Nuclear Energy – Growing Support for this Source of Power

 Are you afraid of Nuclear Power because of the way it has been portrayed by the media, the government and/or activists?

If so, here are some facts that fear-mongering groups don’t tell you:

1. Natural sources of radioactivity are found in soil and stones; cosmic rays from outer space, the food we eat and the water we drink. Only 0.005% of the average American’s yearly radiation dose comes from nuclear power. It is about the same as eating 1 banana per year.

2. In over 18,5000 reactor-years of nuclear power operation in 36 countries, there have been only two accidents that resulted in radiation doses that were greater than regular exposure from natural sources. The two major accidents were: Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima Daiichi (2011). In terms of total human fatalities at Chernobyl, 2 workers died in the blast; 28 workers and firemen died within weeks from acute radiation syndrome. At Fukushima, two people died from direct impact of the accident and or radiation exposure.

A detailed list of the death toll from these two accidents has been posted by ‘Our World in Data’: Death Toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima.( I found many internet stories with far higher death toll numbers, but generally they do not cite sources for the information like Our World in Data does.)

Last week, Japan’s prime minister said the country is restarting idled nuclear plants and considering building new ones. This is a sharp reversal for the country that largely abandoned nuclear after the tsunami-led disaster at the Fukushima plant in 2011.
– NPR: Why Even Environmentalists are supporting Nuclear Power Today –

3. In the resulting 30 kilometer Chernobyl exclusion zone, the radioactivity decayed rapidly. Within a month, only a few per cent of the initial contamination remained. After a year it was less than 1 per cent and animal populations in the zone exploded, along with the development of more biodiverse primary forests.

4. A nuclear reactor can not explode like a nuclear weapon.

An Environmental Activist Becomes a Nuclear Power Advocate

Michael Shellenberger Testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Only nuclear can lift all humans out of poverty while saving the natural environment. Nothing else – not coal, not solar, not geo-engineering – can do that.
– Michael Shellenberger –

Environmentalists have much less to fear in reality from the current nuclear power industry than they think, and much more to gain from new and planned reactor designs than they realize.
– Steward Brand, Editor, Whole Earth Catalog –

Professor Gerry Thomas, Chair in Molecular Pathology, Imperial College London: We should have less fear of radiation

Other Sources:

Argonne National Laboratory: 10 Myths about Nuclear Energy, used with permission of the American Nuclear Society

World Nuclear Association: What are the Effects of Nuclear Accidents

Chernobyl: Has the area recovered since 1986’s nuclear disaster?

Thought Control and the Decline of Free Speech in Canada

Jordan Peterson Vs The Ontario College of Psychologists

“Dr. Jordan Peterson, the clinical psychologist, best-selling author, hugely popular lecturer, and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, has announced through his social media posts that the College of Psychologists of Ontario has ordered him to undergo re-education therapy for his very public views, not on professional psychology and science, but mere politics. He is being threatened with the loss of his professional license if he does not submit to this outlandish demand that amounts to thought control.”
– Daily Citizen, Jan 5, 2023 –

Wake up, citizens: professionals are now required to hold their tongue if they believe anything politically verboten.
– Jordan Peterson – Twitter, January 8, 2023 –

Is this the Canadian Liberal/NDP government equivalent of Maoist Re-education?

The roots of re-education or deprogramming are found in Maoism. When China’s Mao Zedong gained power in 1949 he launched the first of his thought control campaigns. The two key elements of thought reform were the requirement that people: confess and renounce past and present ‘evil’; submit to re-education.

What Peterson said to offend a few individuals who read his comments or saw him on the internet: Jordan Peterson’s tweets that prompted complaints to psychologists’ college

The latest investigation against him, filed in March, is focused not only on Peterson’s tweets, but on his appearance on ‘The Joe Rogan Podcast’. How Peterson’s discussions on climate change and other issues raised on that podcast might relate to his professional standing is unclear. The implication here seems to be that only experts can discuss issues in the public domain…
Peterson earned his academic credentials fair and square. And what effect will it have on other clinicians if Peterson is silenced?
– The Spectator –

It should go without saying that in a free country, professionals should not lose their jobs and licenses because they express a political opinion contrary to the licensing body that’s mandated by the government… We’re seeing the idea that someone can lose their job, their status, their ability to study because they express something that is contrary to the government line, and I don’t believe that is the Canada we want.
– Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada –

Other Articles:
No, Jordan Peterson Isn’t On Trial, Freedom Of Speech Is

Jordan Peterson’s License Fiasco Highlights Why Government Licensing Should Be Abolished

Jordan Peterson: I will risk my license to escape social media re-education

My Kitchen, My Choice

The Gas Stove Story

The American public is being prepped for possible action by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission who say they are reviewing possible health hazards posed by gas stoves and will likely take action to regulate the appliances at some point in the future.

Oddly enough, Canada isn’t jumping on that bandwagon yet, but… early days…

Are Gas Stoves Really Responsible for 12.7% of Current Childhood Asthma Cases in the US?

Recently there have been stories about the risk of childhood asthma caused by natural gas stoves. It has been suggested that this news was one ‘trial balloon’ to influence public opinion on gas stoves.

Pushback about the validity of the Gruenwald Asthma-Gas Stove Research paper came from independent sources such as this:

… the Gruenwald et al paper seems to have some clear challenges that would typically preclude it from consideration in a policy-making process. Its underlying data is of low statistical power. Its conclusion is directly contradicted by more recent studies with significantly greater statistical power and it relies on a statistical tool that is considered invalid in situations with confounding variables yet it is being used to analyze an association that is absolutely rife with confounding variables.
– Blair King, Professional Chemist, Analysis January 12, 2023 –

How Much Pollution?

Stanford Researchers estimate, (based on a study of 53 California homes) that  methane leaking from natural gas-burning stoves inside an estimated 40 million U.S. homes has an annual climate impact comparable to the annual carbon dioxide emissions from about 500,000 gasoline powered cars.

This suggests one stove releases emissions equivalent to .0125 gasoline-powered cars.

To put this into perspective, The U.S. Department of Energy has calculated the annual well to wheels emissions for vehicles (they used an average driving distance of 11,579 miles per year.). An All Electric vehicle emits 2817 pounds of CO2 equivalent. A gasoline vehicle emits 12594 pounds of CO2 equivalent.

By extension then, a stove would emit 157 pounds a year, though that doesn’t include emissions from manufacture, etc. Put another way – each year a gas stove releases the equivalent emissions of driving a gasoline car about  144 miles.

In response to the possibility of any mandated ‘mitigation’ strategies, this comment appeared on Twitter a few days ago: “My kitchen, my choice”. I thought this variation of “My body, my choice”  was quite funny and apropos!

“…we currently live in a political climate that prioritizes grand symbolic gestures without regard to unintended consequences or even whether they will achieve their purported goal.
– Tristan Hopper, National Post: You want to ban me? A gas stove makes its case –

The Babylon Bee, a satirical news site, offered this story:  “Biden Calls for Two Weeks of Not Cooking on Gas Stoves to Flatten the Curve”.

Other Reading:

Steve Everley, Managing Director in FTI Consulting’s Energy & Natural Resources, Current Research

Time: The Best Stove for Your Health and the Environment
Gas-Stoving America
Do Gas Stoves Cause Childhood Asthma

Data Sources:
U.S. Department of Energy Emissions from Electric Vehicles
U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data
Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment Climate and Health Impacts Natural Gas Stoves
Study on Natural Gas Stove Emissions in 53 Homes

How Twitter Censored Information

Elon Musk has purchased the social networking service Twitter. He says he believes “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated…”

To achieve that free speech, Musk believes he has to ‘clean house’ in terms of staff numbers, staff bias (according to Twitter’s files, in 2018, 2020, and 2022, 96%, 98%, & 99% of Twitter staff’s political donations went to Democrats) and content restrictions that affect the free flow of ideas.

Musk also believes Twitter has to be transparent about how it functions, which includes an accounting of how it operated previous to his purchase.

That ‘historical’ accounting is being released in a series of ‘Twitter Files’ which are internal Twitter, Inc. documents (screenshots, emails, and chat logs)  that  CEO Elon Musk released to journalists for them to present to the public. Here are their reports, with their comments in quotation marks:

Part 1: How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story
Part 7: The FBI & the Hunter Biden Laptop
“October 14, 2020, The New York Post runs its explosive story revealing the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Every single fact in it was accurate. And yet, within hours, Twitter and other social media companies censor the NY Post article, preventing it from spreading and, more importantly, undermining its credibility in the minds of many Americans.”

Part 2: Twitter’s Secret Blacklists “teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users.”

Part 3: The Removal of Donald Trump October 2020-January 6th
Part 4: The Removal of Donald Trump: January 7
Part 5: The Removal of Trump from Twitter
On the morning of January 8, President Donald Trump  tweets twice:
6:46 am: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
7:44 am: “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
Twitter executives (then banned) Trump, even though key staffers said that Trump had not incited violence—not even in a “coded” way.

Part 6: The FBI Subsidiary
“Federal intelligence and law enforcement reach into Twitter included the Department of Homeland Security, which partnered with security contractors and think tanks to pressure Twitter to moderate content.”
Part 8: How Twitter Quietly Aided the Pentagon’s Covert Online PsyOp Campaign

Part 9: How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate
“But Twitter did suppress views—many from doctors and scientific experts—that conflicted with the official positions of the White House. As a result, legitimate findings and questions that would have expanded the public debate went missing.”

“Martin Kulldorff, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is an epidemiologist and biostatistician. He is Professor of Medicine at Harvard University (on leave) and a Fellow at the Academy of Science and Freedom. His research focuses on infectious disease outbreaks and the monitoring of vaccine and drug safety.”

More Information about the Misleading Information Policy
Twitter had a COVID-19  Misleading Information Policy (which has been removed) that stated you could not tweet that vaccines are untested, experimental or somehow unsafe or that specific groups or people are more or less prone to be infected or to develop adverse symptoms. That policy may have limited tweets about the incidence of  myocarditis, even though  “Based on passive surveillance reporting in the US, the risk of myocarditis after receiving mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines was increased across multiple age and sex strata and was highest after the second vaccination dose in adolescent males and young men. (Source JAMA, Jan 25, 2022). It also may have limited tweets about age and obesity even though: “More than 81% of COVID-19 deaths occur in people over age 65; Having obesity may triple the risk of hospitalization due to a COVID-19 infection.” (Source CDC)

“Trust, but Verify” – US President Ronald Regan
On December 28, 2022, Elon tweeted: “New Twitter policy is to follow the science, which necessarily includes reasoned questioning of the science.”

I see this as the next step in what Dr. Zubin Damania has been talking about for the past year or so:

This is now the prime challenge. First of all, you cannot villainize or demonize each side. You have to understand there’s going to be extremes that are crazy on both sides, but that the vast majority of people are trying to be good based on their moral matrix. So we have to, first of all, open dialogue between the sides that doesn’t involve, shaming and name calling and ad hominems and logical fallacies. We need to introspect and see our own moral matrix and bias so that we can go, okay, so when am I just feeding my own confirmation bias?… Then we need to have dialogue across these lines respectfully. And that’s what I call Alt-Middle.
– Dr. Zubin Damania –