OK, I know that CNBC is owned by GE, who's building the reactors or at least some components of them. Of course they're going to try to promote nuclear energy in a subtle or subliminal manner.

But Patrick Moore, who founded GreenPeace, advocating nuclear energy? That's pretty strong. When asked if he would live next to a nuclear plant, he said he would live IN one with no problem. (Have we heard this before from somebody around here?)

As Mr. Moore pointed out, no fatalities have occurred in the U.S. because of nuclear energy. Even in the Three Mile Island incident, the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, no lives were lost.

Dale Klein of NRC says an airplane will bounce off a reactor, being made of 4-foot thick concrete and 2-inch rebar. I cannot grasp this. I cannot see a 747 flying into a reactor at 200 mph and bouncing off. However, if the issue is terrorism then we also have the nucler plants already in existence to worry about and don't think the Feds aren't watching like a hawk. Fear of terrorism doesn't seem to carry much weight.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have folks like Salon, who lives in Glen Rose, Texas. As some of you may recall, I performed a survey of the people who live there around the "other" nuclear plant in Texas, and the overwhelming majority think it's the best thing ever to happen there.  Salon is not one of those people

I got am email from Salon this morning, and this is what he had to say....

Mark

Have you looked at the NRC logs? I post about them sometime, they’re on the NRC site and they show all the accidents and incidents that involve nuclear energy or even things like a doctor goofing up with some radioactive treatment. It’s funny, because lots of times there will be something and then the event report will be retracted, as in Oops, this happened, we fixed it, now let’s mitigate the damages. If the nuclear plants have operated without *public* incident, it’s because, first, corporate media doesn’t put it on the news (after all, for example, if you’re MSNBC and you’re owned by GE, which sells nuclear power plants, you don’t play up the accidents.) If you do a search on my site for NRC or Nuclear Plant news, etc, you’ll come up with stuff like THIS.

Diablo Canyon shut down because of fire http://salon.glenrose.net/d...

Nuclear Plant Engineer at Davis Besse Convicted of Lying to regulators about corrosion http://salon.glenrose.net/d...

GAO says nuclear power plants aren’t obeying fire regulations issues 3 decades ago http://salon.glenrose.net/d...

Oyster Creek’s 8 year Lapse in Security Procedures http://salon.glenrose.net/d... -I mean, they have found security guards drunk or on drugs.

Texas Rep Phil King (who is one of the most corrupt Texas Legislators) doesn’t have a problem with Texans picking up the cost if a nuclear power plant owner decides to default on decommissioning a plant http://salon.glenrose.net/d...

Water Levels fall at Indian Point in NY http://salon.glenrose.net/d...

From Victoria-Victoria government didn’t want to tell people about this at first http://salon.glenrose.net/d...

Let’s fool people by calling nuclear power plants something else http://salon.glenrose.net/d...

Airplane attacks to nuclear power plants - http://salon.glenrose.net/d...

In fact, Comanche Peak has had a couple of incidents in the past 10 years-but it DOESN’T MAKE IT TO THE NEWS http://salon.glenrose.net/d...

Here’s what you do. Go up to the NRC site and go look at the event reports. I post them on the site from time to time, they are NOT searchable, as you might expect, on the NRC site, so the only way for people to see what’s going on is to put the on a site that IS searchable. In fact, I need to do a new post because there are a bunch of problems from all over the country RIGHT NOW that are in the news, just not national news.

Should you leave? Well, heck, where really are you going to go? The nuclear power industry is up and running all over the world. You remember that about 2 weeks ago Congress passed selling nuclear stuff to India, EVEN THOUGH INDIA IS NOT A SIGNATORY TO THE NPT. (Heck, IRAN is a signatory, and you see where that gets them). There’s money to be made, and the good news for the nuclear power industry is that they don’t have to pick up the cost, the taxpayers do, or they can get loans through agencies like DOE. And then if they default, they have good old boys like Phil King to pass legislation to stick the cost of cleanup onto … the taxpayer. What a deal.

For me, I know there aren’t a lot of people like me in this county. Do you know, and maybe this would be the same for Victoria, who knows, that the people in Somervell County don’t even get electricity through TXU? We all have a co-op here. So Comanche Peak actually doesn’t service THIS county but instead, Fort Worth and Dallas. If you get a chance, on the NRC videos I have up on the site, look for the ones with Lon Burnam, Texas Lege rep from Tarrant County, who asks about what kind of rates his constituents will pay for the 2 new reactors. Even then, I know that KKR and TPG are private equity companies who plan to beef up TXU/Luminant and then sell it off at a profit later on. They’re probably crying in their beer right now about the financial melt-down but I have no doubt they have their lobbyists up in Congress face making sure they get their share of the corporate welfare pie.

Arrgggh. I could go on and on. I love it here. I love the scenery. Another aspect of everything is oil and gas, saltwater (crap) disposal wells, wells going dry, waste pumped into the ground, etc. We don’t have uranium mining here but I have no doubt that if a company wanted to do it here, the chamber people would be all hugs and kisses.

A man at Three Mile Island boats, fishes and golfs next to the infamous reactor while a rancher worries about his water and cattle in Victoria, Texas.

Then there's the question of post-term nuclear waste storage and disposal, for which there is no answer at this time.  Yucca Mountain may or may not be approved.  Where else is there?  Outer space?  This is going to be very interesting.

Oh, Mr. Klein, could you do me a favor? Please take uranium mining regulation away from the State of Texas. That was a horrible mistake.