Reply #19: Straw man...

[Chemical Bill]

right up there with "you are either with us or with the terrorists".

I don't support killing people with coal either.

As for Karen Silkwood, I don't feel that a hypothetical reason for her killing is a substitute for the evidence that I have read about (as opposed to seeing in a movie). I don't feel that a hypothetical reason for her killing is necessary. Since you seem to, here's one: If she had uncovered a plutonium smuggling operation then the smugglers would have had reason to kill her. IIRC, it was five pounds of plutonium that had gone missing from US processing plants when I first heard about this in the 1980s. How much is unaccounted for now? Whatever the reason, she was poisoned with nuclear fuel, and then involved in an accident that killed her. Her car had paint from another vehicle that was never explained by the police. She was seen to have documents that went missing from her impounded car. Explain it any way you want, but she did have nuclear fuel in her refrigerator. Even if she put it there herself, which I don't believe for a second, it shows a flaw in the system that could have serious consequences. How are the terrorists supposed to get a "dirty bomb" anyway? From civilian reactors?

BTW, I like the way you use "the (then) entire world inventory of plutonium" instead of a number, as it lets you off the hook for the tiny amount it was, compared to the current world inventory. Of course, the statement you made was wrong, as there has been (a tiny amount of) plutonium found in nature, deep underground in Africa. Or do you consider something to not exist if you don't know about it?

Basically, my point is that the nuclear industry is unable to guaranty the safety of their operations for the hundreds of thousands of years that their products, byproducts, and waste will be what is agreed to be very dangerous by (I'm sure) even your researchers. Our and other governments have gone ahead with the programs anyway. I think that that is morally indefensible.

I agree that we need to stop using fossil fuels. I have tried to make the point that if the government put the same effort and support behind biofuels that we put behind nuclear power (let alone the Iraq war) then biofuels would be used by everyone in the country within 5 years. You seem to not be interested in this, which is your prerogative.

Bill