Nuclear Saturday Night
It is another saturday night on the internet. PG is listening to bloggingheads and editing pictures. The pictures are from a trip he took to the beach a few weeks ago. There are 350 pictures in the folder, and the only way to get through them is to sit down and go through them.
The first bloggingheads is about nuclear disarmament. That is not a flavor of gum, like peppermint and doublemint. The doublemint twins are not good at negotiating arms control agreements…another flavor of mint.
It seems like the IAEA is having it’s once-every-five-years conference. Many of the countries at the conference are mad at the US for hanging onto our nukes, while not letting any other countries get them. There is hope for an agreement of sorts, but it probably won’t come until the last minute. A few years ago, they did not have an agreement at the end of the last day, so the delegates unplugged the clock and worked until the next afternoon, and came up with a treaty.
A few weeks before the end of the Bush regime, the US made an agreement with India to do something…PG doesn’t remember the details, and doesn’t want to listen to the broadcast again to find out. Anyway, India is somewhat of a rogue country, since it went ahead and got the bomb, prompting it’s neighbor Pakistan to get the bomb. Some say that if a nuclear war ever starts, it will be between those two. So, it is a bit controversial that India is getting special treatment from the US…Israel and South Africa are especially jealous.
Iran’s President and fashion icon Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak to the conference. The diplomatic one has a way of making enemies when he opens his mouth. Iran, and her nuclear program, are being watched at the moment. Israel especially likes to make noise about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and diverts attention from the Palestinian tragedy while doing so.
This is another place where the talkers need to play smart…while the temptation to make Iran an issue is strong, there are other fish to fry. If Iran wants to make trouble, and prevent consensus on other issues, it can.
It is noted in the video that the IAEA is charged with monitoring nuclear programs to verify compliance with treaties. This is considered an important job, and yet the IAEA has less of a budget than the police department in Vienna, the base city of the IAEA. It is expected that more money for this agency will be discussed at the conference.
The second part of the doubleheader is “Science Saturday”, and the subject is nuclear energy. It seems like the US is buying decommissioned weapons from the USSR and is using the radioactive matter to generate electricity.
One of the guys is a navy man, who works on nuclear vessels. He gets going on the different types of nuclear matter, and your eyes can glaze over quickly. The pro nuke man said that the containment buildings around reactors is too strong to be penetrated by an aluminum plane, The issue of a 911 plane attacking a nuclear facility is a non issue. He says that the nuclear matter supply is secure, and this blog hopes he is right.
The issue of nuclear energy…developed separately from nuclear weapons…can be a force for peace. The navy man said, in response to critics who say nuclear power is too expensive, said (31:00) that the US Navy is an organization that spends $600 for a hammer, and just because our plants are expensive doesn’t mean that your would be .
The regulation and licensing issue was discussed. There are a lot of obstacles for a person who wants a small scale nuclear plant on their farm. On the other hand, China is building many large reactors, and the regulation process is taking a fraction of the time that America takes.
The pro nuke man…his name is Rod Adams…is a master of rhetoric. He says that a problem with the nuclear industry is the influence of the submarine industry, which is a tight lipped bunch. He says that there is a need for English majors at nuclear facilities, to get the word out about the benefits of the industry.
John Horgan, the anti nuke man, said something about the Homer Simpson syndrome, with regards to nuclear power plant workers. Mr. Adams said he hopes people don’t make career choices based on a cartoon. He does not watch the Simpsons, because it offends him. (57:30)
Mr. Horgan was gushing with praise for Mr. Adams at the end of the dialog, saying he might have to become pro nuke. PG was a bit more skeptical. Mr. Adams was repeating rhetoric, saying all the good things about nukes, a few bad things about non nuclear energy, and little bad about nukes. Mr. Horgan was over matched.
Watching the military man with the big mustache made PG wonder about the truth of what he said. (He was more plausible when listened to, without the visual part of the show).The man was just a bit too slick to be completely believed, especially on a subject as complex as nuclear energy.
One of the commenters said “it would be wonderful to hear Rod come back to discuss his views with someone who has his technical chops but not his enthusiasm for nuclear power. I’m not knee-jerk anti-nuke by any means, but I would like to hear some skepticism — this diavlog was at times only one step away from “too cheap to meter.” Nothing against Rod for being gung-ho, and I don’t think he misrepresented anything, but still: nothing is ever as good or as easy as it sounds when a proponent is the only informed voice in the room.”
Chamblee54 
Nice photos. Looks like you had a great trip to the beach.
I am sorry that my mustache is distracting – my wife likes it and it has been a part of my face almost continuously for the past 29 years. (The “almost” comes because I shaved it for a fundraiser called “Movember” on 30 October 2009 and then immediately grew it back. Friends and relatives paid about $1000 to organizations that work on cancer cures because they did not want to see me without it for very long.)
It would be great if bloggingheads.tv invited me back for a conversation with an anti-nuclear activist who is as prepared as possible. I would enjoy having the opportunity to respond to the challenge; there is plenty more to say about the proven benefits and the potential good that nuclear energy has compared to its competitors.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast
Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
PS – I made a tactical error by not establishing a bloggingheads.tv forum identity in time to participate in the discussion. I sent an email asking for an account yesterday, but it has not yet been created.
Thanks for your reply.
I have written about nukes before. (one ,two ,three, four ,five )
I have many concerns. There is the use of water, the connection to big government, and yes, the safety issues. While I think the safety issues can be managed, it will require constant, corruption free attention. This is asking a lot of human beings.
I appreciate the fact that you answered my blog without making snide, ad hominem comments. ( Even after I made a comment about your mustache). The nuclear industry has had an arrogance problem, which you seem to be trying to change. This will help your cause.
It has been said that if you could destroy cities with a sun bolt, that we would be using solar energy for all our needs now. I just wish we had devoted the attention, and capital, to solar that we have devoted to nuclear.
And yes, nuclear energy=big government.
I can understand why you believe that nuclear energy=big government. I can even understand why you believe that nuclear energy simply equals BIG.
My experience has been different from what most people have been carefully taught by those with a reason to do that teaching.
Though I always knew that the power plant I was in charge of was built by a government agency and that there was a government agency in charge of the series of plants that also produced the operating manuals, the training systems and required compliance, when the lines were removed from the ship, there was no longer any constant oversight. I had a group of about 40 sailors and officers reporting to me. Together, we made that little plant hum. We also talked about the simplifications that we could make to reduce the required number of operators and maintainers.
Following my Engineer Officer tour, I spent a lot of time doing research and ended up founding a company called Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. You can read about it at http://www.atomicengines.com and on the associated blog at http://atomicengines.blogspot.com.
Fission does not require large systems or big government.
Finally, please understand that while the dollars associated with nuclear energy in the public mind – especially in places like your home where there are new large projects in the offing – the dollars associated with the competitive energy sources are FAR larger. For example, ExxonMobil recently offered $31 BILLION for a company called XTO, which most people have never heard of. That company extracts natural gas in the US. A fair portion of the most profitable part of the gas industry is aimed at supplying fuel for power plants. That market would dry up if nuclear energy was more widely accepted. Even at today’s relatively low natural gas prices, selling that fuel to power plants is a $30-40 billion PER YEAR business. When gas prices were high, it was approaching $100 billion per year.
BTW – if you are interested, I can point you to some great sources of history showing how a very small band of scientist were actually far more interested in using nuclear energy for power production in the 1930s. They did the basic research and would have been building small power plants by the mid to late 1940s except for the fact that many of them were either Jewish or married to Jews and decided that fighting Hitler was very important. That was the only reason that they went for a bomb first.
[…] nuclear issues on May Day of last year. No reactors were burning at the time. ( Chamblee54 got a few words in. ) Today, the same two talkers are back. One has a new job( Rod Adams, the pro nuke talker), and […]
[…] glowing diavlog with John Horgan and Rod Adams. They talk about nuclear energy. Chamblee54 has written about these gentlemen twice. Mr. Adams thinks nuclear energy is safe, cost efficient, and just plain […]