Reply #27: Oyster creek is a 636 megawatt boiling water reactor. [View All]

[hunter]

These sorts of reactors were built by General Electric and have a history of various fascinating maintenance problems.

Just for fun you might google "Boiling Water Reactor" and "core shroud." Some of these ragged old reactors are literally held together with high-tech safety pins.

Realistically, I think the United States is now too corrupt and technically incompetent to safely or profitably run any new nuclear power program.

We have become that strange old crazy guy who lives down the street with all the old cars parked on his lawn, some of them running, most of them not. People are only nice to us because they know we have lots of guns.

Look, folks, let's be frank. We've got a president who couldn't describe how a bicycle works, much less how a nuclear power plant works.

We've got entire school districts where teachers are afraid to mention the facts of life -- especially "evolution" or "sex."

We've got people who believe, by some miracle, that Terri Schiavo could somehow regrow enough brain to remember who she was.

You don't believe me that things are that bad?

• How many space shuttles have we lost?
  
• Remember the great blackout of 2003?
  
• How about the huge BP oil refinery explosion in Texas? http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4898761,00.html
  

I could make a much longer and depressing list, but I won't.

The "free" press in the United States is strangely quiet about all of this, as if they are afraid any examination of bad news might destroy our voodo economy.

Heaven forbid the economic black magic sustaining the United States stops; Heaven forbid Asian ships stuffed full of cheap consumer goods stop visiting our ports.

Do I think nuclear power is safe? Yeah, it could be, and it is certainly better than many alternatives, especially coal.

But I don't think, at this point, the United States can do it safely. Before we build a single new nuclear plant we've got to stop our slide into the tar pits of ignorance. We've got to fix our schools, fix our healthcare system, and get rid of this attitude that it's okay to be an ignorant fool so long as you love Jesus and hate sin.