Alec Baldwin Knocks Nuclear Power, Calls Reactors 'Filthy'

Hard hit by the shaking ground and surging waters, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station suffered catastrophic equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns and radioactive releases when it was struck earlier this year by the massive earthquake and the resulting tsunami that pummeled Japan's coast. All told, the disaster is the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl

In the U.S., that catastrophe has triggered some to rethink the country's dependence on nuclear power. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has undertaken an extensive review of the nation's 104 nuclear power reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

And there is some evidence that the dangers of nuclear power have been underestimated in the past. An Associated Press analysis of a preliminary government report on nuclear reactor safety found that the risk of an earthquake causing a severe accident at a U.S. nuclear plant is as much as 24 times greater than previously thought, suggesting an urgent need for upgrades.

But for some opponents of nuclear power, no amount of planning or patching is enough. The risks to the environment and human health, they say, far outweigh whatever benefits nuclear power might have to offer -- even if those benefits include reducing the nation's reliance on fossil fuels.

Among those critics is the actor Alec Baldwin, whose thoughts on the subject carry added weight with his admitted interest in entering politics. Earlier this month, he told The New York Times that while a run is not imminent, he has his eye on the mayor's office.

HuffPost All-Terrain sat down with Baldwin to discuss his thoughts on nuclear power, renewable technologies and America's energy future. Watch the video above. To view our previous HuffPost All Terrain video, in which HuffPost reporter Lucia Graves talks to climate activist Bill McKibben about the Keystone XL oil pipeline, click HERE.

Comments

[MrBIgp]

11:55 PM on 10/09/2011

The total annual amount of solar energy to hit 30 square miles in Death Valley would be about 0.7 quads (quadrillion btu) the US uses about 100 quads a year. Perhaps Mr. Baldwin meant 30 miles square instead of 30 square mile - that would be about 20% of US energy, but it would be 900 square miles. Or maybe he just made the number up.

[Michael Mann]

03:27 PM on 09/14/2011

Mr. Baldwin's opinion has no basis in fact, nuclear power plants in the USA generate electricity without contributing to air pollution or global warming. (Extremely clean) 70% of all the low carbon electricity produced in the USA comes from nuclear energy.

[leftcoastindy]

01:01 PM on 09/20/2011

I hear next gen will have reusable waste. BUT - 100% of current plants have over 80 and maybe 90% of ALL the waste that has EVER been generated still waiting for disposal.

THAT IS a big FILTHY mess!

[Michael Mann]

09:43 PM on 09/20/2011

Actually the volume is extremely small,the plant where I work had 40 YEARS worth of once used fuel in a 40ftx40ftx40ft pool, we have moved most of it to dry cask storage, but for the energy produced the amount of fuel is tiny! Unlike fossil fuels this is all contained and controlled, not spewed into the biosphere. You seem to have a gross conceptual error when it comes to nuclear energy. What do you think happens to wind generator and solar panels when they are past their useful life? Now that is a big filthy mess, much more per unit energy produced, even more when you consider the fossil fuel "back-up" required due to the poor capacity factor- times when the wind doesn't blow or the sun shine brightly.

[European1919]

03:46 AM on 09/13/2011

Spot on Mr. Baldwin. Not just a good actor but also a man with a conscience and a brain which is in use.

[watchtower1941]

09:16 AM on 09/12/2011

Great talent and activist!!

[Si1ver1ock]

08:54 AM on 09/12/2011

Our reactors are old beyond their life cycle. People ignore safety warnings and run them till they break then blame them when they do. Replace them now with newer safer designs and be thankful for all the safe, clean, energy they produced.

[Allen Jenkins]

12:35 PM on 09/14/2011

To continue a process or activity that continually ends in failure, in search of success is...

...like re-electing Obama.

[leftcoastindy]

01:02 PM on 09/20/2011

WWTS

What would Tesla say?

[leftcoastindy]

01:03 PM on 09/20/2011

Or Edison for that matter

[Michael Mann]

03:23 PM on 09/14/2011

Wrong, US nuclear power plants are well maintained and continuously upgraded, as evidenced by their safety record and capacity factor (greater than 90%) I work at the longest running nuclear power plant in the USA and it runs better now than when it was first built. New designs are even safer, but the old designs are already safer than the newer, explosive natural gas power plants.

[Si1ver1ock]

07:12 PM on 09/14/2011

What you do is:
Build another power plant next to the first one but double its capacity.

Once the new power plant comes online, decomission the old one then do a complete autopsy what's good what isn't. This information goes into the design of the next generation of plants.

Then build another plant in place of the first, also at double capacity. So that you end up with four times the capacity of the old plant with two newer, safer plants. You essentially have a power complex not just a plant.

The people operating the fukushima plant did in fact ignore safety warnings and reeactores were quite old.

[termgirl]

06:25 PM on 09/11/2011

If you have never seen this documentary "A Is For Atom," it is well worth bookmarking and watching, when you have the time.
It goes a long way in explaining irrational choices that were made by nuclear industry and the governments that enable them, from day one.

As one of the AEC scientists says in the film:

"We discovered that our theoretical calculations didn't have a strong correlation with reality. But we just couldn't admit to the public that all these safety systems we told you about might not do any good"



http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.html

[atomicrod]

07:46 AM on 09/10/2011

So, in Baldwin's opinion, the oil oligarchs who have done so much to make income distribution completely illogical, with the 20th son of an Arab sheik or a former Russian comrade wealthy enough to afford a mega yacht, were "brilliant industrialists" while people like Alvin Weinberg, Enrico Fermi, Ted Rockwell, and tens of thousands of other highly educated physicists, engineers, and technologists are guilty of building systems that produce "filthy power."

Really?

Not only that, but he refuses to admit that the sun - even in Death Valley - reliably sets every single day.

Finally, a man who frequently travels around the world by air calls all other Americans "gluttons."

Who can believe this crap?

[SLS11]

02:09 PM on 09/11/2011

Another paid mouthpiece makes an appearance. What else is new?

[Genders]

05:20 PM on 09/13/2011

Really, what was that rant anyway? Because Fermi didn't make a lot of money his tech must be good for generating power? Twisted. Nukes unsafe, solar wind and waste cheaper. and the waste bio fuels allows electricity at night! Even when the wind isn't blowing. Isn't that clever? So no worries, you won't freeze in the dark, there is far more green energy than nukes and fossil.

Got that? Waste bio fuels in existing generators backup solar and wind.

Cheaper.

[lisagibson4]

05:30 PM on 09/09/2011

Although I do not totally agree with everything Mr. B blogs or says he does has every right to any and all opinions he wants!

[CaptD]

07:00 PM on 09/09/2011

Fanned and Fav'd!
Ditto
Hope to hear more from you on both Nucear and its effect on US and the Japanese1

[Atoms4Peace1]

08:58 AM on 09/10/2011

Nuclear is going to be in both the US and Japanese future. Bank on it buddy.

[Michael Mann]

05:52 AM on 09/10/2011

Alec has every right to voice his opinion, and I have every right to point out that he has no idea what he's talking about. Nuclear energy is currently among the CLEANEST methods to produce electricity per megawatt produced. Nuclear power plants in the USA have never been breached by terrorists and are among the most secure facilities in the USA. Nuclear power plants in the US have been shown to be reliable and safe for over 40 years of operation with capacity factors of over 90%. Every talking point he mentions is based on a falsehood, that leads me to believe he has very little understanding of the subject or is intentionally attempting to mislead people.

[professor]

06:22 PM on 09/08/2011

They sell this hormesis jive because they can't sell the radiation release denial jive they used to sell anymore. As the successful soldier said on Combat: keep moving, keep shooting, stay low.

[Michael Mann]

03:00 AM on 09/09/2011

Maybe because empirical data and logic support hormesis theory over NLT?

[CaptD]

05:03 PM on 09/09/2011

Tell that Nuclear Baloney (NB) to all those folks that died in what was Russia!

[desertlabs]

10:55 AM on 09/10/2011

The data just isn’t there. The nuclear Industry is trying to resurrect this old hypothesis to convince the public that nuclear “accidents” are good for you. I’ve posted this info before, but here it is again.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16004188

A critique of the use of hormesis in risk assessment.

Abstract
There are severe problems and limitations with the use of hormesis as the principal dose-response default assumption in risk assessment…(a) unknown prevalence of hormetic dose-response curves; (b) random chance occurrence of hormesis and the shortage of data on the repeatability of hormesis; (c) unknown degree of generalizability of hormesis; (d) there are dose-response curves that are not hormetic, therefore hormesis cannot be universally generalized; (e) problems of post hoc rather than a priori hypothesis testing; (f) a possible large problem of 'false positive' hormetic data sets which have not been extensively replicated; (g) the 'mechanism of hormesis' is not understood at a rigorous scientific level; (h) in some cases hormesis may merely be the overall sum of many different mechanisms and many different dose-response curves - some beneficial and some toxic…. At this point, it appears that hormesis is a long way away from common scientific acceptance and wide utility in biomedicine and use as the principal default assumption in a risk assessment process charged with ensuring public health protection.

[Atoms4Peace1]

09:00 AM on 09/10/2011

Best jive ever:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=190iqepL-G4

You know Vic Morrow got the wrong end of a helicopter.

[professor]

06:09 PM on 09/08/2011

Nuclear engineers li, A. to save their jobs, B. because of the Stockholm syndrome.

Trusting a liier is not advisable.

[Michael Mann]

03:09 AM on 09/09/2011

Right, the entire branch of engineering with years of experience, educated in theory and validated by data is wrong and you are right. Those 100,000 people joined in a conspiracy or are mentally deranged and you are the only sane person? Do you actually believe that"professor"?

[CaptD]

05:04 PM on 09/09/2011

You don't get hired to work in a reactor if you don't tow the nuclear line, just ask Arnie and the other Nuclear Whistle Blowers that have been booted out or worse!

[Genders]

10:50 PM on 09/12/2011

Yes it is. Hard to accept isn't it? Conspiracy just means breath together, doesn't have to be secret. You eat at the same trough, not surprising you think the same.l

[Atoms4Peace1]

09:02 AM on 09/10/2011

Nuclear engineers are no different than any other engineer as people. You have no clue. Go away. Insignificant.

[professor]

06:06 PM on 09/08/2011

Tr.s make "unsubstantiated claims" and then accuse others of it. Just count the amount of sourcing from anti versus pro on here. Pro just says things. Anti backs it up. And it ain't hard. Accusing others of what you do is a Classic Frank Luntz rightwing thinktank move. It is in the playbook. I like how proponents say that they are "not rightwing." If you shll for nuclear power, you are a myrmidon of the rightwing, whether you know it or not. Making one either disingenuous or uninformed, take your pick.

[CaptD]

07:03 PM on 09/09/2011

Faved
Get Informed
Get away from Nuclear!
Get free from the Nuclear YOKE of oppression!
Solar is clean and has not risk of a meltdown.
If Germany can do it so can the USA!

[reddy52]

06:25 PM on 09/11/2011

Solar power is a joke, it can't produce enough energy.

[Genders]

10:52 PM on 09/12/2011

Solar is cheaper, faster to install, forever, and in combination with waste bio char bio fuels, 24/7, carbon land and fresh water negative. Poor nukenuts just can't adapt.

[MrUnlimited]

02:17 AM on 09/10/2011

"Pro just says things. Anti backs it up."

Is there anything in particular that you'd like to see support for? Pro-nuclear people can back up their statements as well. Your post is full of hyperbole.

[Genders]

10:53 PM on 09/12/2011

No, you can't. That's been obvious for quite awhile.

[CaptD]

02:29 PM on 09/07/2011

Great video first posted by NMN2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk-Dbsl0T2Y

Real people prove the Gov't. and TEPCO are issuing phony radiation numbers!
A MUST watch...

[CaptD]

10:21 PM on 09/06/2011

Happy 4000 comments!
Good Luck Japan
Tomorrow is another day!

[CaptD]

10:22 PM on 09/06/2011

Ops, I mis-typed 3000 comments!

[maslin]

10:48 PM on 09/06/2011

2000 of them are probably you responding to yourself or making an unsubstantiated claim.

[Atoms4Peace1]

08:50 PM on 09/06/2011

From the Duke University Study:

---

There is plenty of evidence for at least the compromise view
(where disbelief causes distrust as much as distrust causes disbelief).8
The most direct comes from the very data commonly cited to show
that people do not trust the organizations trying to be reassuring.
Polls routinely show a declining level of trust in government and corporate
actors. But those same polls show a continuing high level of
trust in doctors and scientists.9 Yet reassuring reports from distinguished
panels of scientists and doctors on issues of conspicuous expert/
lay conflict seem to have no great impact, which surely argues
that there is something about particular issues or contexts, not simply
something about corporate or government actors, that is prompting
disbelief."

----

This is seen first hand with Fukushima. Lay people dont trust reassuring governments.

[CaptD]

08:55 PM on 09/06/2011

RE: "reassuring government­s" they don't lie!
TEPCO does:
http://real-agenda.com/2011/03/18/nuclear-lies-japanese-history-of-fake-reports/
snip
The unfolding disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant follows decades of falsified safety reports, fatal accidents and underestimated earthquake risk in Japan’s atomic power industry.

The destruction caused by last week’s 9.0 earthquake and tsunami comes less than four years after a 6.8 quake shut the world’s biggest atomic plant, also run by Tokyo Electric Power Co. In 2002 and 2007, revelations the utility had faked repair records forced the resignation of the company’s chairman and president, and a three-week shutdown of all 17 of its reactors.

[SLS11]

08:58 PM on 09/06/2011

"This is seen first hand with Fukushima. Lay people dont trust reassuring government­s"

Good grief, atoms. The Japanese Gov't, TEPCO, METI, NISA lied and covered up. This is known! There is not doubt.
And here you are, you put the blame on those who were lied to?

What you are quoting is actually a tactic used by people that are very adept at psychological abuse. They tell lies to their victims. When the victims become distrustful, they blame the victims.

[Atoms4Peace1]

11:13 PM on 09/06/2011

No I am quoting a pretty good study. This study comes from Duke University Law School.

[Silken17]

08:15 PM on 09/06/2011

....continued:
Baldwin also says that: “There are no safe levels of exposure to the byproducts created by the generation of reactors currently in use.” If he’s trying to tell readers that it would be unwise to pull a Homer Simpson and bring a spent fuel rod home, it’s hard to disagree. Still, the average parent is probably more worried about the dangers of a child breaking one of those energy-efficient, mercury-laced fluorescent light bulbs than whether Junior is going pick up some waste plutonium on the black market. On the other hand, if Baldwin means “radiation” when he talks about “byproducts,” then not only is he wrong – since we live with far more natural radiation than the man-made variety – he’s quite possibly worse than wrong. There is a strong body of scientific research that not only suggests that low levels of additional radiation don’t threaten human health, it might in fact be beneficial. The effect is called “radiation hormesis” and it’s been the subject of several peer-reviewed scientific studies, published in respected journals like Nature and Human & Experimental Toxicology. Plus, consider this: if radiation is bad for you in any dose, it follows that the higher the dose, the worse the effect, right? ...

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/rtrzupek/2010/04/13/nuclear-power-over-at-huffpo-alec-baldwin-tries-real-real-hard-to-sound-smart-but/

[CaptD]

08:22 PM on 09/06/2011

One thing: I don't wish to have ANY additional radioactive pollution from any Trillion Dollar Eco-Disasters... Why should the population of the Planet have to inhale Japanese radioactive pollution because TEPCO wanted to maximize their profits?

How much more will the next Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster create, how much is too much?

[Silken17]

08:26 PM on 09/06/2011

I guess your OCD precludes you from actually doing anything about your compulsive tagging. Did you listen to ANY of the people that asked you to drop the "Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster" meme? And please don't tell me you are doing it for the Japanese. I have a feeling they would not like you at all, if they knew you.

[Atoms4Peace1]

10:13 PM on 09/07/2011

Geez the population of the planet inhales Japanese fallout about as much as the rest of the world inhales background radiation. Dilution is a wonderful thing.

[Atoms4Peace1]

08:51 PM on 09/06/2011

"There are no safe levels" is a logical fallacy. If there were no safe level the only level that would be safe is zero. This is not realistic since non-zero levels are around us constantly.

[CaptD]

10:01 AM on 09/07/2011

I don't agree at all; this is a case where "Less is More" the less radiation one gets the better; think of sun as an example, while many enjoy having a tan certain people with certain types of skin get skin cancers... We cannot "do" anything about the naturally occurring radiation but we don't have to accept ADDITIONAL radiation from "spewing" Trillion Dollar Eco-Disasters...