Sweeny Report » Be like France, go nuclear

Be like France, go nuclear

January 13th, 2009 at 12:37am Chuck Sweeny

I’m greatly disturbed that Democratic senators, key among them Kent Conrad of North Dakota, are insisting that President-elect Obama put billions more in his stimulus package for wind and solar energy.

Oh, I know that will tick off some of you screaming greenies, but wind and solar are just not efficient ways to generate electricity. Plus, solar panels and windmills litter the landscape. Windmills kill hundreds of millions of birds. If Conrad turns the Great Plains into a wind farm, we won’t have any birds left. Just bird parts.

The U.S. needs to take a lesson from France, where 85 percent of the energy is produced in safe, clean nuclear plants just like the one in Byron, IL. The French have developed a safe way to reprocess nuclear waste, so there’s no need for a place to bury it.

France’s electric grid runs that country’s amazing system of 210 mph. electric trains. That’s the ultimate in comfortable, non-polluting transport.

Wind and solar energy will never produce more than a fraction of the U.S. energy needs, but the glaring solar panels and windmills will scar millions of acres of our countryside.

Go nuclear. It works in France, and it can work here.

Entry Filed under: Go nuclear

7 Comments Add your own

1. James Momaly | January 13th, 2009 at 10:25 am

Hello

This is about the most ignorant thing that you have ever written.
How much of the earth is dug up to provide 1 gram of nuclear “fool”?
Please look at the whole picture before saying something stupid.
I am not a greeie, just someone with common sense.
Wind and solar will produce enough energy if the users are not stupid. Just like having all your eggs in one basket with nuclear.
You drop the basket and everyone looses.
Beside that, isn’t communist edison wealthy enough.
If houses were all fitted with grid tie solar, the results would be dramatic.
As far as looks, just look southwest and tell me about the massive column of steam rising that you can see for twenty miles.
It is pretty obvious to me that the french will have four eyes and tails in the next hundred years.
Then there is the threat of terrorist, I’m pretty sure that they aren’t going to mount an assault on a home.
Yea lets build some targets that have a cataclysmic long lasting effect.
It is your kind of thinking that prevent the solar industry from thriving.
2. Denny Wallace | January 27th, 2009 at 11:55 am

James… you need to get a clue too!

To power our Infrastructure we need huge amounts of energy and Solar wind won’t make even a small dent in our energy needs over several generations… We need a cure for Fossil Fuels Today… the only option is Nuclear and it’s only a case of WHEN not IF we go Nuclear.

FYI… Wouldn’t it be grand if we took the $1,000,000,000,000 trillion dollars we want to stimulate the economy with and made a race to the moon level of effort to build SAFE Nuclear Power Plants today… Not 25-50-100 years from now as Solar and wind energy on the scale needed would require.

Can you say economic BOOM when we create all those construction jobs followed by REAL high-tech jobs to operate the Nuclear Power Plants? Jobs that could start tomorrow if we turned the switch to GO NUCLEAR NOW?

Oh yea… don’t forget the huge positive effects to all that Global Warming buzz going on… Can’t get any cleaner then Nuclear Power when it comes to greenhouse gases.

Now as far as a Reality Check… Yes we have major hurdles to overcome in dealing with Nuclear Waste… But we are smart enough to come up with the Answer.

What about building Nuke plants that can use the current Plutonium in all those Nuclear Bombs we need to dismantle… Sounds like a good source of energy to me… Besides we gotta do something with the stuff… Might as well use it to kick our Fossil Fuel habit.

As far as Economic Stimulus… What do you think happens to the cost of Energy if we build 50-100-200 state of the art Nuclear Power Plants? Yea that’s right, cheaper electricity costs that will reduce the costs of Mfg goods here in the USA. And don’t forget our savings on Energy too.

National Security — Do you think if the world sees the USA is more self-sufficient in energy production that just maybe the leverage of OIL will be lessened?

Heck with dirt cheap electricity costs from the huge supply added to the Electrical Grid… Electric Cars becomes even more viable…

CAN YOU SAY LESS DEMAND FOR OIL? Less demands means less Oil imports… Less Oil imports increases the world supply of oil…. Greater supply of oil means lower prices for oil….

Moral of this story… Greater national security through massive increases of Electricity produced by State of the art Nuclear Power Plants.

Lastly… Turning the switch to Nuclear Power may provide the opportunity to change-over some of the defense industry to more peaceful, long-term purposes. All these high-tech, highly engineered organizations could probably be turned into helping build HIGH-TECH Nuclear Power Plants…

Just like our energy appetite… we need to go on a diet when it comes to building weapons of mass destruction and missiles, aircrafts, ships, tanks and guns that seem to cost a billion dollars each. Fighting Terrorist with low tech weapons doesn’t require battleships and aircraft carriers or even Stealth Bombers… Let’s put the spending of billions on these items that just sit in a warehouse towards something that provides a long term return… i.e. Energy Independence… Improved National Security… AND A REAL ECONOMIC STIMULUS (now and for the future)..

Food for thought!
3. Denny Wallace | January 27th, 2009 at 12:36 pm

When I wne to save my yammering I saw similar rants from March 17, 2007 — More food for thought on the subject…

Had a five hour road trip Saturday and Sunday so my 18 year old son and I decided to solve the Global Warming Debate… In the process also solved the problem of our countries addiction to oil…

Some of the following is old comments revisited but here’s Food For Thought!

A big part of the solution to Global Warming - A Massive undertaking in this country to replace all Coal, Natural Gas and even fuel oil Electrical Power generation with clean, abundant Nuclear Power (no green house gases).

This massive undertaking should make the 1960’s race to the moon small in comparison. In the process of (fast-track) large scale building of Nuclear Power plants to produce electricity we could rebuild our ancient Power grid.

Think about the economic security we could have if we knew for certain we could meet all future energy needs, through Nuclear Power. Commonsense logic says, the economies of scale that could be achieved from building 100’s (if not 1,000) of Nuclear Power plants should drive down the inflated costs from the 1970’s, the last time we built a Nuclear Power plant.

Besides eliminating all those green house gas emissions (and pollution) in the near-term (
4. Denny Wallace | January 27th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

Maybe I’m getting shut out for my long posts… But this is the rest of the last post.
(;-)

Besides eliminating all those green house gas emissions (and pollution) in the near-term (
5. Denny Wallace | January 27th, 2009 at 12:45 pm

Mabe I need to keep smaller mouthfuls? Trying again
Besides eliminating all those green house gas emissions (and pollution) in the near-term
6. Denny Wallace | January 27th, 2009 at 12:46 pm

oh well… to long of a post anyways. Cheers
7. JAM52 | January 31st, 2009 at 9:08 am

Fluids Leak
Machines Break
And I you get is yellow cake.
What part of radiation do you not understand?