Re: So what now do we do?

At the risk of posting at the top, I agree as well.

I call the irrational fear of radiation: the "Godzilla Syndrome".

The Japanese know fission will not make a giant lizard come out of Tokyo
Bay.

Yet somehow the USA believes that one will come out of the river at 3 Mile
Island and eat Harrisburg . (See
http://www.acsh.org/publications/reports/island_0399.html)

We also seem to think that the "China syndrome" was good science.

We also seem to think that modern reactors were in use at Chernobyl instead
of the most primitive form?

Why?

Are the politics on this issue in the USA driven by fossil and alternative
energy vested interests?

Do these interests contribute to environmentalists who encourage naive fears
of reactors that go "boom" in the night?

Or is it simply the lack of good science education in the USA?

Maybe just a media run amok. Remember Walter Cronkilte's dire announcements
about 3 Mile Island?

To me this failure of fusion represents bad science at its worst, costing
every person every day in one way or another.

In comparison, the argument over evolution is more an intellectually and
theologically satisfying debate, save for those who cannot accept Jesus'
offer of salvation unless evolution did not and does not happen.

Forgive the rant.

Every time I go home and look at the top of Mount Mitchell stripped of its
balsams and firs by the air from the Midwest fossil fuel plants I tend to
rave about this.

God bless everyone this season.

Jay Willingham

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lawrence Johnston" <johnston@uidaho.edu>
To: "Jay Willingham" <jaywillingham@cfl.rr.com>; "Walter Hicks"
<wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
Cc: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: So what now do we do?

> Dear ASA'ers;
>
> I thoroughly agree with all five of Walter's points about Nuclear
> Fusion and Fission. To solve the political problem, we can look
> at what was done in France, where about 80% of their power is
> generated by fission reactors at present. Their leader (DeGaule?)
> called in all the nuclear protesters, and gave them a choice:
>
> Would you rather freeze in the dark, or would you rather have
> nuclear reactors?
>
> One of the most often heard complaints about fission is that you
> would need to bury the fission products, which are radioactive.
> And the products initially give off a lot of heat, which means
> they need to be properly dispersed, for the first hundred years.
>
> But remember that that Uranium was removed from the ground in
> Uranium mines, where it was giving off its heat and radiation,
> all wasted except for keeping the Earths's crust warm. You can
> think of those reactor products as being a continuation of that
> process, except that while we had them in our reactors, we used
> up a lot of their potential energy to do useful work, and we are
> burying the ashes which have lost a goodly fraction of their
> original potential energy.
>
> Any of the available energy sources has major problems associated
> with its use, but in my opinion Fission power has a minimum of
> them, except for the usual mention of those who are frightened by
> the word Nuclear, and the word Radiation.
>
> Thank you, Walter.
>
> Yours for a warm winter, Larry Johnston, Nuclear Physicist
>
> =======================================================
> Lawrence H. Johnston home: 917 E. 8th st.
> professor of physics, emeritus Moscow, Id 83843
> University of Idaho (208) 882-2765
> Fellow of the American Physical Society
> http://www.uidaho.edu/~johnston/homepage.html =========
>
>
>
>
> Date sent: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 13:32:39 -0500
> From: Walter Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
> Subject: Re: So what now do we do?
> To: Jay Willingham <jaywillingham@cfl.rr.com>
> Copies to: ASA <asa@calvin.edu>
>
> >
> >
> > Jay Willingham wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Why don't you think fusion reactors will be practical?
> >
> > Several reasons:
> >
> > 1.) We have the ability to generate what we need with with fission
reactors but
> > the politics stops us. If we do not have the will to do what it is
possible
> > today, how we get the will to use fusion tomorrow.?
> >
> > 2.) The same politics that stops fission will undoubtedly stop fusion.
> >
> > 3.) There is waste from fusion just as there is from fission.
> >
> > 4.) current designs are monsters that are only experiments, not
practical
> > devices.
> >
> > 5.) We lack the resolve to just get out and do it! Instead, all the
money spent
> > is used in scientific experiments that are guaranteed to be dead end. to
> > succeed, the world needs a cogent plan which presents a road map to
success.
> >
> > 6.) I once talked to the head of the Tokamak reactor project at MIT. I
was
> > interested because it had been related to my dissertation. His claim at
that
> > time (maybe 15 years ago) was that we have no practical way of
extracting the
> > energy even if we had a reactor. I don't see that it has changed.
> >
> > I would search for other approaches. I think that it will take a
combination --
> > with no single "silver bullet".
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Walt
> > --
> > ===================================
> > Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
> >
> > In any consistent theory, there must
> > exist true but not provable statements.
> > (Godel's Theorem)
> >
> > You can only find the truth with logic
> > If you have already found the truth
> > without it. (G.K. Chesterton)
> > ===================================
> >
> >
>
>
Received on Wed Dec 3 18:27:37 2003