~e; EM security issues

[brian carroll <human@electronetwork.org>]

Hello Louis, I will do my best to address what I imagine
to be your question, that is, what is the specific point ?

>> This is why the .US Energy Task Force was and remains to
>> be a national and internationaln security issue which is
>> holding back changes to do what has been done before, and
>> in keeping documents out of the public view, and refusing
>> to adapt to changes, threatens the viability of the .US
>> and other countries through an increased dependence upon
>> the forces which are now being held hostage by terrorism.

louis schultz wrote: (edited with the correction sent)

> great energy (pun semi-intended), but even  "after a good bit of 
> effort," the point still eludes me

Several assumptions need to be stated, firstly, one being
that the previous paragraphs were about oil imports and
nuclear issues and an escalation of terrorist attacks on a
global oil infrastructure, that is the context for the above.
Another thing of note is that 'nuclear' power is not deemed
irrelevant to disruptions in energy supplies, nor is it either
the only option. Though the latter interpretation is one that
is pushed through the .US energy task force, led by .US VP
Cheney, along with long-distance transmission corridors,
highly-centralized power production, and no legal liability
for the industry should a terror attack or anything else occur.
This approach was once stated (in Wired I think) to be part
of an old guard inside the EPRI (Electric Power Research
Institute), in essence, using utopian planning of the past for
a different set of circumstances for the present. Thus one is
able to brand nuclear power is being 'safer' for pollutants,
more economical, etc. yet only if censoring a hidden cost
of nuclear waste, nuclear melt-downs, terrorist attacks that
could range from nuclear fuel for a weapon, blowing up a
reactor (devastating, basically, everything that sustains a
place, and toxic cloud contaminating other places too), and
issues relating to 'climate change' in which, while it is said
to be safer, one can notice that with a shifting climate the
'cool water' reactors in .FR began to run hot when water
temperatures of the rivers that feed the system were not
behaving according to earlier estimates, which could be
a new type of natural/artificial disaster in that these are
the most dangerous facilities in terms of climate change,
in that a nuclear meltdown could occur as a result of the
weather changing in an unexpected way. Now, if one is
to make a national energy plan around this, even some
international one, why fighting 'terrorism', it is the same
plants that provide wastestreams of fuel that can be a
source for weapons programs. So, while the peaceful
intent of nuclear plants may exist, so too can coups of
governments, in which militant views take over nuclear
controls, including missile launch systems which is a
world-wide problem. What does this have to do with
anything beyond the nuclear industry? Everything.

One thing that is not occurring in the energy industry
is change commensurate with the threats faced to
the entire society. Instead, by far one of the world's
largest consumer's of energy has dismantled the
review process for its strategic energy planning, in
turn replacing it with an ideological motive based
on 20th c. military-industrial political-economics. A
highly centralized powerplant may be well for the
military to develop resources for weapons ranging
for bombs to depleted uranium shells and casings,
turbines and powerplants and the rest can be sold
as a service to others developing these structures,
such as when VP Cheney went to balk at the North
Korean nuclear talks while selling nuclear reactors
in Asia at the same time, as an economic mission.
In turn, one can sell nuclear defense systems to
guard against this new nuclear threat, and it can
feed on itself, 'which is what terrorists want' or so
it seems. That way, there can be endless wars. In
a war, if an energy system is highly centralized it
can also be bombed to smithereens, even if it is
a nuclear plant that will contaminate the region.
It may supply power for 50,000 houses, as some
estimate or guess, and that would be turned off
somewhat permanently, indefinitely, no power
by hitting one target. Versus, if a decentralized
system were in place, there could be 1,000 or
so smaller plants, and hitting a few would not
jeopardize the entire cultural infrastructure. It is
a view of all or nothing, when with nuclear power
as it exists today. Or so, strategically, it would be
much weaker if widely distributed, across a large
swatch of land and in very centralized fashion,
as the issues of waste, the possibility of natural
disasters with flooding or abnormal weather to
cause failures, or even the not-unknown-issue
of sabotage, including computer hacking or a
takeover of facilities could be devastating in a
way that a rapid development and investment
in multiple, traditional and alternative systems
could provide, in terms of redundancy and the
resiliency unseen in the nuclear industry today.

The worst failure during the last power blackout
in northeast North America last year or so was
that the nuclear reactors were very difficult both
to shut down (melt-down is an issue) along with
starting them back up (took a very long time), and
in an emergency situation having this be a power
base, including nuclear fuel cycles and the costs
(including social, environment) associated with
shipping fuel around on rail in an era of terrorist
attacks leaves not only the nuclear plants in a
vulnerable state (high-security yet still insecure,
to any successful unforeseen attack, with a type
of consequence not found in any other form of
power production, nuclear radioactivity on the
loose) but also all the 'wide open' routes for the
transport of fuels which could provide chances
for contaminating any place along .US rails that
could never be completely monitored during a
shipment of such radioactive waste.

A dirty bomb is said to be 'not a question of 'if'
but of 'when' it will happen', that is, a certainty
exists that a threshold condition now exists in
which nuclear materials will be used for more
unconventional, subverted uses. Now, what if
selling this science and technology without any
cultural review is simply deemed to be required
for 'national security' as the Bush Administration
and VP Cheney in particular, with vested interest
in the industry, is doing, uncritically because they
may have a bunker for themselves and family,
yet that it actually increases the danger to the
ordinary citizen existing outside nuclear bunkers,
as part of economic, social, and political cultures.
The checks and balances over this technutopian
retrograde energy planning was shut down with
closure of the Office of Technology Assessment
which may have blinked when, in the first days
in office a CIA forecast of future oil supplies was
changed from a 20 year problematic need for a
basic change, to ~no problems with the unlimited
supply of cheap oil as far as their eyes can see~.
This was a pretext for the .US Energy Task Force
planning which happened behind closed doors,
even prior to inauguration of new administration
after the unusual election results. In addition, the
planning was suspiciously close to a deregulated
market-based planning for moving cheap power
over long-distances for trading electricity which
is produced intra- and inter- nationally, which is
the business Enron was in, and oil supplies are
a part of that equation for controlling oil markets
from start to finish, as the goal was that everyone
would consume electricity as do the Americans-
excessive, overdevelopment, waste, and profits
at the openly hidden-costs by dividing the issue
into one of science and technology and editing
out the social and cultural and other costs, such
as security, sustainability, environmental, and
health issues, insurance, on and on and on.

Rogue states have been defined as those who
are developing WMD in secret and are a threat
to the stability of the world. And nuclear states
_are this threat. And nuclear power used as a
conventional or unconventional weapon is the
threat of terrorism, today, a reason given for a
pre-emptive attack that was based on a forgery
of yellowcake uranium, again, nuclear stuff of
such threat as to justify, through fear, the very
possibility that such a threat exists. It was a lie.

There is a constellation of 'points' about security
and energy, and nuclear power probably does
have a necessary part yet possibly in a way that
is evolutionary, that today's technologies are not
ones to replicated en masse for their negative
qualities outweigh the risks associated with the
massive development of them, in myriad ways.
Though, the basic science of the material world,
cosmology, particle physics, materials science,
unknown things are probably very important to
continue and not deny some basic value to the
advancement of nuclear knowledge, though to
consider it benign, as does the Vice President
of the United States, while selling it abroad and
systems to protect from its life-cycle (weapons,
defenses), while at the same time using this as
a 'clear and present danger' for justifying hostile
invasions on false-pretenses is a major concern.
The threat being sold, likewise, is that terrorists
will get their hands on such materials, -- so how
does it make any sense to sell nuclear power as
making the world any safer if it is the greatest of
existing liabilities to power production today?

Like 'planetariums', particle accelerators and
x-ray and laser research facilities, and other
types of research are fundamental to many of
the changes in the weekly news. Understanding
how things work. A nuclear research program
may be able to offer such a viable option while
the massive deployment of powerplants may be
a different question, between knowledge of the
nuclear and the uncritical development of the
power in today's circumstances, when one bad
move could mean disaster on a nuclear scale,
which is a world scale, and while coal plants
and others may 'cascade' in massive failures,
nuclear powerplants would melt-down instead,
and not one but several, worst-case scenario.

The reliance upon present systems increases
the vulnerability, short- medium- and long-term,
environmentally, economically, insecurity, war.
The nuclear waste is here to stay, for millennia,
and for terrorists is a radioactive treasure trove.

If a nuclear peace initiative could become the
highest priority, the fork-in-the-road in which a
choice is publicly tendered to states to join in
some shared system of common accountability
and rules and coordination, whatever the politics
of difference, that information is critical to dealing
with the threat inherent in current systems and,
if openly addressed as a common concern, it is
possible that advances in storage or disposal or
safety or other issues could become a matter of
common concern, a responsibility to knowledge,
as ignorance and nuclear power do not mix well.
And to feign ignorance of the issues is of greatest
irresponsibility. And if a .US Vice President is the
one doing this, it should be stated as such, as a
real threat to national and international security.

... It is the same fear 'terrorists' are said to exploit.

(No matter, of course, that a .US Supreme Court
judge, Scalia, refused to recuse himself from the
case to open task force documents, nor that the
name of a CIA agent was leaked as a retaliation
against the debunking of the yellowcake claims,
nor that 'corporate-takeover' style of the .US war
planning has resulted in tens of thousands of
deaths, conflated as a fight against this nuclear
terrorism, including 800+ of a volunteer military
to serve and protect the constitution, not Enron
or Halliburton, who may have held an interest
in Energy Task Force documents of oilfields in
Saudi Arabia and Iraq and elsewhere, which
was said to become "American's gas-station"
as a result of the neoconservative agenda. In
another era treachery, treason, and traitorous
acts might be more than obvious to all by now.
All of these issues go back to the VP's office.
And while President Bush may have had some
kind of epileptic seizure to go over the handle-
bars on his bike, (slipping on dirt would not land
on your face), he was a fervent believer in the
use of capital punishment, use of the electric
chair on 'retarded killer'. What if an unnamed,
government official whose lies, deceptions,
theft, sacrificial deaths of public citizen military,
maiming, bankrupting of state and nation, the
loss of security and national security stability,
retaliating against .gov officials, and installing
the equivalent to a shadow dictatorship-- and it
is this person who fights "a global war on terror?"
Maybe they have terrorized the world enough
and now deserve to meet the judge, jury, and....)

briancarroll

// disclaimer: these views are those of the author and
// do not reflect those of the electronetwork.org project
// which is protected speech under the .US constitution.

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