but "sanctimony" to my ear implies hypocrisy -- yet I don't hear much hypocrisy in melo, who seems to be trying hard to live a low-burn-rate life (i.e. not wanting to have cake and eat it too by opposing nukes yet insisting on a high tech, high burn rate, energy-dense lifestyle). I could be wrong but prima facie I see little evidence of hypocrisy.
a question I would ask cher Migeru, is why antinuke protesters, or other people's defence of them, arouse what sounds like heartfelt outrage in you, yourself? are they threatening what you think is the only hope for western civ? or are nuclear transports so insecure that a few protesters at a rail crossing could really cause a national disaster, thus these protesters are in your view taking an insane risk to make their point? I ask -- honestly -- not to provoke but with respect, to clarify.
the story of the protest events that DoDo narrates here seems to me an illustration of the rebellion of the locals against a process perceived as undemocratic or authoritarian. the same objections to protestors are made by every interest group threatened or impeded by protesters. if we are to condemn the people sitting on the train tracks trying to stop the nuclear transports, should we not be condemning the guy who stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square or indeed any person who uses theatrical, confrontative street protest as a means of communication? protesters are always accused of increasing conflict, escalating situations, "causing trouble" -- by those who disagree with their aims -- and described as heroes risking their reputations and persons for the common good, by those who share their aims.
one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter, in other words. when antinuke protesters actually shoot nuke plant workers (as in some of the abortion clinic protests) or conduct a real, rather than simulated, raid on a plant's security perimeter, then I think we are indeed into the realm of crime rather than theatre... anyway, the merits or demerits of civil disobedience and the locus of responsibility for public risk (is it the protesters at fault or the nuke nexus which exposed the public to the risk in the first place?) could be a whole separate debate thread; but the general feeling that protesting against nuke activities is different, and worse, and less allowable than other kinds of CD [because of the risks involved] I think ties into my Part 2, the connection between nuke power and authoritarianism/repression. [not that I describe you as a repressive authoritarian, cher M, just that for a moment you can like any of us step our of character and into that role in the heat of your outrage on this particular issue].
the issue for us enlightenmentistas, I think, is our struggle to sort out whether nuclear power generation is consonant, as a technological strategy, with larger values (aka ideologies) that we hold dear -- like democracy, sustainability, social justice, glasnost, public health, the strategically optimised expenditure of public monies in a time of energy dearth, etc. we struggle with two burning questions: 1) is it pragmatically sensible, i.e. is it sustainable, is it cost-effective, is it reliable, what hidden costs will come back to bite us, what will be the opportunity cost of investing limited resources in this strategy vs another strategy... and 2) is it ethical -- what costs are shoved off onto nonbeneficiaries, what effect will it have on social norms and values that we wish to preserve? The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
i want a biogas generator, so bad...
i hear it takes 5 pigs, and a year-round warm climate, per family.
i still use a chainsaw, car (minimum), and weedeater.
and some of my electricity comes from nukes -boo - bought by enel from neighbouring countries.
but i'm trying....
it's a lot easier than it was in the 60's, because there's MUCH better tv than then (and much worse, you gotta fish), and then wonder of wonders, the web....and all you guys to keep me company as the wind howls through the owly forest, and the snow drifts pile high against the door...
or the august sun crackles and the earth buckles and splits under the blistering heat...
right now it's paradise though, and the wildflowers enchanting in their colourful variety and delicate abundance. ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
i find this as offensive as you find my defence of that which is 'sanctified' or sacrosanct, namely the protection of the species we are incarnate in.
basic darwin, really...
i have enjoyed your rapier wit, masterful command of english, mindblowingly assiduous dedication to the gentle art of blogging, brilliant timing, and unflagging devotion to making this et the consistently stimulating hangout it is, since its first days.
you are young, and freshly a parent. i have been there, and it is very stressful, as well as life-changingly miraculous.
there was an edge to your dismissal of the antinuke protestors that i found quite low, the kind of edge that i succumb to using when i am infuriated by the facts degondi reveals about italy, or when i react to much american domestic and foreign policy these days.
i feel somewhat sanctimonious on those occasions.
i know as little about so many things, as you know so much, migeru, and i love your presence here.
but just like i do, sometimes you lose the plot, imo, and i can defend myself, just as you can.
i don't have the kind of brain many of you guys here do, and i'm hungrily learning from your kind of wisdom.
however there is another kind of (crazy) wisdom that does hold some things sacred, and tries to reserve scorn and acrimony for those whose ideology seems life-threatening to us, who attack these views.
i will try to keep my sanctimony to a bare minimum, as i hate it in others!
sometimes i don't feel it taking me over till too late...
as for your question about my land;
i have 2.3 hectares, mixed forest and meadows, ranging from almost flat, to very steep.
there used to be about ten people living and working here, now i work it alone.
the people here grew a little wheat and fruits anad veggies, but mostly herded their pigs in the forest, grubbing acorns and chestnuts, and they also dried the chestnuts for milling into meal.
they used no chainsaws!
or bathroom...
it is poor land, suitable for sheep rather than growing crops. the good bottomland down on the valleyfloor is devoted to filling the coffers of rothman's and other tobacco companies.
as i am a vegan, and cityborn to boot, this lifechoice presents plenty of healthy challenge!
there are so many deserted, crumbling farms in italy....
villages that once held 2000, now down to 200.
many starved, many emigrated, many killed by the germans.
the best half of what they grew went to 'local government' (mezzadria), and the old farmers had to become expert at hiding things in order not to starve.
i've heard some very interesting stories from the old-timers who come up here to get some twigs for firestarters, mushrooms or wild chestnuts.
that is once i penetrated the dialect, as many of these folk are illiterate, and never learned to speak (tv) italian!
*
i spoke up for greenpeace, and i noticed shortly afterwards you started posting nice things about them.
maybe you'll have something happen to you that will cause you to use your human right to protest agin the powers-that-be, and i pray you use it, even if i am not in agreement with your (doubtless highly informed) reasoning.
and i hope no-one finds your sanctimony tiresome!
as for being tired, i am glad to say that one would never know that from your passionate commitment to making this site jump and crackle with energy!
thankyou again for your contributions ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
I am not on a side of the debate. Going through your talking points my impression was that they were mostly intellectually dishonest, on both sides. The conclusion is given and then arguments are sought to support it. But that's to be expected because this is a debate oriented towards swaying the public, not towards actually learning about the issue which is what I come to ET for.
Melo's preaching and quasi-religious outlook irks me. On a different diary he expressed his disbelief (in terms not very different from tu quoque fili mi Migeru) that I "had been convinced" by the pro-nuke camp. I didn't even bother to express my disbelief at his interpretation of what I said, but maybe I should have back then. Then I learnt that, to Melo, Greenpeace is infallible, like the Pope, and nothing they do or say can honestly be criticized. Now I am called "diabolical". Better have your holy water handy, Melo, if we ever meet in person.
Just because it is heartflet and sincere doesn't mean that Melo doesn't come across as holier-than-thou. So maybe not sanctimonious in the sense of hypocritical but in the etymological sense of adopting an air of sainthood. I'm sorry, I have a little more self-doubt than that.
DoDo's explanation of the rationale (or should I say irrationale) behind the CASTOR protests is essentially this: 1) CASTORs are not safe because if a terrorist wanted to breach one, they could; 2) you don't believe us? We'll stage a mock terrorist attack to show you how easy it is to get within spitting distance of the CASTORs. I violently react to this because it is disingenuous, and uses bogeymen terrorists to push an agenda much like the advocates of the national security state use them to push their agenda. As for anti-nuclear direct action, I am not opposed to it in general (for instance, I think the Plowshares actions were great, but the point of those was not to pretend to be terrorists sneaking into a nuclear weapons facility to steal a warhead, was it?).
Am I included in "us enlightenmentalistas"? If so you might understand that Melo's preaching does not tell me anything about nuclear technology, but only about himself. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
you don't seem willing to sit back and evaluate the entirety of the new information I have given. Your one-liner reply to my long explanation is a good illustration.
I still don't read melo as representing himself as saintly; I have a feeling that's more in the eye of the beholder than in the text :-) but then in my time I've been accused of "wearing a hair shirt" or "being a saint" just for not owning a car and riding a bicycle -- so perhaps I have some inbuilt skepticism about this perception of greenish types (with or without pointy ears). to me, owning a car would be a burden, an unnecessary expense, a hassle, aesthetically displeasing, and generally not worth the overhead as well as being ethically troubling; ergo, no hair shirts here.
I think one thing that adds intensity -- and sometimes asperity to the point of venom -- to the debates over technology, transport, and power, is that people who advocate for a "simpler life" [which is hardly simple, when you consider how many endocrine and hormonal things are going on inside us as we enjoy a "simple" meal of bread cheese and wine, or how biotically complex are the processes that produce said bread cheese and wine] not only know in their gut, (having chosen some version of a simpler life voluntarily) that it offers much satisfaction and pleasure; they also feel that in pursuing their satisfaction and pleasure they do little harm, or at least less harm, than those who prefer a high-consumption, more energy-and-resource intensive lifestyle. whereas the "American Way of Life" meme, with which high energy consumption is inextricably associated, when successfully pursued inevitably displaces and destroys other lifeways as it consumes arable land, fossil fuel and fossil water, forest cover etc etc. some degrees of privilege are inherently unvulgarisable.
there is some sense I suspect in melo, and I know in myself, that some of the insistence on the "necessity" for nuclear power is an insistence on luxuries rather than necessities -- and on luxuries whose maintenance does active harm to billions; that a more equitable lifestyle would also be a more sustainable lifestyle, and would obviate at one and the same time, much suffering and the "need" to keep generating electricity at current levels. the math behind this argument is deep, and muddied by all sorts of distortions in the world of finance and money, but do-able in the world of terajoules and hektares and food calories. this underlying ethical/moral conflict may produce some of the overheated surface accusations of diabolism or excessive sanctity. just a thought. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
When I was in California I didn't own a car, I cycled, I baked my own bread, I shopped at the farmers' market...
You're lecturing me again as if I didn't know these things. Just a thought. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
not consciously -- just talking about my own experience, in an attempt to reduce tension in the discussion. obviously it's not working and I am not cut out for a career in the dip service :-) but for the record, I value your contributions to ET highly and consider you an enlightenmentista and a Good Person(TM), and a serious greenista as well. not being much of a baker myself, I'm also impressed by the breadmaking. peace? The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
in such a polarised atmosphere, to condemn an anti-nuke protest or appear to be defending the industry can sound on the surface, to a committed contranuker, like "taking the other side." but you notice that I haven't agreed with melo that your position is "diabolical" :-) I'm still trying to understand why this topic is so very loaded for so many of us -- almost as loaded as a debate over the political ethics of Israeli policy or Zionism, or the death penalty! -- what's the emotional freight that it carries with it... and why it is that I, for example, neither perceive Migeru as diabolical nor melo as sanctimonious :-) maybe your map would help, and I'm sorry I didn't have time last night to "do the survey". maybe tonight.
this is new territory for me, so forgive me if I'm stumbling or even flailing about a bit. I have mostly thought about the nuke question in terms of numbers, quantitative pragmatic considerations; or in terms of sociological implications as in the J Adams excerpt and related points in Part 2. I haven't actually thought about the debate itself and whether its demographics or the shape of the memespace tells us anything.
so this attempt at metanalysis is a departure, perhaps an ill-advised one... actually it was kcurie's stuff about narratives, and the sad reality that facts alone are not enough to convince most people of anything, that made me start to wonder what underlying assumptions and narratives lend the emotional heat to debates over nuclear power; why such debates are not as disinterested and abstract as debates over, say, the relative efficiency of LED lighting vs CF. why do we lose our tempers over nuclear power, why is it so polarising? and can we at ET, with a pretty good track record of civil discussion, manage to discuss this hot topic w/o a food fight?
of course, human beings are quite capable of quarrelling and remaining on frosty terms over the relative virtues of vi vs emacs :-) so perhaps trying to mute or compensate for (or even understand) the narrative/gut-level component of technology debates is a fool's errand. I thought it was worth a try. my intent is not to give offence. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
I have been trying to understand why nuke power elicits such intensity of partisan feeling, polarised so sharply into "camps" or "sides"
I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
I think it certainly has something to do with the unprecedented destructive power of the technology; inmediate severe damage in a short timeframe (very perceptible to humans as "disaster", more so than the slo-mo kind) and yet persistent, lasting damage over timeframes so long as to be almost transhuman. inherently Apocalyptic I guess -- poker doesn't get much more high-stakes than this; and it's not a private gamble, as so many people in the plume path found out when the Chernobyl team fumbled the ball. the risk from nuclear technology is willynilly shared by (imposed) on all, even if the benefits are more locally constrained.
this sense of having risk imposed on one against one's will (and risk of a high order) I think is a major component of contranuke anger and passion... much as nonsmokers can get really, really angry about being obliged to breathe others' cigarette smoke... nuclear particles are about as invasive as it gets, wandering right through our cell walls; a very intimate form of turf violation. only in the last few years are people beginning to understand the degree to which industrial chemicals generally have violated the skin boundary and taken up permanent residence in our bodies; I think the moment of political anger on that issue is yet to come... The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
The health risks from food additives and vehicle exhaust are probably higher and more widespread than those from nuclear power, excluding Chernobyl, but since they are mostly self-inflicted they're ok I suppose. Like the camel-smoking anti-capitalist Barbara met in Athens recently. And when it comes to accidents, in London we recently had this reminder of the price of gasoline addiction:
In May 2006 Three Valleys Water announced that it had detected the fire retardant perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), used in fire fighting foam, in a ground water bore hole close to the Buncefield site. It stated that no water from this well entered the public water supply and that a nearby well and pumping station had been closed since the fire as a precaution. The chemical is a known health risk and the UK government had been about to ban its use. However just prior to the announcement the Drinking Water Inspectorate announced that it was increasing the safe level of the chemical in drinking water. This prompted the Hemel Hempstead MP, Mike Penning to accuse the government of changing the rules to suit the situation in which PFOS levels in drinking water in the area may rise in the future. (wiki)
nuclear particles are about as invasive as it gets, wandering right through our cell walls; a very intimate form of turf violation
PET scanning is non-invasive, but it does involve exposure to ionizing radiation. The total dose of radiation is small, however, usually around 7 mSv. This can be compared to 2.2 mSv average annual background radiation in the UK, 0.02 mSv for a chest X-Ray, up to 8 mSv for a CT scan of the chest, 2-6 mSv per annum for aircrew, and 7.8 mSv per annum background exposure in Cornwall (Data from UK National Radiological Protection Board). (wiki)
Solar panels were not a practical solution for Galileo's power needs at Jupiter's distance from the Sun (it would have needed a minimum of 65 square metres (700 ft²) of solar panels); as for batteries, they would have been prohibitively massive. The solution adopted consisted of two radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). The RTGs powered the spacecraft through the radioactive decay of plutonium-238. The heat emitted by this decay was converted into electricity for the spacecraft through the solid-state Seebeck effect. This provided a reliable and long-lasting source of electricity unaffected by the cold space environment and high radiation fields such as those encountered in Jupiter's magnetosphere. Each RTG, mounted on a 5-metre long boom, carried 7.8 kilograms (17.2 lb) of 238Pu [2]. Each RTG contained 18 separate heat source modules, and each module encased four pellets of plutonium dioxide, a ceramic material resistant to fracturing. The modules were designed to survive a range of hypothetical accidents: launch vehicle explosion or fire, re-entry into the atmosphere followed by land or water impact, and post-impact situations. An outer covering of graphite provided protection against the structural, thermal, and eroding environments of a potential re-entry. Additional graphite components provided impact protection, while iridium cladding of the fuel cells provided post-impact containment. The RTGs produced about 570 watts at launch. The power output initially decreased at the rate of 0.6 watts per month and was 493 watts when Galileo arrived at Jupiter. As the launch of Galileo neared, anti-nuclear groups, concerned over what they perceived as an unacceptable risk to the public safety from Galileo's RTGs, sought a court injunction prohibiting Galileo's launch. In fact, RTGs had been safely used for years before in planetary exploration. The Lincoln Experimental Satellites 8/9, launched by the U.S. Department of Defense, had 7% more plutonium on board than Galileo, and the two Voyager spacecraft each carried 80% as much plutonium as Galileo did. After the Challenger accident, a study considered additional shielding and eventually rejected it, in part because such a design significantly increased the overall risk of mission failure and only shifted the other risks around (for example, if a failure on orbit had occurred, additional shielding would have significantly increased the consequences of a ground impact). (wiki)
Each RTG, mounted on a 5-metre long boom, carried 7.8 kilograms (17.2 lb) of 238Pu [2]. Each RTG contained 18 separate heat source modules, and each module encased four pellets of plutonium dioxide, a ceramic material resistant to fracturing. The modules were designed to survive a range of hypothetical accidents: launch vehicle explosion or fire, re-entry into the atmosphere followed by land or water impact, and post-impact situations. An outer covering of graphite provided protection against the structural, thermal, and eroding environments of a potential re-entry. Additional graphite components provided impact protection, while iridium cladding of the fuel cells provided post-impact containment. The RTGs produced about 570 watts at launch. The power output initially decreased at the rate of 0.6 watts per month and was 493 watts when Galileo arrived at Jupiter.
As the launch of Galileo neared, anti-nuclear groups, concerned over what they perceived as an unacceptable risk to the public safety from Galileo's RTGs, sought a court injunction prohibiting Galileo's launch. In fact, RTGs had been safely used for years before in planetary exploration. The Lincoln Experimental Satellites 8/9, launched by the U.S. Department of Defense, had 7% more plutonium on board than Galileo, and the two Voyager spacecraft each carried 80% as much plutonium as Galileo did.
After the Challenger accident, a study considered additional shielding and eventually rejected it, in part because such a design significantly increased the overall risk of mission failure and only shifted the other risks around (for example, if a failure on orbit had occurred, additional shielding would have significantly increased the consequences of a ground impact). (wiki)
Your Wiki quote fails to mention the very real risk connected to nuclear batteries for space vehicles: contamination after destruction during a crash back to Earth. The likelihood of a space vehicle's crash back on Earth is rather high (much higher than that of a power plant accident), in the order of percents per launch. IIRC there were three US and five Russian cases when an RTG came back on Earth - at least two fell into deep sea (one I know for sure was the Apollo-13 lunar module's, the other was recovered intact), but at least four others did cause contamination, albeit in less populated areas (Canada, Andes).
After the controversy of the weak design of NASA's large planetary satellite series (remember even Cassini was from the same family as the two Voyagers - and that satellite swung by Earth three times, which in case of error would have meant much higher re-entry speeds than during a failed launch), on one hand other power sources were facilitated if possible in satellite designs (also by reducing consumption of instruments), on the other hand, the few RTGs still used were designed to withstand a crash back (for example the Pluto mission's would even have separated during fallback to not be affected by the crash deformations of the rest). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
