Comments by "mpetersen6" (@mpetersen6) on "In the Grip of Environmental Extremism" video.

  1. California, especially Southern California is heavily dependent on water being piped in from long distances. Plus storing water from the winter rains in reservoirs. They should have been building more. At the same time their are environmental activists that seek to have reservoirs and their dams removed.
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  2.  @mattmcdonald7112  The US (and Canada) use 240V on the residential supply. Stepped down to 120V at the home (it's a legacy thing)*. Also at 60Hz. But the 240V is still available for electric hot water, heat and appliances. Most industrial facilities use 480V *Even the screw in base on light bulbs is a legacy thing. Going back to Edison.
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  3. There is one aspect of nuclear that does raise concern. The weapons side. But as North Korea, Pakiland and soon Iran prove. If you want them nobody is going to stop you. With the possible exception of Israel. The list of nations that have started and stopped developing nuclear weapons is a long one. It is suspected that if push came to shove the country that could have nukes the fastest is ironically Japan.
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  4. There are things the US did wrong with nuclear power and things the French did right. The US did not really use standardized designs (1). The French did. As I understand it they have a Generation 1 design and a Generation 2 design. If you have an issue design wise you know what to look for in other facilities. This also lowers costs. Also l wonder if the individual regions, departments or whatever the French call them along with municipalities have as much legal power to throw up roadblocks to construction. One reason that nuclear plants in the US cost as much as they do is every Tom, Dick and Harry can file legal challenges, endlessly it seems. Delaying construction and causing increased costs due interest on the loans. Nuclear produces cheap reliable power as far as the operating side goes. It's the long lead time that builds the costs. Another thing that increases costs is the incredible amount of paper work involved in everything. Simply replacing one screw and nut on pipe fitting requires multiple forms (2). There is also the waste side of things. Most nuclear waste is low level stuff such as personal protective gear. The actual waste from the fuel in the US would fit into an Olympic sized swimming pool. We used to reprocess waste. Carter stopped that by Executive Order. EOs can be reversed by EOs. The spent fuel rods out of a nuclear facility actually contain very high levels of usable fuel that can be recovered. In the 1990s the US DOE actually ran a small test reactor to look into using the high level waste to produce power and consume that waste by converting it into lower level waste. The Vlinton Administration killed that. 1) The Soviets. I'm not sure they did anything right with nuclear plants 2) I worked with several people (plant maintenance) and knew others that worked at a Commonwealth Edison plant in Illinois. Even the plant security department had forms up the ying yang
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