Robert C. Morris
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17
Average rating: 3.5 of 5
Anti-Nuclear Activists Lied and Millions Died 5 out of 5 stars.
37 of 40 people found this review helpful.
This fact filled, convincing, and well researched book eloquently explains why we must start using Nuclear Power more extensively at the same time as it dispels many of the misunderstandings and myths surrounding Nuclear Power. Robert Morris is clearly not a fan of antinuclear activists, however, he understands the immense damage they have caused our Nation and to our children and grand children.
Nuclear Power is without any doubt the most powerful, the safest, and environmentally the cleanest viable energy source in existence. However, antinuclear activists have scared the wits out of the public for decades by disseminating deceitful propaganda, superstition and outright lies. According to Ralph Nader and other antinuclear activists nuclear plant accidents would kill many hundreds of thousands of people; they spread radiation and mutations, and leave forever deadly nuclear waste behind. All this is, of course, not just totally false but intentional lying! Unfortunately the sensation hungry media chose to believe the antinuclear activists instead of the Scientists. Until 1982, nuclear power was our cheapest source of electricity. Then the cost overruns caused by frivolous lawsuits filed by antinuclear groups made them as much as ten times more expensive. No orders has been placed for the construction of a nuclear power plant in America since 1979
Fossil fuels killed five million Americans in the twentieth century, and are estimated to kill about 50,000 Americans every year. 300,000 American former coal mine workers has died from black lung disease and 90,000 U.S. Coal miners have died in coal mining accidents since 1907. Fossil fuels are also causing global warming and acid rain, something R. Morris is discussing extensively. However, Nuclear Power has not killed a single American, not even a rabbit. Nuclear waste is a relatively small problem and most experts agree that the safe disposal of nuclear waste is a rather simple and easily solved problem. However, antinuclear activists have made this into a dangerous political issue.
Dr. Helen Caldicott, a well known antinuclear activist, predicted that if a meltdown would have occurred at the Three Mile Island reactor 3,000 people (Nader said 100,000) would have died immediately and 500,000 people would have died within 15 to 50 years. When a real meltdown plus explosions occurred in a reactor without containment barriers; 31 people died within days and 4,000 or 20,000 (depending on whom you believe) will die in 50 year period. For Three Mile Island it might have been none because of the containment barriers.
It should be noted that the Chernobyl reactor would never have been allowed to be built in the West for a number of reasons; it had a positive feedback loop (not allowed in the West), and lacked containment barriers. It was also used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons in addition to producing electricity, and it was operated in a manner that would be extremely unlikely in the west. The Chernobyl accident was made possible because the Soviet Union was a totalitarian state.
Uranium is everywhere in the earth crust, it is a very common mineral, and yes you have plenty of it in your yard. It is not very radioactive. Radon on the other hand is about 300 billion times more radioactive than Uranium. When something is extremely radioactive it disappears quickly and so does Radon. That is because there is an inverse relationship between half life and radioactive heat. However, Radon is continuously supplied from the enormous Uranium deposits in the earth crust and ends up in our basements, which is why Radon unlike Nuclear Power is a real problem. 14,000 people are estimated to die each year from the radioactivity from Radon, but no one dies from Nuclear Power.
The author also discusses alternative energy sources and explains that they have immense wastes disposal problems (solar power), efficiency/economic problems, and environmental problems. He discusses terrorism, which is a larger problem for many other energy sources; nuclear Weapons, which cannot be created from the commercial Nuclear Power plants used in the West, and he also argues that the use of commercial Nuclear Power plants does not affect this issue much.
Many of the European countries are using Nuclear Power a lot more extensively then the U.S. (U.S. about 20%, France about 80%). My home country Sweden is using a combination of Nuclear Power and Hydro electric Power to become fossil fuel independent by 2020. The U.S. cannot rely on Hydro electric Power but could use Nuclear Power a lot more. The fact that it has not done that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, maybe millions, and adding to this malaise we have global warming. Not using Nuclear Power more is clearly the largest mistake the U.S. has ever made.
I also would like to state a few facts from the book. These facts clearly support using Nuclear Power for electricity generation.
(1) No excess genetic mutations have ever been produced in any of the children born to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors after the war.
(2) The fuels antinuclear activists have forced us to use instead of Nuclear Power are releasing 40 million tons of known chemical mutagens into the air each year.
(3) We are exposed to many radiation sources, the worst ones being cosmic rays, earth, X-rays, but virtually none from Nuclear Power plants. (See table page 85)
(4) After the treated wastes from a nuclear plant have been in storage for 100 years, their toxicity diminishes, and is then equal to that of arsenic trioxide, which we often spread around the food crops in our gardens to kill various pests.
(5) Nuclear power plants produce only miniscule quantities of waste--equal to about one aspirin tablet in volume yearly for each person for whom they generate electricity.
(6) Roughly 20,000 tons of Uranium is released into the air every year when Coal is burned.
(7) Coal ashes are 180 times more radioactive than the level of radioactivity permissible for Nuclear Power Plants.
(8) On October 9 and 10 1973 Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other OPEC members seized all foreign holdings of oil reserves (and equipment). The largest theft in history amounted to 254 trillion dollars, or 25 times the U.S. GDP.
(9) Nuclear Power has not killed a single American, not even a rabbit, excluding a few hundred uranium miners (only indirectly linked).
(10) If we can effectively extract Uranium from the Ocean we will have enough Uranium to last us infinitely.
Finally I would like to mention that I switched from using Coal generated electricity to using wind power in an effort to become carbon neutral, however, if I had the choice of using Nuclear poer instead I would have.
Editorial Review:
In the 20th Century, air pollution produced by the fossil fuels killed over five million Americans. It contributes to two of our worst environmental problemsacid rain and global warming. By contrast, Western-built nuclear power has not been responsible for even one death in the public sector. Its increased use would lessen our trade deficit, and decrease acid rain and global warming. So, why arent we building nuclear power plants? Since 1974, anti-nuclear power activists have prevented the construction of nuclear power plants through the dissemination of fear and superstition. When the records of the fossil fuels and nuclear power are set straight, nuclear power is clearly superior. This is the opinion of almost one million scientists and medical doctors who have gone on record as favoring the use of nuclear power.
