In a message dated Fri, 12 Jul 2002 4:02:01 PM Eastern Standard Time, Eric Oines
writes:
> The recent US Senate vote approving the Yucca Mtn. nuclear waste repository bodes
> ill for the residents of Minneapolis and the metro as a whole.
>
As opposed to the present policy of leaving the waste in place near the
Mississippi River, in one case cheek-by-jowl with the Prairie Island Ojibwe
community? Why, are they moving the site to the Metrodome?
> Due to the proposed routes for either trucks or trains, all shipments originating
> from Minnesota nuclear plants (Prairie Island and Monticello) will be routed through
> the twin cities. If trucks are used for shipments, there will be 1,581 truckloads
>of
> high-level waste coming through the twin cities. If trains are used, 224
>trainloads
> would come through.
>
I'd like to see some documentation on this. The rail network in Minnesota is
hardly
so sparse that all trains must pass through Minneapolis, and to run truck convoys north
from Prairie Island to the metro area when Nevada is well south of here is
counterintuitive.
Can we have a link? Preferably from the DoE? I'm a big fan of primary documents.
> By contrast, Wisconsin, which has no plants, will have a total of 3 shipments.
>
No, but you don't have to have a nuclear generating plant to produce high-level
radwaste. Any hospital with a radiology department does that. Or should we close all
those down, too?
> Estimates by the Environmental Working Group show that even the most minor accident
> involving a small release of radioactive gas (not a full breech, fire, or other
>"major"
> accident), could cost 700 people their lives within one year due to fatal cancers.
You forgot the part where we all grow an extra eye and become glowing mutants.
Environmental groups have a really crappy record on estimating these things, and I
find this estimate no more persuasive than the rest of the scaremongering they
indulge in on a regular basis...first the "global cooling" crisis, then the Club of
Rome's wildly inaccurate prognostications, then Paul Ehrlich's dud "Population Bomb"...
do I really need to go on?
> DoE maps show that a significant portion of downtown, north Minneapolis and the
>lakes
> area is within 1 mile of the proposed train routes <snip> The proposed truck routes
> utilize I94, I35, I494 and route 62. Also within one mile of the Minnesota routes
>are
> 19 hospitals and 180 schools and a total population of 683,000 Minnesotans.
>
To say nothing of all those poor cuddly animals at the Minnesota Zoo.
Come on, Eric, we're talking about radioactive waste here, not nuclear weapons.
People manage to get along in those hospitals and schools and homes just fine
despite all the shipments of corrosive, acidic, explosive, and flammable substances
that move through the metro area on a daily basis, so what's the fuss over a bunch
of spent fuel rods wrapped in tons of steel and concrete? It's not like we're asking
people to take in the fuel rods and keep them in their living rooms, or even in their
garages.
> The DoE acknowedges that these shipments represent a significant terrorist target.
> How easy would it be to derail a train or force a tracker-trailer off the road?
Not very. In spite of the fact that this stuff would be nearly useless for
making any kind of nuclear weapon, except a "dirty bomb" which would probably kill
more terrorists during its construction than Americans after its detonation,
shipments of high-level radwaste are routinely escorted by DoE security types who
will probably be given authority to shoot to kill. Besides, these casks are HEAVY.
No train carrying them is going to be moving very fast, and it's certain that DoE/
Homeland Security is going to be checking the tracks very very carefully. "I pity
the fool that messes with a radwaste truck," as Mr. T might say.
> Additionally, Yucca Mtn. will only be taking about half the waste currently stored
> in Minnesota, so this issue will NEVER go away as long as we continue to have active
> nuclear power plants in the state.
Again, I'd like to see documentation on this. All the literature I've seen says
that all the high-level waste (spent fuel rods, mainly) is going to Nevada.
Nothing personal, Eric, but this whole post screams out why I could never
support the Green Party above the local level. Nuclear power is the safest and
cheapest power generation method available to us, from beginning (extracting the
fuel) to end (disposing of the waste) of the power generation cycle. It doesn't
put miners' lives at risk, it doesn't pollute rivers and other bodies of water,
and the current waste is the product of DECADES of plant operation. At that, those
rods could be recycled into new fuel, if we had ever built the breeder reactors
to do it - but thanks to the demagoguery of "ecology-minded" groups, those were
shelved here in the States. France, Germany and Japan don't seem to have problems
with theirs, oddly enough. Nuclear reactors don't release noxious gases into the
air, as do coal and oil. Nuclear reactors don't pollute the water table, as the
manufacture of solar cells does. Nuclear reactors operate 24x7, 365 days a year,
unlike wind farms and solar cells...neither of which could begin to replace the
megawattage generated at Monticello and Prairie Island.
It is the blind refusal of the Greens to see this, and their continued
scaremongering on the issue, that totally frustrates me. By all means, promote
energy conservation and alternative power sources (preferably ones that don't
need subsidies from the government to make them cost-effective) but spare us
the lectures on the horrors of nuclear power. There are far more health hazards
involved in NOT going nuclear.
Kevin Trainor
RPM Candidate HD 61A
East Phillips
www.taxpayersfortrainor.org
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