December 4, 2010
The UN Climate talks in Cancun are now focusing on geoengineering, using it as a tool to extort a binding UN treaty to reduce phony global warming. The AP reported today that "we may need geoengineering as a 'Plan B,' if nations fail to forge agreement on a binding treaty to rein in greenhouse gases", per a British House of Commons report.
Geoengineering and contrived global warming lies are facets of Agenda 21, the overarching blueprint for control and depopulation. The article states that geoengineering can cause rain precipitation and other weather changes.
The AP article revealed that the primary forces behind geoengineering are the UN, the US and the UK. The US and the UK governments urged the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to study geoengineering, with the US in the research forefront. The article says that "specialists regard the stratospheric sulfates proposal as among the most feasible"- this means chemtrails. But instead of sulfates, patents and evidence indicate that aluminum and barium are currently being sprayed. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will do the unreliable computer modeling tests for the US research. Watch this video to understand that this is a depopulation program and this NOAA scientist advocates "doing whatever we can to reduce population".
The new willingness of the UN to consider geoengineering comes just weeks after the UN's Biodiversity conference in Japan wherein they imposed a moratorium on it until the implications could be fully studied. The UN used the 'moratorium' for support to gain global control over geoengineering and weather. Notably, the US did not sign the UN Biodiversity Convention (another word for 'treaty') in favor of the moratorium and UN control.
The UK government hosts the Hadley Center at East Anglia University, the home-base of the UN IPCC and is known for the 'Climategate' scandal and manipulated science. Margaret Thatcher established Hadley Center to usher in globalism and to weaken US power. The UN IPCC will pay off hundreds of scientists to study geoengineering for the IPCC's next assessment report. The UK supports UN control over geoengineering.
Sylvia Ribeiro of ETC was responsible for the UN short-lived moratorium promise on geoengineering at the Biodiversity Convention. She said that the UN must control geoengineering. Her 501(c)3 organization, ETC, has been funded by the likes of the Ford Foundation (known for supporting depopulation) and the HKH Foundation that funds other extreme environmental groups (Tides Foundation, NRDC, Union of Concerned Scientists, etc) with ties to the UN.
Foundations and depopulation policy makers are deeply intertwined; the UN IPCC sets public policy directly and indirectly. An example of this is UN IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri who is married to Saroj Pachauri, a director of the Rockefeller founded Population Council and she also worked for the Ford Foundation. While Rajendra may be concerned about the effects of geoengineering, his wife works to limit population.
The article reports that scientists say warming is being caused by greenhouse gases emitted by industry, vehicles and agriculture. The truth is that only a fraction of 1% of carbon emissions comes from these sources and agriculture, industry and transportation are targets for control. Food production is a depopulation focal point and changes in precipitation affects food.
Ocean acidification is another global warming lie. Geoengineering iron seeding or fertilization in the oceans can produce toxic algae blooms and would have little effect on carbon reduction.
Britain's national science academy said that the greatest challenges to geoengineering may not be science and engineering, but social ethical, legal and political issues. It is a problem for the depopulation ghouls that many people are aware of the potential effects of chemtrails and are angry about being sprayed like bugs.
Visit MorphCity.com for more information on food as a weapon and other Agenda 21 issues.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
No Amnesty, No Dream Act
No Amnesty, No DREAM Act The upcoming debate over the DREAM Act’s passage is beginning to look more like a con man’s shell game, of sorts. With two new versions of the original DREAM Act now on the table, it will be easier to perpetrate a great fraud on the American public. Players in the game -- the American people -- will be tantalized with accepting changes in the law via legislation, substituting amnesty applied to current law breakers for the legitimate and honest legal immigration process already in place.The White House, unaccountable agency czars, and congressmen, some of whom compromised integrity for votes in the pre-mid-term election cycle, are creating confusion over the details with the political goal of passing it without much objection. Congressmen who never read bills, won’t know which version they are voting on. However, this is one measure where the devil is NOT in the details of the two bills, but in principle.The truth of the DREAM Act's goals, S. 3827, were best exposed by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) in his “Ten Things You Need to Know About S. 3827, The DREAM Act." Here are a few of the low-lights he enumerated:
The DREAM Act Is NOT Limited to Children, And It Will Be Funded On the Backs Of Hard Working, Law-Abiding Americans
The DREAM Act PROVIDES SAFE HARBOR FOR ANY ALIEN, Including Criminals, From Being Removed or Deported If They Simply Submit An Application
Estimates Suggest That At Least 2.1 Million Illegal Aliens Will Be Eligible For the DREAM Act Amnesty.
Illegal Aliens Will Get In-State Tuition Benefits
The DREAM Act Does Not Require That An Illegal Alien Finish Any Type of Degree
The DREAM Act does not require that an illegal alien serve in the military as a condition for amnesty, and There is ALREADY A Legal Process In Place For Illegal Aliens to Obtain U.S. Citizenship Through Military Service
Despite Their Current Illegal Status, DREAM Act Aliens Will Be Given All The Rights That Legal Immigrants Receive—Including The Legal Right To Sponsor Their Parents and Extended Family Members For Immigration
Current Illegal Aliens Will Get Federal Student Loans, Federal Work Study Programs, and Other Forms of Federal Financial AidDreamy buyers need to beware, both versions are on the Senate calendar. From Congressional Quarterly comes the minute differences between the two versions:One version (S 3962) keeps an eligibility age of younger than 35 for the program, but a second version (S 3963) lowers that age to younger than 30....If no other eligibility criteria are changed, the potential number of people eligible would drop slightly, from roughly 2.1 million to slightly more than 2 million, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.Besides the usual Democrats who support the measure, Republicans Richard Lugar from Indiana and Robert Bennett of Utah are already vocalizing their support. Senator Orrin Hatch may be on board if the cut off point is lowered somewhat; after all he authored the original legislation, nine years ago. Senators Snowe, Collins, Murkowski, Brownback and McCain either have not yet made up their minds, or haven’t made public statements on how they will vote.If your elected representatives are out of sync with you, your family, friends and neighbors on this issue, contact them immediately as time is of the essence in this lame duck session, and let them know you are not in favor of limited or conditional amnesty for illegals. Remind them that the front door of the United States, the one our forebears came through, is always open for those seeking application for a new life in a new land. True justice requires that a nation and those from outside respect the established laws of that nation. Breaking those laws and then rewriting them after the fact is no justice at all.Thanks,Your friends at The John Birch Society
The DREAM Act Is NOT Limited to Children, And It Will Be Funded On the Backs Of Hard Working, Law-Abiding Americans
The DREAM Act PROVIDES SAFE HARBOR FOR ANY ALIEN, Including Criminals, From Being Removed or Deported If They Simply Submit An Application
Estimates Suggest That At Least 2.1 Million Illegal Aliens Will Be Eligible For the DREAM Act Amnesty.
Illegal Aliens Will Get In-State Tuition Benefits
The DREAM Act Does Not Require That An Illegal Alien Finish Any Type of Degree
The DREAM Act does not require that an illegal alien serve in the military as a condition for amnesty, and There is ALREADY A Legal Process In Place For Illegal Aliens to Obtain U.S. Citizenship Through Military Service
Despite Their Current Illegal Status, DREAM Act Aliens Will Be Given All The Rights That Legal Immigrants Receive—Including The Legal Right To Sponsor Their Parents and Extended Family Members For Immigration
Current Illegal Aliens Will Get Federal Student Loans, Federal Work Study Programs, and Other Forms of Federal Financial AidDreamy buyers need to beware, both versions are on the Senate calendar. From Congressional Quarterly comes the minute differences between the two versions:One version (S 3962) keeps an eligibility age of younger than 35 for the program, but a second version (S 3963) lowers that age to younger than 30....If no other eligibility criteria are changed, the potential number of people eligible would drop slightly, from roughly 2.1 million to slightly more than 2 million, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.Besides the usual Democrats who support the measure, Republicans Richard Lugar from Indiana and Robert Bennett of Utah are already vocalizing their support. Senator Orrin Hatch may be on board if the cut off point is lowered somewhat; after all he authored the original legislation, nine years ago. Senators Snowe, Collins, Murkowski, Brownback and McCain either have not yet made up their minds, or haven’t made public statements on how they will vote.If your elected representatives are out of sync with you, your family, friends and neighbors on this issue, contact them immediately as time is of the essence in this lame duck session, and let them know you are not in favor of limited or conditional amnesty for illegals. Remind them that the front door of the United States, the one our forebears came through, is always open for those seeking application for a new life in a new land. True justice requires that a nation and those from outside respect the established laws of that nation. Breaking those laws and then rewriting them after the fact is no justice at all.Thanks,Your friends at The John Birch Society
The Economic Collapse get ready
America’s Message To The Rest Of The World: You Send Us Oil And Cheap Plastic Gadgets And We’ll Send You Our Wealth And Prosperity
The Economic Collapse Dec 9, 2010
Have you ever seen pictures of extravagant wealth from places such as Dubai or Abu Dhabi and wondered where in the world they got all that money from? Have you ever read news stories that talk about China lending us hundreds of billions of dollars and wondered how they could possibly have so much wealth? Well, it is actually quite simple. They got much of it from us. Every month, the United States buys much more from the rest of the world then they buy from us. It is called a “trade deficit” and the United States has been running one for decades. In essence, what is happening each month is that we are transferring somewhere between 40 to 50 billion dollars of our national wealth to the rest of the globe and they are sending us oil and cheap plastic gadgets that Americans greedily consume. By the end of the year we have usually transferred somewhere around a half trillion dollars of our national wealth out of the country for good.
In order to maintain our standard of living, the U.S. government has been going to the countries we have been sending our wealth to and has been begging them to loan us massive amounts of their dollars. At this point the U.S. government literally owes trillions of dollars to the rest of the world.
Scoffers say that it is just a bunch of “paper money” that we are sending them, but the truth is that it is hundreds of billions of dollars of “paper money” that is not in the hands of average Americans. We have sent massive amounts of our wealth and prosperity overseas and it isn’t coming back unless we borrow it.
Today there are dozens and dozens of U.S. cities such as Detroit, Michigan and Camden, New Jersey that are turning into post-industrial hellholes while thousands of gleaming new modern factories are going up all over China. 42.9 million Americans are now on food stamps (a 16 percent increase in just one year) while the oil sheiks of the Middle East build opulent palaces that are extravagant beyond belief.
Most Americans do not realize how serious the U.S. addiction to foreign oil really is. We are constantly being drained of our wealth by the oil powers of the Middle East.
So what are they doing with all of this money? Well, let’s take a look at just a couple of examples.
Have you ever heard of the Emirates Palace? It is located in the United Arab Emirates and it cost approximately 3.8 billion dollars to build. The following is how one writer for a major UK newspaper described it after a visit….
The Emirates Palace has so many biggest and best boasts, it could have its own chapter in the Guinness Book of Records, but the atrium is the whistles and bells, the jaw-dropping big daddy of them all — 60 metres high, 42 metres wide and topped with the largest dome in the world. Staff need golf carts to negotiate their way around it. It is decorated with 13 colours of marble, ranging from sunrise yellow to sunset red (to reflect the many hues of the desert), and lots and lots and lots of gold: 6,040 square metres of gold leaf cover the largest gilded expanse ever created in one building. It’s even in the food. I ate gold leaf on my chocolate cake. Apparently, it aids digestion.
In Dubai, there is so much wealth that they pretty much build whatever they can dream up. For example, in Dubai you will find the largest “indoor ski resort” in the world. One travel site describes it this way….
When one thinks of Arabia, let alone Dubai, one likely pictures an arid desert of heat and sun. One does not think of snow skiing. Yet, that is what one can do at Ski Dubai, arguably the largest indoor ski resort in the world. The resort features 22,500 square meters of ski area. The heavily insulated building is kept at 30.2 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 21.2 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the night, which is when the snow is generated. The resort features five ski runs and is open year round.
But it is not just the Middle East that is getting incredibly wealthy off of the United States. In a recent article entitled “China #1, United States #2? 25 Facts That Prove The Transition Is Really Happening” I detailed how China is in the process of surpassing the United States economically.
Over the past 25 years, the U.S. trade deficit with China has soared into the stratosphere. In 1985, the U.S. trade deficit with China was 6 million dollars for the entire year. In the month of August alone, the U.S. trade deficit with China was over 28 billion dollars.
For many Americans this can be difficult to comprehend. For a moment, imagine a giant map of the world and that there is a gigantic pile of money in China and a gigantic pile of money in the United States. Then start taking 20 billion dollars from the pile of the United States and give it to China every single month.
After a while, what is going to happen?
Well, the United States is going to be a lot poorer and China is going to be a lot wealthier.
As we have become poorer, it has been harder and harder to maintain our very high standard of living.
The U.S. government has been borrowing larger and larger sums of money from the rest of the world in order to “stimulate” our economy, but in the process we are piling up horrific amounts of debt.
The national debt of the United States is now 13 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.
If we did that again over the next 30 years, we would have a national debt of approximately $170 trillion by the year 2040.
Of course that will never happen.
Why?
Well, because the entire financial system would collapse and we would be forced into national bankruptcy long before we ever got into that much debt.
The truth is that we are already on the verge of total economic collapse. In fact, CNS News is reporting that retiring U.S. Senator George Voinovich believes that the collapse could happen at any time now….
“I think we are on the edge of it right now. I really do,” said Voinovitch. “If we don’t do something about dealing with the debt and the budgets that aren’t being balanced for as far as your eye can see, we are over the cliff. We are on thin ice right now. And I don’t think that we can wait. We need to move forward. We need to move forward for our own benefit, but we also need to move forward because the world is watching us right now.”
Indeed, the world is watching us, and they are getting tired of financing our runaway debt.
Just this week there have been some very troubling signs. For example, U.S. Treasuries just experienced their biggest two-day sell-off since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The rest of the world was deeply troubled when the Federal Reserve announced another round of quantitative easing. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had promised that the Fed would not monetize U.S. government debt, but now that is exactly what is happening. The rest of the world is less than thrilled by this.
In addition, many economists are warning that the tax cut deal that Barack Obama and the Republicans have agreed to will increase U.S. government debt even more. In reaction to the deal, economist Nouriel Roubini recently posted the following message on his Twitter account….
“Obama-GOP tax deal costs $900 billion over two years. US kicking the can further down the road. Are bond vigilantes starting to wake up?”
A recent article on CNBC described what these “bond vigilantes” are….
Bond vigilantes – the term was coined by economist Ed Yardeni in the 1980s to describe major investors who demand higher yields to compensate for the perceived risks resulting from large deficits – could derail the country’s precarious recovery, some economists say.
The truth is that the U.S. government is not going to be able to borrow endless amounts of very cheap money forever.
At some point the U.S. is either going to face much higher interest rates on government debt or the Federal Reserve is going to have to step in and monetize the vast majority of all new government debt.
Either alternative will be absolutely disastrous.
Most Americans just assume that the wealth and prosperity that we have enjoyed for so many decades will always be with us. But that is not the case. We have been exporting our national wealth and our national prosperity so that we could fill up our shopping carts with cheap foreign-made plastic crap and so that we could fill up our cars with foreign oil. It has been a fun ride while it lasted, but with each passing day a national financial implosion draws ever closer.
An economic nightmare is coming.
You better get ready.
The Economic Collapse Dec 9, 2010
Have you ever seen pictures of extravagant wealth from places such as Dubai or Abu Dhabi and wondered where in the world they got all that money from? Have you ever read news stories that talk about China lending us hundreds of billions of dollars and wondered how they could possibly have so much wealth? Well, it is actually quite simple. They got much of it from us. Every month, the United States buys much more from the rest of the world then they buy from us. It is called a “trade deficit” and the United States has been running one for decades. In essence, what is happening each month is that we are transferring somewhere between 40 to 50 billion dollars of our national wealth to the rest of the globe and they are sending us oil and cheap plastic gadgets that Americans greedily consume. By the end of the year we have usually transferred somewhere around a half trillion dollars of our national wealth out of the country for good.
In order to maintain our standard of living, the U.S. government has been going to the countries we have been sending our wealth to and has been begging them to loan us massive amounts of their dollars. At this point the U.S. government literally owes trillions of dollars to the rest of the world.
Scoffers say that it is just a bunch of “paper money” that we are sending them, but the truth is that it is hundreds of billions of dollars of “paper money” that is not in the hands of average Americans. We have sent massive amounts of our wealth and prosperity overseas and it isn’t coming back unless we borrow it.
Today there are dozens and dozens of U.S. cities such as Detroit, Michigan and Camden, New Jersey that are turning into post-industrial hellholes while thousands of gleaming new modern factories are going up all over China. 42.9 million Americans are now on food stamps (a 16 percent increase in just one year) while the oil sheiks of the Middle East build opulent palaces that are extravagant beyond belief.
Most Americans do not realize how serious the U.S. addiction to foreign oil really is. We are constantly being drained of our wealth by the oil powers of the Middle East.
So what are they doing with all of this money? Well, let’s take a look at just a couple of examples.
Have you ever heard of the Emirates Palace? It is located in the United Arab Emirates and it cost approximately 3.8 billion dollars to build. The following is how one writer for a major UK newspaper described it after a visit….
The Emirates Palace has so many biggest and best boasts, it could have its own chapter in the Guinness Book of Records, but the atrium is the whistles and bells, the jaw-dropping big daddy of them all — 60 metres high, 42 metres wide and topped with the largest dome in the world. Staff need golf carts to negotiate their way around it. It is decorated with 13 colours of marble, ranging from sunrise yellow to sunset red (to reflect the many hues of the desert), and lots and lots and lots of gold: 6,040 square metres of gold leaf cover the largest gilded expanse ever created in one building. It’s even in the food. I ate gold leaf on my chocolate cake. Apparently, it aids digestion.
In Dubai, there is so much wealth that they pretty much build whatever they can dream up. For example, in Dubai you will find the largest “indoor ski resort” in the world. One travel site describes it this way….
When one thinks of Arabia, let alone Dubai, one likely pictures an arid desert of heat and sun. One does not think of snow skiing. Yet, that is what one can do at Ski Dubai, arguably the largest indoor ski resort in the world. The resort features 22,500 square meters of ski area. The heavily insulated building is kept at 30.2 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 21.2 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the night, which is when the snow is generated. The resort features five ski runs and is open year round.
But it is not just the Middle East that is getting incredibly wealthy off of the United States. In a recent article entitled “China #1, United States #2? 25 Facts That Prove The Transition Is Really Happening” I detailed how China is in the process of surpassing the United States economically.
Over the past 25 years, the U.S. trade deficit with China has soared into the stratosphere. In 1985, the U.S. trade deficit with China was 6 million dollars for the entire year. In the month of August alone, the U.S. trade deficit with China was over 28 billion dollars.
For many Americans this can be difficult to comprehend. For a moment, imagine a giant map of the world and that there is a gigantic pile of money in China and a gigantic pile of money in the United States. Then start taking 20 billion dollars from the pile of the United States and give it to China every single month.
After a while, what is going to happen?
Well, the United States is going to be a lot poorer and China is going to be a lot wealthier.
As we have become poorer, it has been harder and harder to maintain our very high standard of living.
The U.S. government has been borrowing larger and larger sums of money from the rest of the world in order to “stimulate” our economy, but in the process we are piling up horrific amounts of debt.
The national debt of the United States is now 13 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.
If we did that again over the next 30 years, we would have a national debt of approximately $170 trillion by the year 2040.
Of course that will never happen.
Why?
Well, because the entire financial system would collapse and we would be forced into national bankruptcy long before we ever got into that much debt.
The truth is that we are already on the verge of total economic collapse. In fact, CNS News is reporting that retiring U.S. Senator George Voinovich believes that the collapse could happen at any time now….
“I think we are on the edge of it right now. I really do,” said Voinovitch. “If we don’t do something about dealing with the debt and the budgets that aren’t being balanced for as far as your eye can see, we are over the cliff. We are on thin ice right now. And I don’t think that we can wait. We need to move forward. We need to move forward for our own benefit, but we also need to move forward because the world is watching us right now.”
Indeed, the world is watching us, and they are getting tired of financing our runaway debt.
Just this week there have been some very troubling signs. For example, U.S. Treasuries just experienced their biggest two-day sell-off since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The rest of the world was deeply troubled when the Federal Reserve announced another round of quantitative easing. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had promised that the Fed would not monetize U.S. government debt, but now that is exactly what is happening. The rest of the world is less than thrilled by this.
In addition, many economists are warning that the tax cut deal that Barack Obama and the Republicans have agreed to will increase U.S. government debt even more. In reaction to the deal, economist Nouriel Roubini recently posted the following message on his Twitter account….
“Obama-GOP tax deal costs $900 billion over two years. US kicking the can further down the road. Are bond vigilantes starting to wake up?”
A recent article on CNBC described what these “bond vigilantes” are….
Bond vigilantes – the term was coined by economist Ed Yardeni in the 1980s to describe major investors who demand higher yields to compensate for the perceived risks resulting from large deficits – could derail the country’s precarious recovery, some economists say.
The truth is that the U.S. government is not going to be able to borrow endless amounts of very cheap money forever.
At some point the U.S. is either going to face much higher interest rates on government debt or the Federal Reserve is going to have to step in and monetize the vast majority of all new government debt.
Either alternative will be absolutely disastrous.
Most Americans just assume that the wealth and prosperity that we have enjoyed for so many decades will always be with us. But that is not the case. We have been exporting our national wealth and our national prosperity so that we could fill up our shopping carts with cheap foreign-made plastic crap and so that we could fill up our cars with foreign oil. It has been a fun ride while it lasted, but with each passing day a national financial implosion draws ever closer.
An economic nightmare is coming.
You better get ready.
George Soros and his types
The plan of the george soros types is to lead the US down the road to a 3rd world nation status at a rapid pace. We have abundant natural resources (oil, natural gas, coal, etc) that would last us a few hundred years at least but we cannot develop them because of the One World government types in cahoots with the environmental wackos. So, we send about $1.0 BILLION per DAY to countries like Saudi Arabia to provide us with oil. And alternatively, we cannot build nuclear power stations because of resistance from the same groups. And islamobama and his band of cut-throat communist buffoons want us to build ineffective wind mills and solar panels which, at most, can provide about 4 to 5 percent of our power requirements. Add this to the fact we have the highest cooperate income tax structure in the western world and the cost of doing business in the US forces profit motivated businesses overseas so that we continue to de-industrialize (send jobs overseas) which is the plan of the same group. Any successful business has to seek the lowest cost labor so don't blame it on the cooperations. Blame it squarely on our pea brained "leaders" in the district of corruption. Believe me, if they really wanted to do something to actually help the US instead of destroy it, they could. "The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things". And it is about time for the people in the US to start talking about taking our country back from the misguided elites who are attempting to lead us down the road to oblivion. Start by forcing the idiots in the district of corruption to balance the budget. Eliminate the federal income tax and replace it with a consumption tax. Eliminate the federal reserve and force congress to assume their CONSTITUTIONAL responsibility of regulating our money supply which should be based on a gold standard. Get all our military troops home NOW and put them on the border with mexico and stop the influx of illegal immigrants and dope. REDUCE the size of the federal government to perform ONLY the Constitutional dictated responsibilities (it should be about 10% of what it now is). And force the U.S. congress and senate together with the supreme court to accept TERM LIMITS without a lifetime of benefits like they are now receiving after 5 years in office. We should not wait until the system fails completely to do something about it. We should have learned something from what happened in germany after WW1. Don't think it can't happen here.
America is doomed
As you read this keep in mind it is all by design. It is just part of the plan started in early 1900's with the federal reserve and the FIT amendment and is all about wealth redistribution and control by the banking elite (One World Govt). The ultimate goal is to make the US a 3rd world type govt and destroy the Constitutional govt and our freedoms guaranteed by this document. Look at the state of our de-industrialization, our dumbed down education system, our 10% soon to be 25% unemployment, and our continued march to socialization and big government (soon to be One World Government).God Bless the USA.
.ExternalClass DIV
From: Jim Hedderly
from a friend who worked on the South Texas Nuclear Project with me (1973-1987)
Good Morning------Having been involved in and around the electric industry since 1974 I believe this report should be mandatory reading for every politician in Washington. I am sending it to friends because I think they will appreciate “what is being said” and the effect it can have on the future of the United States. Cecil O.Friends, this forwarding is from RADM Mike Barr, former COMSUBPAC, who has been managing portions of the Los Alamos Nuclear Test Lab/Site off and on for a number of years. He is a "Nuc' of high stature, and when he says he doesn't forward much, he means it! Yes, this will "severely impact our future generations" for sure. Unfortunately we are not heading in this direction at all! We will be sorry, or should I say, our kids and grand-kids will be sorry. US Fed News, September 22, 2009 Tuesday 9:57 PM ESTWASHINGTON, Sept. 21 -- The office of Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., issued the following news release:Communications experts say that fear is the best way to get attention when you're trying to win an argument. Groups who oppose nuclear power have certainly mastered that technique by playing to economic, environmental, and safety fears.So I'd like to introduce a little element of fear into my argument here. I want to suggest what could happen if we don't adopt nuclear power as a more important part of our energy future- if Russia and China and a lot of other countries go ahead with nuclear - as they are now - while we get left behind. Are we going to be able to compete with countries that have cheap, clean, reliable nuclear power while we're stuck with a bunch of windmills and solar farms producing expensive, unreliable energy or, more likely, not much energy at all? The whole prospect of the United States ignoring this problem-solving technology that we invented is what I fear most about nuclear power.Let me give you an idea of what I'm talking about. A few years ago, in January 2006, the Chinese sent a delegation of nuclear scientists and administrators to the United States on a fact-finding mission. They toured the Idaho National Laboratory, the Argonne National Laboratory and visited GE and Westinghouse trying to decide which technology to choose for their nuclear program.Now you might wonder why anyone would be seeking our advice when we haven't issued a construction permit to build a new reactor in the past thirty years. But as Kathryn McCarthy, deputy director of the Idaho National Laboratory, said at the time, "The world still looks to us for leadership in this technology. They'd prefer to copy what we've already done. They don't like being on the cutting edge."Well that may have been true in 2006 but it's not anymore. The Chinese eventually chose Westinghouse technology for their first reactors. At the time Westinghouse was an American company. In 2007, Toshiba bought Westinghouse so it is now a Japanese company. Then when the Chinese got their Westinghouse reactor, they insisted on having all the specs so they could see how it was put together. That's what we call "reverse engineering." As you might have guessed, China 's next wave of reactors is going to be built with Chinese technology.By 2008 the Chinese had shovels in the ground. The first four Westinghouse reactors are scheduled for completion by 2011. They also bought a pair of Russian reactors, which should be finished around the same time. They started talking about building 60 reactors over the next 20 years and just recently raised it to 132. They're in the nuclear business.What have we accomplished in the meantime? Well, people have been talking about a "nuclear renaissance" in this country since the turn of the century. In 2007, NRG, a New Jersey company, filed the first application to build a new reactor in 30 years. They're still at the beginning of what promises to be at least a five-year licensing process before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. No one really knows how long it will take, since as soon as the licenses are issued opponents will file lawsuits and the whole thing will move to the courts. If they're lucky, they might have a reactor up-and-running by 2020. Other companies have followed suit and there are now 34 proposals before the NRC, but nobody has yet broken ground. So it isn't likely the Chinese will be coming to us any time soon for more tips on how to build reactors. In fact we'll probably be going to them.That's one aspect of what's going on in the world today. Here's another. As countries began constructing new reactors, it quickly became clear that the bottleneck would be in forging the steel reactor vessels. These are the huge, three-story-high, forged steel units that hold the fuel assembly - the reactor core. That means forging steel parts that may weigh as much as 500 tons.In 2007 the only place you could order a reactor vessel was at the Japan Steel Works and they were backed up for four years. Everyone started saying, "This is going to be what holds up the world's nuclear renaissance. They'll never be able to produce enough of those pressure vessels."So what happened? Well, first Japan Steel Works invested $800 million to triple its capacity. They're going to be turning out 12 pressure vessels a year by 2012. Then the Chinese decided to build their own forge. In less than two years, they put up a furnace that can handle 320-ton parts. They turned out their first components in June. Now they're building two more forges. So you won't see the Chinese standing in line in Japan any time soon. The Russians are doing the same thing. They're in the midst of a big revival, planning to double the production of electricity from nuclear power by 2020. They're also building a forge and just cast their first 600-ton ingot in June. France , Britain , South Korea and India are all following suit. Very soon, every major nuclear country in the world is going to be able to forge its own reactor vessels - except one. And that's us.No steel company in America is capable of forging ingots of more than 270 tons. We're still stuck in the 1960s. That means when it comes to building reactors we'll have to stand in line in Japan or somewhere else. In fact, just about everything in our first new reactors is going to be imported. The nuclear industry tells us that at least 70 percent of the materials and equipment that go into those first few reactors will come from abroad. That's because we've let our nuclear supply industry wither on the vine. In 1990 there were 150 domestic suppliers making parts for nuclear reactors. Today there are only 40 and most of them do their business overseas. Of the 34 proposals before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 20 are designed by Westinghouse, now a Japanese company and, nine are from Areva, the French giant. General Electric, the only American company left on the field, has partnered with Hitachi . They sold five reactors to American utilities but fared poorly in the competition for federal loan guarantees. Two utilities have now cancelled those projects and there are rumors that GE may quit the field entirely. They don't seem very enthusiastic about nuclear anyway. Have you seen those GE ads for windmills? They're all over the place. Have you seen their ad for the smart grid, where the little girl says, "The sun is still shining in Arizona ?" That was pretty good, too. Now, have you seen any GE ads, in this day of concern about climate change, that 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity comes from nuclear power? I certainly haven't.Babcock & Wilcox is the one American company that stirred some interest recently when it announced plans for a new "mini-reactor." This is a 125-megawatt unit that can be manufactured at the factory and shipped by rail to the site, where several units can be fit together like Lego blocks. This left the impression that America might be innovating again, forging back into the lead. But the complete prototype for the Babcock & Wilcox reactor is still two years away and then it may take another five years to get the NRC's design approval. Meanwhile, the Russians are already building a mini-reactor that will be floated into a Siberian village on a barge to produce power. They've already got orders for mini-reactors from 12 countries. In spite of Babcock & Wilcox's fine effort - and I'm certainly proud of them - the Russians are considerably ahead of us.So let's take stock. There are 40 reactors now under construction in 11 countries around the world, none of them in the United States . In fact, only two are in Western Europe - one in Finland and the other in France, both built by Areva. All the rest are in Asia . Although we haven't gotten used to it, Asia may soon be leading the world in nuclear technology.Japan has 55 reactors and gets 35 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, almost double the 19 percent we get here. The Japanese have two reactors under construction and plans for ten more by 2018. They are finding they can build a reactor, start to finish, in less than four years. That's less time than it is taking to get one American reactor through licensing at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.South Korea gets nearly 40 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is planning another eight reactors by 2015. So far they've bought their reactors from the Japanese but now they have their own Korean Next-Generation Reactor, a 1400-megawatt giant evolved from an American design. They plan to bring two of these online by 2016. Taiwan also gets 18 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is building two new reactors.In September, Bloomberg News reported that Japan Steel Works' stock had risen 8 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange because of China 's decision to double future construction from 60 to 132 new reactors. They figure they'll get some of the action. Much of China 's $586 billion stimulus package is going toward developing nuclear power. "While China had been focusing on building new coal plants, it has now shifted its focus to nuclear because of the environmental issue," said Ikuo Sato, president of Japan Steel Works, in Bloomberg.Meanwhile, India is embracing thorium; a technology a lot of people think may eventually replace uranium as nuclear fuel. Thorium is twice as abundant as uranium and it doesn't produce the plutonium that everybody worries will be used to make a bomb. There's a lot of enthusiasm for thorium among scientists in this country. But it's India that's going ahead, with six reactors under construction and ten more planned. They began with a Russian design but are also trying some American technology they acquired in signing their 2005 agreement with the Bush Administration.What about Chernobyl ? Well, just like everybody else, Russia stopped all construction of new reactors after that horrible accident. But they learned their lesson and started constructing much safer reactors in the 1990s, completing the first in 2001. Now they have plans to expand along the lines of France , building two reactors every year from now through 2030. They have a very good reason. Russia has huge natural gas supplies but is wasting them by using one-third of it to produce electricity. They could get six times the price by selling it to Western Europe . So they're replacing gas generation with nuclear - which is exactly the opposite of what we're doing here. Since 1990 every major power plant built in this country has burned natural gas. We now get 20 percent of our electricity from natural gas - more than nuclear's 19 percent - and the natural gas percent is still going up.And be aware, all these countries that are developing nuclear aren't just building for themselves. They're selling to the rest of the world as well. Areva is building reactors in Finland , China , India , Italy , Brazil and Abu Dhabi . The Russians have signed deals with China , Iran , India , Nigeria and Venezuela . They are even selling to us! In July, Tenex , Russia 's uranium enrichment corporation signed a long-term contract to supply fuel to Constellation Energy, which has reactors in Maryland and upstate New York . It was the sixth contract Tenex signed with an American utility in the past two months.How did the Russians end up supplying us with uranium? It's an interesting story. In 1996, Senators Sam Nunn, Pete Domenici and Richard Lugar pioneered a remarkable deal with the post-Soviet government where we would buy highly enriched uranium from old Soviet bomb stocks. The uranium would be sent to France , where it would be "blended down" from 90 percent fissionable material to three percent to be used in American reactors. For the last two decades, old Soviet stockpiles have supplied half our nuclear fuel. One out of every ten light bulbs in America is now powered by a former Soviet weapon - one of the greatest swords-into-plowshares efforts in history, although few people seem to know about it. Now the Russians have learned to do de-enrichment themselves. They've decided they don't need France . They say, "Hey, we don't have to import this stuff anymore. We'll just produce it here." Of course, producing things is one way countries get rich and raise their standard of living.Once upon a time we were pioneers in nuclear technology. Forty years ago we were the only people in the world who knew how to deal with the atom. That's not true anymore. We've shied away from the technology while everyone else has forged ahead. Even Europe is coming back. The British have announced they're going to go nuclear -they just hired the French national electric company to help. Italy closed all its reactors right after Chernobyl but ended up importing 80 percent of its electricity at a huge cost. Now they've announced they're going back to nuclear as well. France already gets 80 percent of its power from nuclear and has the cheapest electricity in Europe - not to mention the second-lowest carbon emissions (behind Sweden , which is half nuclear). France also sells $80 billion worth of electricity to the rest of Europe each year. Notice how well France did in the latest downturn - it barely went into recession at all. That's not because the French spend less on government bureaucracy or work harder than us and take fewer vacations. It's because nuclear power is helping to keep their whole economy afloat.So does that mean we've fallen completely behind? Not at all. In fact there's a great irony to all this. We still know how to run reactors better than anyone else. Our fleet of 104 plants is up and running 90 percent of the time. No one else even comes close. France , for all its experience, is still at 80 percent. Other countries are even lower. We still understand the technology better than anyone else in the world. But because we've placed so many obstacles in our path, we aren't allowed to build reactors anymore. And that's what scares me. We're gradually losing our economic place in the world.Now a lot of people say, "Well, what's the difference? So what if we fall behind on nuclear technology? We'll just forge ahead with something else." Well, there are several reasons to be concerned:1) First there's energy security. America already spends $ 300 billion a year importing 2/3rds of our oil from other countries. If we remain on the current path of no new nuclear power or start depending on other countries to build our reactors and supply us with fuel, we're going to be even more vulnerable than we are now. The best way to reduce imported oil, aside from ramping up domestic production, will be to use electricity to power cars and trucks. At first we can plug our electric vehicles in at night, when there is much unused electricity. After that, we should be using nuclear. We can't have Americans going to bed every night hoping the wind will blow so they can start their cars in the morning.2) Second, there's technological leadership. Americans produce year in and year out 25 percent of all the wealth in the world. Most of that wealth has been driven by new technologies. We were the birthplace of the telephone, the electric light, the automobile, the assembly line, radio, television and the computer. But nuclear energy - perhaps the greatest scientific advance of the 20th century - is passing us by. The 21st century is going to run on clean, cheap greenhouse-gas-free nuclear power. And, how can we criticize India and China for not reducing their carbon emissions when we refuse to adopt the best technology ourselves?3) Then there's weapons proliferation. In the 1970s we gave up on nuclear reprocessing in the hope that by not dealing with plutonium we would prevent nuclear weapons from spreading around the world. That has turned out to be an unwise decision. France , Britain , Russia , Canada and Japan went right on reprocessing and no one has stolen plutonium from them. Instead, rogue countries such as North Korea and Pakistan have found their own ways to develop nuclear weapons. The technology of bomb-making is no big secret anymore. The real problem is that, by reneging on world leadership we have left the field to others. For instance, right now the Russians are building a commercial reactor for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela . He's not exactly friendly toward the United States . Just to make things more interesting, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal that his office has uncovered evidence Iran may be providing Venezuela with missile technology.But what really worries me are these two things:* First, if we move toward a nuclear-based economy and we have to import 70 percent of the technology and equipment, how are any better off than when we're importing two thirds of our oil? We'll just be creating jobs for steel workers in Japan and China instead of in the United States .* Second, it we don't move toward a nuclear powered economy but try to do everything with conservation and wind and solar, we're going to be sending American jobs overseas looking for cheap energy.So to insure we have enough cheap, clean, reliable electricity in this country to create good high-quality, high-tech jobs, here's what we have to do. The United States should double its production of nuclear power by building 100 nuclear reactors in 20 years.* Nuclear today provides 70 percent of our carbon free electricity. Wind and solar provide 4 percent.* Nuclear plants operate 90 percent of the time. Wind and solar operate about one third of the time.* The Obama Administration's Nobel prize-winning Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, says nuclear plants are safe and that used nuclear fuel can be safely stored on site for 40-60 years while we figure out the best way to recycle it.* Producing 20 percent of electricity from wind, as the Obama Administration proposes, will require building 186,000 fifty story turbines, enough to cover an area the size of West Virginia - plus 19,000 miles of new transmission lines to carry electricity from remote to populated areas. 100 new nuclear plants could be built mostly on existing sites.* To produce 3-6 percent of our electricity, taxpayers will subsidize wind to the tune of $29 billion over the next ten years. The 104 nuclear reactors we have today were built basically without taxpayer subsides.* It will cost roughly the same to build 100 new nuclear plants (which will last 60 to 80 years) as it would to build 186,000 wind turbines (lasting 20 to 25 years). And this does not count the cost of transmission lines for wind.* There will be twice as many "green jobs" created building 100 reactors as there would be building 186,000 wind turbines.An America stumbling along on expensive, unreliable renewable energy, trying to import most of our energy from abroad, is going to be an America with fewer jobs and a lower standard of living.Nuclear opponents continue to prey on fear of nuclear power. The truth is that if we want safe, cost-effective, reliable, no-carbon electricity we can no longer ignore the wisdom of the rest of the world. The real fear is that we Americans are going to wake up one cloudy, windless day when the light switch doesn't work and discover we've forfeited our capacity to lead the world because we ignored nuclear power, a problem-solving technology that we ourselves invented.
.ExternalClass DIV
From: Jim Hedderly
from a friend who worked on the South Texas Nuclear Project with me (1973-1987)
Good Morning------Having been involved in and around the electric industry since 1974 I believe this report should be mandatory reading for every politician in Washington. I am sending it to friends because I think they will appreciate “what is being said” and the effect it can have on the future of the United States. Cecil O.Friends, this forwarding is from RADM Mike Barr, former COMSUBPAC, who has been managing portions of the Los Alamos Nuclear Test Lab/Site off and on for a number of years. He is a "Nuc' of high stature, and when he says he doesn't forward much, he means it! Yes, this will "severely impact our future generations" for sure. Unfortunately we are not heading in this direction at all! We will be sorry, or should I say, our kids and grand-kids will be sorry. US Fed News, September 22, 2009 Tuesday 9:57 PM ESTWASHINGTON, Sept. 21 -- The office of Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., issued the following news release:Communications experts say that fear is the best way to get attention when you're trying to win an argument. Groups who oppose nuclear power have certainly mastered that technique by playing to economic, environmental, and safety fears.So I'd like to introduce a little element of fear into my argument here. I want to suggest what could happen if we don't adopt nuclear power as a more important part of our energy future- if Russia and China and a lot of other countries go ahead with nuclear - as they are now - while we get left behind. Are we going to be able to compete with countries that have cheap, clean, reliable nuclear power while we're stuck with a bunch of windmills and solar farms producing expensive, unreliable energy or, more likely, not much energy at all? The whole prospect of the United States ignoring this problem-solving technology that we invented is what I fear most about nuclear power.Let me give you an idea of what I'm talking about. A few years ago, in January 2006, the Chinese sent a delegation of nuclear scientists and administrators to the United States on a fact-finding mission. They toured the Idaho National Laboratory, the Argonne National Laboratory and visited GE and Westinghouse trying to decide which technology to choose for their nuclear program.Now you might wonder why anyone would be seeking our advice when we haven't issued a construction permit to build a new reactor in the past thirty years. But as Kathryn McCarthy, deputy director of the Idaho National Laboratory, said at the time, "The world still looks to us for leadership in this technology. They'd prefer to copy what we've already done. They don't like being on the cutting edge."Well that may have been true in 2006 but it's not anymore. The Chinese eventually chose Westinghouse technology for their first reactors. At the time Westinghouse was an American company. In 2007, Toshiba bought Westinghouse so it is now a Japanese company. Then when the Chinese got their Westinghouse reactor, they insisted on having all the specs so they could see how it was put together. That's what we call "reverse engineering." As you might have guessed, China 's next wave of reactors is going to be built with Chinese technology.By 2008 the Chinese had shovels in the ground. The first four Westinghouse reactors are scheduled for completion by 2011. They also bought a pair of Russian reactors, which should be finished around the same time. They started talking about building 60 reactors over the next 20 years and just recently raised it to 132. They're in the nuclear business.What have we accomplished in the meantime? Well, people have been talking about a "nuclear renaissance" in this country since the turn of the century. In 2007, NRG, a New Jersey company, filed the first application to build a new reactor in 30 years. They're still at the beginning of what promises to be at least a five-year licensing process before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. No one really knows how long it will take, since as soon as the licenses are issued opponents will file lawsuits and the whole thing will move to the courts. If they're lucky, they might have a reactor up-and-running by 2020. Other companies have followed suit and there are now 34 proposals before the NRC, but nobody has yet broken ground. So it isn't likely the Chinese will be coming to us any time soon for more tips on how to build reactors. In fact we'll probably be going to them.That's one aspect of what's going on in the world today. Here's another. As countries began constructing new reactors, it quickly became clear that the bottleneck would be in forging the steel reactor vessels. These are the huge, three-story-high, forged steel units that hold the fuel assembly - the reactor core. That means forging steel parts that may weigh as much as 500 tons.In 2007 the only place you could order a reactor vessel was at the Japan Steel Works and they were backed up for four years. Everyone started saying, "This is going to be what holds up the world's nuclear renaissance. They'll never be able to produce enough of those pressure vessels."So what happened? Well, first Japan Steel Works invested $800 million to triple its capacity. They're going to be turning out 12 pressure vessels a year by 2012. Then the Chinese decided to build their own forge. In less than two years, they put up a furnace that can handle 320-ton parts. They turned out their first components in June. Now they're building two more forges. So you won't see the Chinese standing in line in Japan any time soon. The Russians are doing the same thing. They're in the midst of a big revival, planning to double the production of electricity from nuclear power by 2020. They're also building a forge and just cast their first 600-ton ingot in June. France , Britain , South Korea and India are all following suit. Very soon, every major nuclear country in the world is going to be able to forge its own reactor vessels - except one. And that's us.No steel company in America is capable of forging ingots of more than 270 tons. We're still stuck in the 1960s. That means when it comes to building reactors we'll have to stand in line in Japan or somewhere else. In fact, just about everything in our first new reactors is going to be imported. The nuclear industry tells us that at least 70 percent of the materials and equipment that go into those first few reactors will come from abroad. That's because we've let our nuclear supply industry wither on the vine. In 1990 there were 150 domestic suppliers making parts for nuclear reactors. Today there are only 40 and most of them do their business overseas. Of the 34 proposals before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 20 are designed by Westinghouse, now a Japanese company and, nine are from Areva, the French giant. General Electric, the only American company left on the field, has partnered with Hitachi . They sold five reactors to American utilities but fared poorly in the competition for federal loan guarantees. Two utilities have now cancelled those projects and there are rumors that GE may quit the field entirely. They don't seem very enthusiastic about nuclear anyway. Have you seen those GE ads for windmills? They're all over the place. Have you seen their ad for the smart grid, where the little girl says, "The sun is still shining in Arizona ?" That was pretty good, too. Now, have you seen any GE ads, in this day of concern about climate change, that 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity comes from nuclear power? I certainly haven't.Babcock & Wilcox is the one American company that stirred some interest recently when it announced plans for a new "mini-reactor." This is a 125-megawatt unit that can be manufactured at the factory and shipped by rail to the site, where several units can be fit together like Lego blocks. This left the impression that America might be innovating again, forging back into the lead. But the complete prototype for the Babcock & Wilcox reactor is still two years away and then it may take another five years to get the NRC's design approval. Meanwhile, the Russians are already building a mini-reactor that will be floated into a Siberian village on a barge to produce power. They've already got orders for mini-reactors from 12 countries. In spite of Babcock & Wilcox's fine effort - and I'm certainly proud of them - the Russians are considerably ahead of us.So let's take stock. There are 40 reactors now under construction in 11 countries around the world, none of them in the United States . In fact, only two are in Western Europe - one in Finland and the other in France, both built by Areva. All the rest are in Asia . Although we haven't gotten used to it, Asia may soon be leading the world in nuclear technology.Japan has 55 reactors and gets 35 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, almost double the 19 percent we get here. The Japanese have two reactors under construction and plans for ten more by 2018. They are finding they can build a reactor, start to finish, in less than four years. That's less time than it is taking to get one American reactor through licensing at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.South Korea gets nearly 40 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is planning another eight reactors by 2015. So far they've bought their reactors from the Japanese but now they have their own Korean Next-Generation Reactor, a 1400-megawatt giant evolved from an American design. They plan to bring two of these online by 2016. Taiwan also gets 18 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is building two new reactors.In September, Bloomberg News reported that Japan Steel Works' stock had risen 8 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange because of China 's decision to double future construction from 60 to 132 new reactors. They figure they'll get some of the action. Much of China 's $586 billion stimulus package is going toward developing nuclear power. "While China had been focusing on building new coal plants, it has now shifted its focus to nuclear because of the environmental issue," said Ikuo Sato, president of Japan Steel Works, in Bloomberg.Meanwhile, India is embracing thorium; a technology a lot of people think may eventually replace uranium as nuclear fuel. Thorium is twice as abundant as uranium and it doesn't produce the plutonium that everybody worries will be used to make a bomb. There's a lot of enthusiasm for thorium among scientists in this country. But it's India that's going ahead, with six reactors under construction and ten more planned. They began with a Russian design but are also trying some American technology they acquired in signing their 2005 agreement with the Bush Administration.What about Chernobyl ? Well, just like everybody else, Russia stopped all construction of new reactors after that horrible accident. But they learned their lesson and started constructing much safer reactors in the 1990s, completing the first in 2001. Now they have plans to expand along the lines of France , building two reactors every year from now through 2030. They have a very good reason. Russia has huge natural gas supplies but is wasting them by using one-third of it to produce electricity. They could get six times the price by selling it to Western Europe . So they're replacing gas generation with nuclear - which is exactly the opposite of what we're doing here. Since 1990 every major power plant built in this country has burned natural gas. We now get 20 percent of our electricity from natural gas - more than nuclear's 19 percent - and the natural gas percent is still going up.And be aware, all these countries that are developing nuclear aren't just building for themselves. They're selling to the rest of the world as well. Areva is building reactors in Finland , China , India , Italy , Brazil and Abu Dhabi . The Russians have signed deals with China , Iran , India , Nigeria and Venezuela . They are even selling to us! In July, Tenex , Russia 's uranium enrichment corporation signed a long-term contract to supply fuel to Constellation Energy, which has reactors in Maryland and upstate New York . It was the sixth contract Tenex signed with an American utility in the past two months.How did the Russians end up supplying us with uranium? It's an interesting story. In 1996, Senators Sam Nunn, Pete Domenici and Richard Lugar pioneered a remarkable deal with the post-Soviet government where we would buy highly enriched uranium from old Soviet bomb stocks. The uranium would be sent to France , where it would be "blended down" from 90 percent fissionable material to three percent to be used in American reactors. For the last two decades, old Soviet stockpiles have supplied half our nuclear fuel. One out of every ten light bulbs in America is now powered by a former Soviet weapon - one of the greatest swords-into-plowshares efforts in history, although few people seem to know about it. Now the Russians have learned to do de-enrichment themselves. They've decided they don't need France . They say, "Hey, we don't have to import this stuff anymore. We'll just produce it here." Of course, producing things is one way countries get rich and raise their standard of living.Once upon a time we were pioneers in nuclear technology. Forty years ago we were the only people in the world who knew how to deal with the atom. That's not true anymore. We've shied away from the technology while everyone else has forged ahead. Even Europe is coming back. The British have announced they're going to go nuclear -they just hired the French national electric company to help. Italy closed all its reactors right after Chernobyl but ended up importing 80 percent of its electricity at a huge cost. Now they've announced they're going back to nuclear as well. France already gets 80 percent of its power from nuclear and has the cheapest electricity in Europe - not to mention the second-lowest carbon emissions (behind Sweden , which is half nuclear). France also sells $80 billion worth of electricity to the rest of Europe each year. Notice how well France did in the latest downturn - it barely went into recession at all. That's not because the French spend less on government bureaucracy or work harder than us and take fewer vacations. It's because nuclear power is helping to keep their whole economy afloat.So does that mean we've fallen completely behind? Not at all. In fact there's a great irony to all this. We still know how to run reactors better than anyone else. Our fleet of 104 plants is up and running 90 percent of the time. No one else even comes close. France , for all its experience, is still at 80 percent. Other countries are even lower. We still understand the technology better than anyone else in the world. But because we've placed so many obstacles in our path, we aren't allowed to build reactors anymore. And that's what scares me. We're gradually losing our economic place in the world.Now a lot of people say, "Well, what's the difference? So what if we fall behind on nuclear technology? We'll just forge ahead with something else." Well, there are several reasons to be concerned:1) First there's energy security. America already spends $ 300 billion a year importing 2/3rds of our oil from other countries. If we remain on the current path of no new nuclear power or start depending on other countries to build our reactors and supply us with fuel, we're going to be even more vulnerable than we are now. The best way to reduce imported oil, aside from ramping up domestic production, will be to use electricity to power cars and trucks. At first we can plug our electric vehicles in at night, when there is much unused electricity. After that, we should be using nuclear. We can't have Americans going to bed every night hoping the wind will blow so they can start their cars in the morning.2) Second, there's technological leadership. Americans produce year in and year out 25 percent of all the wealth in the world. Most of that wealth has been driven by new technologies. We were the birthplace of the telephone, the electric light, the automobile, the assembly line, radio, television and the computer. But nuclear energy - perhaps the greatest scientific advance of the 20th century - is passing us by. The 21st century is going to run on clean, cheap greenhouse-gas-free nuclear power. And, how can we criticize India and China for not reducing their carbon emissions when we refuse to adopt the best technology ourselves?3) Then there's weapons proliferation. In the 1970s we gave up on nuclear reprocessing in the hope that by not dealing with plutonium we would prevent nuclear weapons from spreading around the world. That has turned out to be an unwise decision. France , Britain , Russia , Canada and Japan went right on reprocessing and no one has stolen plutonium from them. Instead, rogue countries such as North Korea and Pakistan have found their own ways to develop nuclear weapons. The technology of bomb-making is no big secret anymore. The real problem is that, by reneging on world leadership we have left the field to others. For instance, right now the Russians are building a commercial reactor for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela . He's not exactly friendly toward the United States . Just to make things more interesting, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal that his office has uncovered evidence Iran may be providing Venezuela with missile technology.But what really worries me are these two things:* First, if we move toward a nuclear-based economy and we have to import 70 percent of the technology and equipment, how are any better off than when we're importing two thirds of our oil? We'll just be creating jobs for steel workers in Japan and China instead of in the United States .* Second, it we don't move toward a nuclear powered economy but try to do everything with conservation and wind and solar, we're going to be sending American jobs overseas looking for cheap energy.So to insure we have enough cheap, clean, reliable electricity in this country to create good high-quality, high-tech jobs, here's what we have to do. The United States should double its production of nuclear power by building 100 nuclear reactors in 20 years.* Nuclear today provides 70 percent of our carbon free electricity. Wind and solar provide 4 percent.* Nuclear plants operate 90 percent of the time. Wind and solar operate about one third of the time.* The Obama Administration's Nobel prize-winning Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, says nuclear plants are safe and that used nuclear fuel can be safely stored on site for 40-60 years while we figure out the best way to recycle it.* Producing 20 percent of electricity from wind, as the Obama Administration proposes, will require building 186,000 fifty story turbines, enough to cover an area the size of West Virginia - plus 19,000 miles of new transmission lines to carry electricity from remote to populated areas. 100 new nuclear plants could be built mostly on existing sites.* To produce 3-6 percent of our electricity, taxpayers will subsidize wind to the tune of $29 billion over the next ten years. The 104 nuclear reactors we have today were built basically without taxpayer subsides.* It will cost roughly the same to build 100 new nuclear plants (which will last 60 to 80 years) as it would to build 186,000 wind turbines (lasting 20 to 25 years). And this does not count the cost of transmission lines for wind.* There will be twice as many "green jobs" created building 100 reactors as there would be building 186,000 wind turbines.An America stumbling along on expensive, unreliable renewable energy, trying to import most of our energy from abroad, is going to be an America with fewer jobs and a lower standard of living.Nuclear opponents continue to prey on fear of nuclear power. The truth is that if we want safe, cost-effective, reliable, no-carbon electricity we can no longer ignore the wisdom of the rest of the world. The real fear is that we Americans are going to wake up one cloudy, windless day when the light switch doesn't work and discover we've forfeited our capacity to lead the world because we ignored nuclear power, a problem-solving technology that we ourselves invented.
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