Nuclear Power for NZ? No Thanks

For readers looking for pro-nuclear power arguments, Google has over 70,000 articles on this subject they may like to consider. You will also find on Google that there are 8,720,000 results for anti-nuclear power, almost 125 times as many against. . . .
. . . In our world of recurring wars, any nuclear installation can become a target. That could mean widespread radiation for centuries. It would destroy the country's agricultural export industry. That's butter, milk, meat, etc. Naturally the pro-nuclearists do not mention this factor, or play it down as unlikely, etc. in their propaganda.

Television, Radio or Film Documentary Proposal

Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of New Zealand's Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act
This is a story that has not yet been told and deserves to be seen and heard by all New Zealanders, in the 20 th Anniversary year celebrating the NZ Nuclear Free Zone Legislation of 1987.

This Los Angeles Times editorial is a very good summary of the relative disadvantages of investing in nuclear power reactors, versus using much more economic and available alternatives. If you add these powerful arguments to a number of others for New Zealand , the alternative energy sources win overwhelmingly. As they say: "Tax dollars are much better spent on windmills than on cooling towers"

It's tempting to turn to nuclear plants to combat climate change, but alternatives are safer and cheaper.
Japan sees nuclear power as a solution to global warming, but it's paying a price. Last week, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake caused dozens of problems at the world's biggest nuclear plant, leading to releases of radioactive elements into the air and ocean and an indefinite shutdown. Government and company officials initially downplayed the incident and stuck to the official line that the country's nuclear plants are earthquake-proof, but they gave way in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Japan has a sordid history of serious nuclear accidents or spills followed by cover-ups.

This article shows how the nuclear power industry is spending millions on public relations to revise the image of nuclear power from something dangerous, not to be touched,  to something clean, green and desirable. The way the PR companies, and the media, use the industry's ex-Greenpeace spokesman - and will not reveal what they pay him - is most instructive. The comments following the original version are excellent and contain many provoking pros and cons of the debate. Serious nuclear power researchers should read these, and develop counter arguments, if they wish to be able to answer the pro-nuclear lobbyists.

"We just find it maddening that Hill & Knowlton , which has an $8 million account with the nuclear industry, should have such an easy time working the press," concluded the Columbia Journalism Review in an editorial in its July / August 2006 issue.
The magazine was rightly bemoaning the tendency of news outlets to present former Greenpeace activist Patrick Moore and former EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman as environmentalists who support nuclear power, without noting that both are paid spokespeople for a group bankrolled by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). NEI represents nuclear power plant operators, plant designers, fuel suppliers and other sectors of the nuclear power industry. Hill & Knowlton is NEI's public relations firm, though it's not the only firm working to build support for nuclear power.

This article gives a number of good economic and environmental reasons why nuclear power should be rejected, and alternative sources of energy developed.  
But it does not mention a very important security reason: that nuclear power reactors can turn into targets in future wars. An attack on them by terrorists or some other enemy, can pollute large areas of land for generations to come, making it uninhabitable and useless for growing crops. With the large dislocation of people from the contaminated area, there would also be many immediate and longer term casualties from nuclear radiation.
So there would be no point in providing potential targets to possible future enemies, when alternative sources of energy would be cheaper and safer.

According to projections by the International Energy Agency and a handful of energy industry experts, 2005 was the first year nuclear power's electricity output dropped behind that of small-scale plants producing low or no carbon dioxide emissions - and that's not counting large hydroelectric projects on the low-carbon side of the balance sheet.
Adam Twine doesn't look like the kind of person the nuclear industry should be scared of. An organic farmer, Twine is skinny, with big round glasses and unruly hair that makes his head look like it's fraying at the edges. How could he possibly be a threat to a multibillion-dollar industry?

....Usually, advocates of nuclear power do not take into account all the costs, and risks - both short term and long term. Nor do they considering the cost of decommissioning the nuclear plant, replacement, and storage of nuclear waste that they can't dispose of.

...look into the massive, ongoing cover up of 3 Mile Island and the signed, notorized statements made by Jane Rickover, daughter-in-law of Admiral Hyman Rickover and Dr. Rosalie Bertell as well as the statement made by Paul Blanch, former nuclear engineer of the year regarding the cover up...

In discussing the nuclear free issue (which I am in full agreement with) someone replied two days ago "its just a farce because our hospitals are nuclear powered." I have heard this before - is this correct and if so how.

Hospitals do a lot of radiation for medical purposes, with which we have always agreed. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Peacemaking Association has always agreed with the peaceful applications of nuclear technology for medical and industrial uses. However hospitals are not nuclear powered, but powered by electricity. There is no nuclear power in NZ.

Obviously the US does not need the poisonous U-238 for security as claimed. The US is already the one and only super power and can destroy any enemy, even the whole of humanity, at any time. In these perilous times, it is not beyond possibility that an 'End Times Nuclear War' would be launched by a religious Fundamentalist nutter Administration. They may think it is time for the religious Armageddon that Fundamentalists believe was promised in the Bible.

NEW YORK - The United States plans to produce highly radioactive plutonium 238 for the first time since the Cold War, The New York Times reported on Monday.
The newspaper quoted project managers as saying most, if not all, of the new plutonium was intended for secret missions. The officials would not disclose details, but the newspaper said the plutonium in the past powered espionage devices.
The Times said Timothy Frazier, head of radioisotope power systems at the US Energy Department, vigorously denied in a recent interview any of the classified missions would involve nuclear arms, satellites or weapons in space.
"The real reason we're starting production is for national security," Frazier was quoted as saying.
Officials at the Energy Department could not be reached for comment.

ACT and National are very keen to resume visits by US and UK nuclear warships, as the following article shows.
The following comments will refute Ken Shirley's main points and show the duplicity of National.So for ACT and National to try and focus the debate on nuclear-powered ships alone is a duplicious nonsense.
They know that can mean nuclear weapons will be brought into NZ ports - and the possibility of that happening, will make NZ a potential nuclear target - for potential enemies to strike at US ships, or the ports they use.

Competent NZ defence planners would advise against providing future potential enemies with ready-made
nuclear targets in New Zealand.

Once NZ again becomes a nuclear warship host nation, as National wants, we also become a potential target. National wants the nuclear warship ban lifted, so allied warships may again visit us and we can help our allies - the US and UK - in their illegal wars such as the Iraq war.
A general nuclear war can destroy involved nations and some others; perhaps all others eventually; in an afternoon according to all the expert studies I have seen during the last 50 years.

"IRAN WILL BE A "PLAYER"   Another Iranian official said the Europeans were simply trying to clear the way for themselves and Russia to have a monopoly on fuel supply in the region.

Greenpeace activists today blocked the road to be used for transporting 140 kilograms of U.S. weapons plutonium after its imminent arrival in France. A truck was bolted and secured to the main road (D901) between the Cherbourg military port and the state nuclear company Areva/Cogema reprocessing complex on the la Hague peninsula. The truck has "Stop Plutonium" and a nuclear bomb painted on its side. In addition, ten activists were locked to the truck and the road. "International efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons materials have been high-jacked by the commercial plutonium industry. This plutonium shipment is part of an industry plan to expand the trade in bomb material and must be stopped." said Tom Clements of Greenpeace International.

WHILE VICE PRESIDENT Dick Cheney is actively promoting nuclear power as a significant plank in his energy plan, he claims that nuclear power is "a safe, clean and very plentiful energy source."
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the policy organization of the nuclear energy and technologies industries, is currently running an energetic campaign for the revivification of nuclear power. Ubiquitous TV and radio ads carry the admonition that "Kids today are part of the most energy-intensive generation in history. They demand lots of clean electricity. And they deserve clean air."

There are four things that currently prevent nuclear power from being feasible in New Zealand for the next 10-15 years: public opinion, time, scale and geography. Public opposition and the lengthy time taken to construct a station are major factors, but so too are the current size of the nuclear power stations. Nuclear power is most economic at 1,200MW (three times larger than any energy-generating unit operating in NZ today) and the smallest available currently is 600MW. It is unlikely that an economically suitable size will be available for another decade or more. And of course New Zealand's unstable geography creates big challenges both for constructing a station to withstand earthquakes as well as a deep storage facility for waste a big challenge.It is always worth acknowledging alternatives. However, with regard t ... read more

For some time now, I have been searching for answers to a deeply perplexing question: Why is the United States promoting the spread of atomic bombs worldwide?
By "atomic bombs" I mean the kind that turned Hiroshima and Nagasaki into a fiery hell in 1945 -- A-bombs made from plutonium (Nagasaki) or "enriched" uranium (Hiroshima).

Nuclear energy does generate huge carbon dioxide emissions, it's just that nobody bothers to count them.

James Lovelock & Why Nuclear Power Is NOT The Solution To Global Warming

". .for nuclear power to offset even 5 percent of global carbon emissions would require that worldwide nuclear capacity be nearly doubled from today's level. That means that nuclear is simply not a medium term option for slowing global warming."
...The authors point out that even with a massive nuclear construction program, the use of fossil fuels will continue to grow.
" Thus, in this scenario, even bringing a new nuclear plant on line every day and a half for nearly four decades does not prevent annual CO2 emissions from steadily increasing to a value 60% greater than they are today."

"This fuel is of great interest to terrorists, so the program is quite significant," said Daniil Kobyakov, a nonproliferation expert at the PIR Center, an independent policy research organization in Moscow.

Should we allow American nuclear vessels to visit New Zealand?
The National Party is proposing to dilute New Zealand's iconic anti-nuclear legislation to improve economic and defence relations with the United States.
A 65-page report on the relationship between the two countries was issued late yesterday afternoon as a huge protest dispersed outside Parliament. The timing prompted Prime Minister Helen Clark, ACT and the Greens to accuse National of slipping it through "under cover of the hikoi".   
      Have Your Say

There are far better and safer energy options available now.
It is time to leave nuclear energy behind as a failed dream of the last century. We can and must replace the false propaganda of "atoms for peace" with an "energy for peace" program that can make the well-being of the present generation compatible with the protection of the security and environment of future generations.

On a cold, wet night there's nothing better than coming home to a warm house, making a hot bowl of soup and then, after dinner, curling up under a reading lamp with a good book. But what if there was no gas to make the soup or run the furnace? What if there wasn't any oil to transport the dinner ingredients to you? No sweat, you may be thinking, I'm pretty hardy. If you really believe that, then I challenge you to sit in the dark for 15 minutes. It's no fun.
As that little mind game shows, trying to imagine life after fossil fuels isn't easy. Hydrocarbons are the very lifeblood of modern, industrial society. They are so fundamental to our existence that their role in creating our quality of life often goes unexamined. What our great grandparents would have considered luxuries we think of as necessities. But as even a casual look at history and a quick review of physics reveal, we are living an aberration.