95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99%
by Rod Adams on
October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist, Politics of Nuclear Energy, Unreliables, Wind
energy
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One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called
“groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US
Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders
in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources
as possible.
We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result
by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I
remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually
the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a
cakewalk.
If
Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic
integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above
the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re
supposed to be.Aside: Don’t we live in an
amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box
and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above.
It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years
ago. End Aside.
Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the
danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide
actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of
groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of
emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of
that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.
On
October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that
regularly posts negative
stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled
Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down
All
Fukushima-Like Nuclear
Plants
. Here is a snapshot of the
masthead, the
headline and the
lede.
The article is a diatribe that
quotes people on the short list of frequently
quoted antinuclear activists
including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin
Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale
Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of
their best attempts to spread
fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about
the actual events at
Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following
example of how antinuclear
activists are still trying to spread the myth that
the used fuel pools at
Fukushima caught fire.
Oyster Creek – the oldest
nuclear plant in the United States – has generated
over 700 tons of high-level
radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear
said.
“Granted that some of that has
been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool
remains full to its capacity,”
Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity.
Much later in terms of
quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was
originally designed
for.”
This represents 125 million
curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has
reported that up to 100
percent of the hazardous material could be released from
a pool fire, Kamps
said.
“I would like to point out
that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and
four combined in terms of the
inventory of high level radioactive waste in their
storage pools does not match
some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how
much waste is in these pools,”
Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for
boil downs and the
consequences of a radioactive fire in these
pools.”
Fortunately, the people who are not a part of the antinuclear community are
finally beginning to recognize their own strength and to realize that they do
not have to remain silent while the lies are being spread. Here is how a
knowledgable commenter responded to the above segment of the article:
If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by
journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of
water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where
they’re supposed to be.
D'coda Dcoda on 21 Sep 13[...] Much more serious is the danger that the spent fuel rod pool at the top of the nuclear plant number four will collapse in a storm or an earthquake, or in a failed attempt to carefully remove each of the 1,535 rods and safely transport them to the common storage pool 50 meters away. Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years. [...]
