Chamblee54

Nuclear plants produce rhetoric, at a level equaling their production of electricity, debt, and radioactive waste. A nuclear power plant costs billions of dollars, which is real money. When you have that many zeros involved, the cost of hiring flacks to promote your glow machine is minimal. In the disaster unfolding in Japan, the pr guns are blazing, on both sides of no man’s land.
The loyalties can be confusing. When the Chernobyl incident went down, Communism was still a hot issue. However, there was little condemnation of Commies in the aftermath of Chernobyl. Apparently, being pro nuke was more important that being anti communist.
Bloggingheadstv posted a discussion of 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 one has a new hairstyle (John Horgan, the Bloggingheadstv regular). The discussion could be used as a text of rhetorical fallacies.
After the introductions, Mr. Adams blames the media for their method of reporting. The second question was “what concerns do you have?” Mr. Adams discusses first what specifically happened at the Fukushima plants. He then talks about a scientific study that was made after the Three Mile Island incident. Mr. Adams claims that the infrastructure at a nuke plant is strong enough to prevent a disastrous release of radiation, no matter what the circumstances.
Apparently, one of the circumstances that was not considered was a seven meter tsunami. But then, the study was not really about nuclear plant disasters. It was a post 911 study about the hazards of shipping nuclear waste. Mr. Adams thinks that there are plenty of other things to worry about other than the release of radiation.
There is a human error moment in the next segment. Mr. Horgan asks about the explosions at the plants. Mr. Adams explains how these “small explosions” came to happen. Apparently, hydrogen is produced during nuclear reactions, and must be vented out of the facility. When your diesel fueled backup generators are washed out by a seven meter tsunami, then you don’t have electricity to operate the hydrogen scavengers. Things tend to blow up when this happens.
Mr. Horgan asks about the workers who have been evacuated from the Fukushima facility. Mr. Adams starts to ramble about radiation, and the rhetoric spins out of control. Before long, he is talking about the dangers of aspirin . This clip ( the folks at bloggingheadstv call this a dingalink) begins with the words “I personally believe”. These are the same three words Miss Teen Age South Carolina used to begin her famous monolog.
Mr. Horgan asks what this incident means for the future of the nuclear industry. Mr. Adams mentions that these are older plants, without many modern safety features. He compares this to driving a 67 corvette. Energy is not created in a vacuum.
It is a lovely day in Georgia. PG intends to finish writing and go for a walk. The rest of the diavlog has Mr. Adams comparing a Federal loan guarantee for Nuclear Plants to co signing a car loan for his daughter. He mentions the development of small scale reactors ( one of these developers is his current employer). One of these mini reactors is one third of the size of one Fukushima reactor. It is hardly comforting to know that a relatively small reactor has caused this much trouble.
If you want to hear the complete discussion, go here. You might hear it better if you disable your BS detector. Pictures (except for the two talkers) were taken on a Sunday afternoon in Little Five Points. They probably are not the results of nuclear radiation.