Sunday, March 13, 2011

Japan’s Nuclear Dilemma And The Cycle Of Volatility

There seems to be a fair amount of confusion around the state of a couple nuclear power plants in Japan.  This really should be expected given the horrendous crisis Japan now faces.   Although there have been some sensationalized headlines in the press, the reality is none of those people writing those headlines know with complete authority what they are writing.   But sensationalism and not restraint is what pays the bills for our paparazzi press.  Shoot first, aim later.

While we cannot discount any outcomes, Japan’s nuclear industry has substantially more safeguards than Chernobyl.  And it more than likely has better nuclear planning.  From the information I see, there is not a runaway reaction as there was in Chernobyl.  But as we remarked in a prior post, the U.S. people were misled by politicians about the seriousness of Three Mile Island as well so what do we really know?  And what could happen with aftershocks in coming days?

Nuclear plants don’t explode like nuclear bombs.  But as we wrote in our Pripyat and Chernobyl post quite some time ago, the potential nuclear fallout can be magnitudes worse.   The radioactivity from Chernobyl was one hundred times greater than the Hiroshima bombing in World War II, over 500,000 people died and 7,000,000 people needed medical treatment.  Nuclear power plant disasters have the potential to be far, far worse than nuclear bombs.

Nuclear power is not cheap as we highlighted before.  The costs are subsidized publicly (Profits are privatized.  Sound familiar?  Sounds like Wall Street.), the dismantling process is incredibly expensive, the waste is a serious problem and then we have this current situation to remind us that unlike a coal, natural gas, geothermal or solar facility, a disaster has the potential to destroy millions of lives and render entire cities or even larger areas uninhabitable for thousands of years.   There are superior forms of generating energy and I would state that even though it is relatively new, solar is one of them.  Generation IV nuclear technologies and other advances will provide major breakthroughs in nuclear power plant abilities but that’s a forward-looking statement.   

This all highlights a serious crisis in our country that we have written of numerous times.  We do not have public debates on substantive issues such as nuclear power, or for that matter anything else.  Instead we have a lot of people doing a lot of talking who have no idea what they are talking about – politicians, lobbyists, the corporate media and corporate bureaucrats.  And what happens is that politicians, most often idiots, then ram these decisions down our throats because they have lined their pockets with bribes from corporations or special interests.  Do you remember our post on nuclear power lobbyists and their deleterious effects on Washington politics?  Or our post on Goldman Sachs being behind the nuclear energy push in the U.S.?   Need I say more?  Are politicians lining us up for an eventual nuclear crisis of our own?  I think we can assume it’s just a matter of when rather than if. 

With the cycle of volatility we are in, there is obviously a heightened risk for this type of event.  And that is one reason I have written numerous times about this topic.  

There are lessons to be learned in all of this.  We need to restore public debate by experts and not special interests and corrupt politicians.  In order for that to happen, we need to get politicians out of our lives and restore this country and our economy to its rightful owners, We The People.   Politicians are stewards and administrators for the rightful owners of this country.  They are not kings and queen as they have appointed themselves.   And nuclear disasters in one country have the potential to kill millions of people in another country.  There should be consideration for minimum international standards for nuclear plant designs and processes beyond what exists.   And those standards should be managed by bodies of scientists and engineers and not politicians or political organizations as exists today.  And there should be a consideration on a moratorium on building new plants anywhere until Generation IV or other unique designs are developed that substantially address nuclear safety and waste.  

posted by TimingLogic at 9:50 AM