Reply #31: That's a good example [View All]

[kristopher]

...of perceptual vigilance. I think if you review history you'll find Greenpeace active on climate change efforts as early and as often as anyone. Your comment again assigns irrationality to the view of risk held by other rational actors.

Perhaps what you are keying on is the different types of actions that are involved in policy activism. In one case there is the goal of limiting growth in reliance on an ultimately unacceptable alternative to a bad dominant technology. In the other case you are attempting to create a coalition willing to take dramatic action to alter the global use of that bad dominant technology. They were/are heavily involved in both.

You simply keyed to the actions most directly related to your field of interest while the actions outside of your immediate interests failed to penetrate your sensory flappers.

It is also not a very good argument since it relies on the agenda of one agency to make the much broader point that people haven't been concerned about fossil fuels.

Why not take responsibility for the failings of nuclear power and be done with it. You sound like a whiny teenager that is unable to accept responsibility for very poor personal decisions.

...
In the early days of the Atomic Era, nuclear power was heralded as a panacea—a cheap, abundant energy source that would spur economic growth, cut dependence on foreign oil, and enable every imaginable human endeavor. President Dwight Eisenhower gave voice to this sentiment in 1954, when the United States broke ground on its first commercial reactor in Shippingport, Pennsylvania—part of an ambitious, government-funded program to develop a viable nuclear energy sector. "In thus advancing toward the economic production of electricity by atomic power," the president enthused, "mankind comes closer to fulfillment of the ancient dream of a new and better earth." He then kicked off the ground-breaking celebration with space-age flair by waving a "neutron wand" over a special neutron detector, signaling a robotic bulldozer to scoop up a pile of dirt. Days later, Lewis Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, declared that future generations would enjoy electricity "too cheap to meter."

By December 1957, residents of western Pennsylvania were brewing coffee and vacuuming carpets with power from the Shippingport plant. The project’s success set off a chain reaction. Beginning in the early 1960s, utilities—lured by promises of cheap electricity and growing concerns about air pollution—were lining up to purchase new reactors, a phenomenon historians have dubbed the "great bandwagon market" for nuclear power. Between 1965 and 1967, sixty plants with 40,000 megawatts of generating capacity were ordered.

By the mid-1970s, more than 100 nuclear power stations were being planned or built. But the manic enthusiasm was fading as reactor projects ran aground amid soaring inflation, shrinking energy demand, bungled construction, and regulatory delays. Perhaps the most infamous boondoggle was the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant on the Long Island Sound. The Long Island Lighting Company spent twenty-five years and $6 billion—eighty times the original estimate—trying to get it up and running. But it was never licensed to operate. The debacle saddled Long Island residents with some of the nation’s highest electricity rates and pushed the regional economy to the brink of ruin.

As problems piled up, the market for new reactors collapsed. Between 1973 and 1978 the number of annual orders dwindled from thirty-eight to two. Some utilities began canceling reactor plans or abandoning half-built projects. In the mid-1980s, the Washington Public Power Supply System walked away from two unfinished reactors and $2.25 billion in bonds, the largest municipal bond default on the books. Another major utility was forced into bankruptcy. In 1985, Forbes magazine surveyed the wreckage of the nuclear power industry and described it as "the greatest managerial disaster in business history."

Although public opposition and safety concerns played a role in the industry’s undoing—especially after the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island plant in 1979—the primary stumbling blocks were economics and an unworkable business model. Most first-generation plants were custom designed and built, and in many cases design plans weren’t finished before construction began. This opened the door to construction errors and endless regulatory delays. In the hopes of rescuing the industry, in 1985 the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry-funded think tank, aided by executives from nuclear utilities and Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials, came up with a set of principles for next-generation reactors with simpler, standardized designs, fewer moving parts, and more modular components. The goal was to make them not only safer than their predecessors, but also faster and less expensive to build than coal-fired power plants. Four years later, the NRC overhauled its regulatory process to help this effort along. Reactor vendors were invited to submit a limited number of designs for precertification, so utilities could simply pick one and apply for a permit to build it as a specific site. "The idea was to commit to just a few designs, and set those designs in stone to create a more efficient process," explains NRC spokesman Scott Burnell. ...

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0901.blake.html