To: downwinders@yahoogroups.com
From: "Russell D. Hoffman" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
Subject: Entering the hornet's nest once again...
In-Reply-To: <a1aq7h+s3ks@eGroups.com>
References: <3C36FAB8.E4EC0624@earthlink.net>
January 6th, 2002
Hoerner's got his eyes shut again.
Watch him below, as he makes up a new-and-improved-history of who has been civil in these arguments he's engaged people in, and who has not.
Watch as he uses warped statistics about energy production from nuclear to prove meaningless points about when the owners can start raking in the profits (versus true usefulness to society).
See how he never addresses nuclear's many vulnerabilities to terrorist attack (because that's just too weak a link in his chain). Tampa, FL is within about an hour's flight by Cessna 172 from FIVE nuclear power plants. Now the media say the kid pilot left behind a suicide note in which he "expressed sympathy" for Osama Bin Laden. Got GPS? Ignorance is deadly.
Call Hoerner clever (NOT!) as he says "show me, man" to facts that have been known for years, and presented in numerous papers, journals, and even government documents (the Moab waste pile problem, for instance).
Observe how he claims 90% capacities for nukes, when it's only that high if you don't include the losses from the numerous prematurely-shut plants (and probably 85% is a more reasonable capacity figure anyway -- but who can be sure now that the NRC has taken all the info down?). And of course it doesn't account for nuclear waste, for R&D, for accidents, for repeated "little" releases planned and unplanned that aren't really so little, aren't really so harmless, etc. etc. etc.. It's hogwash.
Last February one of my local nukes had a small explosion followed by a small fire which led to one thing after another, resulting in an outage that lasted over four months and cost over $100,000,000.00 (including lost income) -- just when California was having one of our so-called "energy crises" (they were phoney anyway, but that's another topic). On 9-11, a terrorist airplane flew right over Indian Point, and could have smashed into it instead of the World Trade Center. Three Mile Island was similarly threatened and vulnerable.
Hoerner's whole idea of nuclear power's "reliability" is warped, because energy which is coming from ~100 very large and vulnerable 500 to 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors is much less reliable than energy which is coming from a few tens of thousands of scattered windmills around the country (it would take at most about 50,000 modern windmills to replace ALL of nuclear's ~18% of America's electricity capacity). A windmill produces about as much waste each day as a truck sitting in your parking lot -- in other words, it might drip a little oil (windmills can even be lubricated with vegetable-based oils). The nukes, on the other hand, produce about 10,000 pounds of High Level Radioactive Waste every day. That waste is a terrorists' dream and a doctor's or patient's nightmare.
There are over 200,000 private planes in America, nearly every one of which is bigger than an average windmill!
Can America build 50,000 windmills quickly, so we can close the nukes and yet not feel any significant squeeze in our lifestyle? (This ignores ramping up hydro, solar, wave, tide, geothermal, biomass, etc., and it also ignores using fuel cells to store the energy, which can make offshore wind production even more efficient, and it ALSO ignores the squeeze we've all felt since 9-11.) Building 50,000 windmills seems perfectly possible to me. We build millions of cars, trucks, trains, planes, buildings, ships, boats, motorcycles, bicycles, heavy construction equipment, computers, refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, fryers, Easy-Bake ovens, etc. etc. etc. each year. Why not turn one year's car production into windmill production (funded any number of ways; that's what a "Manhattan Project for renewable energy" is all about)? Then we would never again need to worry about terrorists attacking our nuclear power plants (assuming we find some place to remove the spent fuel to, and some way to protect it on the way there, and some way to safely store it once it gets there, of course -- none of which we have at the moment).
Only the nuclear proponents, who have benefited from trillions of dollars of government R&D without ever having to pay in a dime for that effort, don't want a similar project to happen for renewable energy sources -- because, of course, it would put them out of business.
Hoerner cherry-picks everything -- from who he'll talk to, to what he'll tell them, to what he'll accept as "facts". He is not polite, and a reasonable consideration of the available science is not his objective -- irradiating the Earth to the maximum amount possible is his obvious goal. Were it not, perhaps he could define his limit for radiation exposure to the general public beyond which he might hesitate to add more. So-called "background radiation" keeps going up, and about 1/3rd of the public dies of cancer. What would Hoerner's radiation limit be? What degree of confidence does he put in his number? What is the basis of that confidence? And on what grounds does he reject the research of Gofman, Bertell, Stewart, Gould, Sternglass etc.?
(Oh yeah, he claims Sternglass jimmied his numbers, but I know of no evidence, nor has Hoerner presented any. Journals that are brave enough to publish Sternglass's findings have not had to print any retractions that I know of. If there had been any jimmying of the data, I'm sure Sternglass would no longer have the stellar reputation he actually enjoys, and would have been denounced throughout the scientific community, instead of just by faceless pro-nukers like this so-called Jim Hoerner fellow.)
Of course, as usual, the 2nd-worst part about Hoerner's writing is he doesn't cite sources (while repeatedly claiming we don't). Even when he does, he doesn't cite relevant studies, just mostly Nuclear Mafia propaganda web sites like NEI who will remind you that radium watch dials and radon are both radioactive and thus, might be bad for you. (The worst part of Hoerner's writing is that it's boring.)
It's interesting that Hoerner's revealed a little more of himself in his last email -- he now claims that nuclear power is "generally not" something he's "ignorant" about. That comment suggests to me that his sudden appearance on this forum recently is NOT just a selfless effort in environmental activism for him and his progeny, as he has previously claimed, but rather, that nuclear energy is how he makes, or made, his living. I also believe he has a specific target on this forum, and wants to destroy the reputation of a specific person here. That is why, despite having invited us all to his little Hoernet's Nest, he's still here trying to raise Cain -- because whoever he's after here, hasn't gone over to "know nukes" despite his "offer". And why should they? Hoerner can't hold his own here; it would be silly to waste more time with him elsewhere. And to think, he has a whole rabid pack of nameless bloodhounds just like him to help him there! Gosh, it must be sooooo boring.
Russell Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA
Note: I've highlighted Greg's comments below for separation/clarification:
-------------------------------------------------------------
At 04:30 PM 1/6/02 , Jim Hoerner responded to Greg's comments:
--- In downwinders@y..., Greg Wingard <gwingard@e...> wrote:
> Jim:
Hello, Greg.
> Wake up. The nukes are clean propaganda is sooo tired and old.
While some
> might have swallowed this BS in the 50's, we are not there any
more.
If you haven't noticed yet, those that reply to me in a polite and
civil way get polite and civil responses from me. Since you opted to
say that I am a sleeping propagandist spewing 50's BS, and that I'm
ignorant (twice, but that is not such a bad word; I'm ignorant
about a lot of things, but nuclear power is generally not one of
those. So please don't be offended when I use it below), you deserve
bluntness.
> In order to power a nuclear power plant you have to have uranium
fuel. That
> means you have to mine uranium.
Duh. Thanks for the education, Dr. Wingard.
>The amount of waste and
human/environmental
> exposure as a result is staggering to date.
Uh, thanks for your numbers. Please quantify the staggering amount
you reference - waste, human exposure, and environmental exposure.
Thanks in advance.
>Then you have to process the uranium into yellow cake.
Thanks again, Doc. I'm lernin' a lot from you!
> Once again the amount of waste is staggering.
Staggering again? Please quantify, and let me know how many people
it kills. Thanks in advance.
> A great example of the related problems would be the Atlas Mill
site in Moab,
> Utah, where the related tailings are poisoning the Colarado River.
Show me, man.
> The next
> step in the process is enrichment which requires huge amounts of
fluorine, not
> exactly a benign process. Then the enriched uranium has to be
processed into
> pellets and assembled into fuel rods. This series of processes is
so energy
> intensive that nuclear power did not reach the break even point
(more power
> produced than consumed) until relatively recently.
Uh, thanks, Doc, but I have to disagree, rather significantly, in
fact. If you care to learn some facts about the break-even point,
check out http://www.uic.com.au/ne2.htm
Go down to the bottom. Paragraph titled "Energy cost".
"energy payback time is about six months" That's about 1.5%, I
suppose, assuming 40-yr operation and 85% capacity factor.
Details and comparison of various energy sources provided at
http://www.uic.com.au/nip57.htm
Where is your erroneous number from?!
> To claim that not supporting continued operation of nuke plants is
going to
> condem us to bad environmental consequences is nothing less than an
abysmal
> display of ignorence. There are many available technologies that
would easily
> replace the power produced by the 100+ nukes currently operating in
this
> country. Doing so would have some great effects. The economy
would be
> improved, power supply would be decenteralized, and the potential
for
> catastophic terrorism would be significantly decreased.
Yadda yadda yadda. Thanks for all your opinions, which were really
well backed-up, I might add. Please be specific in the future. Yes,
you COULD power the world with renewable wind, solar, or even
hamsters running in cages, but how feasible is it?!
> Fuel cells were developed in the late 1800's. Since then
considerable progress
> has been made on the technology. Units are in place and producing
power around
> the United States. Reliability of the units is well over 90%,
putting nukes
> and most other convential power generation sources to shame.
You are totally clueless. Fuel cells are not primarilay power
producers, they are energy storage devices. You can, however,
produce hydrogen from nuclear power and feed that to a fuel cell.
Also, ignoramous, nuclear power plants have a capacity factor of the
entire fleet of 90%.
http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?catnum=3&catid=13#capacity?catnum=3&catid=13
That's about 0% different than the reliability factor of the energy
storage device of the future that you mention.
> All I can say Jim, is wake up and get out of the stone age. Nukes
are a
> dinosaur that simply do not make sense. The sooner we get out of
the dead end
> the better, for our health, and for our economy.
Hey, thanks for proving your case. Not!
2001 US fataility data: Anthrax - 5 deaths. Flu - 20,000. Rest in
peace.
Nuclear power - _. Other forms - _______. You fill in the blanks.
Jim Hoerner
P.S. this post will be forwarded to Know_Nukes. Subscribe if you
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will gladly help you, or anyone.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------