First of all, why are you making stuff up regarding what I have argued or claim? I’m reading your *anonymous* (and hence cowardly) post and see these childish stabs against me and I’m wondering what is this person smoking and why are you so disturbingly angry?

How can you so simply deny the historic cost issues related to nuclear? Unanswered questions about *long-term* storage. You ask for *proof* or *evidence*, and the simple fact that for many of these things there is no proof or evidence — either for or against — and that in itself should be a major concern. I think you’re arrogant to believe we know how the world will be like 100 years from today — politically, environmentally, economically — and believe it will be stable enough to let that storage thing work itself out.

Also, why do you insist doing a direct comparison between nuclear and fossil fuels? I’ve *already* said in an earlier post that I prefer nuclear over coal as a lesser of evils. Why do you continue to have a problem with this position? Why do you have a problem with the perfectly reasonable position that, when possible, we should try to avoid nuclear? Nowhere — I repeat *nowhere* — have I ever said we should completely eliminate nuclear from the mix. Rather, my position is one that supports sustainable long-term planning that prefers conservation, renewables and distributed generation over big central plants that are either nuclear or fossil-fuel based.

Do you completely deny the terror risk? The long-term storage risks? The problem with your own argument — if you can call your insulting rant an argument — is that it assesses risk based on current information, current politics, current technologies, etc… and doesn’t account for instabilities in the world 10, 20, 30 or 50 years from today. You say “10-20 years,” but a nuclear plant is supposed to last more than 50 years. Why would I want to lock into nuclear for that long if, in a couple of decades, there are matured, greener sources that are economical to deploy on a large scale?

Why don’t you stop being an attack dog and start engaging in reasonable, constructive debate. You might just get some of the answers you’re looking for. Maybe, just maybe, you can then stop being anonymous and have the courage to tell the readers of this blog who the person is that so passionately believes in nuclear and so passionately discredits and disrespects those who find it a hard, but sometimes necessary pill to swallow.

Note that you are presuming that Canadian nuclear sites are high enough on a list of terrorst targets (presumably after all primary U.S. military and industril targets have been acheived), and that the required airborne delivery of a penetrative nuclear warhead exists in the hands of imagined terrorist enemies to Canada, despite the total lack of credibility for such a claim.

You also avoid the fact that hydro dams are a far easier target for terrorists using much simpler conventional weapons…but which curiously don’t require any of the counter-terrorism measures, or bizare types of “liability insurnace” which you speak of.

You seem to expect readers to simply ignore your previously made, but as yet unvalidated points of argument against nuclear power in Canada versus fossil fuel energy ( messy mining, allegedly unsafe waste, unsecured terrorist targets, etc..)…As such we can presume that you either suffer from ADD, or cannot present nuclear energy as being more dangerous based on your own original claims.

Here’s a quick debunking of Tyler’s original claims:

- Stored nuclear waste is clearly more safe and secured than the waste that is currently raising the temperature of the planet, and already killing humans every day. Though sisnce it is contained (rather than released), Tyler would like to factor in projected storage and insurance costs, while ignoring the uninsurable costs of toxins that continue to be spewed into the environment.

- Nuclear sites are already secured against Tyler’s imaginary delivery-truck terrorist threats(can he provide an example of such a weapon being used previously?), and airborne nuclear terrorist threats have yet to materialize anywhere in the world’s warzones, or prime U.S. targets…let alone at non-military Canadian nuclear energy sites. Nice scare tactic though Tyler…(You clearly write for the Star with those sorts of ethics.)

- There is no evidence anywhere of a weapon designed to penetrate the construction of a nuclear plant AND destabalize a reactor core, AND also disable all fission control systems, while ALSO destroying the containment structures for any radioactive coolant leakage.

To the best of my knowledge there is not an insurance broker on earth that is currently offering liability insurance against any terrorist threats to power generating plants, much less insuring against the toxic by-products of energy production….Id’ love to know why Tyler thinks that private individuals can obtain such quotes on behalf of these power generating corporations. Much less determining who he thinks is already insuring the liabilities being produced of every smokestack and tailpipe on Earth….In order to make a true comparative analysis according to his own specious argument even remotely possible.

This notion of needing to factor this imaginary liability insurance (from Lyodds as you suggest?) is at best a weak point of argument that is at least good for a chuckle at your naive, self-rightousness Tyler. Thanks

If we were to forget your previously unsupported points, and move forward at all with your new “total cost” comparative basis for argument though…and presuming that you still wish others to do your research for you…Then you should at least start the process by answering your own questions in relation to oil/gas/coal fired plants for an even comparison (you know…akin to the balanced reporting principals practiced by true journalists)….Since these sources of enviro-damage and toxins are presumably already insured and secured according to the ridiculous points of argument that you now wish to focus on (ie. damage and waste insurance and counter terrorism costs).

As such…Where and what are the costs of the “liability insurance” against environmental damages in gas/oil/coal fired electric plants…Since you are clearly presuming that such liabilities are even remotely insurable. A laughable point of argument, but it’s your claim, so go ahead and support it.

While you’re at it you might also consider the liabilities involved in obtaining the resources nescesary for fossil fuel power. So please also remember to factor in oil wars, all environmental damages including greenhouse emmisions, and also the running total of human deaths resulting simply from the aquisitions of fossil fuel…before it is even burned!

Are you really prepared to follow through on this ‘total cost’ argument of yours Tyler?…Or are you just blowing more smoke to avoid supporting your original claims about the “odds of millions dying” from nuclear energy.

If you cannot place your own argument on an even comparative basis with the innevitable burning of fossil fules to replace nuclear energy, then your open-ended (ie. non-validated) “total cost” points of argument are also and equally moot (check) and nothing more than deflectory from the original question. (mate)

Originally:

What exactly makes nuclear more dangerous than fossil fuel energy as an interim source of energy over the 10-20 years that it will take for greener sources to mature into truly viable sources of energy?

1/ Neither I nor you nor any company can get insurance for a nuclear plant to cover actual total liability.

2/ Neither I nor you can determine the cost of nuclear power, no waste has been disposed of permanently, and no cost is known for this requirement.

Conclusion, we cannot claim to know the cost of nuclear power in comparison to other sources.

Why would you not use your name on this forum if you want your comments to have any weight? Obviously if you google my name, you will see I do work with renewable energy, I do not debate nuclear because I have an interest is renewables, I have an interest in renewables because I see an unecessary bias towards nuclear, with reultant expense and risk to society that outweighs the benefits. Can we turn the electricity system over to renewables overnight, no of course not, but let’s make it our goal, not a future with even more nuclear and its unanswered questions.

cheers

These are your claims, therefore any conclusions that you want to make from them should be based on your own verifiable sources of data…Do your own research, rather than trying to stymie a debate with your own supercilious requirements to have others provide proof you need to support your own claim !

Do your own homework lazybones !

No more arguments, give me the answers.

Thanks

The industry’s average capacity factor—a measure of efficiency—was 89.9 percent last year, according to preliminary figures. …

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/02/recordlow_produ.html

FYI Tyler, life cycle cost of electricity generation for nuclear is 3 cents a kilowatt hour, for small hydro 7, for large hydro 5 (not including environmental costs), for dirty coal 3, for gas 6, for clean coal with CO2 capture 15 or more, for PV 35, and for wind 10.

However, I certainly appreciate Tyler’s adherence to a central tenet of liberalism that one should allow opposing criticism to be expressed, even on his own blog. Credit must be given where it is due.

Tyler, giving short shrift to the science, to the math, to the empiricism, and instead fixating on rationalizations, idealisms and social utopianism, is not progressive – but can be argued to be the exact opposite and reactionary, in so far as it promotes obscurantism and serves the interest of the anti-enlightenment.

When I saw this in a movie theatre in my native New Jersey town I remember the nuclear industry spokespeople saying that what happened in the film could never happen and that it was all Hollywood hype. Well the very next day after I saw the film a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania partially melted down. The scenarios surrounding the meltdown were very similar to what happened in the movie. This event was a public relations catastrophe for the U. S. nuclear power industry from which they have never recovered.

And this isn’t the only recorded account of a nuclear catastrophe. I would suggest you check the CBC archives from around 1994 where Sunday Edition did a report on the so-called Green Run. December 19th 1949 the filters in the stacks at the U. S. nuclear weapons plant in Hanford, Washington were turned off and 11,000 curies of iodine-131 were released into the atmosphere. It goes down as one of the darkest days of the United State’s abuse of nuclear technology. Over the decades

A stop has to be put on nuclear technology for both weapons and electrical power generation. This technology is too risky to be used.

I will repeat, however, that I consider nuclear a necessary evil, and the lesser of evils, when compared to coal and other fossil fuels. And as you mention several times in your polite reply, a stop-gap measure we have to consider. I don’t dispute your comments about how bad coal and oil are for the pollution and health issues they create, and I don’t hang the solution on a silver bullet (as you suggest). But clearly nuclear presents a different kind of risk (it’s not fear-mongering, it’s reality), and I believe we can reduce our need for it by applying the kinds of things which you see easily dismiss as “dreaming in technicolor.” Fact is — and I’m only speaking in the Ontario context here — we *don’t need* new nuclear reactors in a province that could easily consume half as much energy annually per capita if any degree of thought and effort and financial support went into it. Coupons at Home Depot don’t cut it.

That said, I look at countries such as China and think, pick your poison. If forced to choose, damn right I’d say go nuclear than coal, because I do accept that with the kind of growth and energy demands we’re seeing from this and other regions the kinds of things I think are possible in Ontario will be a much bigger challenge. But I’m not ready to drink the nuclear Kool-Aid, and I’d prefer you respect that view rather than be a self-righteous dick (your name is Testicular, after all — or should I just call you Richard?) about your own *anonymous* view.