Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing its idiot.
Obama Says Safe Nuclear Power Plants are a Necessary Investment
February 16, 2010America’s competitors, Mr. Obama said, are racing ahead on this issue and he said he will not accept falling behind.
“Japan and France have long invested heavily in this industry. Meanwhile, there are 56 nuclear reactors under construction around the world; 21 in China alone; six in South Korea; five in India,” the president said, “Whether it’s nuclear energy or solar or wind energy, if we fail to invest in the technologies of tomorrow, then we’re going to be importing those technologies instead of exporting them. We will fall behind. Jobs will be produced overseas instead of here in the United States of America. And that’s not a future that I accept.”
“Even when we have differences, we cannot allow those differences to prevent us from making progress,” he said, “On an issue that effects our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we can’t keep on being mired in the same, old stale debates between the left and the right and between environmentalists and entrepreneurs.”
Addressing the environmentalists that are opposed to nuclear power, the president said that the one (nuclear power) plant in Georgia will cut carbon pollution by 16 million tons each year when compared to a similar coal plan, similarly to taking 3.5 million cars off the road he said.
“The fact is, even though we’ve not broken ground on a new power plant, new nuclear power plant in 30 years, nuclear energy remains our largest source of fuel that produces no carbon emissions. To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply the nuclear power. It’s that simple.”
Update:
There was hype in some cases about Fukushima. In most cases there hasn’t been enough information on the overall picture. There really was danger of meltdown more than once. That was not hype. And there was a 40% chance that if meltdown did happen it could penetrate the cement and steel casing. That is the catastrophe many could say would have been Chernobyl-like. That was real also. It also was not hype.
Yesterday the entire core of #4 was removed and placed in a spent fuel cooling pool. The water in that pool boiled off leaving the spent fuel and the core of #4 exposed. The spent fuel pool at #3 also boiled down. It is not clear yet how this happened. This is where the increased radiation that lead to evacuation came from yesterday. This is also where all the fears of a scenario worse than Chernobyl and a radioactive cloud came from yesterday. (Michio Kaku was quoted this morning about the point of no return being near.) They are not allowing people to get in close to these pools. That is why the helicopters are being used. It is being reported that the helicopters are dumping water on a reactor. But that is not true. The water is being dumped into the boiled off pools. A police water cannon used for crowd control has been called in also to spray water in from a distance. As soon as the pools are filled with water humans can go back in. The filling of the pools may be done by now. I don’t know. I haven’t heard an update.
There is good news.
There is wire rigging from the grid being run to the site to supply power for pumping water to all rods for cooling. The picture could change much for the good then.
What is more good news is that some power is on in #6. This also could provide power for pumping water. They are also attempting to run wiring from #6 to #5 since #5 is only running on battery power. If those batteries run down they will find themselves with a similar problem that #1 to #4 are in now.
There is a nuclear ‘cloud’ but it is not as strong as some are saying it is. The winds are blowing west to east so it is all being blown out to the ocean. If all fuel can be cooled the danger level will go dramatically down
Let’s all pray for that.
More details can be heard at the link here. It will begin download after clicking on it:
http://k002.kiwi6.com/hotlink/sv7uwgz99w (there is an audio glitch in the interviewers end of the phone, but not and the nuclear engineers end)
It is an interview with a Navy nuclear engineer (ret). He has given the best updates, by far.
There are 5 interviews with him at this link, scroll down:
http://georneys.blogspot.com/
See a kid from a high school debate team talk about Japan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWL3oIjpnLw