Weekend Open Thread

I thought this presentation would both enlighten and horrify your readers Anthony.
http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Breakthrough_Climate%20Solutions%20for%20a%20stronger%20America.pdf
Pretty sick that this is the sort of push that is coming from supposedly uniting Mind, Body, Spirit, and Environment within a single holistic ed push as the new norm. No one will know much that is accurate but they will believe and feel a great deal and not know the difference.

“On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the economy gained just 162k jobs in July, well below expectations of 185-200k. More worrying, though, isn’t just the quantity of jobs created, but the quality of the jobs. About a quarter of the jobs created, 38.5k, were in restaurants and bars. Another 46.5k jobs were in retail. This continuing trend to part-time employment is likely due to the coming implementation of ObamaCare.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/02/quantity-of-jobs-up-quality-down

A Republican Case for Climate Action
By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
Published: August 1, 2013
EACH of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.
There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.
The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”
A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, …
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/opinion/a-republican-case-for-climate-action.html

arthur4563 says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:42 am
The safe disposal of spent batteries and also the spent Nuclear fuel are the biggest hurdles.
There is plenty of energy in our solar system. How do we get it safely and without destroying our atmosphere?
http://hackedgadgets.com/2009/11/08/university-of-saskatchewans-space-design-team-space-elevator/
“So it’s time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that.” – Michael Crichton

Robin says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:07 am
“I thought this presentation would both enlighten and horrify your readers Anthony.
http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Breakthrough_Climate%20Solutions%20for%20a%20stronger%20America.pdf
Pretty sick that this is the sort of push that is coming from supposedly uniting Mind, Body, Spirit, and Environment within a single holistic ed push as the new norm. No one will know much that is accurate but they will believe and feel a great deal and not know the difference.”
It would be interesting to know whether these idiots are funded by Big Oil themselves (Big Oil has always supported CO2AGW research and siphoned off CCS and solar subsidies where available – CO2AGW is the weapon of Big Oil against Big Coal, obviolusly).
http://www.breakthroughstrategiesandsolutions.com/Services.html
“Betsy Taylor provides a variety of services and frequently teams up with other consultants and experts to get the job done.”
A one woman beltway lobbyist show.
It looks like she’s a vampire.

Spending the money to go to mars is very short-sighted.

@John –
Incredible, not not incredible, that der Fuehrer thinks he can impose taxes without approval from Congress. George III all over again., but even more so. George III’s offenses pale by comparison with this dictator’s actions.
@Bill H –
Ruckelshaus, Whitman, Lee, Kelly are traitors. Not Republicans – they’re Kleptocrat Party moles.

neillusion says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:24 am
“I suppose it might even be possible to make up new words for each example.
This would enable short analysis, conclusion and execution of what someone was up to with a comment.
Anyone?”
We leave the making up of new words to the Left.

The Pacific Northwest has had the best July in MANY years. Mild temperatures, dry, moderate humidity. Pretty much perfect. http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-best-july-weather-in-generations.html . It’s a good thing it doesn’t happen too often, or the place would be more crowded than it already is.

The Reform Party of the US has a better platform than Constitution Party to me. Henry Ross Perot’s old independent party. Jesse Ventura was a joke though.
That’s where I’m looking, as a former Republican. I try but just cannot endorse being a Libertarian, let everybody run wild.
Reform Party
*Maintaining a balanced budget, ensured by passing a Balanced Budget Amendment and changing budgeting practices, and paying down the federal debt
*Campaign finance reform, including strict limits on campaign contributions and the outlawing of the Political action committee
*Enforcement of existing immigration laws and opposition to illegal immigration
*Opposition to free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement and Central America Free Trade Agreement, and a call for withdrawal from the World Trade Organization
*Term limits on U.S. Representatives and Senators
*Direct election of the United States President by popular vote
*Federal elections held on weekends
*A noticeable absence from the Reform Party platform has been social issues, including abortion and gay rights. Reform Party representatives had long stated beliefs that their party could bring together people from both sides of these issues, which they consider divisive, to address what they considered to be more vital concerns as expressed in their platform. The idea was to form a large coalition of moderates; that intention was overridden in 2001 by the Buchanan takeover which rewrote the RPUSA Constitution to specifically include platform planks opposed to any form of abortion. The Buchananists, in turn, were overridden by the 2002 Convention which specifically reverted the Constitution to its 1996 version and the party’s original stated goals.

http://nationalreview.com/article/355074/remembering-ploesti-robert-zubrin/page/0/2

As it is an open thread just a couple of ideas
1- Solar panels. I have a solar panel that absorbs Co2 and provides a storable source of energy. Is is called a tree. I can offer thousands of varieties including oak, beeech, and ash. They also provide a bio-diverse environment. This has the advantage of low production costs and does not require the covering of land with maunfactured panels with the required maintenace of panels and weeds. Can I copyright this idea?
2- If solar radiation increases then the water on Earth will evaporate. The air will be hotter and the water vapour will rise higher. This will then freeze including the heat of sublimanation. Initally at the polar regiond this will fall as snow. If melted then it will absorb the heat from the atmosphere. If there is no negative feedback the end result will be that the Earth becomes a snowball. The ice reflects further solar radiation and protects life in the oceans during the interregum. Thus in a contradictory way increased soalr radiation results in a snowball earth. I am open to informed opinion as to the flaws in this idea. But I am just trying to make peolple think about conventional wisdom. if there aren’t any major flaws we will share the grant money 🙂

RE: your post NASA satellite data shows a decline in water vapor, realclimate.com says: “The issue is that technological changes over time to give radiosondes faster responses translate into a non-climatic artifact in their raw data over time. Basically, older sondes remember the lower (wetter) atmosphere for longer than newer sondes do, and that can give a seeming decrease. It is not however real. Note that only one older reanalysis product used the contaminated raw data (NCEP), and that all of the modern reanalyses don’t use it, and show much more consistent upwards trends.”

One of my readers posted this thoughtful list of ‘traps’ that are there for the unwary in ‘climate change’ discussions. I thought it was worth a wider readership. So here it is, slightly edited.
‘About a year ago, puzzled by what looks like intellectual intransigence, I mulled over the various traps into which many appear to fall. The order below is not significant, and the explanation simplified.
1. The pollution trap, confusing particulates and harmful gases with carbon dioxide.
2. The political trap, where a position on AGW echoes the prevailing views of the left or right.
3. The social trap, where a person’s main social circles can inhibit discovery and analysis, and apply conformist pressure.
4. The guilt trap, to which some two generations in the western world have now been conditioned. “It is all our fault (the pronoun covers a raft of sins), and we must fix it.”
5. The presumption trap, that humans can control a dire global warming of such projected magnitude – the calculators you discuss above, Don, put the lie to that presumption. (In fact, I’ve been wondering whether the effects of our actions starting in the late 1980s in replacing our use of CFCs, may have been swamped by natural changes to ozone levels, and that we may have been congratulating ourselves undeservedly. The ozone story may well have boosted our presumption, anyway.)
6. The energy poverty trap, a myopia about how critical to the survival of so many is the availability of relatively cheap energy. Hansen’s “rivers of death” coal trucks are actually rivers of life to a billion or so, but I can’t see them from my favourite coffee shop. Out of sight, out of mind.
7. The trap of slicing science, illustrated by convictions that carbon dioxide has such an amplifying effect on water vapour, by unproven climate sensitivity values, by ignoring or distorting past history . . . .
8. The modelling trap – need I say more? See Fig 1.4 of the leaked AR5.
9. The consensus trap, the chimera of peer review, the clarion call that the science is settled.
10. The professional trap, where only “climate scientists” are competent to judge. That reminds me of a major plank of the Reformation, itself so critical to the Renaissance. This trap also uses the weapon of “ad hominem”.
11. The funding trap; to gain research $$s, too often scientists have to bow to the AGW icon, whether they like it or not.’

Jim Cripwell says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:06 am
When I see the word “Obamacare”, I thank my lucky stars I live in Canada.
>>>>>
Make room for us “illegal aliens”….

Who needs nuclear when you have homeless
http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/pedal-power-in-detroit-green-gym-for-the-homeless.html

For those who missed it live here is the recording of ghe fascinating JoNova broadcast.
“Its’s not really a market in carbon. We’re not trading lead pencils”
Courtesy of Radio 2GB Australia.
http://webstore.2gb.com/audio/overnight-with-michael-mclaren/201308/04-ets–more-black-market-than-gree.mp3

Speaking of JoNova someone asked about Harry Readme which reminded me of this snippet.
CRU NEEDS A DATA MANAGER.
Not only do both databases have unnecessary duplicates, introduced for external mapping purposes by the look of it, but the ‘main’ stations (2 and 4) have different station name & country. In fact one of the country names is illegal! Dealing with things like this cannot be automated as they’re the results of non-automatic decisions.
What a bloody mess.
Now looking at the dates.. something bad has happened, hasn’t it. COBAR AIRPORT AWS cannot start in 1962, it didn’t open until 1993! Looking at the data – the COBAR station 1962-2004 seems to be an exact copy of the COBAR AIRPORT AWS station 1962-2004. And wouldn’t you know it, the data for this station has missing data between 12/92 and 12/99 inclusive. So I reckon it’s the old FORREST AERO station (WMO 9464600, .au ID 11004), with the new Australian bulletin updates tacked on (hence starting in 2000) So.. do I split off the 2000-present data to a new station with the new number, or accept that whoever joined them (Dave?) looked into it and decided it would be OK? The BOM website says they’re 800m apart.
Hope that’s right..
All 115 refs now matched in the TMin database. Confidence in the fidelity of the Australian station in the database drastically reduced. Likelihood of invalid merging of Australian stations high. Let’s go..
getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren’t documented. Every time a cloud forms I’m presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.
I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight.
I honestly have no idea what to do here. and there are countless others of equal bafflingness.
I suspected a couple of stations were being counted twice, so using ‘comm’ I looked for identical headers. Unfortunately there weren’t any!! So I have invented two stations, hmm.
I have to admit, I still don’t understand secondary parameter generation. I’ve read the papers, and the miniscule amount of ‘Read Me’ documentation, and it just doesn’t make sense.
As I was examining the vap database, I noticed there was a ‘wet’ database. Could I not use that to assist with rd0 generation? well.. it’s not documented, but then, none of the process is so I might as well bluff my way into it!
Units seem to vary: <DO YOU SEE? THERE’S THAT OH-SO FAMILIAR BLOCK OF MISSING CODES IN THE LATE 80S, THEN THE DATA PICKS UP AGAIN. BUT LOOK AT THE CORRELATIONS ON THE RIGHT, ALL GOOD AFTER THE BREAK, DECIDEDLY DODGY BEFORE IT. THESE ARE TWO DIFFERENT STATIONS, AREN’T THEY? AAAARRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Quite honestly I don’t have time – but it just shows the state our data holdings have drifted into. Who added those two series together? When? Why? Untraceable, except anecdotally.
But I am beginning to wish I could just blindly merge based on WMO code.. the trouble is that then I’m continuing the approach that created these broken databases.
Here, the expected 1990-2003 period is MISSING – so the correlations aren’t so hot! Yet the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical (or close). What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah – there is no ‘supposed’, I can make it up. So I have 🙂

geran, you write “Make room for us “illegal aliens””.
Sorry. Our health care system only applies to Canadian citizens and landed immigrants. All others pay full costs in hospitals; I believe $2000 per day, plus medical costs.

Levity; not so much…

This is a blanket response to the nuclear advocates.
First, if nuclear power plants are so desirable, why does nuclear power provide only about 20 percent of the US’ electricity? Why doesn’t nuclear provide 80 or even 95 percent? Why can’t nuclear compete economically with coal and natural gas?
The answer is that nuclear plant construction costs are much too high to ever compete.
Second, why do medium-sized islands with populations of approximately one million people have no nuclear power plants? Why do those islanders pay 25 cents or more for power? If nuclear is the answer and can actually produce power at 3 cents per kWh or less as some proponents claim, why aren’t there any nuclear plants on the islands?
See. http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/nuclear-plants-on-islands-nutty-idea.html
Even an older, paid-for nuclear plant cannot compete. At least one such US plant is being shut down as being no longer economic to operate. I’ll try to provide a link to that bit of news.
Third, why cannot nuclear plants be built on time and on budget? After constructing the 400 or so plants world-wide, one would expect the learning curve would be climbed already. The US’ South Texas Nuclear Plant, near Corpus Christi on the Gulf coast, recently cancelled an expansion project that would have added two more reactors. The Japanese reactor vendor could not provide a final cost nor an expected finish date. Projected costs kept climbing and climbing.
I could go on, but there really is little point. Nuclear power is dead and will remain dead. And our grandchildren will be grateful.

David Ball says: “Spending the money to go to mars is very short-sighted.”
Depends on who we send, David.

Roger Sowell says: “First, if nuclear power plants are so desirable, why does nuclear power provide only about 20 percent of the US’ electricity? Why doesn’t nuclear provide 80 or even 95 percent? Why can’t nuclear compete economically with coal and natural gas? The answer is that nuclear plant construction costs are much too high to ever compete.”
The cost of nuclear power plant construction is based on licensing and permitting regulations promoted by anti-nuke activists and designed to raise costs and drag out the construction schedule to non-competitive levels.

Does anyone have a comprehensive list of ‘Big Oil’ etc. funding greenie groups?

Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
a) seawater contains Uranium. We must do something!
And people are radioactive because of the Potassium and Carbon radioisotopes in our bodies.

Bill H says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:16 am
A Republican Case for Climate Action
By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
Published: August 1, 2013
EACH of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.
There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.
The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”
A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, …
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/opinion/a-republican-case-for-climate-action.html
========================================
While I am not the Bill H that posted this i can say with certainty that this is NOT the Republican position as everyone of those who signed the letter are RINO’s (Republicans in name only) and are on the power grab control band wagon of the left..
I find it laughable that they purport they are “for” it and it is “undeniable” and just like the left the facts do not help them… Just like Mann however the data is meaning less.. Leave it to the NY slimes to print propaganda..

DirkH says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:15 pm
———————–
Same suggestion i have posted at least twice before…
A dynamic harmony between capitalism (actual not “crony”) and socialism (actual not social corruption).

Gary Pearse says:
August 3, 2013 at 5:06 pm\
——-
Nice.
So it is all just “natural variability” until the observations are in line with your “coldist” dreams and then it is profound as well as immediate?

Just came across this, which puts the whole radiation risk in perspective.
Radioactivity of the human body
A typical human body contains approximately 40 grams of potassium. About 1/1000 of this is potassium-40, a radioactive isotope. This means that you contain 0.04 grams = 40 milligrams of a radioactive cancer-producing isotope in your body. This is not an artificial radioactivity, but it is left over from the formation of potassium in the supernova that gave birth to our solar system. The half life of potassium-40 is 1.26 billion years. The solar system was created about 5 billion years ago. That is not enough time for all of the radioactive potassium to decay, and that is why there is so much in our bodies.
Atoms of radiopotassium in your body explode approximately 12,000 times every second. Your body is radioactive. Only 11% of the radioactive decays yield a gamma ray, so there are 1,300 self-inflicted gammas per second from your own body. (This is not easy to see in a geiger counter, because gammas are hard to detect.) This results in an exposure of approximately 0.00018 Sieverts over a 50 year period. If the linear hypothesis is correct, this is responsible on average for 7 millionths of a cancers per individual. Since 0.2 of us die from cancer, this self-inflicted radiation is responsible for 1/28000 of our cancers.
The results are more astonishing if you consider a large population. There are about 250 million people in the United States. Multipy 250 million by 7 millionths of a cancer per person, and you find that 250 x 7 = 1750 people will die of cancer over the next 50 years, induced by their own radioactivity. That averages to 35 per year.
Of course, we can’t get away from our own radioactivity. But think about double beds. If we spend a lot of time very close to someone else, we are exposed to their radioactivity as well as our own. Suppose we spend 1/3 of a day in close proximity (e.g. double beds). Then we expect to increase the potassium-induced cancers by about 1/3, or about 600 people. So if everyone in the US slept in double beds, the number of additional cancers expected in the next 50 years is 600.
That may sound silly. But remember, those are 600 people who otherwise would not die of cancer. And that’s just in the US. If we consider world-wide statistics, the numbers will be 20 times larger: 12000.
Do you think we should do something about this? We could install shields between people that protect them from gamma rays. Or outlaw double beds? At what point is it silly to worry? What level of “additional cancer” would you consider to be negligible? Would you accept a different level of risk for yourself than you would allow for the entire US? A risk of 0.000007 sounds negligible for me, but 600 preventable cancers in the US sounds substantial.

DirkH says: August 3, 2013 at 4:15 pm
In response to Kajajuk says:August 3, 2013 at 4:04 pm “Levity; not so much…” (Video Wealth Inequality in America) (Helluva video, marvelous presentation – worth watching for the clarity of presentation alone.
“…..And? Whatcha suggest? Taxing liberal foundations?….”
It is a fine example of a people programmed with belief. In “the land of the free” anyone can make it! …. thanks to the wonders of free capitalism, “…everyone has an equal opportunity…” ….
Except, they don’t.
Some people are just smarter, harder working and/or luckier than others. And once the ball is rolling, they hold all the advantages: Political connection and influence, financial connection and influence (cheaper endless finance), legal connection and influence, the ability and wherewithall to market endlessly, the means to copy, outlast absorb competitors etc etc etc.
Yes, it is a great system, if you think we should all end up working for one or two versions of “The Corporation”.
Now that seems fair, that they should prosper so: But, to the extent 1% end up with 50% of the loot? And noting the capitalist system we now have functions only because of a myraid of laws on currency, banking, property etc (Yeah, it is not really “free capitalism”.)
And noting a few more tweaks to laws (a little more focus on anti-trust issues) could prevent gigantic corporation becoming gigantic.
The very interesting thing about “The Land of the Free” is that the working class masses are happy enough with the “equal opportunity” offered (meager as it is) that they will happily enlist in almost any conflict the corporations choose, and fight to the death to defend it.

Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 6:40 pm
“……I’m still waiting for ANYONE to make a valid case for nuclear power. France is subsidized so it does not count.
http://www.thinkclimateconsulting.com.au/2011/05/30/the-case-against-waiting-for-generation-iv-nuclear-and-the-case-for-urgently-bringing-it-to-commercialisation/
On pollution:

The rate of greenhouse gas emitted from South Australia’s filthiest power stations is about 1,100 g CO2 per kWh for full fuel cycle. The greenhouse gas from nuclear operated in Australia (best estimate) for full lifecycle is 60g CO2e/kWh (University of Sydney, 2006). Only a 97.8% improvement there, but if coal was done for lifecycle nuclear would romp it in well past 99%.
Radiation pollution to the surrounding environment is about 100 times greater from a coal fired power plant than a nuclear plant Scientific American 13 December 2007.
Other pollution from coal includes:
Sulphur dioxide (SO2 ), which contributes to acid rain
Nitric oxides (NO and NO2), contributing to harmful ozone smog and acid rain
Carbon monoxide (CO), which is highly toxic
Particulate air pollution which is responsible for the slow and painful deaths of around 700,000 people per year according to WHO (1997), reported in UNEP 2002.
Heavy metals (lead cadmium, mercury) that enter and that persist in the food chain
Arsenic
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs, yet another highly toxic chemical)
On the nuclear side of the waste ledger, we basically have high level nuclear waste (HLW) that distinguishes the power source. ……[….]….
High level waste is produced in very small amounts. It is cooled, and then stored, safely, from whence it does no harm[1]. Its behaviour is not complex or mysterious, it is entirely predictable. It does not leach or leak, or otherwise negatively interact with the environment or people. Much like a noise source that can damage your hearing, but that you can’t turn off, we manage radioactive material it by putting dense material and some distance between it and us; enough that it can’t hurt anyone. Basically, it’s that simple. I suppose it’s a value judgement in the end, but I comfortably ascribe that at least 99 times less harm than the mountain of crap that is emitted from a coal fired power station onto all of us every year. I don’t like HLW, I don’t want it, but I can certainly live with it being contained and safely managed.

Uranium mining – very small footprint vs coal: http://www.thinkclimateconsulting.com.au/2012/01/25/the-folly-of-making-perfection-the-enemy-of-excellence-a-visit-to-beverley-uranium-mine/
Health and safety: http://www.thinkclimateconsulting.com.au/category/accidents-incidents-and-health-concerns/

Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 6:40 pm
“……I’m still waiting for ANYONE to make a valid case for nuclear power….”
….from someone who sounds like he knows a bit about it :
http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/03/17/economist-nuclear-view-impractical/#comment-154175

What they fail to understand is that it is an incredibly simple way to boil water once the engineers have done their magic.
My advantage in this discussion is that I once spent some intense years learning to operate small, flexible nuclear reactors and training others to operate them. I can bear testimony to the fact that they can be extremely simple and robust power sources that need very little support from external infrastructure.
If people look at a gas plant and see a low cost capital investment, they are only looking at a small portion of the overall cost because someone else had to invest the capital into the fuel delivery system that moves the vapor from the deposit to the plant. Methane does not carry much energy per unit volume, so it is not easy to move from place to place.
In contrast, the submarines on which I used to deploy could be loaded with 14 years worth of fuel (1970s vintage technology). These days, we load subs with a lifetime fuel supply – Virginia class boats deliver with a core rated for 33 years worth of operations and no provisions for refueling.
I also spent a few years designing a really simple nuclear heat engine that can compete on a capital cost basis with combustion gas turbines because it uses exactly the same kinds of turbines and compressors as those systems do. The projected fuel cost is about 1/3 that of even the “cheap” gas currently available in North America. There are no emissions, and there is no need for pipelines or fracking.

Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 6:40 pm
in reply to David Hoffer who wrote; “Nuclear can and does compete in France and other jurisdictions.”
RS says: “Yes, but only because the French completely subsidized their power industry,”
Did you note that German energy costs shot through the roof when they shut down their nuclear power plants?
http://www.thegwpf.org/germany-energy-poverty-600000-households-disconnected-annually/

Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 4:38 pm
“Here is a list of islands with populations of approximately 1 million, yet none have a nuclear power plant.”
Not sure on your point here, but, on the issue of small scale nuclear power and small populations it is important to note:

The U.S. Navy has accumulated over 5,400 “reactor years” of accident-free experience, and operates more than 80 nuclear-powered ships.

Statement of Admiral F. L. “Skip” Bowman, U.S. Navy Director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program before the House Committee on Science 29 October 2003.

“The US’ South Texas Nuclear Plant, near Corpus Christi on the Gulf coast, recently cancelled an expansion project that would have added two more reactors.”
San Antonio was going to take a % of that expansion. Instead, our demoncratic mayor and city council has decided to go with sunbeams (contracted at twice the price per kwhr).
Can’t wait to see the effects of the first hail storm. I have photos of hail’s effect on a newly installed large array of solar panels in the early 70’s. Bet it’s the same effect (unless it’s now rotten hail).
Note: 75 miles south of San Antonio, in the Eagle Ford, there is almost an unlimited amount natural gas. Not much activity in the NG zone due to its low price. In the oil zone, NG is the red-headed step child, that is produced as a by-product. Not cost effective to put in pipe, so much is just flaired off.
San Antonio should be the NG capitol of Texas. We should be driving Honda Civic GS vehicles and using NG to generate electricity. Except instead of public NG filling sites, we have electric charging sites (thank you DOE) that no one is using because few have electric cars.
Instead of becoming a NG society, San Antonio is getting sunbeams. Where’s my camera.

Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 7:54 pm
“….Gee, this has been fun fellas….”
Are you having a lousy weekend, Roger? Otherwise, there is probably no real need to be contemptuous and sarcastic.

Here is a time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998… (leaves out North Korea’s two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade)
It is important to note that had these been 2035 nuclear plants all exploding in populated areas this would have undoubtedly resulted in a lot of casualties.
BUT, contrary to popular belief, a nuclear plant explosion or two (or 2035) would not destroy the planet, or civilization.

davidmhoffer says: August 3, 2013 at 8:12 pm
Roger Sowell; “Even the nuclear navy has lost ships at sea.”
Provide evidence of a single such incident.
US lost The Thresher and The Scorpion (subs – not due to nuclear accident)
The Russians have lost several – and some due to cooling accidents.
But, the point is, it can be done very safely, with large numbers of people living in close proximity.
These small scale nuclear plants are ideally suited to dropping directly into existing power grids. It would be the cheapest, quickest and most practical solution should the occasion actually arise that someone accumulates some meaningful evidence that the planet is heading towards a state of catastrophic anthropologically caused global warming.
I think Roger’s ‘solution’ is that the bulk of the world’s population should simply go without affordable energy while he and his ilk futz around with wind and sun idealist fantasies.

“…descend to misdirection and arm waving is disappointing.”
Like a lawyer with a guilty client?

[i]”_Jim says:
August 3, 2013 at 1:34 pm
David Ball says August 3, 2013 at 9:03 am
…
There is plenty of energy in our solar system. How do we get it safely and without destroying our atmosphere?
LOL… and heartily I light add … let me guess, liberal arts major (and not a hard science degree esp. not in the field of engineering)?
(I think that statement is attributable to David; pls pardon me if it’s not.)”[i]
_Jim has just revealed the short sited fear of the unknown that has prevented man from advancing much further than we have. I post a scientific solution to the energy problem we all have to deal with and he responds as a child would. He accused Gail Combs of being childish in another thread, yet her posts are ALWAYS reasoned and she provides links. _Jim’s posts never contain any solutions to anything, just negative poo-pooing of others ideas.
I understand the science behind what I have posted and know EXACTLY where we are in terms of technology regarding a project like a “space elevator”.
It is quite obvious who the childish unscientific responses are from. Keep your opinion and show me where I am wrong, or provide a better answer to our energy problems. I’ll wait.
It’s time mankind started making the advances we are capable of.

Yes, there have been several nuclear powered navy vessels sent to the bottom. Some US, some from other nations.
So much for that perfect military record.
Set a trap for me? Good luck with that!
No, my ideal world would not have wind and solar providing power, except where the cost for alternatives is too great. I would shut down all nukes immediately and ban any new nuclear plants. Navy can keep building theirs.
Since CO2 is not an issue of concern, I would build coal and natural gas power plants with appropriate scrubbers for proven toxic emissions such as sulfur, NOx, and flyash. I would also build many more hydroelectric plants in mountainous regions, including pumped storage hydro. Finally. I would devote tax funds for developing power from ocean currents. The ocean currents are far better than any other power source: huge, inexhaustible, pollution-free, and zero energy cost.
But, that’s just me. I want the poor people of this world to have abundant and cheap power. The last thing I would ever install to achieve that goal is nuclear power.
I saw first-hand what happened to power prices in Houston and along the US Gulf Coast when nuclear plants were built in the 70s and 80s. Prices zoomed, and poor people were badly hurt. Industry responded by self-generating, removing revenue from the utility companies. The utilities then obtained more rate increases, thereby hurting the poor even more. We called that the nuclear death spiral.
I was quite lucky with a good engineering job, but many of my relatives and millions of others suffered greatly.
So yes, I’m against nuclear power. Especially at this time, when costs to build are much higher, natural gas is far cheaper, and combined cycle gas turbine plants are mature technology.
I’m still waiting for anyone to refute the facts I’ve laid out. There is zero case for nuclear power in this world.
But, if you don’t mind screwing the poor, and handing off your poisons from spent fuel to future generations, and killing no telling how many more people when the next plant explodes and melts down, then you can be an advocate of nuclear power.

@John –
Yes, the entire “renewable” meme is a fraud. So-called “renewables” are dirtier than fossil fuels; they are an environmental as well as an economic disaster. It’s all about enriching der Fuehrer’s crony capitalist buddies, on the one hand, and reducing everyone else to penury and dependency through excessive energy costs. “Saving the planet” is only the guilt trip these thieves are using to get uninformed people to go along with their scams.
Apart from hydroelectric generation, which global warming alarmists routinely dismiss as bad, all other renewable energy resources present major hazards in terms of pollution and environmental damage. To be safe to produce, geothermal energy requires even more elaborate and costly controls than are required for coal-fired power generation. The steam which powers geothermal generators is laced with poisons like arsenic, selenium, mercury, thallium, lead and hexavalent chromium which must be removed before the steam condensate can be released into the environment. The cleansing of the steam effluent is sufficiently costly to make geothermal energy highly uneconomic, and is not entirely effective.
Wind power installations, with their footprints thousands of times larger than fossil-fuel generation for the same output of electricity, disrupt habitats, despoil landscapes, emit substantial pollution from the noxious chemicals used to operate them, and kill millions of birds and bats every year, including California condors, bald and golden eagles, whooping cranes and other endangered species. While rooftop solar is generally not so destructive, large solar power installations do disrupt habitats, emit pollutants and kill animals.
In addition, because of the very low capacity factors for these intermittent sources of power, tobe useful at all they must be supplemented by fossil fuel generation. While capacity factors for wind and solar power are routinely advertised at 30 percent of rated capacity (i.e., actual power production is 30 percent of theoretical total output when running at 100 percent capacity), actual experience has been that power production for neither solar or wind has never regularly exceeded 20 percent of capacity, and the average for wind is closer to 8 percent of capacity. The remaining 80 to 92 percent (or more) of capacity must be supplied by fossil fuel generation (this is called “firming”).
And because this fossil fuel generation must be able to respond at a moment’s notice when the wind stops blowing or clouds cover the sun, only simple-cycle generators are able to perform this function, and simple-cycle fossil generation uses twice as much fuel (and emits twice as much carbon dioxide, and is generally dirtier) as the more efficient and cleaner combined-cycle generating plants than cannot ramp up and down fast enough to maintain the energy balance in the grid. Therefore, attempting to rely on wind and solar power often results in as much as a doubling of emissions and pollutants, compared to relying primarily on combined-cycle generation without wind or solar.
When all land, manufacturing, construction and operating costs are considered, solar power costs from 80 cents to $1.10 per kilowatt-hour to produce. Wind power costs are comparable. This is 4 to 15 times more costly than the average cost of fossil-fuel generation (about 7 cents nationwide; California’s electricity prices are artificially high because of renewable energy mandates and emissions caps). This cost differential is even greater when the added cost of fuel for simple-cycle generation for “firming” is factored in. And of course this added ost is borne by the taxpayers as well as by ratepayers.
Also, as intermittent sources, solar and wind power can hardly be said to be reliable when they can shut off at any moment, including times of peak electrical system load. While wind power is touted as having a 30 percent capacity factor – i.e., total output 30 percent of what would be generated if they ran 100 prercent of the time, in reality output rarely exceeds 20 percent of theoretical capacity, and many wind installations operate at about 8 percent – some even as low as 2 percent, enormously increasing the cost per kilowatt-hour generated. And ironically, since the wind tends to blow less during periods of peak electricity demand, typically between noon and 6 p.m., one often sees the turbines idle when demand is pushing the grid to the breaking point.
Wind and solar are not “free” or inexhaustible, the more so since their equipment wears out quickly and is expensive to maintain and replace, with lots of down time. It should come as no surprise that when one passes by a large wind turbine installation, one is likely to see all but a few of the turbines idle, even if the wind is blowing. There is also the enormous cost of building new transmission lines to connect wind and solar facilities to the grid – most of these installations are far from any existing transmission lines, yet the advocates of wind and solar never factor this added cost into their calculations. And this is not to mention the cost of the huge swaths of land needed to build solar and wind power installations – land is NOT free or inexhaustible. In California electric rates are already double the national average because of “renewable” energy mandates.
And again, don’t forget wind’s four dirty little secrets:
(1) millions of dead birds and bats, including endangered California condors and whooping cranes;
(2) habitat disruption (1,500 times as much land required to produce the same juice as a 500-megawatt fossil fuel power plant, if it is operating at capacity – and you have to divide that 1,500 multiple by the effective capacity factor (i.e., if the factor is 20 percent, it takes 7,500 times as much space to produce the juice, not to mention the despoiled landscapes);
(3) the inefficient and dirtier types of fossil fuel generation that must be used to “firm” the power when the wind stops blowing, since more efficient types of generation cannot respond quickly enough to maintain the energy balance on the grid (resulting in a net increase, not decrease, in emissions);
(4) some very nasty chemical pollution leaking from the machines as they run, including PCBs.
Wind power costs 80 cents to $1.10 a kilowatt-hour for a good reason: land cost, equipment cost, depreciation and maintenance. It is anything but free, and it will never compete with fossil fuel power unless the taxpayers subsidize most of the cost of it. The portion of it that can’t be recovered by doubling or tripling electric rates is being picked up by the taxpayer, and together, these cost recoveries represents an interesting redistribution of wealth: der Fuehrer’s crony capitalist buddies get richer off the backs of lower- and middle-income people – so wealth is taken from poorer and given ti richer. And since the whole idea that fossil fuel burning is warming the globe is now so thoroughly proven to be utterly false, it is insane and mean-spirited to force these high costs on consumers, especially poor people who desperately need cheap energy.

” Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
@ arthur4563 re nuclear power.
Nuclear is not safe. It is not reliable. It is not affordable. It is not a boon to mankind. See:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/reconsider-nuclear-power-is-it-ever.html?m=0
Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? What did we ever do to you, that you hate us so much that you poisoned the planet with plutonium wastes?”
In your link you mention San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station- Construction began August 1964. And Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Plant’s completion in 1973.
Neither face similar threat as nuclear reactors related to the Japanese tsunami.
Both Diablo Canyon and San Onofre are at near their expected design lives which when built which were generally 30 to 40 years. And San Onofre is being decommissioned. Upgrading and redesigning for longer operational lifetimes is being done- and there effort to design nuclear reactor for 80 year operational lifetime. I would say it would be important to originally design for long life time for nuclear power plants. Rather than reply on upgraing to extent to operational lifetimes. But it better now to design for long lifetimes, than it would been to do this 40+ years ago, because over the year considerable operational experience has lead to greater actual ability to realistically have these longer life times, and we could expect improvement in the future in this respect.
Advocate of wind farm claim their wind generators have life time of 20 to 25 years.
But:
.” By the time the turbines are 10 years old, the amount of wind energy they are able to provide falls by a third, according to the report. Researchers said, based on the findings, it could be “uneconomic” to operate wind farms for more than 12 to 15 years. The industry has previously said wind farms should be able to operate effectively for 20 to 25 years.”
http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2013/january/study-shows-onshore-wind-turbines-may-have-shorter-life-than-expected.html
And in the rather recent history of modern wind farms we have large fields of no longer functioning wind farms. So we have had nuclear reactors provide cheap and reliable for decades
reducing a significant amount of coal use in US. Far more reduction of CO2 and mercury emission than any and all “green policies” have managed to do, and nuclear energy has had few deaths resulting from it, as compared to other ways of generating electrical power and
there hasn’t been “poisoning the planet with plutonium wastes” which caused humans or animals to die or become sick. Nor is there any reason to suppose in the future this will occur.

I’m sick of hearing about thorium this and that.
If it can’t be scaled up to industrial size, then who cares.
Not those that buy ball-bearings and pressure cookers.
Energy is cheap right now, exploit it.

Got this link via TonyfromOz on the JoNova blog. Should be of interest to some of the commenters on power stations above.
http://globalenergyobservatory.org/

David Hoffer, how many facts must I repeat? Did you not read? Or do you simply refuse to comprehend?
Let’s review…
A new Nuclear power plant, proposed to double the South Texas plant, was scrapped for being too costly. Fact.
Nuclear power plant, licensed and operating with years remaining on its license, was shut down because it is not economic. Fact.
Fukushima reactors melted down and poisoned the countryside as well as yet unknown radiation to people. Radiation continues to pour into the ocean. Fact.
Nuclear industry lied and continues to lie about reactor safety. Fact.
Power prices zoomed due to the nuclear death spiral in the 70s and 80s along the US gulf coast, due to new nuclear power plants. Fact.
No island with 1 million population (nominal) has a nuclear power plant, instead they use diesel or similar and pay 25 to 30 cents for their power. Fact.
Nuclear powered naval vessels rest on the bottom of the oceans, spewing forth their radiation. Fact.
I could go on, but your mind is closed.
I have not argued any law here tonight, merely presented facts. I could indeed argue some law, such as the legal requirements for safety equipment and procedures in those “safe” nuclear power plants. But I won’t do that. It would be too easy.
You are free to try to prove me wrong on the facts. Prove any of those seven wrong, and I’ll present plenty more.
Give it your best shot.

@ markx
You wrote:
“I’d also suggest you are as close-minded as anyone who has posted here”
No, actually I amend my conclusions when new and valid data are presented. I have done that for more than 40 years as a working professional. Here, I have presented facts to support my position, and invited others to refute those facts. None have done so. (likely, because they cannot)
Refute the facts, then I will consider a change in my position.
A man who changes his mind on the unfounded assertions of a stranger is indeed a fool.

Khwarizmi says: August 4, 2013 at 12:10 am

Roger Sowell is correct to compare nuclear plants to a “carbon tax.”
see Hooked on Subsidies – Why conservatives should join the left’s campaign against nuclear power:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/hooked-subsidies
–”The only reason investors are interested: government handouts.”–
Also, nuclear power was supposed to make electricity production “too cheap to meter” – like the free electricity supplied throughout Qatar.
GHG is the primary focus of today’s nuclear proponent. The cost of subsidies, the cost of cleaning up after a disaster (including the cost of an exclusion zone), and the cost of decommissioning go unmentioned.
http://www.google.com/search?q=fukushima%2C+cleanup%2C+cost

Thanks Khwarizmi …. interesting information, simply presented. … I take it you are perhaps not a lawyer? 😉

From Khwarizmi on August 4, 2013 at 12:10 am:

The cost of subsidies, the cost of cleaning up after a disaster (including the cost of an exclusion zone), and the cost of decommissioning go unmentioned.

For the US at least, the decommissioning info is easy to find from the NRC.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/decommissioning.html
Decommissioning Funds section:

(…) Although there are many factors that affect reactor decommissioning costs, generally they range from $300 million to $400 million. Approximately 70 percent of licensees are authorized to accumulate decommissioning funds over the operating life of their plants. These owners – generally traditional, rate-regulated electric utilities or indirectly regulated generation companies – are not required today to have all of the funds needed for decommissioning. The remaining licensees must provide financial assurance through other methods such as prepaid decommissioning funds and/or a surety method or guarantee. (…)
Before a nuclear power plant begins operations, the licensee must establish or obtain a financial mechanism – such as a trust fund or a guarantee from its parent company – to ensure that there will be sufficient money to pay for the ultimate decommissioning of the facility.

So one way or another, the decommissioning will be paid for by the licensee, normally by funds gathered during operation. In other words, it’s a planned-for normal business expense.

Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:43 pm
“But please don’t worry yourself. The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal. ”
Wonderfully candid admission, Roger.
But MAYBE you should switch sides someday and use your tricks to fight windmills, as the market in fighting nuclear will dry up.
But you know that.

> A Republican Case for Climate Action
> By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD > > WHITMAN
There’s a wonderful group. Ruckelshaus has more blood on his hands than Hitler or Mao (but not Stalin). He’s not someone I would take the time of day from.
++PLS

Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:24 pm
“Navy can keep building theirs.”
And while nukes are EEEEVIL, he doesn’t have the slightest desire to fight the military about it. Smart career-protecting move there.

Roger speaks some sense but needs to stop lawyering.
Quote
Since CO2 is not an issue of concern, I would build coal and natural gas power plants with appropriate scrubbers for proven toxic emissions such as sulfur, NOx, and flyash. I would also build many more hydroelectric plants in mountainous regions, including pumped storage hydro. Finally. I would devote tax funds for developing power from ocean currents. The ocean currents are far better than any other power source: huge, inexhaustible, pollution-free, and zero energy cost.
Unquote
Pity the designers do not understand the reverse engineering required. Current bird shredders are just bigger better designed ww2 fighter props, built for thrust not power. Nor are they efficient energy collectors.
For marine versions it gets even worse. Why an earth do they not even look at ships propellers. They might notice that they look nothing like bird shredders. Thus in the East River experiment, lordy me, they keep breaking. Why also do they insist upon separating turbine from generator. With modern materials and magnets both can be combined, with intelligent blade design into a compact neutral buoyancy device. Using oilfield experience they can be anchored in suitable ocean currents, remote controlled and left to generate gigawatts. But perhaps that is too logical.
An Aussie poster here did an incredible analysis of a real modern coal plant that cuts co2 emissions by 30% plus and generates more cleaner power. its a reply to a post so dont know how to find it.

No person who is “aware” of the realities of nuclear power is “against” it.
Having worked at a nuclear facility for several years, I was trained as a part of my employment. As most people who have ever been required to be trained in what is basically a trade are aware, one of the first things you learn is everything that can possibly go wrong. For example, a few years back while installing wiring in a Best Buy store our company was required to be trained on scissor lift operations, even though we’d been renting and using them regularly for years. The first day of training was showing us all of the safety features of a scissor lift, and how to bypass them. Not one of us ever even considered messing with safety features or attempting to bypass them, but now we know how.
Unlike the coal industry which grew organically over a long period of time acquiring experience the hard way, the entire nuclear industry was arrived at scientifically. Nobody ever dumps a pound of fissionable material on some sort of measuring device to determine its energy content, that is known to several decimal places ahead of time. There are very accurate measures of safe and unsafe radioactivity tolerances for people, animals, plants, and equipment.
The anti-nuke people lie to us, every time they open their mouths. Radioactivity is like any other poison: it’s the dose that matters. Grand Central Station in NYC has higher radioactivity levels due to the natural stone in its construction than is legally allowed in a nuclear facility. Sitting in downtown Banff, my radioactivity meter showed higher than in the work area where I worked. Bananas have measurable levels of radioactivity.
The basic message from anti-nuclear activists is that the only safe level of radioactivity is zero. But this is absurd. Nature showers us with radioactivity every day, from radon gas in basements to natural granite (high end homes with granite countertops are measurably radioactive), to atmospheric radiation and cosmic rays. We’re pelted with the stuff. Our bodies have a level of, not only tolerance to radioactivity but indeed a minimum requirement.
Most people who study the issue are aware them many coal seams are radioactive, and coal plants using this coal emit more radioactivity than would be allowed by a nuclear plant.
Pop quiz: Number of people killed by nuclear power in North America?
Fukushima was old technology, scheduled for decommissioning soon. It was, like any tragedy, a combination of errors and circumstances. There will never be a repeat of that combination, mostly because the nuclear industry learns from accidents and does what they can to ensure there is never a repeat.
I worked with a man who was a nuclear trainer for the IAEA. His job was to train people in safely working around nuclear materials and reactors. He was one of the people who put boots on the ground in Fukushima, and we talked about his experiences there at length. Personally, I don’t care what you’ve heard or read, unless you were either there or personally know someone who was, your opinion about what happened there is second-hand.
Yes, radioactivity was released. No, there will be no long-term result. Yes, the amount is measurable. No, it’s not a harmful amount. Yes, it’s a tragedy that any radioactivity was released. No, it’s not a harmful amount. No, nobody died. No, nobody WILL die from the radioactivity, although we all know that every cancer death for the next 50 years in the area will be blamed on it.
Sowell is dishonest with his naive and ignorant “7 questions”.

A new Nuclear power plant, proposed to double the South Texas plant, was scrapped for being too costly. Fact.
Nuclear power plant, licensed and operating with years remaining on its license, was shut down because it is not economic. Fact.

These claims being made by someone who is part of the reason nuclear power is so expensive is childish. Just like 0bama, if your goal is to make coal plants uneconomical, you’ll go ahead no matter the reality.

Fukushima reactors melted down and poisoned the countryside as well as yet unknown radiation to people. Radiation continues to pour into the ocean. Fact.

The amount is known. It is quantified. Mitigation is in place. Just because radiation is released does not mean it’s the bloody apocalypse.

Nuclear industry lied and continues to lie about reactor safety. Fact.

Turning this one around: the anti-nuclear INDUSTRY of which you are a part lied and continues to lie about the dangers of nuclear power. Whoppers, too. Not just sweeping some numbers under the carpet, but exaggeration and fear-mongering of the highest order.

Power prices zoomed due to the nuclear death spiral in the 70s and 80s along the US gulf coast, due to new nuclear power plants. Fact.

Thanks to luddites like yourself, no doubt.

No island with 1 million population (nominal) has a nuclear power plant, instead they use diesel or similar and pay 25 to 30 cents for their power. Fact.

There was a reactor in Antarctica from 1962-1972. However I haven’t read enough of your stuff to know what you’re getting at here.
Nuclear powered naval vessels rest on the bottom of the oceans, spewing forth their radiation. Fact.
The ocean is filled with uranium and other radioactive substances, at high enough concentrations that it will be economical to extract it in the near future. “Spewing” is one of those emotional weasel words so loved by alarmists and lawyers of all exaggerating levels. The oceans are the majority of this planet. They are more than able to handle the comparatively tiny amounts of radioactivity these reactors are emitting.
I’ve never yet met a lawyer who wasn’t 100% certain he was right. Until the next paying client came along, at which point they could make a 180 degree turn and still be 100% certain they were right.
Actively blocking nuclear power development should be considered a crime against humanity.

I meant to include this link, a list of all known nuclear reactors on the planet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors

CodeTech: . Our bodies have a level of, not only tolerance to radioactivity but indeed a minimum requirement.
Hmmm. Can you back that up?

juan slayton says:

Hmmm. Can you back that up?

First read this: http://www.rerowland.com/BodyActivity.htm
Second, consider that the body only generates an active defense against threats that have occurred. Without some level of damage for cells to learn how to repair, ANY level of exposure would be catastrophic.