http://rawstory.com/2009/12/los-alamos-building...

A cannon with Civil War level explosive capacity popped open a nuke building at Los Alamos. Nice. $3 million dollars worth of damage courtesy of 19th century technology.

Boy, I'm feeling safer already…. LOL.

My father is a nuclear engineer & physicist, so these sorts of discussions were dinner table talk for as long as I can remember, and it comes down to this: In a PURELY technical sense, it “can” be done safely (but not cost effectively). I say TECHNICALLY, because if this was a world of pure science and NOT for instance, one in which human beings cut construction corners for profit, or underpay, understaff, and under-train security guards, or do retarded things like build a nuke plant right on top of a California earthquake fault line, then YES, it would be safe in terms of production.

But that is quite obviously not the REAL world.

The real world is messy, and with the kind of destructive power that we're talking about here, building new plants, and ESPECIALLY locating them anywhere near populated areas as the Indian Point Nuclear Plant (which thank the GODS is being decommissioned) was, is monumentally DAFT. The real world is more Homer Simpson & Mr Burns running the plant, rather than Einstein.

Then to the issue of the waste.

What is little talked about is that spent fuel rods are often stored in ancillary buildings near the main reactor that are NOT hardened against terrorist attacks or any other kind of natural disaster one might imagine. And all it takes is for a leak to let out the coolant, and you're in a Chernobyl world of hurt quicker than you can say, “Gee, your hair is glowing!”

For storage beyond that, there is the matter of time and placement. Yes, it could be parked in a place like Yucca Mountain, but you've first got to get it there – and we're right back to the whole risk thing.

So our government, in its infinite lack of wisdom, has ALREADY come up with a truly novel “solution” to deal with our nuclear waste. Do a bit of extra processing, and slather some DU or NDU onto a bomb, or smear it inside the barrel of a tank gun, and lob that shit at some poor slob in the Middle East. Which is why even BEFORE this latest little jaunt into Iraq, cancer rates there had already gone up by over 1000% because of Pappa Bush's war. By 2003 Junior had already dropped the roughly radioactive equivalent of 330,000 Nagasaki bombs on Iraq & Afghanistan.

And the nifty part of that is that this particulate matter doesn't degrade. It basically becomes a permanently available toxin for at least the next 4.5 billion years. Now the Army says we shouldn't worry about this because when it rains, the stuff just falls to the ground all harmless like. Supposedly the danger is only in the inhaling.

So they're relying on RAIN in the DESERT to make this safe…..

Allow me to introduce you to a weather reality of that part of the world: MEGA-GARGANTUAN SUPERDUPER GIANT DUST STORMS THAT STRETCH FOR MILES AND ARE THOUSANDS OF FEET HIGH.

And guess which direction the wind blows in?

If you said towards us? You win today's prize!

A hazmat suit.

Just as we're breathing in China's pollutants from their coal mining, we're also breathing in the BS we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And our soldiers are already getting the joys of experiencing the adverse effects from radiation poisoning like “burning semen syndrome”.

But take heart! As our own Gulf War vets found out, most of the adverse effect don't manifest for 5-20 years after exposure. Usually about the time your kid is born with his brain on the OUTSIDE of his skull.

So, if you're asking me to choose between that CLUSTERF*CK of problems and fluffy wind turbines, solar, or geothermal? Take a wild guess which ones I'm gonna pick.

What community are you going to risk by putting one of these plants nearby? And what assurances do you have that these plants will be any better built or maintained than all the other pieces of crap they've built? None!

Moreover, economically, these are a non-starter. They cost an arm and a leg even BEFORE the radiation poisoning, much less earning a dime from actual revenue from energy, and in the meantime, you're stuck with fossil fuels.

Why screw around with some wicked expensive midstep? Why not just go right to the non-poison solution?

What all the nuclear blithering is REALLY about, is that “the powers that be” don't want to lose their CENTRALIZED CONTROL over energy production — when they know full well that if the grid was modernized to accept small co-generated DISTRIBUTED power made by individuals with windmills or solar cells — it would be FAR more powerful (in much the same way that the internet is an extremely powerful decentralized information resource), less subject to disruption, and people would no longer be dependent upon THEM. THEY. “The Man.”

So they are DESPERATELY seeking a way to keep the power structure in the hands of a few, large central producers. Kind of the same reason why network execs and music companies hate the internets. People can create their own content and distribute it directly, without needing those parasites AT ALL.

The power is not just in the method of production, but the real power is in the DISTRIBUTION. And that kind of independent, small, self-sufficient generation is much more in line with authentic American values about self-reliance, community, and our shared goals to help our country.

For more information on all of this, I recommend readers have a look at these sites:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Indi...
http://www.riverkeeper.org/news-events/news/sto...

And if you can, try to watch the HBO documentary “Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable”
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/indianpoint/sy...

(PS. that was the plant that the terrorists on 9/11 flew directly over, and if they'd decided to hit that, instead of the Twin Towers, MILLIONS would have been killed, and more than a five state area irradiated.)

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/los-alamos-building-cannon-report/

A cannon with Civil War level explosive capacity popped open a nuke building at Los Alamos. Nice. $3 million dollars worth of damage courtesy of 19th century technology.

Boy, I’m feeling safer already…. LOL.