Nuclear Power Reactors Do Not Belong On The Surface of the Earth

As the frightful nuclear crisis in Japan unfolds, with the ultimate outcome far from certain, a brief pause  in the mad rush to pursue mass construction of nuclear power reactors can be witnessed. However, with the emergence of major new economic actors in the global economy, in particular China, India and Brazil, the world’s demand for energy, especially electrical power generation, will continue to rise, and probably revive the policymakers’  receptiveness towards atomic energy. In this drive, they are being increasingly joined by a strange new ally; environmentalists, those who classify themselves politically as left-leaning progressives, who see nuclear power as an emissions-free alternative to other forms of feeding the insatiable electrical grids of the global economy, most of which are major emitters of green house gases, believed to be the major contributor to climate change.

In 1956, the Director  of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Alvin Weinberg, said that, ” there is an understandable drive on the part of men of good will to build up the positive aspects of nuclear energy simply because the negative aspects  are so distressing.” His point underscored a perception by many of the leading scientific minds involved in the creation of the nuclear arsenal and militarized nuclear reactors to provide propulsion for the submarines carrying the nuclear tipped missiles that comprised the ultimate deterrent of the major powers. While supporting  and contributing towards making nuclear power and atomic weapons available to military forces highly disciplined and skillfully trained in their maintenance, they harbored great reluctance to see this technology disseminated freely throughout the civilian economy. The risks of such technology being managed by civilian organizations, especially privately-owned utilities, were far too grave, in their estimation.

The uranium 235 fuel utilized in a nuclear reactor is enriched to 20 percent, unlike  nuclear weapons, which require a minimum of 80 percent enrichment. This means that in an accident, an atomic detonation would not occur. However, virtually all the other evil consequences of a nuclear blast can occur in a catastrophic accident involving a nuclear power reactor. A plethora of toxic radioactive isotopes, some with a highly persistent half-life, are released into the atmosphere, soil and aquifers of surrounding areas, with frightful consequences for human beings. The economic damage resulting from widespread nuclear contamination can also be  severe and long-lasting.  In effect, a nuclear power reactor located within twenty or thirty kilometers of a major population center is the ultimate radiological bomb. Its promise of cheap, safe and supposedly clean electricity exists only in a parallel universe, where human failings and mistakes do not occur, terrorism is non-existent and natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis do not happen. In our world, such a promise is illusory, as already demonstrated in the past at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and now so terrifyingly underway in Japan.

Dr. Edward Teller was the inventor of America’s hydrogen bomb, a weapon thousands of times more devastating than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. He was politically a rightwing hawk during the Cold War, and strongly supported the buildup of America’s nuclear arsenal, including the development of nuclear reactors for military purposes. However, this genius of nuclear physics had a far different view when it came to building nuclear reactors as a means of generating electricity for widespread civilian use. In 1965 Teller stated, “In principle, nuclear reactors are dangerous…In my mind, nuclear reactors do not belong  on the surface of the earth. Nuclear reactors belong underground.”

global economic crisis Dr. Edward Teller, japan nuclear crisis, japan nuclear meltdown, nuclear power

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In a stunning declaration, GERMAN Interior Minister says, “Islam does not belong in Germany”

Hans-Peter Friedrich, new interior minister, has said that Islam does not “belong” in the country, and reopened a bitter debate over the integration of Germany’s 4 million Muslims.

REUTERS –Germany’s new interior minister has said Islam is not a key part of the German way of life, tapping into a long-running debate about the role of foreigners in the country. “Islam in Germany is not something substantiated by
history at any point,” Hans-Peter Friedrich told journalists on his first day on the job as Thomas de Maiziere’s replacement on Thursday.

Friedrich turned on its head a remark made last October by President Christian Wulff, who said Islam now “belongs to Germany” because of the 4 million Muslims who lived there. Both men are members of the

conservative parties that make up the larger part of Germany’s coalition government.

One of the ways society could realize its potential was by “bringing its constituent parts together and not forcing them apart or polarizing them,” Friedrich said.

He spoke as German authorities sought to establish what prompted Wednesday’s killing of two US airmen at Frankfurt Airport. They said

 

the 21-year-old Kosovan gunman was probably a lone operator motivated by radical Islamist beliefs. “There is suspicion that the killing may have been motivated by Islamism,” state prosecutors said without elaborating on the nature of the Islamism.

Friedrich’s comments also reflected a push by European governments to better in

tegrate immigrants, given persistent domestic tension between different cultures. British Prime Minister David Cameron said last month that multiculturalism had failed in Britain and left young Muslims vulnerable to radicalization, arguing for a more active policy to heal divisions and promote Western values.

Germany is home to Western Europe’s second-biggest Islamic population after France. The single biggest minority is Turkish.

Friedrich said he set great store by Germany’s Islamic Conference, a forum for dialogue between the government and representatives of Germany’s Muslim community founded in 2006 by one of his predecessors, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. Germany’s interior minister hosts the conference.

Pursuing a topic that sparked divisions between Germany and Turkey earlier this week, Friedrich said everyone living or growing up in Germany must “first and foremost learn German.” Speaking in the western city of Düsseldorf on Sunday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told some 10,000 members of Germany’s Turkish community their children should learn Turkish before they learn German. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle had said on Monday that language priorities should be reversed.

A fraught debate was sparked in Germany last summer when then-Bundesbank member Thilo Sarrazin published a bestselling book arguing that Muslim immigrants were welfare spongers who threatened the country’s economy and long-term future.

Friedrich said on Thursday he stood by comments he made last autumn, when he said Germany’s core culture was based around the Judaeo-Christian, Western model and never would be Islamic. A representative of Germany’s central council of Muslims had no immediate comment on Friedrich’s remarks.

March 6, 2011
Categories: Islamization of the West . . Author: barenakedislam

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