ScribbleLive

@Peter good point. Most of the massive growth in the US was 1950's - 1960's. Things began to stagnate and wages have been flat since the early 1970's. Most of the US reactors came on line in the 1970's.

NRC CONFIRMS ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN AT FITZPATRICK NUCLEAR PLANT TO ADDRESS VIOLATIONS INVOLVING RADIATION PROTECTION PROGRAM
The NRC’s Office of Investigations identified the violations during three separate investigations conducted at the plant in 2009 and 2010. In a letter dated Sept, 8, 2011, the NRC provided the results of the investigations and summarized the violations. They include: Failure by technicians to perform required respirator fit testing on multiple occasions from 2006 to 2009;
a failure to maintain accurate documentation of completed respirator fit tests during the same period; a failure to perform and/or accurately document independent verification of certain valve positions after the valves were manipulated between September 2007 and December 2009; a
failure to document a personal contamination event on at least one occasion; a failure to perform a contamination survey, or check, prior to the removal of an item from the plant’s radiologically controlled area; and a failure to carry out daily radiological surveys, on multiple occasions from
2006 to 2009, of a reactor building airlock. No health and safety impacts on workers as a result of these violations were identified
- Entergy will review procedures and share lessons learned as their "punishment" - via NRC emails

Recycling of iron and steel scrap conserves raw materials, energy, and landfill space. Million of metric tons from both domestic and international sources are recycled each year in the United States: www.epa.gov agmetalminer.com

@Will Oh your so right and I hadn't thought about that either. Fuku 1 - 1 went online in 1970 and was the first commercial reactor but by the 70's Japan was largely where it is now.

cobalt 60 seems to be what is found when they discover highly irradiated metal in consumer products like kitchen tools or the recent US metal tissue box holders

Was there a particular article that started the thought about nuclear power vs. countries growth? This is really interesting.

It is interesting, the big growth seems to have been post war up to about 1970.

@Edano yes, it seems everywhere that embraced nukes and was involved in some way in WWII

it is sad, but war always induced economical growth afterwards, due to the extended research on war important technologies. that is how they introduced penicilline to medicine during ww2. it was designed for the wounded soldiers.

and some argue that the (US) penicilline was even war-decisive. at least a bit. :)

ronald reagan's star wars program was BS, but it boosted laser technology and basic physics.

This is interesting and looks at the post war boom in international terms en.wikipedia.org

If the 1970's oil crisis impacted worldwide economies, why didn't the 1970's rise of nuclear power save all these countries from pain or did it cushion the pain? We were told in the US to conserve energy including electricity at that time. People bought solar panels, turned down thermostats and turned off lights. I remember high rise buildings in Mpls being told to shut off lights at night. They used to leave all the lights on in the buildings at night to show them off.

@Edano We have a set of problems here that fall into groups. Transportation - we are now utterly car dependent. This causes all sorts of issues from how cities are built to pollution, excess costs for fuel etc. Energy - people are realizing we need to move faster on renewables and other new technologies along with better conservation technology. Economy- too many people have wages that don't keep up with basic expenses so they have no money to put into the economy or to put into innovation, business ventures. We have a concentration of wealth with a few people and they are doing nothing beneficial with it.
All of these things would be solved quite fast with some serious govt. intervention. They are moving but much much slower without it as people find small ways to take it upon themselves to do what they can. I see it where I live in local buying and the local food movement.

we need a marshall plan for renewables.

@lillymunster individual transport was a big post war error. they should have invested more money in modern public mass transport. but oil was cheap so they invented dirty big cars. now we have problems to rebuild structures.

@lillymunster i have seen the suburbs of D.C., you are lost without car. and that means, 2 or 3 cars per family.

bike riding is unamerican ? oh boy.... it's socialistic devil's stuff, right ?

When I lived in Mpls I didn't have a car. I rode my bike or took the bus for years. I could bike ride from where I lived out in the suburbs to downtown with no interruption. That was back in the 1980's.

March Nuclear Madness protests being organized in the US www.facebook.com

france GDP still cries about the german energy change and predicts blackouts all over Europe: www.handelsblatt.com huhuuu :(