A National Geogpraphic Point of View

This article was very well written and very well thought out and organized to go through the steps of what might lay ahead for the United States. Will history repeat itself and the same arguments made about nuclear energy in the 1970's be brought up again, will there be enough public input? Will incidents in other countries help the United States make their decision on the future of nuclear energy more clear?

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/universe/nuclear-comeback.html


~Lindsey Rieger

Nuclear Energy In the US Compared to the Rest of the World

Reading this article will give some mixed feelings about nuclear energy. It makes very valid points about the cost effecitivness and the simplicity that nuclear energy can sometimes provide and does touch on the global scale of the population and natural resources but it does not touch on the enviornment health impacts that nuclear energy can have. It does include some good statistics of other countries around the world and how different the United States is in comparison.

Enjoy!

~Lindsey Rieger

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2010/07/19/Lamar-Alexander-Nuclear-Energy-Is-Cheap-and-Reliable

Imagine Energy

http://www.imagineenergy.net/solarizeportland.shtml

Imagine Energy is a newly founded way of heating homes.  It uses solar power instead of natural resources.  I found a page where it shows average costs of people who use imagine energy.  It is a great new effective cost efficient way to heat homes.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Laura Wilcox

Coal Related Deaths are Higher than Nuclear: What are we so Afraid of?

According to the World Health Organization, coal related deaths far outnumber those caused by nuclear power—even after taking into account the terrible Chernobyl catastrophe. The chart below shows the number of deaths per terawatt:

Perhaps the biggest concern with nuclear power is the potential for wide-spread contamination of the environment, which would negatively affect both the ability to sustain food sources and human lives. Not to mention that ‘nuclear’ conjures up the image of Hiroshima, atom bombs, and various other radiation related atrocities. However, coal is a continuous killer—responsible for 4,025 deaths per every ONE nuclear energy death—and unlike nuclear deaths, is mostly silent.   

Knowing what we know about the two, we have to ask again—What are we so afraid of?

~Erin Bovelle~

Source: http://www.livescience.com/13876-nuclear-energy-dangers-coal.html

A New Way of Spreading Nuclear Waste

In the south central city of Kennewick, Washington where one of the dirtest nuclear waste facilities in the country is located; has been getting a lot of attention to help clean it up more, which is in progress but will take decades. But until then there was a recent study done to show a way that nuclear waste has affected plants and animals in a way most people wouldn't think.

Paying for a helicopter to oversee the path of rabbit dropping that spanned 13.7 square miles, the federal Department of Energy found amounts of nuclear amissions being released from the rabbits as well as other animals in the area. The article also goes on to say that there have been amounts of nuclear waste found in fish in the Columbia River as well.

It is in fact a different way of nuclear waste not only being transported but also the affects it has on the plants and animals lives in the areas where nuclear waste facilities are located.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/science/earth/15rabbit.html?_r=1



~Lindsey Rieger

Wind Power VS. Nuclear

I stumbled upon an article in the opinion section of the New York Times which I found a little funny and wanted to share. It compares the energy output of an Oregon Wind Farm (Shepard's Flat Wind Project) to a nuclear reactor in Tennessee (Watts Bar) and the energy output that both can potentially reach. Although it makes a good point that the reactor can have a higher output majority of the time (the wind farm needs wind obviously, but only has that wind power "one-third of the time" making the output lower than the potential it could have if it were running the whole time; I believe the Tennessee Senator who wrote this is defending the fact that reactors can produce more energy and does not address the environmental issues that come with nuclear reactors. I don't believe anyone can argue that nuclear reactors will indeed produce more energy but will argue the negative effects it has on the environment and the people around it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/opinion/lweb30wind.html

Read the article and comment if you'd like.



~Lindsey Rieger

Rebuilding Japan's Nuclear Power Plant

While the buzz may have died down somewhat about the nuclear disaster that happened in Japan, there are still elements of the fiasco that are still able to make news.  Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) has recently submitted a plea for government aid to assist in the rebuilding of the nuclear plant in question.  With so much controversy surrounding the topic, they're going to have a rough time.  The Japanese government has expressed dissatisfaction with the reconstruction proposed by Tepco.  Tepco is also unable to claim that they are exempt from paying compensation under a law from 1961 that provides an exemption for unforeseeable disasters;  Japanese government officials have claimed that a plant in Northern Japan should have known that major quakes and tsunamis were likely to hit the area and therefore should have prepared more fully.  This is not to say that Tepco will receive no aid in their reconstruction; the government is currently looking into solutions for the problem, including a government stake in the company.  For more info, check out this WSJ article.