Don't Blame Me for $4 Gas

We'll be bankrupt soon anyway

But the anti nuke guy is just sooo wrong!

The pro nuke guy is a bit off on a few points, namely the Cesium and Strontium that would be a by-product of fuel recycling would require at least 600 years of storage before it reached background levels probably closer to a 1000 if we concentrate it. But then the lead in a lead acid battery used to store solar energy will be dangerous forever.

The anti-nuke guy is still an oil war monger in my book. And so Wrong

The French get 80% of their electricity from nuclear power, Was more in the 1980's but then they went and made more French people. None of them died from nuclear accidents.

No one was even injured by Three Mile Island.

More people died making Organic insecticide at Bhopal than were killed by Chernobyl.

We can recover the 3 parts per million Uranium from the water in the oceans and have enough fuel to power us for centuries. You can then use the plutonium made in spent fuel to run #breeder# reactors for centuries more.

Some day they may make fusion work, but they are showing no signs of starting parabolic containment research again so I predict another 30 years of wasting time and money on toroids. It is a form of nuclear power, so when we pull our heads out and make it work, there's a few more centuries for you.

There is no way to have a nuclear explosion with a modern reactor. Chernobyl was a bunch of fuel in a giant charcoal briquette, It combusted more than it exploded. Nobody builds them like that anymore. We operated 10 similar plants between 1943 and 1973 without any reactors blowing up or burning. Our navy has operated over 300 reactors in every ocean in the world, with the crews living yards away from the reactors and we still pay naval pensions and we never lost a ship or a sub or a sailor to a nuclear accident.

Every year over 300 people die looking for and producing oil in the US alone. We won't count the thousands that die in Nigeria and elsewhere fighting over oil every year. I don't even want to look at the statistics for coal. We average about 200 people killed refining oil to Gasoline. There is the 2 in a million increased risk of cancer when you smell fumes.

More people have died erecting and servicing wind turbines in the last 10 years than have died in nuclear plants.

If we were to attempt to make the same amount of power with Solar energy, more people would die from battery explosions every year than have died in US power reactors in the last 50 years.

To worry about nuclear being unsafe is not only wrong, its immoral,

You have a much better argument pointing out how expensive it is to decommission a nuclear reactor and how much money we would be spending right now if we had built a lot of reactors 30 years ago. But, you have to realize that 50% of the cost is due to allying irrational fear. And even still, I'll bet it would be less than the 150 billion a year we are borrowing to make the middle east a better place to buy oil.

Michael Weselman of TX @ Jul 01, 2008 17:51:48 PM

YOur pain

For you people driving a Chevy Suberban 50 miles one way to work. hahahahahhahahah

Joe Rocker of AZ @ Jul 01, 2008 16:26:38 PM

Nuclear Power

Somebody mentioned that nuclear power is somehow the answer and if we have just started on a building binge decades ago (you know, after 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl when everybody thought nuclear power was the safest), we would be OK now. Nobody has proven what amounts to a "controlled nuclear explosion" is any safer now.

He also mentioned that only a "shot glass" of radioactive waste will be produced every 4-20 years for every family powered by nukes. OK, let's say we get enough nuke power to power half the country (like the French) and there are 60 million families in America... that comes out to about 1.8 million pounds of radioactive waste every 4-20 years (so between 1.8 million and 9 million pounds every 20 years).

And we only need to store it for 40-50 years? What? Radioactive material will still be radioactive 40-50 years from now; in fact, it will ALWAYS be radioactive and depending on the half-life of the material we use, it could be just as radioactive 40-50 years from now. Yes, you and I will probably be dead or very old in 40-50 years so it won't be OUR problem anymore; it'll be our children's so maybe that's the rationality behind only finding safe storage for 40-50 years. But I guess we could always go to war against a few other countries and ruin their environment with "depleted uranium" ammunition to solve the storage problem.

And, much like oil, there is a limited supply of material to power our nuke plants so, yep, at some point not that far in the future, we'll have the EXACT same problem as we do now... dwindling supply and rising prices for power.

Pierre of CA @ Jul 01, 2008 15:40:50 PM

There is the small matter of an extra 5 trillion$

We have run up 5 trillion ($5,000,000,000,000)in extra dedt in 7 years. That tends to make dollars worth less so it takes more of them to buy oil.` Most of the trillion dollars we've borrowed and spent on wars aren't coming back into our economy, They are staying away from the IRS and they are buying oil and Euros and Australian dollars ( because Australian banks pay 7% interest on Certificates of Deposit). That also makes oil expensive. Of course it didn't help having tax laws that let you depreciate any vehicle over 3 tons in the first year your business owned it.,more than a few cowboy cadilacs were paid for that way.

I have to say the government had more to do with the price of gas than the article implies. Granted no one made people take the no interst loans on everything that made less than 20 miles per gallon during those sales after October 2001.

It is right in saying there is only one group that can fix the problem.

Michael Weselman of TX @ Jul 01, 2008 15:26:42 PM

The "guilt" for $4 gas

The "guilt" for high oil prices and other high costs that go along with it is communal. Each person's share of the guilt is for the most part proportional to his or her general selfishness and willful ignorance. Since 1973 we've all known oil is a limited commodity. And did we not see the exponentially increasing demand coming from prosperous nations like India and China? Remember the law of supply and demand? Who was really complaining during the decades of cheap oil? Very few of us. As Shakespeare said, "All are punish-ed".

Richard of FL @ Jul 01, 2008 11:24:16 AM

Gas Prices

How about pointing a finger at those organizations that stop us from drilling our own oil. If you know that food is going to be in short supply, do you say, "Well we can't grow ALL of our food so why bother?"

And what about the same groups that stopped us from building nuclear power plants? Are you aware that they are the same people that made up the term "nuclear waste". There isn't much waste at all if you reprocess (recyle) the spent fuel rods. Oh but wait, they are the same people that outlawed reprocessing plants in the US just so that the "waste" would build up. Wake up people! You have been fed a pack of lies for 30 years. Now France is using our technology to power the country during the day, and use the excess capacity at night to produce hydrogen for cars (yes, it takes a lot of electricity to make hydrogen).

Here is a little factoid for you. The total "waste" after reprocessing to power a family of 4 for 20 years would barely fill a shotglass. And that "waste" doesn't need to be stored for 10,000 years, it only needs to be stored for 40-50 years. Another lie we bought hook line and sinker.

If you really want to go all out... read up on "breeder reactors". Use those and the "waste" goes to almost zero.

Nuclear power has supplied this country with nearly 20% of it's power for 30 years. How many people have been harmed.... zero. How many have died from working in coal mines? How many killed in oil refinery accidents? How many died prematurely from bad air?

It's time to stop buying everything an "environmental" organization tells you. Do you know that they get paid by the taxpayers every time they sue. Yep, that's how they make their money. Our laws are set so that if you bring suit on environmental issues, you get paid. Win/lose or draw. Who pays..... the same people as always, the taxpayers.

Want to know who the boogyman is: It might just be those organizations that pretend to be saving the envrionment (who I can't name for obvious reasons). Saving the envrionment by forcing us to use Carbon based fuels to make electricity when we have had a better solution for 30-40 years. The rest of the world gets it now..... why can't we.

Rather not say of CA @ Jun 30, 2008 19:39:30 PM

get real

I'm 20 years old and I can see the complete U.S. arrogance coming out here. Work hard, take responsibility and suck it up. American's pay 16$ for bottled water that gives you cavities, yet we complain about 4$ gas. Sure enough though, we will be sure and try to pass the blame....

brad of IL @ Jun 30, 2008 19:21:18 PM

"make no effort to explain how it wasn't passed when they controlled both congress and White House or why sixty-eight million acres of proven oil reserves sit undrilled off the Gulf Coast."

Red Herrings, Ron. Nobody's buying the latter, and the former was passed in 95, but was vetoed by Bill Clinton. It also passed the house in the first Bush term, but failed in the Senate (no thanks to the GOP presidential candidate, John McCain).

And yes, the envirowhackos are hugely to blame for a lack of an energy policy. However, to take your argument, you have made no effort to explain why these environuts are not responsible.

Chris of AZ @ Jun 30, 2008 18:43:52 PM