Posted on 09/10/2003 7:32:46 AM PDT by presidio9
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:16:31 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Actually, there was, and is. Ironically, about a year after they trashed the Shoreham plant, a hurricane came up the coast. The plans developed for Shoreham were used to effect an evacuation of the threatened areas. Worked like a champ.
Do you think those who opposed Shoreham were then branded by the media as the liars they are? Nope. NIMBY jerks.
If they want to build one in Hunt's Point, I would have no problem with it. Plenty of land there
Wind and solar are the best bet for now and the future if you want blackouts like we just had. But, with those as energy sources, instead of a blackout every 25 years or so, you'll be dealing with them on a monthly basis. Why? Two words: grid instability. If you've got inherently intermittant sources providing a significant portion of the capacity, you're going to have dips and sags and surges like you wouldn't believe. Try manging that on a multinational intertie. Wind doesn't always blow and solar goes away for at least 50% of the time in a given day, sometimes more than that. I for one wouldn't want my family freezing in the dark in the depths of a Northeast winter.
Ask the enviro-nuts that. They are the people blocking long-term storage for no good reason.
And ruined as a place to live because of it.
The more you make technology jump through ever more complex hoops to meet the demand of population increase, the more people will rush-in, pushing up the demand still further.
So you never get ahead of shortage anyway.
Meanwhile, you pay an awful price from the complexity and the diminished quality of life--AND YOU STILL HAVE THE SHORTAGES, too.
Thirty, forty years ago, LI's North Shore was wonderful.
But today, it's becoming just an extension of Queens.
You can keep it.
On the first point, unfortunately, it can't be done with the existing facility. Mario oh-so Cuomo punched a hole in the pressure vessel just for spite to make sure that operating the facility wouldn't be possible. Gained him some political points with the NIMBYs.
On the second point, speaking as a Jersey ex-patriot, all I can say is, please, Jersey has enough problems already without a few more ditzes and bimbos to deal with. Between McGreedy and Core-rind and Lousyberg (aka ersatz Torricelli), the whole place has gone nuts.
I know enough to distrust assurances that profess such certainty.
Such certainty is a sure sign the person doing the assuring is unqualified to assure me.
The French generate 75% of their power in nuclear facilities.
France, where perished 15,000 of its inner-city elderly in the recent heatwave, while their children frolicked at resorts--France is obsessed with the safety of its citizens?
Probably not said by any reputable engineer. Marketeers, maybe, or some media flak.
I would never trust something so huge and complex as a nuke reactor.
Probably said by the first caveman to see a wheel in motion. "My God, that thing rolls! How can you ever hope to control it!? Imagine the accidents that it will cause! Ahhhhh! We're all gonna die!"
But we did it anyway. Then people got scared when animals were domesticated and taught to pull carts and wagons. Later, when steam power was developed, people got hyper about steamboats and locomotives. Then the IC engine came along. Ahhhh! The speed of that thing! Stop it! Then those crazy guys from Dayton actually flew a heavier-than-air vehicle. Oh, my God! You know, if God had wanted man to fly, he'd have given him wings! What's wrong with you people?! Then people actually had the gall to dream about flying in space! Oh, Lord, what next, they're trying to get to heaven!
So, bottom line, people have always been afraid of things they don't understand. Fear is a powerful emotion, often not born of reason. But, fears of this kind are banished as easily as those of nightbound people who find that they can make light even at midnight by simply flipping a switch.
Never--especially when the price for being wrong is so unthinkable.
Only for those not willing to think. I think about them all the time, maximum credible accident analysis, most likely accident, etc. Here's a hint: you're better off worrying about a meteor hitting you on the head than being concerned about being harmed in a nuclear plant accident.
Such certainty is a sure sign the person doing the assuring is unqualified to assure me.
This is an idiotic response. Thousands of similiar reactors operating around the world around the clock for a generation without incident back me up.
France, where perished 15,000 of its inner-city elderly in the recent heatwave, while their children frolicked at resorts--France is obsessed with the safety of its citizens?
France may not care about Grand-mere and Grand-pere, but they sure as hell care about their own necks. A lot more than we do ourselves. They are cowards, remember? If nuclear power posed any danger they would build windmills.
If this is so, its not because of Shoreham's operation, since the NIMBYs never allowed it to operate. What was built there is a very, very, very small fraction of the total land use. In fact, if the quality of life there has deteriorated, its likely because Shoreham was not allowed to operate. LILCO was extorted into trashing Shoreham and given the promise of building fossil-fueled plants, most likely using natural gas. If they built those (I'm not sure that they did), those are a heck of a lot more degrading to the environment than a nuclear unit, which can crank out ten times the juice with essentially zero emissions.
Anecdotal evidence of the dangers of solar energy, I'd say.
One major accident in a major population center like the Northeast would do more harm than all those reactors have done good.
History shows the foolishness of placing too much faith in the safety of technology.
No good scientist would say these plants are 100% safe.
It would be idiotic to view these plants as anything other than necessary evils to be chosen only as a last resort--the first choices being conservation and a halt to population growth by restricting immigration.
What the matter--the bigger picture eludes you?
An end to immigration because this country has enough people.
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