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It all depends on which dictator will kiss our ass. The Shah did, the current one will not.
#1 Uh, yeah. Meanwhile nation building seems to have failed 37 times in a row. It must be time to try it again.
Pick an option:
1. Covert financing from arms sales
2. Supply weapons and nuclear technology
3. Fund them in a war against our enemy
4. Invade them and force democracy down their throats
5. Yet another coup by the CIA (they’ll do it right this time)
6. All of the above in no particular order
#2,
We have already done Options 1 through 3, so we’re half way to number 6
The problem isn’t nuclear plants. The problem is bombs. Iran can have nuclear power without purifying uranium.
Anyone who thinks Iran’s ultimate objective is nuclear power and nothing more is a fool. Iran wants the bomb so bad they can taste it.
Wow…that is very clever. The old Shah is equivalent to the “new” mullah regime. Sure it is…Mahmoud Ahmadinejad represents everything that is right and what is wrong with Amerika. Right comrade?
They always want to build the most dangerous, least costly, easiest to meltdown, nuclear power plants. And never that Helium cooled, ball fuel pellet design. That can’t meltdown or explode. They proved it works. But it doesn’t pump out the wattage, they’d like to get. So they’ll take their chances with sticky safety values and overtemp relays. And hope another Three Mile Island or Chernobyl doesn’t happen.
I say, “Ok, you can build them, IF you can design them to be 100% safe.” and “Come up with some practical disposal method or site for spent fuel.” So far they’ve failed to do either. But they’ve exploited (maybe even funded) this whole global warming scare to promote nuclear over coal. Probably because the “wrong people” own the coal mines. With the reduction in its use in warheads, the ore’s investors are just hoping for a peacetime use to rocket its price up. Since most of it comes from Canada and Australia, I’m betting Rupert Murdock owns a chunk of the uranium mining.
Some complete and utter moron said,
The problem isn’t nuclear plants. The problem is bombs. Iran can have nuclear power without purifying uranium.
The “problem” is Israel.
Now Israel IS a problem… It’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t…” kinda thing.
Nukes are still not the answer.
See my blog post in the first link for the sources of this information. The number of links required would trip the spam filter.
#10 – me,
Damn! List tags don’t work. Each of the sentences was supposed to get a bullet point. Sorry if it just looks choppy now.
[Fixed — ed.]
For standards of living to rise, we need to consume more power. ALL forms of power generation need to be brought on line as fast as possible. If my own back yard could consist of an oil well straddled by a nuke plant with wind turbines and solar panels on the roof, I’d go with it. More power. Turning off air conditioning and huddling in cities is not progress.
#12 – CarbonSasquatch,
Progress of that form is the definition of unsustainable. People need to start thinking in thousands and millions of years if we are to become a long lived species. Horseshoe crabs have been around for 400,000,000 years. Humans have been around for 200,000 years. And, we’ve had agriculture for only about 13,000 years. We’ve already got a number of unsolved problems that can kill our species in the very near future.
You’re up to thinking in terms of weeks or months. Want to try for decades and work your way up from there?
#8 “The “problem” is Israel.”
Whoa, who let Mahmood sign up on Dvorak’s blog?
#13 MS
Where do you get this stuff?
You and Mr. Fusion must have taken the same class – How to rewrite history 101.
What evidence can anyone put forth that Iran is developing nuclear weapons? Because that Bastard state of Israel, a psychopathic loose canon with delusions of omnipotence says so?
#10 I have spent my career (30 years +) in the electric power-industry fossil and nuke.
I haven’t the time at the moment to vet your sources but let me say that in the US, thanks to Jimmy Carter, the fuel reprocessing facility to be built in the US was canceled in the late 70’s. There is a significant amount of fuel remaining in the fuel rods when they are changed out on approx. 18 month cycles form the reactor.
The idea of fuel reprocessing is to reclaim this unspent uranium, enrich it and ship it back to the Utility. The Utilities currently store the spent fuel in their fuel pools having no way to reprocess it or any approved off site storage facility for this high level irradiated fuel. These pools were initially envisioned for temporary storage of irradiated fuel, tools and hot reactor parts and not long term storage as they are presently being used.
We’ve got an awful lot of this spent fuel accumulating in pools that needs to be stored some place for the long term like Yucca mountain as a consequence of our inability to reprocess.
The French, which get more than 70% of their electricity from nukes has been reprocessing for years.
The answer to our energy problems for the near term should include a number of different energy sources, green, fossil, AND nuke.
Nuke plants can be built and brought on line in about 5 years thanks to off the shelf designs.
Utilities and not the government pay to build these plants and and when a Utility is determining their cost to build, operate and maintain these units life cycle costs do include decommissioning.
What evidence can anyone put forth that Iran is developing nuclear weapons?
Gosh, well most of the world community is suspicious of their activities. So I guess the question really is, noam, why do you think Iran is telling the truth?
What evidence can anyone put forth that Iran is developing nuclear weapons?
From memory==they have bought equipment that can be used for nothing else but the development of nuke energy.
From memory==their nuke facilities don’t have any relationship to their electrical power distribution grid.
From memory==that nuke expert guy from India met with Iranian scientists several times?
From recent news==they are threatening to wipe Israel off the map and they haven’t bought any brooms or rags?
Oh–they refuse UN inspectors access?
UNCLE DAVE–I forgot to ask: “What is your thinking in posting this ambiguous article?” I can’t connect “Good Deal for US” to anything relevant.
“So I guess the question really is, noam, why do you think Iran is telling the truth?”
Because there’s NO evidence that they they’re lying about it, that they’re actually developing them.
It they are, show me some good evidence.
Suspecting that they are and providing evidence are two entirely different things.
No one yet has come up with evidence.
It’s very “in” these days to demonize Iran because it refuses to bow down to the US/Israel, the two REAL threats to humanity and world peace.
#19–specul==the issue of nuke energy is an interesting one especially when someone who should know something about specific aspects of the industry speak up. Information or bias?
So, just for fun, I googled. Tried to avoid biased sites like greenpeace. This following sites says France has problems with their nuke waste. How do you respond?
http://www.ieer.org/comments/waste/chen-prl.html
Plenty of evidence at the IAEA site at the UN. But it sounds like you’re too much on the anti-Israel/US bandwagon to see the light.
By the way, if Iran really wishes not to be scrutinized, they should probably avoid comments like “Israel should be wiped from the map.”
It’s been their open, abject hate of Israel that has brought this microscope down upon them.
You’re in poor company, naom.
“they are threatening to wipe Israel off the map”.
Not so. A deliberate distortion of what Ahmadinejad actually said, which was “Imam [Khomeini] said: ‘This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history”.
Just as the Soviet regime in Russia was eliminated from the pages of history. Russia is still there, as are its people.
noam, you’re joking right?
“which was “Imam [Khomeini] said: ‘This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history”.”
Well gosh, that sounds so much better than kill all the Jews. But it’s the same thing.
You’re really reaching, dude.
#22, 27: You’re kidding, right? The picture of the Shah doesn’t tip you off that this was an ad from the 70’s?
Back then, when it was ok to sell arms and nuke plants to the Iranians, the US made tons of money off them. Now having done so is biting us in the ass. And how many other places have we done the same in assorted different ways? Just one more case of short term thinking for profit or strategic sake.
I hate it when I have to spell things out for the children. Patience, patience…
Sorry, but the issue of SUPPOSED Iranian nuclear weapons development is really just a pretext for US geopolitical control of Iran and control of its oil, nothing more.
“Sorry, but the issue of SUPPOSED Iranian nuclear weapons development is really just a pretext for US geopolitical control of Iran and control of its oil, nothing more.”
Yeah, ok. lol
Bobbo: Good point! My intent was not to lead anyone to believe that reprocessing would mitigate the need to dispose of radioactive waste but to reduce same through reprocessing and enrichment. I believe near term we must be opened minded to a variety of energy sources and nukes work great for large base load plants and should form an integral part of our energy strategy going forward. Nuclear energy is not a panacea and therefore does have drawbacks like many other energy sources.
#24 Bobbo: “Tried to avoid biased sites like greenpeace.”
Depends what you mean by biased. Many Greenpeacers favor nuclear energy as the best current solution for large scale electricity production.