Energy expert: New (nuclear) plants doomed (by economics)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080317/NEWS02/803170374/1003/NEWS02

Energy expert: New plants doomed

March 17, 2008

By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff

BRATTLEBORO — A nationally recognized nuclear energy expert told anti-nuclear activists Saturday that simple economics will doom new nuclear power construction, and he urged New Englanders to push for the development of solar and wind power.

Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Washington, also said that homes should be sold with an energy rating or inspection, much like safety standards for plumbing and wiring.

And he said that too much corn and wheat was being diverted from world food to making energy, a decision that wasn't efficient or clean.

"How stupid can you be? Turning food into fuel?" he said.

...

[NickB79]

1. Urged to push for solar and wind

But something tells me we'll see a lot more coal and natural gas instead :(

[TheWraith]

2. A lot of credibility you have if your group can't hire a web designer.

Check out their site. It's like a refugee from 1997.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. You know, I'm not that impressed by flashy web sites

One of the signs I look for when it comes to credibility is when the site was last updated. In this case March 12, 2008

Too many sites look quite slick, but are never updated.

[kristopher]

3. Sounds like the man knows what he's talking about.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Check his CV

http://www.ieer.org/ieerstaf.html

[BeFree]

6. Simple economics will doom....?

Hell, simple economics doomed nukes from the beginning. Private financing of nukes has been dead for years.

Frankly, the old nuke-firster's saying "Too Cheap to Meter" can now be correctly used by the solar industry.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. Solar "Too Cheap to Meter?"

I like the idea, but I don't think we're there yet.

[BeFree]

8. Meters and the lines that feed them

Most solar so far is off the grid. No lines from one side of the country to the other with no meters in the way, because it is too cheap to meter the power which flows. What good would it do to meter it?

[kristopher]

10. Most solar has been off the grid, but the situation is changing.

That's because the cost of the electricity was only justified when you take into account the cost of running power lines to remote locations. However, the cost has been steadily dropping and at least two new economic niches have opened up recently, as I understand. One is when you are in a congested area that needs power. If policy makers take the price of upgrading infrastructure (transmission and/or generation) and use it to subsidize rooftop solar, it is a net savings in money and environmental impact.
The cost of carbon is also bringing some medium to large scale facilities on line to operate at a profit.

[eppur_se_muova]

9. This was a phrase introduced by nuclear proponents in the 40's.

Things were at an early stage, and people said some naive and simplistic things back then.

[NNadir]

11. Thanks for another self-referential link to another in the vast circle jerk of anti-nuke

organizations.

Calling these people "experts" is frankly a sure sign of a lack of expertise.

Why not now produce a link to the assholes at Greenpeace "verifying" this "expert" status.

While you're at it, don't forget to throw in the scientifically illiterate "experts" Helen Caldicott and my personal favorite, good ole "hydrogen hypercar" himself, Mr. Walmart, Amory Lovins. It would seem that Makhjani started writing about how "conservation will save us" in 1971, six years before uncle Amory started his corporate cash-in.

I guess that like any anti-nuke, he can't add and subtract, the Ph.D. from Berkeley notwithstanding.

The guy is a long term professional anti-nuke. Being a professional anti-nuke is rather like being a professional cult leader of any type.

It pays well and has nothing to do with reality.

What an ass.

[kristopher]

12. You're entertaining. Since you feel his CV is lacking, perhaps you'd share yours?

Some accomplishments:
• Author of Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy (2007),
the first analysis of a transition to a U.S. economy based completely on renewable
energy, without any use of fossil fuels or nuclear power.

Principal author of
• the first overall study of the energy efficiency potential of the U.S. economy (1971)
• the first global analysis of energy and agriculture in the Third World (1975)
• the first independent assessment of radioactivity emissions from a nuclear weapons plant
(1989)

Co-author of
• the first technical assessment to show that a decoupling of economic growth from energy
growth over a period of decades could be accomplished in the United States (A Time to
Choose: America’s Energy Future, 1974). This report became the foundation of U.S.
energy policy during the Carter administration.
• the first audit of the cost of the U.S. nuclear weapons program (Atomic Audit, 1998)
• the first global assessment of the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons
production (Nuclear Wastelands, 1995 and 2000), which was nominated for a Pulitzer
Prize by MIT Press. Also the principal editor of this book.

Education:
• Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1972, from the Department of Electrical
Engineering. Area of specialization: plasma physics as applied to controlled nuclear
fusion. Dissertation topic: multiple mirror confinement of plasmas. Minor fields of
doctoral study: statistics and physics.
• M.S. (Electrical Engineering) Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, 1967.
Thesis topic: electromagnetic wave propagation in the ionosphere.
• Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical), University of Bombay, Bombay, India, 1965.

[TheWraith]

13. I hope you realize how exaggerated that can be.

"Author of Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy (2007), the first analysis of a transition to a U.S. economy based completely on renewable
energy, without any use of fossil fuels or nuclear power."

Translation: wrote a book. And clearly not one based in science.

"the first overall study of the energy efficiency potential of the U.S. economy (1971)
• the first global analysis of energy and agriculture in the Third World (1975)
• the first independent assessment of radioactivity emissions from a nuclear weapons plant"

I notice that he doesn't cite any organizations he worked with, academic institutions, or the definition of "independent" or "overall." In other words, I could describe myself as having performed the first overall study of solar power as applied to space-based construction, but it wouldn't MEAN anything.

"A Time to
Choose: America’s Energy Future, 1974). This report became the foundation of U.S.
energy policy during the Carter administration."

A claim which is not supported or even mentioned by ANY other evidence anywhere to be found in a Google search. In other words, either an outright lie or a gross exaggeration.

"the first global assessment of the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons
production (Nuclear Wastelands, 1995 and 2000), which was nominated for a Pulitzer
Prize by MIT Press. Also the principal editor of this book."

If your big accomplishment is being the co-author of a book that was nominated for a Pulitzer...

And his PhD isn't in economics, or nuclear physics, but in Electrical Engineering. He didn't specialize in electricity and electrical distribution, either: plasma physics, which have no current application to energy policy.

And another reminder: this guy is anti-nuclear but continues to favor the use of COAL, with the same nonsense suggestions thrown out by the coal industry about "clean coal" and carbon sequestration. Gee, I wonder where his "think tank" gets its funding from.

[kristopher]

14. That's a less than convincing rebuttal...

[JohnWxy]

21. Did you aver feel like you were talking to Carl from the "Caddie Shack"?

[NNadir]

16. He's a professional anti-nuke with zero credibility. I am not interested in the Oprah club reading

list.

One of the really, really, really, really, really, really, really pathetic things about dumb anti-nukes is how they love to read resumes.

I have known several PhD level chemists who believed that the biblical account of genesis was an actual historical account of the creation of the Universe. I worked with one of these guys for years.

If you must know, he was pretty good at organic synthesis, but in every other area he was as much as a dickhead as the anti-nuke fundies who write here.

Now, you can't be a fundie anti-nuke if you read the scientific literature and comprehend what it says.

Clearly, kiddie, that's not an issue here.

Oh, and about the Carter era energy policy: It consisted of some notable things: Fischer-Tropsch chemistry, about which you know or understand zero having never cracked a book outside of the Oprah book club, biofuels, currently being recognized as an international scourge, raising unrealistic expectations about the still pathetic and trivial form of energy represented by solar electricity, and oh yes, blowing the Shah of Iran no matter how many people were literally excoriated alive by SAVAK.

Since leaving the Presidency, Carter has redeemed himself for many of his policies while he was President - but unlike the credulous bunch of school kids who write nonsense here - I was a fucking grown up in the Carter years. In fact, I started thinking about energy in an adult was when Nixon was President.

Now.

If you have some fucking science to discuss, discuss it. If for instance, you would like to cite an epidemiological study showing that the last 50 years of nuclear energy has killed as many people as are reported dead in say, Brunekreef's paper in Lancet on the subject of air pollution morbidity and mortality in an average year in Europe go ahead and cite it.

What?

You don't have any science to discuss?

You don't know any science?

Why am I not surprised?

If you want to know about my education, I failed out of the fifth grade and quit school because I refused to repeat it. Even so, I'm infinitely smarter and infinitely better educated than you are. I guess that says something about modern education, doesn't it kiddie?

[kristopher]

19. Marvin, you're back!! Are you better now? Is your sense of superiority fired up and burning?

Yes, I've noticed something about you. You react with great hostility when any of the standard indicators of intelligence or achievement are brought up. It seems odd therefore that you continually assert your superiority in the areas addressed by those same indicators.

Speculating on such thin information is extremely uncertain, but you do it routinely with less so what the hell.

You score poorly to average on IQ test, performance tests and aptitude tests. You got poor grades and have little schooling. However since your mother told you repeatedly how special you are and since you live in the alley behind the Holiday Inn Express you are certain that all of those rubrics are inherently flawed as they are designed for mere mortals.

Odd duck you are, marvin; but we love you.

Marvin: the depressed robot. He has the brain the size of a planet, yet is asked to do such meaningless tasks...

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jpak]

34. What a stupid post

Are you the guy that claimed (in this forum) to have "heavily" contaminated his and his coworker's thyroid with 125I "over a three year period" (a serious violation of NRC rad-lab safety regs) and controlled it with "ordinary iodized table salt" (which is physiologically impossible)???

or

Are you the same guy that claimed to have a "nuclear reactor simulation program" "on his computer" that wasn't really REAL reactor engineering code, but some stupid kid's game anyone can download from the Web???

or

Are you the self-described nuclear "hobbyist" that claimed repeatedly in this forum that he was a "scientist!!11" and invented a molten salt breeder reactor in his lonely <sniff> apartment????

or

Are you the same guy who had an 11 YO in 2003 that is only 13 in 2008????

or

Are you the same guy that claims that "I'm iinfinitely smarter and infinitely better educated than you are." all the evidence to the contrary????

:shrug:




































(yup)

[crimsonblue]

15. Nuke power is one the cleanest forms of energy... You can run

it for fifty years, and resulting waste will fit in a few 50 gal barrels. I'd like to think that we are smart enough to develop nuke power facilities that are safe and effective. Not to mention that there are no carbon emissions...

[losthills]

17. There's a couple outright lies.....

Nuclear waste is measured in the TONS, and the majority of it is not contained or controlled.

Nuclear power is not "carbon free" either. Far from it.

If you think that nuclear energy is "clean," ask the Navajos to enlighten you....

[troubleinwinter]

18. I don't think that our friend, crimsonblue, will read this, but here is truth about 'clean' uranium.

Navajo Nation President Asks Congress To Honor Its Ban On Uranium Mining In Navajo Country

No More Divide And Conquer!!!!!

http://nativeunity.blogspot.com

Navajo President, Joe Shirley Jr., On Uranium Mining - No More Divide And Conquer!
By Kathy Helms March 11, 2008
Dine Bureau
WINDOW ROCK – Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., testifying Wednesday in Washington, asked members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to respect the Nation's tragic experience with uranium mining and to honor its ban on uranium mining within Navajo Indian Country.

“I will not allow dividing and conquering the Navajo people to remain a profitable strategy,” he told the committee chaired by U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and co-chaired by ranking Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici as it heard testimony on abandoned mines, hardrock mining and reform of the 1872 mining law.

The hearing coincided with a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the public interest law firm Earthjustice, representing groups in New Mexico, Nevada, Illinois and Idaho, which seeks to close a loophole currently allowing mining companies and other polluting industries to skip out on costly cleanups by declaring bankruptcy. http://nativeunity.blogspot.com

From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were dug and blasted from Navajo soil, nearly all of it for America's atomic arsenal. Navajos inhaled radioactive dust, drank contaminated water and built homes using rock from the mines and mills. Many of the dangers persist to this day. This four-part series examines the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo reservation.

BLIGHTED HOMELAND: Four-part Los Angeles Times series, November 2006:

A peril that dwelt among the Navajos

During the Cold War, uranium mines left contaminated waste scattered around the Indians. Homes built with the material silently pulsed with radiation. People developed cancer. And the U.S. did little to help.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo19nov19,0,1645689.story

Oases in Navajo desert contained 'a witch's brew'

Rain-filled uranium pits provided drinking water for people and animals. Then a mysterious wasting illness emerged.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo20nov20,0,6106722.story

Navajos' desert cleanup no more than a mirage

Through a federal program, decontamination seemed possible. But delays and disputes thwarted the effort.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo21nov21,0,6565476.story

Mining firms again eyeing Navajo land

Demand for uranium is soaring. But the tribe vows a 'knockdown, drag-out legal battle.'

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo22nov22,0,7024230.story

Do check the multimedia photo galleries for each section here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo-series,0,4515615.special

A few followup articles:

Still no toxic cleanup plan for Navajos
The EPA plans to resume long-stalled testing for uranium mine hazards, but a coordinated federal strategy is still lacking, lawmakers told. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo7dec07,0,252171.story

Navajos seek funds to clear uranium contamination
Tribal officials ask Congress for $500 million to deal with wastes left by mining for bombs, nuclear power plants. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo24oct24,0,4730461.story

I know a woman whose grandsons drive an hour and a half each way every day over steep rugged dirt roads to bring water for her and her small flock that provides food for her, her daughter who is blind by uranium poisoning and the young disabled and retarded young man born of uranium poisoning. She cannot use her stream anymore for her water. It is poison.

I know the widow of a uranium miner who died of the poison. She waits for compensation that the government has admitted for 35+ years is due her. She wants the money only to drill a deep well for her village so the people can get good water instead of driving long distances to the trading post every day to get water. She is 95. She will die before getting the money owed her. The stream in the village is poison to the sheep, corn crops and people from the mining. Some homes are poisoned. Many are dead and sick. Thousands live without clean water on poison lands from the mining.

Maybe people will care when they understand that the releasing of the uranium has polluted the in the Colorado River water feeding Las Vegas and Los Angeles. I don't know. They don't care about sick and poisoned people now.

[diane in sf]

20. Thank you. I notice none of these bozos who are so critical of published

critics of nuclear power are willing to disclose their own publications. Oh, they're not published in any sort of peer reviewed publication--Quelle surprise!

[crimsonblue]

22. Ok, I will man up and admit I was wrong..

there is no "clean" form of energy. It was not wise of me to spout out my own views without evidence to back it up, and I apologize. I do believe that nuclear power is much cleaner than coal. Also, nuclear plants require less fuel and produce less harmful by products than coal (in quantity.. it's a personal decision as to whether nuclear waste or smog and global warming is worse). There is that pesky problem of storing waste, but Yucca Mountain should take care of that.

[troubleinwinter]

26. "it's a personal decision"?!!!

It isn't a personal decision for the Native American residents who will once again be ignored and steamrolled and be displaced from their lands by the US government. The Hualapai, Yavapai, Mojave, Apache, Ute, Shoshone, Paiute and many other peoples were damaged by nuclear testing in Nevada. They are called the "Downwinders". They have elevated cancers and related diseases due to nuclear testing. Were they ever warned of its dangers? Were they given the opportunity to make "a personal decision"?

Were the Navajo told of the dangers of uranium mining? Exactly the opposite. The government knew for YEARS, and never warned the miners or gave or even suggested protective gear. After many years, they finally decided to hand out cards to the Navajo advising of risk. The cards (printed in English) were handed to illiterate, non English-speaking Indian miners. The Navajo lands and water are now poisoned by uranium, people are dead and sick. They never made a "personal decision" to have their lands and waters poisoned and their animals, themselves and their families killed and sickened.

Are you aware that Harry Reid, Democratic senator from Nevada opposes dumping at Yucca? Are you aware that the Governor of Nevada opposes it? Are you aware that the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate opposed it? Are you aware that in 2005, the Energy and Interior departments revealed that several U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists had exchanged e-mails discussing possible falsification of quality assurance documents on water infiltration research related to the project?

Have you read the letter sent six weeks ago to the DOE by congresspersons Sen. Harry Reid, Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Shelly Berkley, Rep. Jon Porter, and Rep. Dean Heller?

January 10, 2008 to the DOE

The SEISs (Environmental Impact Statements) are incomplete; based on flawed assumptions; and lack essential environmental, technical and economic analysis.
.........
The Yucca Mountain Project has faced many controversies and management failures, and the science behind the proposal is questionable at best.

Sen. Harry Reid, Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Shelly Berkley, Jon Porter, Dean Heller http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2008/pdf/DelCmts_YMSEIS_01.10.08.pdf

The DOE proposes to solve the displacement of Indians by relocating them onto lands polluted by nuclear testing fallout.

The status of the Indian nation populations should give rise to a higher degree of assurance that they will be protected from increased exposures. The Draft EIS does not go far enough to address cumulative impacts which are likely results because of past present and future impacts from NTS activities. For instance, the DOE mentions a proposed federal action to return certain lands of the Timbisha Shoshone. An important factor left out regarding this return is that the land was subjected to years of radioactive fallout from the Nevada Test Site. The amount of radiation exposure experienced by the indigenous people residing in the area has not been assessed nor have any baseline health studies been conducted.

The people whose homelands are near the Nevada Test Site were subjected to multiple detonations of atomic weapons. This project affirms what Native American peoples in the area have known for years--that radioactive fallout caused significant negative health impacts which includes chromosomal damage, debilitating diseases, and mortality.

Utmost protective considerations must be accorded to the people indigenous to this area. An apparent conclusion or response to the Timbisha land return issue may be that the reservation is being created well after the Yucca Mountain has begun, thereby absolving the DOE of its trust responsibility. Once again, the Timbisha Shoshone have lived there thousands of years prior to any encroachment or intrusion of federal actions.

The fact of primary habitation of indigenous peoples, whom the federal trust responsibility is to protect, is an important point in regard to the divergence of opinion of ground-water protection requirements. http://www.ncai.org/ncai/advocacy/nr/docs/NCAIYuccaMtncomments.htm

George Bush likes the Yucca Project right fine and evidently so do you. He thinks it will "take care of that pesky problem" too. It seems you still "spout" your views (and bush's) "without evidence to back it up".

[losthills]

27. Yucca Mountain is history.

And never was a rational solution in the first place.

There is no safe place to store nuclear waste or any safe way to store it.

Just as there is no safe level of radiation. Rational people would leave the uranium in the ground, where it belongs....

[troubleinwinter]

30. "leave the uranium in the ground, where it belongs" Exactly.

The cost studies even say to leave the fuckin' shit waste where it sits instead of moving it across country.

I live in the southwest. There are a gajiblion trapsahillion acres of wind and sun. It'll take some time & $$ at the front, but it can and will be done. Firing squads for Exxon and Exelon executives would likely speed it up.

[troubleinwinter]

32. A clue that the plan is stupid-insane is that the chimp loves it (aside from legitimate studies

and analysis of their BS).

[diane in sf]

38. Coal as THE alternative to nukes is a straw man, people here are proposing

solar, wind and efficiency primarily.

[troubleinwinter]

41. A week or so ago

there was an article posted on several threads, with great enthusiasm.

A so-called "green housing developement", in the area of Silicon Valley of Northern California. Well, they had solar.

They started at $1,000,000 and 3,600 square feet.

Just slapping some solar on a huge house does not indicate 'green' at all. It's newly regarded by developers as a marketing gimick. The mayor of a small city in northern California tried to lean on developers to build green. All they wanted to do was to make 5% of the homes solar-ready, and advertise them as "green".

There is, however, a strict industry certification called 'LEED' which utilizes design, building materials fabricated in an environmentally better way, bottom-to-top, including handling construction waste in an evironmentally safe manner.

A "green" label may be nothing more than a marketing gimick. We need to stay alert to this ploy and fight it.

But, YES, I think solar, wind and efficiency are the direction. I doubt 3,600 square feet is the most efficient.

Here is a small house that is well insulated by thick mud. It is warm during winter snows and wonderfully cool in the hot baking summers:





We won't move into mud hogans, but 3,600 sq ft homes as a 'starting point' need to be rethought. I doubt many DUers grew up in 3,600 ft homes. More reasonable sizes and better insulation methods and materials (rather than electricity and gas to heat and cool). Smaller homes, permitting larger gardens for growing food.

[NNadir]

23. And what is your opinion of the units of measurement for dangerous fossil fuel waste?

Can you say 27 billion tons per year?

You couldn't care less, because you pay no fucking attention to that?

The fucking Navajos run the Kalenta coal mine and power plant, about which you know nothing and couldn't care less.

There is NOT ONE illiterate anti-nuke who knows that the external cost of energy is measurable.

www.externe.info

Nuclear energy does not have to be perfect to be better than every thing else.

It merely needs to be better than everything else, and it is.

The number of Navajos who will die from dangerous fossil fuel waste in the next year is vastly larger than the number of Navajos who have died in the entire history of nuclear energy, your illiterate fetishes aside.

[losthills]

25. I am not a fossil fuel promoter, as you well know...

I have said many times that coal, like uranium should be left in the ground where it belongs.

[troubleinwinter]

29. I completely agree that these should be left in the ground,

and I have had many, many Navajo say the very same thing to me. They have suffered greatly from "digging up the land". Their belief and tradition is just as you stated. Most feel this way.

There are very difficult economic challenges on Navajo land. The good news is that there is some very serious study of wind power generation on Navajo land. They have 26,000 square miles of mostly open, high, exposed land. A related product manufacturing facility would be a boon as well.

Many/most of the people live remotely and have no electricity. Small individual wind generating units are being experimented with, promising to provide energy to homes impossibly far from other sources.

[losthills]

31. Thank you for your posts.

[troubleinwinter]

28. Some notes.

1) It is called the Kayenta coal mine, not "Kalenta".

2) It is not run by the "fucking Navajos" (as you call the people). It is owned and run by Peabody Energy.

3) The land is leased to Peabody Energy, the world's largest private coal company.

4) There is no "Kalenta" or Kayenta "power plant". Peabody Energy ships the coal by rail to the 'Navajo Generating Station' which is owned by a consortium of western utilities and power providers: the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Salt River Project, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Arizona Public Service Co., Nevada Power Co., and Tucson Electric Power Co.

5) Coal mining by Peabody on Navajo land has been an issue for decades.

In 1964 Peabody Energy signed a contract with the Navajo tribe and two years later with the Hopi for coal mining at Black Mesa and enabling company use of the water source. The contract, which offered unusually advantageous terms for Peabody and was approved despite widespread opposition and the lack of clear government authority on Hopi, was negotiated by prominent natural resources attorney John Sterling Boyden, who claimed to be representing the Hopi tribe while actually on the payroll of Peabody.

Boyden negotiated a contract between Peabody, the "fucking Navajos" and the Hopi for 30 cents a ton, when the going rate was $1.50 a ton. He also didn't mention the use of the aquifers under the Indian lands, which Peabody was sucked up for their slurry operations.

Peabody's Black Mesa Mine was shut down in 2005 when the Hopi and Navajo demanded a cease to the use of the aquifer water.

6) The "fucking Navajos" have an unemployment rate that runs around 50%. They do not own or operate the Kayenta Mine, they do not own or operate the generating plant. They forced closure of the Black Mesa mine, although it cost them many jobs. There were 380 Navajos employed at Kayenta Mine in 2000, out of 269,202 population.

If you can provide any backup at all to your claim that "The number of Navajos who will die from dangerous fossil fuel waste in the next year is vastly larger than the number of Navajos who have died in the entire history of nuclear energy", I would be most interested.

There have been thousands of documented Navajo uranium miners (almost all dead now), and more that cannot be documented (due to lack of social security numbers, etc.).

You also seem to neglect to take into account the non-miners who have sickened, died or have been born deformed, blind, etc., due to uranium polluted ponds, streams and wells; those who died from eating tainted meat of the flocks that drank the water; the people displaced, sickened and dead from soil, dust and home pollution by uranium.

8) Perhaps from here on out we can refer to the people as "Navajos".

[diane in sf]

39. Thank you for sharing your knowledge about these mining issues. The poisoning

of the people's lands in the Southwest is highly comparable with the DU poisoning of the people of Iraq and our soldiers there.

Death for profit by psychopaths.

[troubleinwinter]

40. Thank you for bringing in another aspect of the horrors of the poison.

I looked at "graphic" photos tonight from another thread showing the disfigurement, birth defects, retardation caused by Agent Orange. Many on DU cannot look at such photos. I can, because the children look exactly like Navajo children born of uranium poisoning that I have seen in person with my own eyes. Looking at photos doesn't compare with sitting with families in their homes seeing the children and young people. The photos looked the same as photos of deformed damaged children in Iraq, as a result of Depleted Uranium.

Nuclear/Uranium is not "clean". It is death and horror from the moment it is taken from the earth, to when it is "depleted".

Largely, it was the Navajo who dug the uranium for the government now used in Iraq. Death from beginning to end.

Many of the Navajo have said to me that their traditions and elders have said "Do not disturb the earth. Do not bring up what belongs down there." Planting beans or squash in several inches of soil, or poking a hole to plant a corn is different to them than upheaving the earth. Their traditions admonished them not to do it. I don't know what to make of this, but know that a great many were very much opposed to mining for this reason. Many who supported mining have seen the terrible damage to land and people and now want to return to these traditional views.

Considering the economic hardship and unemployment among the people, and the offer of "riches" by the uranium mining operators wanting to resume mining, the opposition by the tribe is very telling of the damage suffered.

Thank you again for reminding us of further horror of this poison in D.U. It's hard for me to much distinguish between the results of Agent Orange, uranium mining and Depleted Uranium. They all harm and kill innocents in the most horrible of ways.

[madokie]

42. Perhaps from here on out we can refer to the people as "Navajos".

no doubt.
I really have a problem with reading many of the posts here in the enviro/energy forum because of such trash talk because I have the same reaction as I would if the persons who is running their mouth off is right here where I can get my hands on them but yet I can't. I don't need that. I want to read discussion and participate cause sometime its is necessary to ask question in order to learn. Just because I have a problem putting ideas into words does not mean I do not think in the abstract. It means only that I didn't pay enough attention in some classes as I should have and then spent the next 40 plus years staying away from writing anything other than my name and address.

Have a great day

[troubleinwinter]

33. And a couple of friends.

Or, "fucking Navajos", as you call them.

This is Libby. I have never called her a "fucking Navajo". I call her by her name, Libby.



Her husband was a well-known medicine-man. He went to work in the uranium mines for a time, and died of uranium poisoning. The government acknowledges that she is due compensation for his uranium death, but have managed to keep it tied up in red tape for over 35 years. She would like to have the money only to drill a community well for her village so that the people wouldn't have to drive every day to get clean water at the trading post to haul for their small sheep flocks. Her entire village on 'Moonlight Creek' has no potable water at all anymore, due to uranium pollution.

She is 95 now, and will probably die before she gets the money to pay for a well for her small community.

I know many of her neighbors who have been displaced from their traditional family homes due to contamination.


This is Sally. I have never called her a "fucking Navajo". I call her by her name, Sally.



She lives on top of a remote high mesa, where she was born and has lived all her life. She cares for her daughter who is blind due to uranium. She also cares for a young adult man who is deformed and retarded from birth from uranium. His mother is dead.

Though Sally and her parents used to have good water available, the water is poison now, and Sally's grandsons drive every single day an hour and a half each way over steep winding dirt roads to bring a tank of water in the bed of their pickup truck to water her small sheep flock and vegetables (that's how she feeds the young man, her daughter and herself).

The road is impassible in winter, but the tribal gov't cares for their elder members and brings in water by helicopter each day.

"what is your opinion of the units of measurement" in relation to the loss of safe water to these "fucking Navajos"?

[losthills]

35. Members of this group who relentlessly push nuclear power

need to look at these faces and read these stories. These are real people. If we double, triple or quintuple the number of nuclear power plants in this country, these will be the faces and stories of your friends, neighbors and relatives. Or your own face looking at you from your own mirror.....

[troubleinwinter]

36. I hope DUers would

click on the right column on this page ( http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo19nov19,0,1645689.story )

Interactive Feature
Part I: Toxic Houses
(Flash)

Turn captions ON. From the top bar on the slideshow, you can move to the next part easily.

I don't think NNadir has the "fucking" guts to look at this show.

Many of the people depicted are people I know. They ARE the faces of my friends.

[troubleinwinter]

37. (Waxman Hearings) Oct 2007 House Committee on Oversight & Gov't Reform: “A Modern American Tragedy"

Navajo gets commitment on uranium contamination

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Representatives of the Navajo Nation received a bipartisan commitment Tuesday from members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to address “a modern American tragedy” resulting from decades of uranium mining activities foisted on an uninformed Navajo public by the U.S. government.

(Waxman) “Mr. Etsitty brought in some dirt that he showed was very radioactive, and as I understand, Mr. Etsitty, that is not the most radioactive part of the dirt that is on your property. Is that correct?”

“That is correct,” Etsitty said. “There are many other samples and places from where this sample came from that are much higher. But for the demonstration that we did here this morning, we had to abide by shipping constraints and also safety overall.

“What I demonstrated was exposure, and what we had here was very limited exposure and the levels that we picked up on the particular sample were high, but not putting us here in this room immediately at risk. But if members were to consider the level that people are being exposed to over decades, it does amass to a grave public health concern,” he said.

Exposure to yellowcake:

Waxman said the committee had to go through “extraordinary efforts” to allow Etsitty to bring the sample into the hearing. “The Capitol police were very concerned about it. We had a lot of people that were very concerned that we should even bring that small little sample into the room. And yet, we should realize that this is the kind of radioactive dirt that the Navajo people are being exposed to every day,” he said.

“The second point I want to make, Mr. Harrison, is that the idea that we would have blended water — water contaminated with uranium, that is radioactive, and then blended with noncontaminated water — I don’t think anybody in this Capitol would drink it. And yet we’re asking people in the Navajo Nation to drink this water. The federal government is giving its OK to this.”

Unbelievable:

Waxman: “If we’re not willing in this Congress to be exposed to the dirt and the water that you’re exposed to every single day, then I don’t think we ought to ask you to be exposed to it either. And I think that’s a telling point for how people here in Washington think it’s maybe different for you. Why they should think it’s different for you and they wouldn’t want it for themselves, underscores the neglect that we have given to this very serious problem,” he said.

“Let me say to all of you ... you’ve given us very powerful testimony and all of us here feel empathy with you and your families and people we haven’t even met that we know have suffered. I have to say that I feel enormous shame that the federal government has treated the Navajo Nation as poorly as it has.”

Waxman asked whether United Nuclear Corp. cleaned up the Northeast Churchrock Mine when it left, and was told by Larry King of Churchrock, “They never cleaned it up. Everything is still there.”

He asked Edith Hood of Churchrock about the 50- to 60-feet-high waste piles that stand about 1,000 feet from her door and near the homes of eight other families in the vicinity. “Do children sometimes play in that pile?” he asked. She responded, “Yes, they do.”

“Have you seen any impact on any of the livestock, the lambs, or any of the other animals?” he asked.

“Yes. We have lambs that did not have wool — hair — but they died within days. We have butchered sheep, the fat was yellow, which is not normal,” she said.

Shocking:

Rep. John A. Yarmuth, D-Ky., told the Navajo delegation, “I have sat through a lot of hearings that made me sad and angry. But I’m not sure that any hearing has shocked me as much as this one."

Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., remarked, “You have all suffered greatly, and in my opinion, needlessly, for corporate greed and for our nation’s weapons program, and I am personally embarrassed at the lack of concern for all of the Navajo people who lived, and continue to live. Those who are passed, I offer my condolences to your families for your loss. As you have pointed out, the Navajo have stood valiantly by the United States at their time of need, and as an American, I thank you for that.

“I can’t go back and change the past. I’m here today to do what I can to make a better future for our children and for our planet. So I’m going to ask you, and I would like for you to be specific as possible ... what you think the federal government needs to be doing. Flying overhead in helicopters and taking photographs and doing very cursory studies of where there may or may not be uranium waste is not my idea of doing a full-scale cleanup,” she said.

Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said he agreed with Yarmuth’s comments. “Certainly on this committee we’ve heard some pretty bad things — but nothing quite so bad, quite so arrogant, quite so thoughtless, quite so consequential as what has happened on your land” he said.

He questioned Etsitty about the status of abandoned mine cleanup. “The EPA admits to 520 mines and the Navajo Nation, depending on how, I guess, we define a mine, says it could be up to 1,200,” Welch said.

Cleanup:

“The first step in cleaning up the mines is doing an environmental site assessment. Mr. Etsitty, the U.S. EPA has done a site assessment at one mine — the Northeast Churchrock Mine, is that right?” Welch asked.

“That is correct,” Etsitty said.