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So tsunamis coupled with massive earthquakes are an 'incredible risk' in North America? I don't think so.
So tsunamis coupled with massive earthquakes are an 'incredible risk' in North America? I don't think so.Why nuclear? It's massively subsidized and has incredible risks, see, Fukushima.
you have to pick your battles, and this one is a stupid hill to die on. politics is give and take. give them their useless pipeline and fifty jobs or whatever, and let's build more wind farms and nuclear power plants in exchange. seems like a good trade.
So tsunamis coupled with massive earthquakes are an 'incredible risk' in North America? I don't think so.
Fifty or so jobs? I found a link that says there will be a great many more. Where did you get your information? The Keystone Pipeline Would Create Thousands Of Jobs - Forbes
Why nuclear? It's massively subsidized and has incredible risks, see, Fukushima. I live very near a nuclear plant and don't actually have a problem with it - I'd trade more nuclear plants for coal, or fracking in my back yard, but I'd rather we spend subsidies on less dangerous forms of renewable energy. I certainly see no reason to PREFER nuclear over the others.
If the nearby plant is hit by a domestic or foreign terrorist, I'm in big trouble, and the area just a few miles from me will be wasteland for a generation or two, and who knows how far the river it sits on will take the nuclear fallout or what the long term effects will be for many miles downstream. Etc.
This issue is dead until the next Congress in sworn in. Will Obama Veto the legislation or sign it?
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats on Tuesday defeated a bill, 59 to 41, that would have approved the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, rebuffing a Democratic colleague, Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, who had hoped to muscle the legislation through in advance of her uphill runoff election fight back home.
Forty Democrats and Angus King, independent of Maine, voted against the bill, with just 14 Democrats joining all 45 Republicans in support of the oil pipeline.
snip
Senate Narrowly Defeats Keystone XL Pipeline
No, i do not think so. I'm just going by the example you presented as an "incredible risk", which I believe to be nonsense.You surely don't believe that the only possible cause of a nuclear meltdown is a tsunami, do you? And can you point to anyone before Fukushima who though those reactors were in a risky location?
It's difficult to tell when leftists are being sarcastic or simply expressing their seriously held views.i was being sarcastic. i don't know how many permanent jobs it's going to create. the liberal hacks say fifty. the conservative hacks act like it's going to be fifty thousand.
additionally, i don't care. i want you guys to get your pipeline for just one reason : i'm sick of hearing the right wing complain about it.
It's difficult to tell when leftists are being sarcastic or simply expressing their seriously held views.
And so you should.i'll take your word for it.
Why would he care? He's not running again is he?
No, i do not think so. I'm just going by the example you presented as an "incredible risk", which I believe to be nonsense.
Nuclear really isn't that dangerous.
Some radiation numbers
As far as nuclear disasters go, the fukushima death toll currently stands at 0. Predictions of future deaths range from 0-100-1000 (the 1000 being a non peer reviewed guesstimate). On the other hand, the worst hydroelectric power accident was Banquiao Damn, which caused 200,000 deaths, eclipsing even Chernobyl.
In terms of domestic terrorism, reactor grade fuel isn't enriched enough to be weaponized. Proper enriched stuff would be incredibly difficult to get a hold of. As far as the fallout from such an accident, living in a house 10 miles from Three Mile Island during the accident endows a similar radiation dosage as living in a brick house for a year. It's unlikely terrorists could turn the area surrounding a nuclear plant into a wasteland, their best bet would probably be getting hold of waste materials and pouring them into the water supply, note that the only suitable materials here would be high level waste, which accounts for less than 1% of a reactors total waste (95% of reactor waste is low level waste, which are things like cups and plates that have been used onsite). This would probably increase cancer rates over a number of years, hardly the impact terrorists go for (of course, the terrorists themselves would die awfully painful deaths due to the high doses when retrieving/opening the waste).
Renewable is great in theory but realistically doesn't provide enough to replace fossil fuels.
I'm not sure how you're measuring the risk. Just as an example, we know the potential problems - we've seen them with the Fukushima plant. Terrorists could cause it or maybe an 1,000 year flood like they had in Nashville a few years ago, like other similar, once in a 100 or 1000 year natural disasters that happen with seeming regularity somewhere in the country. And many of our plants are located on or near rivers, while Fukushima was able to dump the contaminated water from their reactors into the vast Pacific. Is there some analysis on the damages if nuclear waste water finds its way into the Mississippi?
And the analysis really isn't about the risk of instant death by radiation etc. It's a matter of costs, and subsidies, and picking which of various forms of energy to subsidize. Nuclear if it exists is subsidized by taxpayers - that's just a fact of life. So the question is how to allocate those dollars, not whether some terrorist will blow up the plant near me and incinerate my family. That's not going to happen, but there is a real risk of an eventual nuclear disaster that will cost hundreds of billions in damages, and the question is whether that's what we should allocate scarce resources to, or how much of those resources should we allocate to energy sources that carry that kind of risk.
Similarly, that's not the question. No one suggests that in our lifetimes we will replace fossil fuels. The question is what should be our national energy policy with regard to fossil fuels, renewables, nuclear. They will ALL play a roll for the foreseeable decades. And we can certainly replace a good SHARE of the fossil fuels currently being burned - we've already done it, with wind producing up to a quarter of electricity in some states.
And the 'green subsidies' will be as wasted as those previous handouts. If people live in constant fear of tsunami earthquakes, no houses would have been built there, or in California and most places in the world, for that matter.But, again, I'm sure you'd have said the same thing if you lived in Japan, right before you and 100,000 others were evacuated, and your house and belongings left behind in what will be a contaminated nuclear wasteland for a few decades. The total costs will exceed $100 billion, perhaps more than double that. Those kinds of costs would fund a lot of 'green' subsidies....
Life has risks and we can acknowledge that without living in fear of natural disasters. There has been reference to the "Three Mile Island disaster" in which no one was injured or exposed to radiation, but enough was made of it to slow down its development for years. Barring a combination of tsunami/earthquake proportions they are among the safest and practical sources of energy for heavily populated areas.I agree the risks are small, which is why I spend no time worrying about the risk from the local nuclear plant. Just see no reason to prefer nuclear over the alternatives, which don't carry a 12 figure risk of loss, unknown risk of loss of lives, should they 'fail.' Especially since nuclear energy wouldn't exist without taxpayer subsidies and backstop for the losses in the event of a disaster.
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