Back in February, I first mentioned that Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, would be addressing the 2006 Nuclear Energy Assembly in San Francisco, and now I'm finally able to share the video of his speech with you.
Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu
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Just a note on Brand's point regarding proliferation:
Brand makes his February 2006 pitch in the heat of the forging the India-US nuclear technology deal which intensifies and further destablizes the Pakistan/India nuclear arms race.
The Bush Administration in cutting this deal to help his "friends" in the nuclear industry has undermined and destabilized the NPT.
Sorry Stewart, but reality once again steps in on your dream where a "preponderance of evidence" shows that the spread of commercial nuclear technology simultaneous provides the building blocks for both the horizontal (number of possessors) and vertical (number of weapons) proliferation of the nuclear arms race.
The "finessing" of such a foundational issue, as Brands puts it, and is dishonest and uncuts the credibility of the "Nuclear Brand" of the "Stewart's Environmental Classification System."
As my daddy used to say "its like trying to put wings on a frog so he doesn't have to bump his ass."
Nuclear weapons and nuclear power are just the different sides to the same coin.
I concur the "abrupt climate change" is becoming ever more a concern. That's all the more reason why we dont want to waste more precious time and resource on this already demonstrated failed technology.
If you commercialize MOX and HEU for reactor fuel its incentive (or excuse) to put more weapons grade material into the production pipe line for more sophisticated bombs, not less. Simple law of supply and demand.
No enforcement to the NPT is a serious erosion and nuclear weapons will proliferate both in number of possessors and number of weapons.
Flash points for nuclear war like Kashmir are growing. Providing more nuclear technology pours fuel on the flames on these rivalries bringing the world closer to triggering nuclear war.