Scuttlebutt: Gun Laws • Nuclear Waste, Presidential Election
I know it is hard to think about anything else but the virus right now. But here is something else for you to chew on:
I have written several times about what a monumental waste of money nuclear energy and weapons are and this month I was once again shocked by the blindness and greed of our national “leaders”.
During the cold war the U.S. produced tons of weapons grade plutonium to be used to annihilate our “enemies” (and subsequently poison the entire planet). During the Clinton presidency the U.S. agreed with Russia to reduce our plutonium stockpiles by converting them into mixed-oxide, or MOX which can be used for fuel in nuclear power plants. An agreement was signed in 2000.
It sounded like a reasonable thing to do. After all, we have to do something with the stuff, but, surprise, surprise, it turned into a big boondoggle. Twenty years and $7.6 billion later the plant isn't finished and efforts by both the Obama and Trump administration to close it down have finally succeeded after it was revealed that it would take another $50 billion to finish the plant and reprocess the 34 tons of plutonium. Just finishing the plant would cost $17 billion alone. As the MOX project isn’t viable technically or financially, it has been termed a “monumental waste”. Meanwhile, Russia has pulled out of the agreement citing U.S. non-compliance.
The new plan is to mix the plutonium with non-radioactive material and bury it in the Waste Isolation Plant in New Mexico. That is where they had the fire a couple years ago that shuttered the plant until it could be remediated (at the cost of $2 billion). Perhaps readers will recall that this New Mexico project was not designed for the disposal of high grade plutonium, but apparently it is going to happen anyway. This is only one of the many unintended consequences of our foolhardy venture into the unknown world of nuclear fission. This “cheaper” alternative will only cost $18.2 billion.
South Carolina's two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, are, of course, freaking out because of the loss of billions of dollars going to South Carolina. Other Republicans, including the nearly brain dead Trey Gowdy are accusing the Energy Department of abandoning “one of the most important nonproliferation programs in the history of the world.” Yeah, these guys are all about nonproliferation.
The Washington Post has written that The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is proposing that the South Carolina site instead begin producing plutonium cores that trigger nuclear weapons, better known as plutonium pits. The Pentagon wants the U.S. government to be able to produce 30 plutonium pits a year by 2026 and 80 a year by 2030 to sustain the military’s plans for its nuclear weapons. I take it this is part of Lindsey Graham's nonproliferation plan.
The only facility currently capable of producing them, Los Alamos National Laboratory, has yet to make one suitable for a nuclear weapon, yet they are in a dogfight with South Carolina because they want to produce all the bomb triggers. Officials familiar with the plans are worried that the conversion of the South Carolina site to a new mission could cause more cost overruns. Who could imagine?
Meanwhile, the NNSA did not mention that up to 15,000 “excess” pits are already stored at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX, with up to another 5,000 in “strategic reserve.” The agency did not explain why new production is needed given that immense inventory of already existing plutonium pits. The only answer that has been put forth is that it will quell Lindsey Graham's objections. Billions in pork and isn't that what Republicans are always screaming about?
Now would one of the nuclear fission advocates out there explain to me why spending untold billions of dollars on more nuclear “experiments” and weapons is a solid investment. If your only answer is that nuclear power if carbon free, please save your breath because we are not going to spend the next 10,000+ years trying to figure out what to do with old solar panels and wind generators.
Nuclear advocates throw around figures in the tens of billions like they were talking about car fare. That money could fund many important projects and services if we didn't squander it on fancy, often unattainable, nuclear projects. Of course, we will have to spend many, many billions of tax dollars over the next centuries to deal with the mess we have already made, but why must we continue to dig deeper into this fabulously expensive hole we are digging?
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As of this writing it looks a lot like Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee for President. I've been a Bernie and Pete supporter so far, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over the fact that Biden will be the candidate.
I believe it was Paul Krugman who said that under a Bernie administration there would be incremental social progress, but no revolution as Congress and much of the populace would resist a wholesale change the everyday life. He added that under a Biden administration there would be incremental social progress, but no revolution because that is what the voters who elected him would support.
Biden has now stated that he would put a woman on the ticket with him. Though I have no particular reason to dislike Kamala Harris, I hope it isn't her. My choice is clearly Stacey Abrams. They are both black women, two constituencies that democrats must have turn out in large numbers in November.
The thing about picking a VP is that it is often done with a mind toward winning that VP candidate's state. It is obvious that whoever the Democratic nominee is, they will win California, so Harris' place on the ticket isn't much help. Abrams only lost the governorship of Georgia by 55,000 votes while running against the guy in charge of the election. Winning Georgia would be big.
The most important thing, of course, is taking the Senate and I think that Biden would help down ballot candidates more than Bernie would. Bernie's army of young voters seem too busy on their phones to figure out how to vote, partially because many states have made it more difficult.
