Coal Gasification.
OR
79.9 are in favour of an alternative to installing scrubbers.
"Regardless, how I read it is
63.4% in favour of an alternative to nuclear power at Nanticoke."
Bottom line is if you don't add up the others and just go by the results
posted Nuclear is the preferred choice.
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Hey Earp, please share these "other" polls. where are they, which scientific group conducted them. who sponsored them
earp
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
lordy, what are you a cop??
You say jump. I ask how high?
First of all lordy (BTW you come by that name righteously), as EnergyQuest's poll is unscientific, all the other polls I relate to are also.
MPP Barrett sent home annual newsletters to every home in Norfolk/Haldimand (3 times). The findings were 76% in favour of alternates to nuclear power. the same % figure came out at his energy symposiums. Haldimand's unheard voice is similar against nuclear 61%, and it's been a while but somewhere on "Caledonia have your say" there was or is still a poll with similar results also. To be fair, there was an ipsos-reid poll taken by Bruce Power more than two years ago which was supposed to be scientific (but was driven by leading questions) that came up with figures in favour of nuclear.
lordy
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Ah...so if a professional firm does it then the question is "leading" but if a biased politian or anti-nuclear group does it...well that's OK.
earp
Re: Anti-Nuke Group Takes Issue To County
Well lordy, I was just acquiescing and tried answering your questions. No sense being a jerk about it. Simple truth is, the questions from ipsos were extensive and leading. The questions from MPP Barrett's 5 polls, and the other internet polls were simple yes or no questions.