Re: [Phys-l] Nuclear Reactors

["LaMontagne, Bob" <RLAMONT@providence.edu>]

Just because people have had to suffer because of property rights abuses in one region is no reason to continue the practice and spread the abuse to other areas. Whenever people justify stomping on individual rights because of the "common good" (read mineral rights) there will be wholesale abuse.
 
I don't want to look at windmills while enjoying the beauty of Martha's Vineyard, and I doubt if West Virginians enjoy seeing the tops of their mountains sliced off to expose coal. I totally agree with your point that coal production has produced much greater ugliness than windmills have so far. We have the technology to stop these desecrations. Oil companies have figured out ways to let one platform gather oil from many sources miles away.
 
The remedy to the coal abuses is to have West Virginians and the state of West Virginia sue those companies that lower people's quality of life - and to keep suing until until it becomes more profitable for coal companies to take more responsible approaches. Courts need to review the whole concept of mineral rights in a country that is no longer predominantly wilderness. Northeastern states have taken such an approach with Midwestern power plants that spewed pollutents that were carried to them by the wind.
 
Environmentally friendly coal production will cost more - but we can't turn our back on such an abundant source of energy. Neither can we just ignore the abundant oil off our coasts. Coal and oil make more sense than seeing windmills everwhere one looks.
 
Bob at PC
________________________________

From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of Stefan Jeglinski
Sent: Wed 4/8/2009 2:54 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Nuclear Reactors



> It's nice to see a reasonable approach championed.

While I tend to view Bob at PC's comments reasonably articulated, I
somehow can't let this disparity go:

> We have an absurdly large supply of ridiculously
> cheap coal (sorry - I'm not swayed by arguments of "true" cost). It is
> national economic suicide not to use this supply.

> When I fly to California every couple of years and look at the windmills
> outside of Vacaville blighting those beautiful California hills I get
> angry enough to almost start shaking. What idiots would do that to such
> magnificent countryside?

Wassa matta? You think the California hill sides are somehow better
or more deserving than the W Virginia mountains? Or... maybe you just
think the California *people* are better or more deserving.

Quite aside from environmental concerns or what is done to
"magnificent countryside," I seriously doubt, for example, just for
starters, that any California family's cemetery has been dug up,
moved, and then lost, by a stupid windmill company.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for using the coal as well, but... gimme
a break. At least find a different point to argue.


Stefan Jeglinski
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