Indian Point and the 'n' word
Driving home last night, I heard an ad on the radio for the Indian Point "Energy Center," a.k.a, the Indian Point nuclear power plant. The ad was designed to sell the public on the very debatable idea that nuclear power is cheaper and safer than other types of energy, and it fights terrorism by reducing dependence on foreign oil.
If nuclear power is so wonderful, why did Indian Point drop the word "nuclear" from its name? Because Entergy Corp., Indian Point's owner, is painfully aware that nuclear power has a negative perception - one the industry can't shake despite the best efforts of its hired guns on Madison Avenue to put lipstick on the radioactive pig.
We're surprised Exelon Corp., the owner of Oyster Creek, and its high-priced hidden persuaders haven't taken the same tack and dropped the name nuclear from its formal title. Exelon seems far more concerned about altering perceptions than addressing the problems that make Oyster Creek a ticking time bomb.
A post-script on that Indian Point ad I heard: It was immediately followed by a test of the Emergency Alert System. That's as bad as running a newspaper ad for an airline next to a story about a plane crash.
If nuclear power is so wonderful, why did Indian Point drop the word "nuclear" from its name? Because Entergy Corp., Indian Point's owner, is painfully aware that nuclear power has a negative perception - one the industry can't shake despite the best efforts of its hired guns on Madison Avenue to put lipstick on the radioactive pig.
We're surprised Exelon Corp., the owner of Oyster Creek, and its high-priced hidden persuaders haven't taken the same tack and dropped the name nuclear from its formal title. Exelon seems far more concerned about altering perceptions than addressing the problems that make Oyster Creek a ticking time bomb.
A post-script on that Indian Point ad I heard: It was immediately followed by a test of the Emergency Alert System. That's as bad as running a newspaper ad for an airline next to a story about a plane crash.
posted by Randy Bergmann at 1:19 PM
8 Comments:
Yes, Entergy gave itself a new name, and then tested its sirens. Acting as investigative point man, you "exposed" the semantic dissonance of these events.
Great job, but a silly post.
Randy, its as silly as obsessing on a car with airbags--- that car obviously going to crash at some time, or the airbags wouldn't be there, right? With logic like that we might as well develop a fear of doctors, because they live off sickness, or of airplane seatbelts, because their presence must mean we are about to crash. That's the semantic trick called "Affect Inversion". Good reminds us instantly of evil, wealth proves the existence of poverty, clarity is really confusion, safety is really danger.
No amount of great blogging is going to remove uranium from the physical universe we inhabit, it's part of the web of reality. Bury it as deep as you like, and somebody is going to rediscover it later anyway. Why? Because of Madison avenue? Because of lipstick? Because of Randy Bergman's preferences?
No.
Because it is only the very first high energy substance so far discovered. This civilization not only craves energy, it requires the energy. Get it from whatever source you like--- bird-slaughtering windmills, emphesyma-causing coal, arsenic-spreading solar panels, or hydrogen sulfide-spewing geothermal. Its all the same phenomenon. Man, the energy-craving monkey, living out his species' eco-niched destiny on his own planet, a planet so rich in high energy that man-monkey now stands atop mountains of coal-ash, garbage, mass graves from old forgotten wars & pogroms, and reams upon reams of anti-something delusional writing. Delusional? How dare I call your abolish-our-own-civilzation rant delusional?
The Women's Temperance Union of the 1870's was entirely right to campaign against alcohol, thus inventing the modern "Anti" phenomenon. They saw true evils that others allowed to exist. Let us review their accomplishments. Er....let's see-- nothing? Well-nigh nothing. Oh, yes, they enabled the creation of the United States rum-running mafia. Not a real feather in their cap, I'd say? Looks like demon rum is here to stay! Damn!!
Why didn't it work?
Genies never return to bottles. It can never again be 1942. The secret's out , Ran. The innate mineral heat of uranium is well known now.
So let us ponder the world of the 2050's. World leader Iran, with its 250 nuclear plants, has become the planet's richest nation ever. North Korea, with its 98 nuclear plants is not far behind. China, with its 335 nuclear plants is now exporting the technology to all its colonies, one of which was once known as the United States of America.
The new dawn of true world civilization, begun in these nations in the 2010's, depends entirely on spontaneous heat, naturally warm metals, innate energy, Gaia-heat, native heat, Earth-given-energy, you know, the stuff they once called "nuclear"!
They started calling it something else just as they found out how not to make bombs out of it.
It was about the year 2007.
Harry Springer
"We're surprised ...." -- Randy Bergmann
We? Who is this "we" that you are speaking of?
There is nothing that makes Oyster Creek a ticking time bomb. Every day that it continues to operate it saves more lives. Nuclear power plants in the US have saved tens of thousands of lives by displacing coal as an energy source. The fundemental dishonesty of you anti-nuke psuedo-environmentalists was revealed when you cheered when the Zimmer plant was converted from nuclear to coal.
If liberal Leftism was so great, why have liberals insisted on hiding behind the "P" word?
What's "progressive" about a life-theory worked out in 1895, and proven worthless by the 1990's?
Ah, new-speak, dontcha luvvitt?
yes, Margaret, I have heard of the Tooth Fairy Project FRAUD. Clearly you know little about energy production in the US and the world. Wind, water and "things like that" MAY eventually be able to provide as much as 10% of US electrical energy needs. Not a lot of people are jumping on those "bandwagons" because the few people already on them have filled them up. So coal burning will continue to be a major source of energy in the US and the world, despite the HUNDREDS of thousands of people it kills each decade. Providing energy is no "instant gratification process", I know, I have worked as an engineer providing energy for more than 30 years. Even before that engineers and utility companies were working hard to harness the magical sources of energy you imagine. But it just ain't there. So the choice, if you care about life, is nuclear.
Listening to these commentaries is a riot. Cretin's creedo, anyone?
Even as bad as fossil fuels are, due to every aspect of the fossil fuel process being environmentally damaging, they are still superior in every notable aspect, to nuclear power.
One nuclear power plant mishap, (no, I'm not even getting into the waste effects of the process), will terminate more lives in an instant, than all the ones attributed to fossil fuels since installation into permanent use.
To listen to this tripe, is to believe that wille zur macht is a proper life philosophy. Which honestly, is fine with me, I don't doubt my ability to survive in that kind of world, but yours, is seriously doubtful. Everyone is for a "brave new world", especially in mentality, until it is they who must face the negative consequences of such, themself.
Then it's time call a lawyer and sue the state.
Bergman's apt description of Oyster Creek as a "ticking time bomb" points out at least one concern with decades old corrosion of the containment.
The more we find out through disclosure through the NRC hearing process about what little area of the containment has been inspected by measuring the remaining wall thickness (roughly 3 square feet of a 500 square foot band) of the known damaged area points to thinner and thinner margins that could lead to the collapse of the structure and severing of control/power lines for shutting down the reactor at the same severing reactor core cooling lines.
Then there is the area underneath the decrepit structure (the embedded region of the steel liner) that really can't be inspected and from 1969 to 1992 completely ignored for corrosion control. In fact, Oyster Creek is likely to be similar to the bucket sitting out in the field over the years, with its bottom corroding away.
Mastriani said a single nuke accident will kill, etc., etc.
This is not true. It is a fantasy.
However a single release of chlorine from your local waterworks WILL kill masses of people, ala Bhopal, India.
The upshot? Mastriani writes nice'n'fancy, but is full of sh*t.
Gunter tells us how corroded some mechanical part is...
Great!...To me that just proves we need NEW nuclear plants.
Make sense?
Harry Springer
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