[lbo-talk] Let's All Argue About Nuclear Power!

Dwayne Monroe dwayne.monroe at gmail.com
Wed Mar 31 14:15:23 PDT 2010


The modern world offers us many 'coming out' opportunities -- moments when we can declare our variance from our group's traditions and unquestioned common sense ideas.

We're all familiar with the usual suspects: announcing Gay-ness in the midst of heterosexism, declaring sympathy for the communist hypothesis in the midst of capitalist celebration, wearing a nice suit in a world of rumpled jeans and polo shirts from Target. (Nothing wrong with target so hold those defenses...I love the red concentric circles!)

In my world -- and probably yours too -- saying that you're not, in principle, opposed to nuclear power generation...that your objections to nuclear power have everything to do with how it's engineered, built and managed in a capitalist world (a world lacking the long-term hazardous waste management vision to handle what Tim Morton calls "hyper-objects" -- material, like plutonium, which will remain dangerous for longer than human civilization has existed)...well, saying that gets you into social trouble.

As much trouble as suggesting that there's still room for serious climate change skepticism (not denial-ism, mind you, which is an entirely different thing, but scientifically-based analysis of gaps in our understanding of climate -- the sorts of gaps discussed by people like Garth Paltridge).

And all this arguing and weeping and gnashing of teeth because gentle lovers of the Earth agree that the nuclear, she is bad.

But I'd like to throw this out to my LBO peeps for general argumentation, tangential commentary and eventual thread death.

Are you, like me, down with thorium reactor research? Or do you think it's wind, solar, hydro or bust?

Thorium fuel cycle --

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle>

.d.



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