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Re: [RC] [RC] Cost of hay - Truman PrevattI believe France produces 100% of its electric power from either hydro or nuclear - with nuclear producing the bulk. France has decommissioned more nuclear power plants than we have in the US. We invented reprocessing nuclear material - that was the initial role of Oak Ridge National Labs. The issue with reprocessing is if you keep piling in the protons and neutrons you go from sent Uranium to fuel grade Uranium to low level weapons grade Uranium to high level weapons grade Uranium to Plutonium. Very little Plutonium exist in nature, it is virtually all man made. It is extremely nasty and even very short exposure will cause bone cancer and leukemia in humans. Pu 244 has a half life of 76 million years so it's the killer that just keeps on killing.The issue with the US is with reprocessing technology falling into the wrong hands and once the technology is in place to make fuel grade product - it's a small step to upgrading it to make weapons grade material. It just gets down to a nuclear weapons proliferation issue. Once the Genie is out of the bottle it is extremely difficult to put it back in. Without reprocessing, you have the issue of nuclear waste and talk about a "not in my backyard issue." Nuclear energy - or even the word radiation is such a bad name today that in this country the reaction is absolutely knee jerk. There was an outcry about 5 years ago when packing houses wanted to bombard meat with high energy electrons (irradiate) to kill the micro-organisms, e.g., E. coli, salmonellae, etc., hence making the meat safer. The irradiation with electrons is completely safe. The production of high energy electrons is completely safe and is completely safe for the workers in the plants. There was a basic reaction to this and the it didn't happen. How many times have we had an E. coli outbreak in the last 5 years. If it says nuclear or radiation - there is a total negative reaction in this country by a segment of the large enough and vocal enough to stop all progress. What we need on the national level is creative leadership in rationally addressing the foreign policy issue of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and on the domestic front formulation of a rational energy policy. The last 6 and 1/2 years we have had none form anyone. Truman Barbara McCrary wrote: Many countries in Europe are on nuclear power and ARE reprocessing the rods. We are so nuclear-phobic in this country that we are afraid to use the process. In CA, some folks are particularly against ANYTHING that "might" damage the environment. Yet they use everything that all the rest of us use...oil-based gasoline, et al...all the while demanding that producers of various necessities, including foods, use relatively useless methods for controlling weeds, bugs, you name it. This is all in the name of "saving" the environment. If we wanted to save the environment, we shouldn't have invented so many machines to ease our workload or increased the population to such an over-burdening number. We can't go back, so we'd better try to figure out a way to produce all the things we need in the least damaging way, without, I might add, putting so many people out of business. The onerous restrictions on many agricultural industries are so bad, some people have been forced out of business, and others are struggling. The government in CA is a fright. Many agencies make a living just controlling the producers of our basic necessities. They are too well fed. -- “It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong” Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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