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A Battle Over Uranium Bodes Ill for U.S. Debate
NY Times ^ | December 26, 2010 | KIRK JOHNSON

Posted on 01/02/2011 7:09:46 PM PST by neverdem

NATURITA, Colo. — The future of nuclear power in America is back on the table, with all its vast implications, as global warming revives the search for energy sources that produce less greenhouse gas.

But in this depressed corner of western Colorado — one of the first places in the world that uranium, nuclear energy’s primary fuel, was ever dug from the ground in industrial scale — the debate is both simpler and more complicated. A proposal for a new mill to process uranium ore, which would lead to the opening of long-shuttered mines in Colorado and Utah, has brought global and local concerns into collision — jobs, health, class-consciousness and historical memory among them — in ways that suggest, if the pattern here holds, a bitter national debate to come.

Telluride, the rich ski town an hour away by car and a universe apart in terms of money and clout, has emerged as a main base of opposition to the proposed mill, called Piñon Ridge, which would be the first new uranium-processing facility in the United States in more than 25 years if it is approved by Colorado regulators next month.

To residents here like Michelle Mathews, the fact that many opponents of the mill hail from Telluride is a crucial strike against their arguments.

“People from Telluride don’t have any business around here,” said Ms. Mathews, 31, who works as...

--snip--

Reed Hayes, 73, said he is still haunted by the night in July 1967, when he was working at a mill in Moab, Utah, and fell off a catwalk into a caustic vat of refined uranium pellets, called yellowcake, and acid. He quit a month later, but has suffered ever since, he said, with rashes on various parts of his body, including sometimes even inside his mouth...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; Politics/Elections; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: energy; health; pollution; reactor; thorium; thorium232; uranium
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How is it still caustic after adding acid to it other than adding too little acid?
1 posted on 01/02/2011 7:09:49 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem
Thorium Nuclear Reactor
2 posted on 01/02/2011 7:13:47 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (DEFCON I ALERT: The federal cancer has metastasized. All personnel report to their battle stations.)
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To: neverdem
Uranium versus Thorium
3 posted on 01/02/2011 7:17:11 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (DEFCON I ALERT: The federal cancer has metastasized. All personnel report to their battle stations.)
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To: neverdem

No electrical power is to be allowed from oil, natural gas, coal, wind, nuclear, or hydroelectric. Yet somehow we are supposed to all charge our $45,000 electric cars every 40 miles.


4 posted on 01/02/2011 7:22:25 PM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Islam is the religion of Satan and Mohammed was his minion.)
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To: george76; jan in Colorado; colorado tanker; coloradan; dljordan; Colorado Buckeye; GraceG; ...

Harry New Year!


5 posted on 01/02/2011 7:30:05 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Thanks for the links!


6 posted on 01/02/2011 7:32:56 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

>> &etc... yet somehow we are supposed to all charge our $45,000 electric cars every 40 miles.

CAUTION: applying too much logic and rational thought to this liberal-manufactured problem will make your head hurt.


7 posted on 01/02/2011 7:34:06 PM PST by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

You’re forgetting about rainbows, which focus the energy of prancing unicorns, into wind which can be collected by windmills. But just don’t build those windmills near me! It’s not that I don’t like the looks of them, it’s all that yucky rainbow-colored unicorn poo.


8 posted on 01/02/2011 7:58:39 PM PST by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: neverdem
"...as global warming revives the search for energy sources that produce less greenhouse gas..."

These liberal scumbags will not give up. They will never give up. They will keep trying, on all fronts, taking one inch at at time, wearing the opposition down.

9 posted on 01/02/2011 8:17:10 PM PST by rlmorel ("If this doesn't light your fire, Men, the pilot light's out!"...Coach Ed Bolin)
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To: coloradan

Someone will have to develop a turbine that runs on the unicorn-expelled rainbow-colored skittle feces.


10 posted on 01/02/2011 8:22:45 PM PST by rlmorel ("If this doesn't light your fire, Men, the pilot light's out!"...Coach Ed Bolin)
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To: neverdem
he is still haunted by the night in July 1967, when he ... fell off a catwalk into a caustic vat... He quit a month later, but has suffered ever since, he said, with rashes on various parts of his body, including sometimes even inside his mouth...

Couldn't have done too much damage, he's still alive 44 years later.

11 posted on 01/02/2011 8:25:14 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: neverdem
he is still haunted by the night in July 1967, when he ... fell off a catwalk into a caustic vat... He quit a month later, but has suffered ever since, he said, with rashes on various parts of his body, including sometimes even inside his mouth...

Couldn't have done too much damage, he's still alive 44 years later.

12 posted on 01/02/2011 8:25:37 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: neverdem

Harry New Year


13 posted on 01/02/2011 8:40:37 PM PST by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: neverdem
Reed Hayes, 73, said he is still haunted by the night in July 1967, when he was working at a mill in Moab, Utah, and fell off a catwalk into a caustic vat of refined uranium pellets, called yellowcake, and acid.

Had it been a vat of boiling Campbell's Soup he would have died.

14 posted on 01/02/2011 8:54:10 PM PST by Mike Darancette (Democrat Party is shovel ready)
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To: Sherman Logan
Stunning caustic event. Damdest yellowcake haunting on record.

R.

15 posted on 01/02/2011 9:04:49 PM PST by Rabin
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Russia and India are partnering on LFTR technology.

The USA really needs to start researching Thorium / LFTR in addition to coal for electricity production.
16 posted on 01/02/2011 9:57:40 PM PST by Minus_The_Bear
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To: neverdem

It’s not only some of the Telluride residents. Both Republicans and Democrats all over the State are stopping test drilling, etc., in several areas. Even HOA administrators are pushing against uranium mining and processing. Interestingly, working class, labor-oriented groups (Action 22, IIRC?) are pushing in favor of uranium mines and processing.


17 posted on 01/02/2011 11:29:38 PM PST by familyop (cbt. engr. (cbt), NG, '89-' 96, Duncan Hunter or no-vote.)
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To: coloradan

True. Harnessing Rainbow Power should be Priority One.


18 posted on 01/03/2011 2:28:31 AM PST by screaminsunshine (Americanism vs Communism)
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To: neverdem

“opponents of Piñon Ridge are guilty of promulgating ignorant fears about something they do not understand. “

A well stated look into the mind of an envirowacko. Combine ignorance and fear with heavy drug use and you get the perfect mulch for the socialist environmental movement.


19 posted on 01/03/2011 6:33:18 AM PST by epithermal
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To: screaminsunshine
True. Harnessing Rainbow Power should be Priority One.

... and if you check Zero's policies, you'll have to agree that it is, because drilling is banned, and coal is discouraged, and there's no progress on nukes ... ergo, it must be unicorns, because he's doing SOMETHING about the nation's need for energy, right?

20 posted on 01/03/2011 6:34:55 AM PST by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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