Jon Talton of the Seattle Times writes the ten-millionth uninformed, sensationalist, antinuclear energy article

Antinuclear poster from 2014 Climate March

Below I offer a few thoughts on a mind-numbing article by Jon Talton found in the Seattle Times originally titled Nuclear Energy Fears Exceed Its Benefits.

Among the four words one least wants to hear are “Hanford nuclear reservation emergency.”

Really? Isn’t that a rather sensationalist, not to mention, disingenuous remark? How will assorted pieces of irradiated junk buried in the ground as a result of cold war nuclear weapons production harm anybody not standing in close proximity to it?

At one time, the site had nine nuclear reactors.

Those were devices to produce weapon’s grade plutonium, not to be confused with commercial nuclear power stations. The University of Washington had a nuclear reactor for many years as many large universities still do. A nuclear reactor is not a nuclear bomb or a nuclear power station. The reactor is only the source of heat for nuclear power stations.

But don’t look for a major surge in U.S. nuclear power anytime soon.

There will be quite a surge as the power stations now under construction are completed. At this point in your article you segue from a problem with waste at a military super fund site into commercial electricity production. You have conflated the two for readers who now see using nuclear fission as a heat source for a power station as the equivalent of making material for nuclear weapons. That’s disingenuous and irresponsible in this age of the internet and man-made climate change

Part of the problem was revealed in last week’s Hanford incident.

Actually, waste storage isn’t part of the problem with the building of nuclear power stations. No nuclear power station has been closed because a long term storage facility isn’t available yet.

Inside the collapsed tunnel was radioactive waste buried inside rail cars, no doubt some of it from Hanford’s reactors. The same issue applies to modern commercial reactors. They haven’t released carbon into the atmosphere, but they have left 75,000 metric tons of spent fuel in the United States alone.

Except used fuel from commercial nuclear power stations isn't buried in train cars a few feet underground. The commercial nuclear power station located on the reservation has nothing to do with the military waste stored there. Long term storage facilities for used nuclear power station fuel are being built by other countries and two have already been built here but are not used for storage of that fuel yet thanks mostly to antinuclear lobbyists. You phrase the amount in a manner that makes it sound huge. Spent nuclear fuel is very heavy but takes up very little space. See Figure 1 below to get a feel for that:

Figure 1

And that waste can be deadly for 250,000 years.

Our future is in low carbon energy, not just green (whatever that means) energy

Columbia Nuclear Generating Station in Washington State

 Cross-posted to Energy Trends Insider.

Robert McCullough has an Op-Ed in the Seattle Times titled "Our future is in green energy not aging, costly nuclear plants" that rebuts an earlier Op-Ed by James Moss supporting Washington State's single nuclear power station. McCullough:

"I read James Moss’ recent Op-Ed with interest and some amusement. The interest reflects whether Washington’s aging and very expensive nuclear plant is a good use for our energy dollars. Moss is doing a good job for his union constituents and takes a position I normally support. Sadly, we may not be on the same side regarding the costs."

I read Robert McCullogh's Op-Ed above with interest and some amusement.

We recently reviewed the cost and value data for our Northwest clients and found that ...

Which got me to wondering who these Northwest clients might be? Neither the Times article nor the study he references says. But based on the Wikipedia article about this power station, I'm pretty sure I know who it is:

In December 2013, Robert McCullough, ... published an analysis of the economics of Columbia Generating Station commissioned by Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group that advocates eliminating the use of nuclear power.

Shouldn't the Times have divulged that information so readers would know he was being paid by a well-known antinuclear energy group? And don't let the group's name (Physicians for Social Responsibility), which is an argument from authority, fool you. It would be a big mistake to ask a physician to fix your brakes. I'm married to a physician. I know a lot of physicians. Physicians don't know any more about nuclear energy than any other lay person ...maybe less.

His antinuclear bias is further exposed by his repetition of old, dog-eared, antinuclear talking points. Below I will show you where he isn't being completely accurate with us using my tried and true (and mostly arbitrary) veracity score system with a rating of ten defined as a cold hard fact all the way down to one, which can be defined in any number of colorful ways.