On Saturday 09 April 2005 11:36, Jed Rothwell wrote:
> Standing Bear wrote:
> The legal problems were caused by the Three Mile Island accident. It was
> the most expensive industrial accident in history by far. It nearly
> bankrupted the power company. The detractors never cause 0.01% as much
> trouble as the people who designed that plant,
Opposition to nuclear power existed in force long before the Three Mile Island
reactor number 4 incident. It was based on the flawed and empty logic that
if some isotopes had a half life of thousands or more years and had any non
zero possibility of being created in any reactor even in quantities of a few
atoms, then we as a society should neither construct nor operate them; and
we should influence our free world allies to do the same. This was to be done
in the face of a crash program to construct them in the non-free world
nations. Later the possibility of sabotage was added as another 'fear
factor' militating the aggressive pacifists desire for our nation to disarm
and depower,.....and later deindustrialize itself. The very idea that
nuclear opponents caused "0.01% as much trouble" is a big lie straight out
of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'---tell a big lie and tell it often and sooner or
later it will be believed.
The three mile island disaster was only a random event that played into the
hands of the anti-nuclear crowd and its foreign financed and
advised propaganda machine. It served to accelerate the campaign
among apathetic Americans numbed by their television sets, but it ocurred
long after the agitation was started.
As for it being the most expensive industrial accident. That is another
tarnished jewel in the crown of thorns of the anti nuclear propaganda
campaign. If one wants to count lives as well as money, that award could
go to Union Carbide. Its Bhopal, India plant was a sterling example of
American jobs exported to wherever it was cheapest. Cheapest in terms of
safety, of wages, of environmental protection....you name it. It turns out
Union Carbide was right. They are even now getting the best foreign justice
that money can buy, and its victims are too economically weak to be listened
to, especially by a Congress Party government. Who remembers them here?
If they are cut, do they not bleed as well as we? Were they not, in terms of
the religious among us, also created in God's image; or are they of less
value because they are of a different faith......or race?
The three mile island was also worth quite a bit to the anti-nukers for
teaching them that financial and legal tools were potent weapons in the
hands of the proper barrators. The lawsuits flowing out of the affair were
continued for years and all out of proportion to the real damage. It was
here that the lesson that there was profit to be made from yelling fire in
a crowded theater was driven home in thousand dollar bills. Never had
treason prospered more, as frivolous lawsuit followed preposterous claim;
and all had to be defended in court and the expenses counted in the balance
sheets of the utilities. It was found that frivolity made money even when
there was no real cause, as suits and motions were rained down on a
hapless power industry whose only mission was to make money. They did
not care how they made money, and discontinuing the nuclear option was
an easy way to quite the noise and money drain. The anti-nukers then
fatuously claimed that nuclear power plants were expensive when the
anti-nukers themselves had caused the expense!!
Well the anti-nuke Americans had their say, no more nuclear plants
were constructed here since then. But that does not mean the rest of
the world followed.
<snip>
>
> Plant construction stopped all over the world, including in Japan and
> Russia, which were not affected by the Viet-Nam war or draft dodger
> mentality.
>
> - Jed
Plant construction was slow to arrive in Japan due to a national phobia
against nuclear power arising from the actual use of nuclear weapons
on Japan in the great war. Arrive it did, however. It is a sad, bad fact
of life in Japan that they are a hard working people who have had the
bad luck to inherit a piece of this rock with little in the nature of real
industrially usable energy resources. True, parts of the island are among
the windiest places on earth (wind power); and parts of the island
have really wild surf (wave power). Other parts of the island are
geologically quite active (geothermal power). Where economically
feasible, these either have or will be exploited. However, Japan's
population is large for the size of the nation, and problems of expense
in developement of these resources involve designing for some of
the largest destructive forces in nature. Typhoons with wind speeds
in excess of 300 kilometers per hour strike this island (really STRONG
windmills); Waves from these same storms and from Nor'easters that
have to be seen to be believed can wreak their own havoc as well (really
STRONG wave energy extractors that can operate under water and
withstand high water velocities; and geothermal plants must be
prepared for quick evacuation in case of volcanic eruptions....which DO
occur in Japan. The Japanese realized that renewables was not going
to do the job for them. The alternative was to compete man for man
with the cheapest, poorest, and one of the most highly skilled and brutally
disciplined labor forces on the face of the planet, the Chinese. This
competition was to be without sufficient energy! In effect, to listen to
the anti-nuke crowd in Japan was to convert the whole country's labor
force to coolie labor at the lowest possible wage. The Chinese are building
nuclear plants as well, so once the Chinese build enough of them.....
with western money by the way financed with the profits of American
jobs exported there in search of cheap labor.....then the Chinese will
take the coolie jobs from the by now impoverished Japanese as well
and they will be left with nothing.....courtesy of American hippies and
yippies! The Japanese, not wanting this, are on a crash course to
build not only nuclear power, but the breeder cycle as well. It is only
by this and other means that Japan will be able even hope to sustain
itself. The Russians are now seeking nuclear power again as well. The
new designs will probably be much better than the Tchernobl model,
and they will be built everywhere. The French were tempted by their
own fanatics to commit economic suicide, but never did, and France
is now supplied over 70 percent by nuclear power. The Armenians
have been blackmailed by the Bush crowd to shutter their plant which
saved their lives a few years ago, but I think the final stumbling block
will be whether our government will agree to supply free petroleum
or natural gas or coal fuel to the chemical power plants that we want
them to construct...and supply it forever at American taxpayer
expense. For expense if the real bottom line. The Germans made a
large amount of political propaganda out of shutting down their German
nuclear plants. The 'Die Gruenen Partei' profited in German polls. Now
with Germany becoming energy short, the Greens are not as popular.
The German initiative was well recieved in France, as Germany is
becoming or soon to become a very good customer buying nuclear
generated electricity from the French. Just like environmentalist
Oregon shunned hydro power only to be forced by economics to not
only want to by Washington State's hydro power from the WPPSS, but
to go to federal court over 20 years ago to force the state to sell it. They
were'nt too proud to use it. It was really just 'NIMBY' on a large
scale. YOU build it and WE will take the advantage of it. WE were
damn fools, so YOU can pay for our foolishness.
The Chinese are also building the breeder cycle. They have coal,
but they want to use it for other things as well, which is a wise decision.
They, having originally exported trouble making all over the world in
the past, will brook no such hooliganism at home. China has been a
quiet place since Tian-an-Men. It appears that this lesson has been
learned by the present American administration as well. The head
torturer in Iraq is now Attorney General. If that does not scare you,
you are numb from the neck up.
The reaction from the extreme environmentalist movement is now
gathering. Every job lost to foreign 'outsourcing' will create in the person
layed off a new opponent of 'free trade', 'environmental protection', and
'globalism', and 'competitiveness'. Every time one goes to the gas
station and fuels on expensive gasoline, he/she will think of 'OPEC,
the 'WTO', the 'UN', the 'Group of Eight', and others and silently burn.
This fire will take light and burn among the masses, gathering in the
small towns depopulated by the departure of its only industry,
spreading to the other places newly populated by illegal aliens let
in here by administrations controlled by big business that wanted to
take advantage of the low wages and control opportunities presented
by them. The firestorm of protest that is coming will be joined by those
illegals as well, for they will recognize that they are now in the same
boat as the rest of the Americans. Mexico has the same problems as
well. These new Americans know how to fight revolutions. The politicos
that allowed their immigration will be proved to be fools! The Mexicans
learned revolution from their ancestors in the Revolution of 1910.
New demonstration campaigns might find that the climate in this country
has changed and will change more as fuel gets still more expensive.
Expensive will BE the rule of the day as easily obtained fossil fuels are
running out at a geometrically increasing rate. The new storm of protest
will sweep all environmentalists before it and look for something to blame
their new poverty on. A new Robespierre heading a new 'Committee
of Public Safety' will visit a new 'reign of the guillotine' on those who
allowed the present state and future trend of affairs to happen.
Nuclear power is the salvation of these people, and these people will
come to know it! If not myself or people like me, then others even less
charitable to the luddites of the late 20th century. Our children will live
to see and hear the cry: "To the wall with traitors!" They will know what
they had and lost, and who took it from them! Many will tell them. The
archives are everywhere. In every junkyard are the old large cars that
common people paid only a few thousand dollars for and which cost
little to run and carried people safely. Libraries exist in every small town
and city in the country. The crimes of the luddites are everywhere on
record. The prosecuters are in the sixth grade. Soon they will grow up.
What kind of trial do the economic saboteurs of the past want?
Standing Bear
