The words came to me like they were written under my eyelids as the train roared into the station at Slussen, and the lucidity of the moment evaporated in the afternoon commuter traffic. " Be there where you wouldn't spend a single bill, 6 this Thursday", he had said with a mischievous grin, and disappeared into the cold Stockholm evening leaving me alone with my whirling thoughts and the image of his smile burning bright. Suddenly, it crystallized in my mind from the haze of work and caffeine: he had been watching me. The myriad characters, the steady stream of dreamers, schemers, and would be believers that filtered in and out of the Trident Cafe had always kept me a regular. An addict of the bookish corners and angular nooks of the Gamla Stan coffee shop, I lurked there most evenings after work. It was a short stroll down Vasterlangatten from the flat I'd started renting last June, fresh from the university and eager to mend the anxious boredom and tedium of the school bubble. Coffee was one of those vices that wasn't; something both necessary and frivolous, and as of late I'd only been able to justify it with accumulated change from around the house, half Kronar and assorted brass and silver tokens of monetary meaning. Money was so silly, just pieces of paper and metal we assigned arbitrary value, power over human life and suffering, the root of the 21st century dilemma.
I was getting so tired of them looking at me, or rather, tired of myself, my mind endlessly judging and picking apart actions and consequences. The girls around town, there were so many kinds I suppose, all mysterious and half there, apparitions perhaps, sent to haunt my identity until I figured out what to do. I liked them, like the attention, the looks, that really what it was all about. The indifference, the fixation, and lustful stares, all of it was delicious and immediate, like an ice cream cone on your 10th birthday, is was the Pavlovian response of my narcissism. I knew I wasn't physically attracted to them because they never lasted in my memory past the initial obsession, the control of thought and want. Sure, I fantasized about them occasionally, the beautiful blonde girls loitering around the Art school downtown, their childish appropriations of the latest style that much more endearing. The feminists, the vacuous party girls, the detached, judgmental hipsters, they were all confections on a tray to be sampled and compared, just a nibble and never a full bite. Alas though, for better or worse, I never thought back with private embarrassment on the all-consuming fixation I had with them, unlike the boys, who were conquerable and accessible, a sort of personal contest. This latest one, well, he was something special, or perhaps just insane and unimportant, but at the time, well he filled my robotic daily routines with bold color and a future worth speculating on.
So it was decided; here was Thursday and we were to meet for coffee and a fuck, no wait, I interjected that last bit, unlike the others I don't see that leading us in a good direction, at least at first. Anyways, coffee and words as it may be, words from my soul and not from a pen, at the place I wouldn't spend a single bill, Trident Cafe on Vasterlangatten. I doubted my nerves until the jittery sensation of being light in the stomach passed and a sharp note of hunger rang out across my smooth, strong abdomen and the train from Slussen home turned into a subterranean torpedo navigating various eateries and nightclubs until the familiar appeared, a pizza place a block from my stop. I strolled in with easy familiarity and silently exchanged a 50 Kr. bill with Antoni for 2 slices and a beer, the gaudy neon Italian flag in the window illuminating shoddy plastic tables and the snowy cobblestone street outside. Antoni was this generally disagreeable, hairy, shoddily dressed 1st generation Sicilian immigrant, and though we had exchanged perhaps 50 words in the 8 months he had been frequenting the restaurant, usually about mundane trivialities like the weather or the latest city politics, I felt as if he understood me. Suddenly and with an intense nostalgia for something I never had, I wished more people in my life were like this, casual but intimate, indifferent yet also perhaps compassionate. This boy I was about to meet with, well, he was a man really, his good looks boyish but not inexperienced. This man, Stefan I think his name was, he had this tailored charisma that was carefully measured out in spoonfuls to the world, a sort of orchestrated insincerity. Beyond this though, I think he was brilliant and insecure and most importantly, kind, the most underrated and trod on virtue in our modern throw-away culture.
I exited the shiny steel and chrome cage of the metro station and suddenly was above ground in the teeming cobblestone square, the muted red and yellow paint on the looming apartment buildings a perfect companion to the boiling grey sky. I could have lived in Ostermalm, I could have lived down on Rigsgatten among the hipsters and weirdos, but instead I inhabited my little wood and stone studio, a spartan hideout for 7,000 Kr. a month above the tourist hell of Galma Stan, the teeming masses transfixed on some ancient cobble or brick. To be fair, Stockholm was an always will be trendy without trying to hard, fun without the bland tastelessness of American pop culture, and true to all those who crave individuality among the even gray palette of the social democratic republic of Sweden. Thinking back to my childhood on the cold, teal Atlantic coast above Gothenburg, the weekend trips to Oslo, the treeless granite islands we used to explore on summer afternoons, I realized what a sheltered dreamscape a rural youth had afforded me. I feel so blessed among the current miasma of self-inflicted urban neurosis to have had thins humbling perspective, our 17th century stone farmhouse perched on a slanting green sliver over the harbor, Papa coming home late in the evenings from tending the town's elderly and poor as the only doctor for miles around.
I knew nothing about Stefan, we met by chance at at the holiday party for the advertising firm I do graphic design for, turns out he writes promotional garbage on whatever slimy new technological savior we've been paid to advertise. He works at the downtown office, or used to, rather; he mouthed off to a supervisor on some sort of ethical dilemma or other, and at any rate, now he slings expresso to cool kids and faux bohemians at Intelligencia, the retro-ish bar and coffee hangout a few blocks south of here. I admired his easy confidence, his lack of hesitation or reservation at calling his primary source of income a bunch of greedy scumbags and walking out with a gait that was just short of cocky. He might be an asshole, he might have nothing important to say, but he was superficially pleasing and something he wouldn't mind walking around Slussen or Gamla Stan with arm in arm, the old people trying to feign indifference to this coupling of masculine perfection, the girls jealous, the boys curious or indifferent.
Prematurely worn from a work week I didn't need, I figured I ought to at least swing by the apartment and change into something a bit more comfortable and and edgy than my old work suit, nice at its prime but now just a faded pseudo-hip appropriation of the standard office zombie garb. I marveled at how humans thrive so much on daily routine and guaranteed fixtures when we claim to be so driven by spontaneity and creative uncertainty; really I guess we are just creatures of the familiar, needing a warm, dry place to live and money to make things happen. The steps up the 4th floor walk up had been tedious and annoying at first, but now I almost savored to brisk trot up the airy, well-lit foyer, the anticipation of a place that finally felt like home building. I made a deft motion towards my overcoat pocket and unlocked the door, the old wooden floor creaking in my path. It was cute, no, bachelor spartan was perhaps the right term, indicative of someone with relative success in society but still stuck in the uncertainties of one's early twenties. I decided abruptly and randomly on a cream and red striped t-shirt and my favorite pair of jeans and kicks, old puma's from the late 70's, and grabbed a quick drink of water under the sink before skipping out the door. "Shit, 6:45!" I thought, and a sharp bead of nervous sweat pricked my brow, though my narcissistic side wouldn't let me risk messing up my hair to wipe it away. Oh well, Trident was only 2 blocks away, and being 5 minutes early was something my parents did on dates.
5 minutes later I coiled up my little blue ipod into my coat pocket and stepped into the judgmental, privileged cocoon of intellectual prowess that constituted the coffee shop, feigning casual indifference to anyone I crossed eyes with, the style these days it seems, which I hated but participated in nonetheless. He was sitting in the corner, alone and reading a small, tan hardcover, legs crossed and a half-drunk Americano sitting on the windowsill. "Shit! I must be late" i thought, though I knew of course this was false and I he was just early. I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder, and suddenly I was back to what I did best, playing the relentless defensive, always on guard for the next moment to interject some personal triumph or embellishment. We shook hands and shared smiles that felt more sincere than the "you looked hotter on the internet" sort of half-smirks I'd become accustomed to lately. He WAS a unique specimen, as I had expected but refused to let myself ruminate on, not wanting to build something up into disappointment. I'd like to say I'd become a body snob, but I suppose the truth was I always was, its hard to feel a romantic connection to someone when the physical chemistry isn't there, and I thought with slight embarrassment to the wonderfully complex past encounters i'd let fade away on this principle. He was slim without being too skinny, fit but not one of those comically puffed up gym addicts; hyper-masculine compensation not withstanding. I could tell he was kind, I've gotten pretty good at reading smiles and the subtle body language of humility these days, as I hoped some of it might rub off on me.
We talked about the usual topics, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, to paraphrase the Americans, but there was something else, something unspoken and urgent I kept feeling. It wasn't the usual "lets cut the small talk and go back to my place" sort of suggestion, but rather like childhood friends who had shared things unspoken and distant, then re-discovered their friendship as old men. He kept laughing in a way that wasn't patronizing or polite, but actually excited and sincere, and it excited me sexually and intellectually. I wondered how I would fuck this up, as I never trusted myself to take the right actions, to go to his art showing or film night on the weekends instead of heeding my latest sports fixation; climbing on the coast or sailing in the archipelago. Still though, I was so tired of modeling my character on others, impressing everyone but myself, that to do something in a completely selfish spirit sounded perfect. At any rate, the last bits of cold coffee stung my lips like the tugging up time, and as darkness firmly settled over Stockholm, I felt it might be time to suggest something else. He seemed quite content to sit on the broad sofa that framed our corner between bookshelves and talk or stare or laugh wholeheartedly. My comfort with semi-awkward proximity to someone I wanted to badly was waning, however, and bed sounded safe and appealing. Suddenly, he grabbed by arm and I almost jumped with surprise as he whispered into my ear "lets go for a walk!". The cynic in me could see where this was going, but despite my weary mind from work and body from the gym, I still wanted this, this spontaneity, so I agreed silently and we set off.
We didn't talk, just walked in enough of each others personal space to stumble and half trip over the deliciously awkward proximity. He led my down the sloping waterfront district, the amber lights in the fancy boutiques and restaurants lighting the silhouettes of wealthy 40-something couples out to dinner, a weeknight's spending. Suddenly, the sloping gray cobbles ended and were replaced by noble iron moorings and brass railing, the grand yachts and motorboats lined up like ducks in the chilly January evening. It was indeed cold and I wondered if the boiling black clouds building on the western horizon would finally bring the snow we were supposed to get this winter, amidst Christmas rain and the talk of global warming in Sweden. Suddenly, like the crescendo of a free jazz piece that after 20 minutes of rambling finally crystallizes into an apex of craziness, Stefan leaned in and kissed me, and every weary piece of my body melted away like ice in the sun.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Arguement for Nuclear Power in the 21st Century
One of the most powerful and accessible technologies we have in the United States to relieve our current energy and environmental crisis is one that was invented three quarters of a century ago. While the initial catalyst for the development of nuclear fission was darker and more violent, in the aftermath of WWII, a miraculous and revolutionary application of this new technology developed: energy. In a flurry of activity, the U.S built dozens of nuclear power plants, uranium refineries, and research facilities to understand and and improve the fascinating new process. The science behind most nuclear power plants today is relatively simple. They use enriched uranium in which the concentration of the U-235 isotope is increased from 0.7 percent U-235 to about 4 to 5 percent U-235.
When an atom of U-238 absorbs a neutron in a nuclear reactor, it becomes U-239, which decays in a short time to Pu-239. If a Pu-239 atom stays in the reactor long enough, it absorbs another neutron and becomes an atom of Pu-240 if it doesn't fission. When the reactor is turned on, the multiplication of fissions is allowed to continue until the reactor is generating power at the desired rate. Then control rods that absorb neutrons are inserted until exactly one neutron from each fission causes another fission.
The power to produce electricity comes from the fact that the two atoms produced by the fission of a U-235 atom fly off at high speed, but they don't get even an inch before they hit something and are stopped. Stopping converts their energy of motion into heat, and the reactor heats up. If the heat weren't taken away, the reactor would melt. The heat from fission is taken up by water or steam pumped through the reactor. The hot steam goes through turbines connected to electric generators. About 2/3 of the heat energy is lost, and is emitted to the atmosphere or to a body of water, a river or the ocean. This loss is a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and applies to all power plants, nuclear or coal-burning.
After 18 months or two years, most of the U-235 in the fuel is used up, and the fuel rods consist mainly of the products of fission, which remain radioactive and continue to generate heat. The fuel rods are placed in large pools of water which takes the remaining heat. The fuel rods become less and less radioactive with time.
After the rods have cooled off for a while, they should be chemically reprocessed to extract left over uranium and some plutonium that has been produced. The left-over uranium and the plutonium can then be converted to more reactor fuel. The fission products can then be buried in stable rock formations. The U-238 that is left over is used in "breeder reactors", which are not currently used in the U.S for political reasons, but are successful in most other nuclear-capable nations. [Excerpt from John McCarthy, Dept. of Computer Science, Stanford University, Nov. 13th 1995.]
Ok, now that we have a little background into how the science works, we can discuss the political and environmental ramifications of nuclear power and how they have shaped the present situation. As I mentioned earlier, most other nations with significant nuclear energy generating capability [The U.K, Japan, France, ect..] rely on a type of reactor design known as Breeder reactors, which have the ability to process both thorium and uranium isotopes, as well as re-processed fuel from spent fuel rods, vastly increasing both their cost efficiency and versatility in a dynamic and changing fuel market.
Obviously, safe and effective fuel storage is still a huge concern, but what seems lost on the American public in the wake of 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl is that it IS in fact possible to safely manage nuclear waste. 3 Mile island was a essentially a non-event thanks to rigid safety protocols and design failsafes in the reactor system, and Chernobyl was massively deliberate human error coupled with an outdated, unsafe reactor design. The stupidity and short-sightedness of Soviet-era politics is evident perhaps nowhere else as clearly as the Chernobyl engineers deliberate refusal to allow emergency shutoffs to occur at the time of the meltdown, yielding the nuclear holocaust that followed.
The obvious major advantage to nuclear power is that there are essentially no airborne pollutants emitted, and while the impact of heated water on the nearby lake or marine ecosystem is important, with proper management and design this can be minimized to where is is WAY less significant than that associated with our other so-called "green" energy technology, hydroelectric. The unrealistic environmentalists love to point out the inherent risk and difficulty of safely storing nuclear waste; ie spent fuel rod assemblies, but given 21st century technology and especially if Yucca Mountain permitting continues, this is largely a moot point. The major advantages of nuclear energy, the efficiency, the lack of greenhouse gasses, the fact that the world's premier uranium producer is our northern Neighbor, this all seems lost on irrational liberal superstition. I consider myself a fairly progressive liberal, yet am pragmatic and realistic enough to realize that a large part of the solution to our current energy crisis is in technology we already have.
Thomas Friedman recently wrote a great editorial in the New York Times concerning the people, including some relatively influential conservative politicians, who have used the recent blizzards on the east coast and anomalous winter weather as ammunition against global climate change. This is not only ignorant, it is dangerous and incredibly short-sighted as well. Notice I did not use the term 'Global warming"; this is a misnomer that only fuels the argument of the right against an indisputable global climactic phenomenon that we cannot afford OT deny any longer. The climate of every corner of our globe is being altered at an increasingly unnatural rate, and even with the confounding impact of being near the apex of the post-glacial warming period, scientific evidence for anthropogenic change cannot be denied.
Unfortunately, the ignorant "know nothing" attitude of much of the GOP and their huge corporate constituents has pervaded, and their current attitude seems to focus mostly on the paradoxical mix of somehow decreasing taxes and increasing thinly regulated drilling and petroleum exploration. to be fair, the American public needs to be informed on these matters in a responsible and non-partisan way, not through sensationalized rags like Fox News and the Huffington Post. Yes, I'm afraid both the far left and the far right seems to be willing to take significant steps to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but at least I suppose the left acknowledges the problem to begin with.
The revitalization of the nuclear industry in the U.s begins with a major overhaul of current infrastructure, and I was pleased and surprised to see that President Obama has recently approved an $8 billion loan to construst 2 new nuclear power stations in Georgia, and has plans for fulfilling the ~$18 billion in green energy loan guarantees promised in Bush's 2005 Energy Policy Act, which unsurprisingly did not reach fruition under that administration. The oft-cited idea that nuclear energy is an uneconomical, welfate-state subsidized experiment in taxpayer money is quite simply false. While shortcomings of the energy utility system in heavily nuclear dependent countries like France and Japan do exist, last I checked they didn't have the massivly outdated and unreliable power grid we face in much of the U.S, where ancient coal and natural gas plants have been grandfathered in under the Bush and Clinton administration's backwards policies.
In Europe and Asia, most successful nuclear power plants have been built by semi-private utilities with a heavy degree of goverment subisidization and regulation. Economically and environmentally, this is necessary given the nature of nuclear power and the initial infrastucure cost. The lifespan of a well-maintained nuclear plant is more than double that of a large coal-fired generator, however, and while fossil fuel power in the U.S relies largely on coal and natural gas extracted from dirty, poorly-regulated operations in Appalachia and the Western U.S, not only do we have significant uranium reserves here in the U.s, the world's largest, cleanest, and most econmical producer of refined uranium for fuel rods is Canada. Why then, when we have not only the technology but also a stable, geaographically advantageous source of fuel, do we not embrace nuclear energy? The short long story is this: poltics and economics. The latter can be realistically surmounted, but it WILL take tax increases, and a collective realization that changing our dirty energy habits is not going to be cheap. I think President Obama realizes this, and his recent approval of the loans for the Georgia plants shows the initiative.
In another recent NYT od-ed piece, the possible "comeback" of the American nuclear industry was discussed is a forum like commentary by several prominant political and watchdog group figures. To be honest, I was rather dissapointed by the choice of comentators, as they all seemed unwilling to give up the superstition of another Chernobyl or some sort on economic black hole. The following comment from a NYT reader on this piece struck me as timely and well-put: "I have a farm in Pennsylvania, about equidistant from a nuclear and a coal burning generator. From the nuclear plant, all I see is steam; from the coal plant, a ribbon of yellow-brown sulfurous smoke. In a lifetime, the average American will produce 200 railroads cars of coal waste. If the same energy were produced by nuclear, the total waste would fill a Coke can." Think about it.
When an atom of U-238 absorbs a neutron in a nuclear reactor, it becomes U-239, which decays in a short time to Pu-239. If a Pu-239 atom stays in the reactor long enough, it absorbs another neutron and becomes an atom of Pu-240 if it doesn't fission. When the reactor is turned on, the multiplication of fissions is allowed to continue until the reactor is generating power at the desired rate. Then control rods that absorb neutrons are inserted until exactly one neutron from each fission causes another fission.
The power to produce electricity comes from the fact that the two atoms produced by the fission of a U-235 atom fly off at high speed, but they don't get even an inch before they hit something and are stopped. Stopping converts their energy of motion into heat, and the reactor heats up. If the heat weren't taken away, the reactor would melt. The heat from fission is taken up by water or steam pumped through the reactor. The hot steam goes through turbines connected to electric generators. About 2/3 of the heat energy is lost, and is emitted to the atmosphere or to a body of water, a river or the ocean. This loss is a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and applies to all power plants, nuclear or coal-burning.
After 18 months or two years, most of the U-235 in the fuel is used up, and the fuel rods consist mainly of the products of fission, which remain radioactive and continue to generate heat. The fuel rods are placed in large pools of water which takes the remaining heat. The fuel rods become less and less radioactive with time.
After the rods have cooled off for a while, they should be chemically reprocessed to extract left over uranium and some plutonium that has been produced. The left-over uranium and the plutonium can then be converted to more reactor fuel. The fission products can then be buried in stable rock formations. The U-238 that is left over is used in "breeder reactors", which are not currently used in the U.S for political reasons, but are successful in most other nuclear-capable nations. [Excerpt from John McCarthy, Dept. of Computer Science, Stanford University, Nov. 13th 1995.]
Ok, now that we have a little background into how the science works, we can discuss the political and environmental ramifications of nuclear power and how they have shaped the present situation. As I mentioned earlier, most other nations with significant nuclear energy generating capability [The U.K, Japan, France, ect..] rely on a type of reactor design known as Breeder reactors, which have the ability to process both thorium and uranium isotopes, as well as re-processed fuel from spent fuel rods, vastly increasing both their cost efficiency and versatility in a dynamic and changing fuel market.
Obviously, safe and effective fuel storage is still a huge concern, but what seems lost on the American public in the wake of 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl is that it IS in fact possible to safely manage nuclear waste. 3 Mile island was a essentially a non-event thanks to rigid safety protocols and design failsafes in the reactor system, and Chernobyl was massively deliberate human error coupled with an outdated, unsafe reactor design. The stupidity and short-sightedness of Soviet-era politics is evident perhaps nowhere else as clearly as the Chernobyl engineers deliberate refusal to allow emergency shutoffs to occur at the time of the meltdown, yielding the nuclear holocaust that followed.
The obvious major advantage to nuclear power is that there are essentially no airborne pollutants emitted, and while the impact of heated water on the nearby lake or marine ecosystem is important, with proper management and design this can be minimized to where is is WAY less significant than that associated with our other so-called "green" energy technology, hydroelectric. The unrealistic environmentalists love to point out the inherent risk and difficulty of safely storing nuclear waste; ie spent fuel rod assemblies, but given 21st century technology and especially if Yucca Mountain permitting continues, this is largely a moot point. The major advantages of nuclear energy, the efficiency, the lack of greenhouse gasses, the fact that the world's premier uranium producer is our northern Neighbor, this all seems lost on irrational liberal superstition. I consider myself a fairly progressive liberal, yet am pragmatic and realistic enough to realize that a large part of the solution to our current energy crisis is in technology we already have.
Thomas Friedman recently wrote a great editorial in the New York Times concerning the people, including some relatively influential conservative politicians, who have used the recent blizzards on the east coast and anomalous winter weather as ammunition against global climate change. This is not only ignorant, it is dangerous and incredibly short-sighted as well. Notice I did not use the term 'Global warming"; this is a misnomer that only fuels the argument of the right against an indisputable global climactic phenomenon that we cannot afford OT deny any longer. The climate of every corner of our globe is being altered at an increasingly unnatural rate, and even with the confounding impact of being near the apex of the post-glacial warming period, scientific evidence for anthropogenic change cannot be denied.
Unfortunately, the ignorant "know nothing" attitude of much of the GOP and their huge corporate constituents has pervaded, and their current attitude seems to focus mostly on the paradoxical mix of somehow decreasing taxes and increasing thinly regulated drilling and petroleum exploration. to be fair, the American public needs to be informed on these matters in a responsible and non-partisan way, not through sensationalized rags like Fox News and the Huffington Post. Yes, I'm afraid both the far left and the far right seems to be willing to take significant steps to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but at least I suppose the left acknowledges the problem to begin with.
The revitalization of the nuclear industry in the U.s begins with a major overhaul of current infrastructure, and I was pleased and surprised to see that President Obama has recently approved an $8 billion loan to construst 2 new nuclear power stations in Georgia, and has plans for fulfilling the ~$18 billion in green energy loan guarantees promised in Bush's 2005 Energy Policy Act, which unsurprisingly did not reach fruition under that administration. The oft-cited idea that nuclear energy is an uneconomical, welfate-state subsidized experiment in taxpayer money is quite simply false. While shortcomings of the energy utility system in heavily nuclear dependent countries like France and Japan do exist, last I checked they didn't have the massivly outdated and unreliable power grid we face in much of the U.S, where ancient coal and natural gas plants have been grandfathered in under the Bush and Clinton administration's backwards policies.
In Europe and Asia, most successful nuclear power plants have been built by semi-private utilities with a heavy degree of goverment subisidization and regulation. Economically and environmentally, this is necessary given the nature of nuclear power and the initial infrastucure cost. The lifespan of a well-maintained nuclear plant is more than double that of a large coal-fired generator, however, and while fossil fuel power in the U.S relies largely on coal and natural gas extracted from dirty, poorly-regulated operations in Appalachia and the Western U.S, not only do we have significant uranium reserves here in the U.s, the world's largest, cleanest, and most econmical producer of refined uranium for fuel rods is Canada. Why then, when we have not only the technology but also a stable, geaographically advantageous source of fuel, do we not embrace nuclear energy? The short long story is this: poltics and economics. The latter can be realistically surmounted, but it WILL take tax increases, and a collective realization that changing our dirty energy habits is not going to be cheap. I think President Obama realizes this, and his recent approval of the loans for the Georgia plants shows the initiative.
In another recent NYT od-ed piece, the possible "comeback" of the American nuclear industry was discussed is a forum like commentary by several prominant political and watchdog group figures. To be honest, I was rather dissapointed by the choice of comentators, as they all seemed unwilling to give up the superstition of another Chernobyl or some sort on economic black hole. The following comment from a NYT reader on this piece struck me as timely and well-put: "I have a farm in Pennsylvania, about equidistant from a nuclear and a coal burning generator. From the nuclear plant, all I see is steam; from the coal plant, a ribbon of yellow-brown sulfurous smoke. In a lifetime, the average American will produce 200 railroads cars of coal waste. If the same energy were produced by nuclear, the total waste would fill a Coke can." Think about it.
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