Re: [cdn-nucl-l] Even CNN is noticing the PBMR developments

[Randal Leavitt <randal.leavitt@rogers.com>]

AtomicRod@aol.com wrote:
> Group:
> 
> There is a brief story at 
> http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/24/nuclear.pbmr/ discussing the approved 
> PBMR project in South Africa.

I emailed CNN with a response to the above story.  My response was:

Dear Spark ....

Your story about "Rethinking the Nuclear Option" contained many 
factual errors.  Why?

1.  31 people died from short term injuries at Chernobyl in 1986.  Why 
can't you report it as 31 instead of "more than 30"?

2.  Approximately 250 people were taken to hospital with observable 
injuries at Chernobyl.  They all recovered and are living out normal 
lives.

3.  No other injuries or health effects have been documented.  You 
state that "millions more were effected".  That is wrong.  There are 
no local increases in leukemia, cancer, or birth defects.

4.  Your story implies that the environmental lobby groups have a 
meaningful role to play in this experiment with new technology.  That 
is completely wrong.  They are totally irrelevant.  If the PBMR plants 
are cost effective they will be built.  If not, they won't.  The 
disinformation dribbling out from these environmentalist groups has no 
effect.

5.  Your story implies that coal fired plants are inexpensive.  They 
achieve this by polluting the air with carbon dioxide that is killing 
the planet by causing global warming.  The people who are about to die 
as a result of this global warming might not approve of this kind of 
accounting that rates planet killing pollution as a zero cost item. 
The cost of using coal can be dramatically increased by taxing carbon 
based air pollution.

6.  Why does every story about nuclear power have to mention 
Chernobyl?  It is not a significant factor for present day decisions. 
  If you want to make some meaningful comparisons you could point out 
that 10,000 coal miners die annually, while uranium mining causes zero 
deaths.  This alone is enough of a reason to make this technology 
switch.  Taxing the deaths of coal miners would dramatically increase 
the cost of using coal.

7. Your story states that the PBMR plants need to pass tests, i.e. "It 
needs to be cost effective, it needs not to produce waste for tens of 
thousands of years and it needs to insure against nuclear 
proliferation, the misuse of nuclear facilities to make bombs or 
terrorist weapons."  By not commenting on this quote you imply that 
these tests have not been passed, when in fact they have been passed. 
  Fission based power is inexpensive, reuses its fuel several times so 
it does not produce waste, and makes no contribution to weapons as a 
result of today's monitoring technology and procedures.  You should 
have noted this if you want your story to be accurate.

8.  Your story states that oil shortages are causing people to 
consider other alternatives.  This is wrong.  What we are running out 
of is the cooling capacity of our planet.  Even if we had excessive 
amounts of oil we could not burn it.  The global warming that would 
result from this would kill us all.  So the oil shortage, if there is 
one, is not relevant.  Carbon based air pollution is the problem.  By 
getting this basic fact wrong you are worsening the climate change 
problem.


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Randal Leavitt        gnupg public key: bbbad04d
Registered User 267646 at http://counter.li.org/