France: Vive Les Nukes ["60 Minutes" praises France's nuclear power! This is excellent!]

CBS News / 60 Minutes ^ | April 8, 2007 | Steve Kroft

[calex59]

Try building a nuclear plant without emitting carbon. Manufacturing steel requires lots of coal. Cement also requires lots of heat, most of it is supplied by natural gas.

Could you be any dumber? Of course it requires energy to build one, but that is a one time expenditure of energy, once it is built it is producing cheap non-carbon energy, and if enough of them were built they could replace even the coal used to make steel. Use your head for more than a hat rack, it helps to actually engage the brain before talking.

[Wonder Warthog]

"A few weeks ago "60 Minutes" had a segment on France's nuclear power. I didn't see it, but here's the transcript."

As much as I am in favor of nuclear power, if "60 Minutes" is talking about it, there MUST be some catch. After all, "60 Minutes" is THE purveyor of invented news.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Oh, that’s right - it’s because Jimmah Cahtah wrote an EO banning the process so we could “send a message” to other countries. And, in the process, creating a HUGE problem that has stymied the US nuclear power industry."

So, riddle me this. WHY is that Carter "Executive Order" still in force?? Why didn't Reagan or Bush simply issue a new one??

[BlazingArizona]

Try building a nuclear plant without emitting carbon. Manufacturing steel requires lots of coal. Cement also requires lots of heat, most of it is supplied by natural gas.

That argument is a lefty red herring. Making steel and concrete for windmills also releases the same amount of carbon. The important measure in energy generation is the ratio of energy out to carbon created during that process.

[Cicero]

Well, the Democrats deserve about 95% of the blame for killing nuclear power. President Bush deserves the other 5%, because although he has pushed various energy plans ever since he came into office, he has not pushed them hard enough, he has not really twisted any arms over it, and he has not pushed nuclear more than marginally. He spoke the word once or twice, and then just let it sit there.

As for ethanol, which he pumped in his last SOTUS, that is a terrible and destructive copout that prevents us from getting serious about real energy solutions.

Now the problem is that the time for building a nuclear plant from approval to going on line is around ten years. And we’ve just wasted the past twenty or thirty years.

[ASOC]

Yeah, but burn up all the water and how you going to make beer?

Lots of new Nplants in the USofA any time soon? Nope. Why? Three Mile Island is too embedded in the US consciousness..

Reprocessing fuel? Unlikely. Why? Two words - Kerr-McGee (+ related mine, mill and tailing/waste)

Back story -
Creating further negative publicity for the embattled company, Kerr-McGee’s nuclear-fuel processing plant in Gore, Oklahoma, was cited by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 15 health and safety infractions between 1978 and 1986. In 1986 an overfilled cylinder of uranium hexafluoride exploded, releasing a toxic cloud of radioactive hydrofluoric acid. One employee died, and 110 people were hospitalized.

This fueled public outcry and set in motion a number of legal proceedings. The controversy surrounding the incident was further exacerbated when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission accused Kerr-McGee of giving a false statement during the commission’s investigation.

Also as important, Kerr-McGee lost its Corporate a$$ on the nuke energy business - a lesson not lost on other players in the industry. The FedGov is still paying to clean up mine waste and worker claims related to Uranium mining.

Will we see a large number of Nplants in the US? Not while coal is still a player - Nplants are very expensive, require *massive* FedGov subsidies - and for myself, I do not want ‘low bid’ mentality types running a plant that could devastate an area for centuries.

And I am not even ‘green’.

your mileage may vary.

[raj bhatia]

I respect France for this achievement. They got into nuclear power when the hysteria about being vaporised in an accident was at its peak. They demonstrated that it is entirely possible to pretty much meet all the demands for electricity with nuclear power. Kudos to them.

Of course the mediocre leftists in our country are still stuck in the sixties after a real world demonstration of NP’s viability.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Cold fusion, as far as I know, has no proof of actually producing net energy."

Actually, neither has hot. But it looks like BOTH "cold fusion" and non-Tokamak "hot fusion" are both "heating up".

Recent work released by a Navy Lab provides VERY strong evidence that the process involved in CF is indeed nuclear (their use of track-etch detectors to measure high-energy alpha particles given off seems pretty airtight).

And in another small Navy program, Dr. Robert Bussard (yes, he of the "Bussard ramjet" concept) claims to have made the necessary breakthrough to make electrostatic confinement fusion possible.

[ga medic]

I am not sure, but I watched this segment on sixty minutes and I think they were saying that the recycled fuel, if it is continued to be used, can be used for weapons. I may have been mistaken but there was definately something about that. Maybe someone who knows more about nuclear power than I do can tell us the answer.

[bert]

This is Hillary....she will propose a nuclear power Renaissance as her energy initiative. The fact it is well under way will not matter to the lefties. She will get he credit.

[Saltmeat]

So CBS and “60 Minutes” is now endorsing nuclear power generation. Apparently it has taken them about 25 years to arrive at the same conclusion that utility executives reached in the 1970’s. CBS using its 60 Minutes program did a one hour hit job on nuclear energy in general and Illinois Power Company during this decade.

They used their tried and proved propaganda tactics of using lengthy interviews and then taking responses totally out of context to achieve the effect that they desire.

Illinois Power agreed to allow CBS to interview any of their employees that they desired as long as Illinois Power was allowed to tape the interview in its entirety. Illinois Power then took the responses to the questions that appeared on the program. They then showed the employees response in its entirety on their own prepared response. The hatchet job that CBS did was clearly transparent and also vividly shocking.

Illinois Power tried to buy air time on CBS, NBC and ABC to air their response. None would sell them the time. All networks were allied in their efforts against nuclear energy. Jane Fonda played her role as well with the “China syndrome” bit.

How do I know this. I saw Illinois Power’s version. Because they couldn't’t get an television audience, they made their response available to other electric utilities and anyone else that wanted it. I retired from one to those electric utilities.

CBS was wrong about the safety and reliability of nuclear energy as well as the environmental benefits. Their efforts to demean nuclear power has proved to be a gross error.

They will never admit it though.

[null and void]

Hmmmm. I think you’re right. Good call.

[BurbankKarl]

So it was the left that forced out dependency on foreign oil due to its NO NUKE policies.

[cmsgop]

My Democrat friend works for this company, Nuke Power is one thing we agree on.

[jveritas]

According to the Left wing lunatics nuclear power plants are good for France, Europe, North Korea and Iran (who wants nuclear weapons not power plants) but it is terrible for the United States.

[P-40]

The fact it is well under way will not matter to the lefties. She will get he credit.

There are a lot of energy developments that came about because of this administration that the next administration will take all the credit for. That is mostly the fault of this administration not being very vocal in what all it is up to on the low- to non-petroleum energy sources front.

[P-40]

if it is continued to be used, can be used for weapons.

That is one way you can get weapons-grade materials for a bomb.

[atomicweeder]

My geology professor in 1977 said the same thing -- we have no choice except to use nuclear energy. And even though the professor was a hippie himself -- it completely antagonized the no-nukes idiots in the class.

He also said that Europe would continue to improve and innovate nuclear power plant design and by the time that U.S realized it needs a lot of nuclear power, all of the most lucrative patents would be held by Germans or French.

[ga medic]

Thanks. I wasn’t sure what the reason was, but I thought that might be why they had restricted the usage. I guess they thought it was riskier to have a small amount of fuel that can be used for weapons, than a large amount of waste that can’t.

[P-40]

I suspect that even now we will still provide the fuel for the nuclear plant in Iran if it ever gets going...but on the condition that we can get the spent fuel back.