Well, sure, but the Union of Concerned Scientists, whose comment
I was addressing, persists in trying to advocate viable policies,
and I modestly claim only that what we advocate should be policies
we would be happy to see followed.  It would be in the interest of
a much-needed solidarity if I could go along with James Hansen's
line --political and technical and bold-- but I can't.  Nuclear
remains on the table, even in Japan & India; I recognize this and
try to understand it; but I can't help hollering, "Hey!  No!"

Chandler



On Sun, 23 Feb 2014, Carrol Cox wrote:

> I'm afraid "our" option is to helplessly stand by and watch. "Our" here
> refers both to conscious leftists and, more generally, for the mass of
> humanity other than the 1%. And even individual members of the 1% are
> helpless to affect policy, especially if, as has been suggested, it has to
> be a policy joined in by China & the U.S. Capitalism differs from other
> historical orders in that the relations of production are beyond the control
> even of the rulers.
>
> The immediate question, that is, is political, not technical.
>
> Carrol
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Science for the People Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chandler Davis
> Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 4:54 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Is Nuclear Really our only option to address climate change???
>
> Thanks, Charlie.  I don't know how David Wright --and some members of this
> group as well-- can say nuclear "has to remain on the table".
> Wright is perfectly clear about the reasons for getting out of nuclear as
> fast as feasible: the risk (not only from fire & earthquake, but from all
> sorts of malfunctions) is intolerable, and every kwh of power got from the
> reactors is that much more spent fuel which will stay around for tens of
> thousands of years rendering part of our finite planet uninhabitable,
> unfarmable, and even damn near unminable.  This has been known since the
> 1950s, but the economics has been falsified, especially by the
> Price-Anderson Act and successors.  What part of the fraud is conscious and
> what part is just stupid wishful thinking on the part of the nuclear
> advocates, is debatable; let's debate it; but let's not share in the
> delusion.
>
> Chandler
>
>
>
> On Sun, 23 Feb 2014, Charles Schwartz wrote:
>
>> I sent a copy of the latest Hansen paper to David Wright at the UCS,
>> asking his opinion. Here is his reply, which I think is quite
>> interesting.------------
>> Thanks for sending this, which I hadn't seen. I have sent it to our
>> energy experts to see what they make of it, since I am not an expert in
> this area.
>>
>> My guess is that we would agree with much of what Hansen says about
>> the urgency of combatting emissions and on the need to cooperate with
>> China, and others, on this. Where we tend to disagree is our
>> assessment of the risks of scaling up nuclear power. UCS is neither
>> pro- nor anti-nuclear power. Our goal is to increase its safety and
>> security since it will be with us for the foreseeable future no matter
>> what else happens. We see a number of problems and potential problems
>> that we don't believe the industry or NRC are adequately addressing.
>> Until that changes, we are weary of increasing nuclear power, but
>> think it needs to continue to be considered to reduce global emissions.
>>
>> There have been two recent letters by scientists arguing for more
>> nuclear power, which you may have seen. Hansen was part of the first
>> letter. My response to the second letter is here:
>> http://blog.ucsusa.org/climate-change-and-nuclear-power-397   It
>> really gives our take on both letters.
>>
>> By the way, if you haven't seen it, we just released a book on what
>> happened at Fukushima by our two technical experts:
>> http://blog.ucsusa.org/fukushima-book-the-story-of-a-nuclear-disaster-
>> 412
>> It's getting great reviews.
>> -----
>>
>> Charlie
>>
>> On Feb 22, 2014, at 9:17 AM, Steve Nadel wrote:
>>
>>       I share the opposition to nuclear. However, I am looking to
>>       build the strongest case against that position, as I think it
>>       will more and more become the key debate within climate change
>>       circles. So I welcome all comments & references.
>> David - one scary part of Hansen?s analysis refers to your timeline
>> issues. If you look at the article, Hansen approvingly quotes the much
>> shorter timelines to build a nuclear plant in China. Of course, he
>> doesn?t explain where this magic shortened schedule comes from (as to
>> limits on popular ability to insure safety protocols are actually
>> observed during such mass projects) On Feb 22, 2014, at 8:55 AM, David
>> Schwartzman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Short answer: no, nuclear (whatever the generation) is not the only
>> viable solution to preventing even more dangerous climate change than
>> now witnessed.
>> See our case at: solarUtopia.org
>> Here is one critical reason, aside from many others:
>> The time necessary to create nuclear power replacing existing energy
>> is on the order of decades, significantly longer than wind/solar with
>> equivalent capacity to supply energy. The longer a given level of
>> atmospheric CO2 remains, the greater the long-term greenhouse impact.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 11:42 AM, Steve Nadel <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>       HI Everyone
>> A comrade of mine in the local climate change group distributed the
>> following link.  More and more establishment scientists are pushing
>> this position, that a transition to nuclear reactors (specifically,
>> ?fast? or ?breeder?
>> reactors) is the only viable solution to climate change.
>>
>> I would be most interested to people?s responses to this position,
>> especially if anyone has seen more detailed analytical responses.
>> (Note, the reference to Jacobson, is to Mark Jacobson, a professor of
>> engineering at Stanford. He has produced several analyses, most public
>> in a recent Scientific American article, outlining plans for a
>> transition to water/wind/solar via utility scale projects, as an
>> alternative to a nuclear transition. He will be speaking at a planned
>> conference on opposition to  Fracking & other new unconventional
>> fossil fuel sources, we are planning for the SF Bay Area in May of
>> this year)
>>
>> Best to all
>> Steve Nadel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I am not enough of a scientist to take a position in this controversy.
>> In fact I find it challenging even to read Hanson's articles. I would
>> however love to hear Hanson and Jacobson debate this issue.
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: James Hansen <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Friday, February 21, 2014
>> Subject: Renewable Energy, Nuclear Power, and Galileo
>>
>>
>> Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.
>> Renewable Energy, Nuclear Power, and Galileo A draft opinion piece, 
>> Renewable Energy, Nuclear Power, and Galileo, is available here or on
>> my web site. Criticisms are welcome.
>>
>> ~Jim
>> 21 February 2014
>>
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