The environmentalist wackos in the Obama Administration “asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas — by Tokyo Electric Power and local partners,” ha ha. Because there’s nothing greener than money nuclear power, built by a scandal-plagued Japanese company now presiding over the biggest nuclear-power disaster in history. (Okay, maybe Obama’s beloved “clean coal” is a teeny bit more green than nuclear fallout facilities on the Gulf of Mexico.) Anyway, let’s hear it for Tokyo Electric Power! Experts say this company has been running insanely dangerous nuke plants for years, and has badly bungled the response to the earthquake damage — in terms of safety announcements, public relations and that whole “nuclear holocaust/meltdown” thing.
Well, the Gulf of Mexico hasn’t been brutalized much lately, so it will be exciting to get this Tokyo nuke company involved (thanks to the Obama Administration) with some shady Texas energy companies.
From Yahoo News:
Building nuclear power plants in the United States is a slow, tedious process in the best of times, with permits, license applications, financing, and then actual construction taking decades. Concern over Fukushima is likely to slow the process that is already at a crawl to something resembling stasis.
President Obama has stated that the Fukushima disaster has not altered his plans to expand nuclear power in the United States. Obama administration plans to shift to non fossil fueled power generation is largely dependent on nuclear power.
[Yahoo News/Greg Palast via Cryptogon]
{ 160 comments }
well, it will be in Texas- do we really care?
Wait a minute, SXSW is going on!
Don't worry, SXSW will be over well before they get their building permits.
Well, it is not part of the US, at least according to Rick Perry.
By the time the reactors are up and running, Texas will have seceded from the Union. So it will be their headache.
Until the meltdown and the plume of radiation travels north, east and west. But without a lot of fussy "inspectors" and "scientists" and "environmentalists" complaining about every little thing, they'll build it really fast!
Right! Free Market! Capitolism! Keep your guvmint hands off my uranium!
My thoughts exactly. At least in Texas, no one or nothing of importance can be killed when the meltdown occurs.
ouch that hurt. I have friends who stay behind to fight the good fight in Texas. So it makes me sad they keep getting overrun with stupid every election.
Also. Jim Hightower.
That's about all I got, since Molly Ivins is gone. So yeah. They prolly deserve getting a brand new plant. Supply us, Texas. Your loss is our fucked up gain.
They don't call it "The One Star State" for nothing.
I'd like to get a copy of that sign for the restroom here at work.
I hung a dead squirrel as air freshener in my work restroom. Much better.
NEEDZ MOAR MOUNTANE TOP REMVOAL?
Obama/Tokyo Electric 2012!
"asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas — by Tokyo Electric Power and local partners,”
I have no problem with irradiating Texas.
I smell secession in the air! Or is that spent uranium?
Either one or preferably both would be okay with me. Of course one bogus drug arrest in a state and you then hold it against them.
Good location, there's never any weather related problems on the coast of Texas.
Actually most nuke plants have no issues with weather…its massive earthquakes that are a problem.
Japan's survived the quakes, it was the tsunami that flooded the back-up generators.
What problems could storm surge present, none I am sure.
You win.
Seriously, people seem to think a hurricane is nothing more than high-force winds. The folks in New Orleans and Pass Christian will tell you different.
Two words: storm surge.
You ever been in a hurricane? Despite rumors to the contrary, they suck.
Excuse me, but those weather related problems blow from Baja Oklahoma (which always blows) up here to the real deal.
I'll give you the fairness in not particularly caring if Inhofe/Doktor Tom land goes the way of the dinosaurs and the little kids who rode them, but I think that leaves it incumbent on the wonkeratti to provide shelter for the Nuclear Dust Bowl Refugees. (Where is Woody when we need him?)
Y'all just set up some giants fans tat the border; that should do it. Blow that shit right back over Wichita Falls and Amarillo, you know, where it belongs.
Has Obama sent "Heckuva Job, Brownie" to Japan yet?
Why not send the very best, sez I.
~
Good idea! He'd have the horse sense to straighten this mess out.
this is good news for mccain.
Time to start selling that Texas gulf coast real estate. Hey with TEPCO's track record they could run a Wall Street firm. No wonder they got the contract.
Slowly developing environmental catastrophes are booooring. Akira or GTFO!
Can they use Rick Perry's hair as a containment dome?
Well, it's definitely not containing anything right now, so why not?
I'm not sure about that smug prick Jay Bilas, but my March Madness Final 4 includes Tokyo Electric Power/Qaddafi/Scott Walker & the Real Americans Of SE Kansas, led by star nativist chucker Virgil Peck.
That smug prick prefaced his Super Bowl pick by describing football as nothing more than a territory acquisition game, a brutish metaphor for war. I liked that.
Keep an eye on "Tim McVeigh wannabe" as a Cinderella
No love for The Westboro Baptist Church? They're my sleeper team this year.
At least they won't have to worry about hurricanes.
Oh, good. The Chernobyl builders were, um, unavailable, I guess.
Why should we be looking at foreign energy companies? Get the guys who ran Three Mile Island to build this one.
They're not feeling too well. But they give Tokyo electric glowing reviews!
Rewarding corruption and incompetence. It is the American way.
I would also like to thank the wholesome, upstanding folks posting at Wonkette. Mail Marshall hasn't blocked me from the site even once today.
Sure look at the republican party.
Carly Fiorina approves this message.
For those of you without a dental plan, free X-Rays!
And Hello Kitty suckers for the kiddies!
Is it a buy your own film X-Ray?
A bit of perspective might sway you on that whole "even coal is better than nuclear" thing. I'm not in favor of nuclear as such since the percentages of total KW output that nuclear represents, especially in the U.S. are always within the range of what could be covered by greater efficiency. But just for the sake of taking science seriously please consider the "danger" of nuclear plant failure within the overall context of natural disasters such as this quake/tsunami whammy.
Needs moar poop jokes.
Yes, but perspective doesn't let Ken explain again that Barack Obama is morally weak.
Texas needs nuclear power; it's not like the state is mostly a big desert with the perfect conditions for solar plants or anything.
Solar plants and wind farms just aren't as exciting as noocularr plants.
Anyway solar power plants are socialist.
Jimmy Carter wanted more solar power, so the right-wing will always be against it. Besides, what would a nuclear engineer know about energy production?
Sure there is the potential drama of meltdown hanging over your head and that my friends is the way republicans like it.
Oh, and I guess you'd be in favor of letting a bunch of Mexicans cross the boarder to work those silicon fields. Any country could build solar plants cause the sun shines on everybody but it takes American financed Japanese know-how to generate electricity using a three billion dollar radio-active teapot. That's a man's electricity, damn it!
I guess the reactor will power the textile mills run by Triangle Shirtwaist Partners.
But on the important side: How will this affect Sarah Palin?
It won't unless she decides to take a dive from the 9th floor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_...
As a self-declared energy expert who knows nothing about energy, Fox will ask for her opinion on this; which will be, "Obama wants this? Then I'm again' it."
Even a broken clock, etc…
Well glad to see they have that energy source locked up.
Well, Texas has been due to give us another World Changing Disaster.
So the last World Changing Disaster was W, right?
And before that, the mid-90s Cowboys.
I loved it in the first years when Jerry Jones bought them and Hair Boy was the coach, and they'd say, "Tom Landry, the only coach the Dallas Cowboys have ever had…who's ever won a game.
No thanks W was enough.
Not to quibble but the Japanese crisis is only the second biggest nuclear power crisis in history. The Chernobyl accident is the biggest.
So far.
D'oh!
So far.
They are making progress in Japan.
Ah, but wait for it: The containment ponds for spent fuel rods on site are on top of the reactor containment chambers and the tsunami took out the roof above them. Now the water *isn't* being circulated in the ponds and they are starting to boil, and left to their own, will catch fire and burn. This will release a metric shitload (as opposed to the standard shitload) of radioactive dust into the atmosphere to gently land all over the pacific and might even reach the good ol' USA. Let's hope it stays at second and doesn't go to numba won with a bullet, so to speak.
Unsurprisingly, one has a greater chance of being shot in Texas than receiving a lethal dose of radiation.
And the odds of getting shot are pretty good.
I say take a big (nuke) fart on Texas….YAY!
Wait, I thought Obama and his administration's job was simply to "monitor," make extremely qualified statements weeks later, and concede everything to Repubs–aren't they getting out of line here?!?
What? Was all the freshly cleared brushland next door to Bush's Crawford ranch not available?
That should be where we store the waste.
Oh well, win-win, then.
I was thinking maybe around his exclusive Dallas subdivision.
And you get Mark Cuban as a two-fer.
Are these the times Mom warned me about and advised always wear a clean pair of underwear?
They don't stay that way too long.
Because you don't want to shit your pants in a dirty pair, so embarassing!
let's dump some pennsylvania fracking water on those smoking reactor cores. what' is it gonna get MORE radioactive? win win.
Hooray! I can watch my children mutate before my eyes! While covered in delicious petroleum products!
On the "bright" side TEPCo will have a lot of experience with nuclear disasters…
Is that the FLOTUS sign for "Get Moving" campaign. Skull and bones. Running figure. Why does she hate fat Americans.
The human race has turned into a mass of slightly sentient lemmings, all hurtling toward the cliff.
"The human race has turned into a mass of slightly sentient lemmings, all hurtling toward a Golden Corral buffet."
Fixed.
Lemmings do not hurl themselves off cliffs. That is just bullshit made up by some Disney producer to provide a compelling narrative to his nature documentary. He faked the footage by using a turntable to fling lemmings off cliffs to their icy deaths. And the myth he created stuck because people are stupid and they prefer dramatized narratives more than dry facts.
Likewise, a modern nuclear facility is not a safety risk. Many reactor designs, such as the pebble bed reactor, are physically incapable of melting down even under the worst circumstances.
In the right place at the right time they may produce "clean power" but how much in carbon emissions goes into construction, maintenance and decomissioning of these modern marvels and the spent waste they generate? Has mankind come up with a storage system that will keep this stuff out of the air soil and water for it's halflife? Right now a lot of fuel rods are just sitting there in pools with water circulating to cool them, requiring power and human intervention and maintnenance to keep safe. As for the lemmings thing, I think it was metaphor on the posters' part, not a claim of Disney's scientific prowess. FWIW, I didn't know about the turntable, I always assumed some geek stampeded them.
I come to this website for the promise of Meghan McCain boob shots. My disappointment is boundless.
I think these are pretty close to what you're looking for: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/image_cc8c6a79-...
While Meghan's Mountains are always full and ripe and ready for plucking sometimes we must defer our personal interest and think of Texas' power needs. Otherwise she will just be a sweaty chick in Texas cause there is no air.
But what is their half-life? 5 years tops
Meghan McCain will have *three* boobs. Win-win-win!
Another generation or two and 3-4 boobs will be common!
You could do it now. Ask Chaz Bono.
Now that they've had the experience with the earthquake and the tsunami, they'll have learned so much! So our meltdown won't take anywhere near as long.
Uh…the reactors in Japan were made by General Electric. The NYT has a good article on the subject entitled, "Reactor Design in Japan Has Long Been Questioned," here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16co...
The main problem, noticed in 1972, is that the containment shell is too small and thin. But GE went on selling them, including a bunch to America, where they are still running and threatening the environment.
My dad was a nuke and used rant about how shitty that light water design was. Mind you, he was biased and all because he worked on the rival CANDU system which was more expensive (mostly because of the large number of redundant safety systems installed on it.)
Let me be the first to say what, does BP not make nukes?
They are pretty good at the whole colossal scale side of things.
Remember when they were trying to convince everybody it stood for "beyond petroleum"? Ha ha ha…they'll never get that slime off now.
And i thought it was Big Profits, silly me.
Permits, license applications, financing, melt downs, blah di blah blah blah! Full (radioactive) steam ahead!!!
It's not like Texas could use solar power. The sun goes down just around the time they want to turn on the lights.
Good,'cuz that Gulf is looking way too clean.
Yay for choosing the lowest bidder!
As has already been pointed out, Fukushima Daiichi was built by the original experts in nuclear power, the US of A! That, and the plant in question is older than I am. The slant eyes have done it more, better, and more recently than we have, let them have a crack at it.
Everybody's worried that someone, somewhere, might get thyroid cancer from the Fukishima nuclear plant. What nobody has mentioned lately is the number of cases of cancer that will be caused by the quake-related petrochemical plant fires in the area. So long as the question we're asking is still "Nuclear or coal?" we should still go with the nuclear.
Tsunamis taking out nuke plants is passe now……next up, nuke plants vs hurricanes!
Come one people, it is one or the other: Nuclear Power, or sell your soul to the new Caliphate.
And, whatever Tokyo Electric may be doing wrong, the fact is that the plants made it through a gigantic earthquake and tsunami, and are still producing Hello Kitty products left and right. Let's see your everyday windmill do that!
Glow, baby, glow?
I'm so sick of that liberal, socialist pussy Obama always erring on the side of caution and prudence.
It's OK because the Gulf of Mexico is a dynamic ecosystem which can break down U-235.
Since we can't have wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts because they ruin the view from Martha's Vineyard, I'm sure there's some good reason Texas can't have them.
I just don't know what position to take on this issue until Sarah Palin tweets some giberrish about it.
Even then, we must wait until Justin Bieber renders his verdict.
Honestly, Ken, I'm with you with the doom and gloom, but only up until here.
Japan suffered an 8.9 magnitude earthquake, which is the 5th worst in recorded history, and subsequent tsunami from that earthquake. As a point of comparison, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, one of the most devastating in American history (because the strongest ones all happen in Alaska) was only 7.2.
If our nuclear plants are actually built to withstand anything up to the fith strongest earthquake in recorded history, we'd actually be in reasonably good shape. More to the point, even if they're not quite that good, it's actually completely unreasonable to infer that people are somehow at fault for failing to anticipate the worst natural disaster to hit Japan since anyone started recording those things, instead of turning them into folk tales and legends.
I know "no one could have predicted" is a fairly overwrought phrase, but come on. There's literally zero basis for claiming that some sort of negligence at work here, rather than some disasters literally falling way outside what anyone could ever be reasonable prepared for.
Anchorage 1964: 9.2
New Madrid MO, Dec 1811 to Feb 1812: a series of four big ones, from 7.5 to 8.5
Granted. And I was defining "devastating" as f{magnitude, shit to be fucked up} which renders it a bit more subjective on questions of where those three all rank relative to each other.
But that's also all pretty marginal to my actual point, which was that an 8.9 earthquake followed by the tsunami from an 8.9 earthquake ain't exactly necessarily Katrina, as far as preparedness fiascos go- if anything, building codes and earthquake-proofing have largely prevented a much worse crisis, a la Haiti. Ken's assuming (or, at least, implying) either incompetance or evil when there's really evidence of neither, this time.
I wasn’t disagreeing, just spewing Wikifacts. People don’t think about New Madrid, but it’s as likely as any to start shaking. It’s humorous to hear various MSM “science” “reporters” struggling with logarithmic scales and solemnly repeating some bonehead’s assertion that this or that fault is “overdue” for an earthquake, as if anyone but Bobby Jindal could know that.
Good lord i need a drink.
Permission granted.
"Nuclear Energy will be so cheap,
it won't even be metered"
Well of course I'm appalled and opposed, but before I get involved, can someone please, please assure me we'll never again have to hear anyone sing John Hall's "The Warm Power of the Sun"?
or anything political by sting?
I am comforted by the knowledge that, in this time of disasters on every front, we have a courageous, principled leader, a fighter in place in this time of national crisis. A man who can stand up to his adversaries, who we can rely on for strength, judgment and moral leadership when the country needs leadership most.
Nah, I'm just fuckin' with you.
No one can do courage, principles, or moral leadership until the second term.
I'm less concerned about Japanese nuclear plant engineers than Texas-schooled nuclear plant operators. If it's in Texas, fuck them. Build it in Rick Perry's mouth.
And it's fair to mention that it was Americans from General Electric that engineered that pile of shit that's burning a hole in the world over there.
It's as safe as going to the doctor in Arizona.
Actually, it was greedy American suits who disregarded the advice of American engineers in order to cut corners and make more profits for Rich shareholders…
This is sad day to be a Nuclear advocate. Even the Wonketters are ganging up on my baby, to say nothing of the outright hysterics of the Huffington Post crowd. Mockery is coming from every direction. I feel like I'm making enemies for even advancing a measured defense of the institution. It reminds me of back when I was Catholic.
I'm with ya on the nuke thing. There are more than a billion people on this planet who want things like iPods, electric lights, heat, etc., and unless we choose to conserve and share (HAHAHHAHHAHAHA), we need a source of power.
You're on your own with the popery, tho…
yeah, I actually dropped the Catholic thing some time ago upon further reflection.
And a goodly number of those billion don't think twice about holding a cell phone against their heads all day.
Well, just to make you happy, remember that China is building loads of nuclear plants (as well as solar plants, wind plant, methane generators for peasant kitchen stoves…). Then consider that Japan is a country of tight-ass attention to detail, while the Chinese approach is "who cares? They'll never know the difference! Let's go to lunch early!"
Like the Russians; that worked well for them.
If we're going to mock the coal industry every time they have an underground explosion, you sure as hell better believe nuclear's going to take it necessary lumps, too.
maybe Obama’s beloved “clean coal” is a teeny bit more green than nuclear fallout facilities on the Gulf of Mexico
Maybe not:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=...
Remember that leak thingy in the Gulf of Mexico last year? Yeah, neither do I. Everything will get all cleaned up just fine.
However, I do get pissed off when I hear a nuclear industry person, or any industrial safety person, use the phrase, "Safety is our number one priority." Number one is generating electricity! Otherwise they'd just shut the whole damn thing down!
Looks like America is on the fast-track toward Third World Status. Our time in the Sun will just be a blip on the screen compared to the Roman Empire, or even the British, for that matter.
And without the artistic legacy of Rome, Byzantium, Venice, Florence….
Legacy written in blood in faraway places.
Oh, pish-posh, you guys! I know it doesn't feel like it at the moment, but America has done a lot of good in the world. Hardly unvarnished, and balanced by a lot of bad, but good all the same.
History is a Marathon, not a Dash; John Wilkes Booth was a famous and accomplished actor, but that is not how history remembers him. I'm not down on America, but I see many seemingly insurmountable problems; figuring how we can come through all this is daunting to me. I just wonder if it is possible.
Oh, I hear ya, brother. I often despair. Hell, isn't that part of why we come here to Wonkette: to try to laugh through the horror of Modern America? But, somehow, and perhaps just through sheer denial, I'm optimistic that we'll muddle through somehow. It most certainly won't be pretty, and the end result might not be all we'd hoped, but probably better than we expect. (When we're living under Alaskan law and being sent to "proud American" reeducation camps, feel free to say, "I told ya so!")
You'll be spared that final insult from me. My time is too limited to consider reeducation of any type. BTW, I don't blame the Country or its Government. It is the venal and grasping nature of mankind in general which drags us all down like crabs in a pot.
I think God should give the Japanese a break. A 20 year recession, an earthquake, a tsunami and a nucler meltdown is a little excessive, even though they are heathens and do not believe in Him.
Get with it people. In Texas it's nucular power. Haven't you learned anything?
Surely we can find someone to fuck this project up domestically, can't we?
It's not the heat it's the humidity.
It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.
Does the name Iben Browning ring a familiar bell?
It's in Texas. Who gives a shit what happens to bushy and perry?
The nuclear scientists (zombies?) at (what used to be) Chernobyl just called; they're saying that they want verification on that one. Thanks.
Well, if Obama is for it, then Republicans are a'gin it.
Obama will use their resistance to get a Green Energy initiative passed.
THREE DIMENSIONAL CHESS MOTHERFUCKERS!!!
Why do I sometimes get the feeling that we'll all wake up one to discover that Obama has daily phone calls with the Koch brothers?
I'm all in favor of building it in Texass if we can get Slim Pickens to sit on top of the containment dome in his Cowboy hat and boots, so when it blows, he can ride it whooping "YEEEEEEEERRHAW!!!"
#WINNING
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