debaser

So is it all about intent? In that case the ship should have continued on its merry way and unloaded the coal with those two morons strapped to the boom. Hey, the intent was to unload coal, not mutilate the two air-thieves, right?

These people make me ill. Find me a cleaner viable source of energy than nuclear.

Anyone?


*crickets chirping*





That's right. The French had the right idea.

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roachboy

shani: dont worry about it. if you dont see what i am asking you at this point, then there's no reason to continue.

==================

frosstbyte: you do see what i am asking you, though: i was clear about what you said, i think, and understood my previous question to simply state the conclusion that followed from it. which i think you basically confirm, though it also seems that you dont like that conclusion. which i understand.

say that the logic behind the greenpeace action is to protest the flows of coal as much as the vendors and end-users. say they make no particular distinction between these 3 terms. you would effectively restrict their right to protest to shadowing and yelling things. stopping the flows--even for a short time--would not be illegal, but would subject them to prohibitive costs.

what i dont know from your posts is if you would recognize a right to protest counter to any legal claims like the one you appear to think legitimate, and whether the court case (hypothetical court case) would turn on this same issue.

for the sake of this argument, i'll simplify my position somewhat and say that the ability to inflict these costs of a protest group erases the right to protest in all meaningful senses. so it comes down to a matter of which you find more important: the rights of the polity to protest or the ability of corporate entities to generate profit.

i outlined the logic behind my position in no. 69 above--the quick restate: property relations are legal relations--law is an extension of state power--the legitimacy of law then rests on the consent of the governed--so it follows then that relations inscribed within a legal system have only limited purchase on protest actions because these actions indicate problems at the level of consent.

based on that, i dont think that corporate entities have any claims that should restrict the right to protest and that any transfer of costs engendered by protest would be obviated by the priority of the right to protest.

this is a simplification of my actual position because there are obviously limits that i would accept on what a political action can and cannot do or be--but i also support the right to revolt, so the matter becomes more complicated--but also runs off the edge of what is being discussed here. so for present purposes, that's the argument.

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Willravel

This ship could have moved considering the location of the protesters.
Wind and Hydro leave no radioactive waste whatsoever.

debaser

Viable, will. You can't power the even a medium sized city with wind or hydro. And hydro opens up a whole new can of worms (ie flooding large areas and destroying ecosystems)

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Shauk

thank you captain obvious.



I don't have anything other to contribute to this thread but personally I feel the need to step up and say I think you're being a bit snide and condescending in your post.

Chill out.


of all the things to argue about in the world, this really isn't that important nor up to our concern. *shrug*

the company and greenpeace will do thier deal as they see fit.

Willravel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu_Dam
The Itaipu Damn puts out 12.6GW. The largest nuclear reactor in the world puts out 3.0GW.

To put it in layman's terms (which I need, I don't know jack about electricity), The Itaipu Damn powers all of Paraguay and part of Brazil. 34 billion kWh is enough electricity a year to run NYC. Itaipu puts out about 93.4 billion kWh per year. So this one damn alone can power almost 3 whole New York Cities.

debaser

And could you not have put 4 nuclear plants on the 1350 square kilometers that was flooded instead?

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Willravel

If you'd like to create 4 nuclear reactor's worth of waste... I suppose. Of course the land wasn't a wildlife refuge, no one was living there, and there is no waste whatsoever.

BTW, they actually helped to create a wonderful aquatic ecosystem there.

debaser

Nuclear waste isn't really waste, it's more like concentrated nature.

And from your article:

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Willravel

There are plenty of bodies of water no where near people. One could damn in certain places along the Nile or Amazon claiming land where there are no people.

debaser

Then how do you get the power to where you need it?

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Baraka_Guru

What's your definition of viable? One of the hottest debates in Ontario right now is centred around the impractical prospects of nuclear as a source of energy. The projects go over cost, they are wasteful, they increase the chances of an unhealthy environment, and they require uranium (which will likely skyrocket in price in the near future), etc.

The long-term solution for most areas is shifting focus to renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable development.

Nuclear makes us all ill.



And hydro isn't about dams exclusively; think run-of-the-river hydro.

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—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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debaser

Usefull energy on a scale that is economicky feasable at present.

Who? May the inhabitants downwind of Chernobyl, but then again the Russians are absolutely incompetant when it comes to nuclear safety.

Coal fired power plants put more uranium into the atmosphere a year than are in the cores of nuclear plants. And the stuff in a fission reactor you maintain control of and bury, returning it to the earth in a less radioactive form than it came out.

The simple fact is that nuclear is the only commercially viable non-emission technology that exists presently, all paranoia to the contrary.


Free flow hyrdo is a great thing, but it makes a river un-navigable, which increases reliance on fossil powered land transport, which is far less efficient than water transport. It also effectively kills the economies of most inland communities in South America which rely on the rivers as thier primary transportation.

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Willravel

Nuclear power plants are incredibly expensive.
Forsmark, Sweden almost had a meltdown just last month.

BTW, the Russians are second only to the US when it comes to nuclear safety.

debaser

Yes, but the amount of energy that can be extracted from uranium makes them the most efficient form of energy over the life of the reactor.
But they didn't, did they.
That depends on what you define as safety. To get the results you mention above you must:
A. Discount military reactor incidents.

B. Non-incident releases.

Niether of which I am comfortable doing when talking about nuclear safety.
Cute graphic, but it isn't exactly how nuclear contamination spreads. Add to that the fact that sites such as WIPP and Yucca Mountain are sealed environments and it becomes rather irrelevant.

Gentlemen, this is all very fun, but it is way off topic (and I accept responsibility for that). Let us continue elsewhere and agree that the douchbags who illegally boarded that ship should be chum now, if it were not for the kind hearts of seafarers like Lucifer.

(his screen-name makes that last sentence quite funny)

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highthief

I'm all for peaceful protest, but this is obviously dangerous and ill-conceived. Jail the little buggers.

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Dilbert1234567

nuclear power is expensive because the y are outdated, we haven't built a plant in a long time. but look at France, 80% of there power is from nuclear, and they do just fine.

that's just wrong, i can't find anything that happened last month, but the incident i think you are referring to was over a year ago, and it was no where near a meltdown:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interna...ar_Event_Scale

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filtherton

If any of you motherfuckers were really concerned about energy you'd quit talking about how to make it and start talking about how to use it better. I mean motherfuckers in a nice way.

Riding a motor boat out into the ocean to perform essentially empty sloganeering about renewable energy shows a lack of understanding about the actual nature of any impending energy crisis.

If these people are pirates, then they are the most trivial, uninteresting pirates i have ever heard of. I didn't see a single eyepatch, pegleg, or parrot. I'm just going to say it: They weren't pirates, even if they perhaps met the legal definition. Here's why:If you, as a pirate, have to point out the fact that, yes, you are technically a pirate, then you have failed at being a pirate. It's that simple.

I have. The key. To one eye willie.

debaser

This made beer come out of my nose.

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Infinite_Loser

Ummm... Ocean water is the future. Haven't you heard? Scientists have figured out a way to burn salt water using radio waves.

/endofftopicness

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debaser

Where do you get the power for the radio waves, and do you have a link? This sounds cool.

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Willravel

Oh, typo. Last month was the meeting to decide if they want to get rid of nuclear power from all of Sweden because there was almost a meltdown last year. Doesn't really change my point.

filtherton

On the subject of nuclear, there are plant designs for which meltdown is impossible.


edit: sorry about the beer in the nose, debaser, heh.

MSD

Unauthorized persons announced their intent to peacefully protest, then illegally boarded a ship with chains (which could be used as weapons,) then detained the ship with their idiocy. When the ship was immobilized, they sent more people on board to ensure that it could not move until marine police arrived to remove them.

If someone announced that they were protesting gas guzzling vehicles, then tried to climb into my car with metal chains, you can bet that they wouldn't even make it halfway in before I fought back with all force necessary to stop the armed intruder from seizing my vehicle. I maintain my position that these "protesters" were not peaceful, and that they should have been considered pirates and shot before they were able to get on board and establish their illegal hold on a vessel in sovereign waters.

Willravel

If you are around GreenPeace people, expecting to be in physical danger because of them is totally unreasonable and unfounded. I know plenty of people in GreenPeace (and ELF). ELF shows up, run (or get a fire extinguisher). GreenPeace shows up, plant a tree and simply expect to wait.

ubertuber

So, what's the logic behind the assumption that the shipping company can't sue Greenpeace for financial damages pursuant to the detaining of their vessel?

Don't people who sustain injuries in at-fault car accidents sue for lost wages? What's the difference?

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Baraka_Guru

You aren't looking at the big picture.

Non-emission? Where do you think uranium comes from?

By-pass channels.

And willravel is right, nuclear power plants can be ruinously expensive. A lot of money can be dropped into them (i.e. can go multiple times over budget) and they can still sit unused, waiting to go online at some unknown date.

Nuclear waste is an enormously difficult political problem which to date no country has solved. It is, in a sense, the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry. Could this issue strike down France's uniquely successful nuclear program? France's politicians and technocrats are in no doubt. If France is unable to solve this issue, says [Claude] Mandil [the General Director for Energy and Raw Materials at the Ministry of Industry], then "I do not see how we can continue our nuclear program."

"Why the French Like Nuclear Energy," Jon Palfreman, Frontline, PBS.org.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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ubertuber

I'm not at all sure what nuclear power has to do with the thread and original post. It might be a great debate for another thread...

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Infinite_Loser

Sure do!

http://green.yahoo.com/index.php?q=node/1570

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ShaniFaye

/off topic

hehehehe thank you for the early morning giggle....and I agree 100%

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Lucifer

Well, this has been interesting (and off topic in places). I just wanted to point out in response to the posts about why the ship couldn't move, or why it was in danger, or why we didn't just keep going about our business with the people on board.

Shipping isn't simply a matter of "hey, I got this cargo, who wants it?" Modern shipping is an incredibly tightly regulated industry. A 750 foot cargo ship can't simply tie up at the nearest marina. All ports and ships since 9/11 operate under MARSEC levels. Level 1 is the level at which ships and ports operate normally. Level 2 is a hightened state of security. Level 3 is imminent danger of a terrorist action or security breach. Before we enter a port, the ship has to send a security list of all crew/expected visitors/service contractors, etc. The ship has to declare that it is operating at MARSEC 1. The port has to respond also with the declaration that it is operating at MARSEC 1. We can operate and dock at a Port at MARSEC 2, it just means that the ship and port are on lockdown, with no shore leave for crew. When a ship is boarded like we were, that is a terrorist act under MARSEC, no matter if it is a political statement, peaceful protest or whatever your personal opinions are about what constitutes a terrorist.
When a ship goes to MARSEC 3, no port anywhere in the world will accept it at that level. We had to go to anchor and wait. Once the activists were removed, we on the ship had to wait for the government to declare us safe to move. We can elevate our MARSEC levels as we see fit to protect ourselves, but we can't stand down to level 2 or 1 on our own after that. Transport Canada Marine Safety has to review the situation and decide that it is safe for us to move. The activists were removed about 2 pm. We got the clearance to move at 1:30 am!

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1123, 6536, 5321

debaser

Then please enlighten me.
The ground? Granted, there are fossil emmisions from mining uranium, but there are fossil emmisions from building dams and windmills, so are they no longer non-emission either? You are nit-picking. Would you rather I use the term "so-low-emission-as-to-be-statisticaly-irrellevant"? It is a bit wordy...
But you still don't deal with the eco-system destruction problem with locks. River critters have to migrate too you know.
Over budget, yes. But all projects can. I shudder to think what some of the dams that have been built have cost. Still, from a dollar standpoint over the entire lifetime of the reactor, nuclear is the cheapest large scale power production on earth right now.

The reason they sit unused is because of dipshits like those in the OP. Concern for nuclear safety is one thing, paranoia is another. These luddites are obliquely responsible for the coal industry having so much of a share of the electricity market now because of their misinformation campaign regarding nuclear.

Everytime greenpeace protests a nuke plant, a coal exec buys a new SUV...

This is a circular argument. The political problem exists because of groups like Greenpeace. If it weren't for the mass hysteria, France would probably rely even more on nuclear energy than they do today.

Here is a link to the new PBR design that was refernced in the posts above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

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Baraka_Guru

I am not nit-picking, I am looking at the reality: When all is said and done, nuclear power plants cause emissions equal to 1/3 to 1/2 of that of a gas-powered plant. Nuclear power isn't low-emission, because of mining, refining, and transportation (mining/refining/waste management).

And what of uranium mines and waste disposal sites?

But nuclear is not the long-term answer. It is reactionary fix. (i.e. "Energy crisis! Quick, build nuclear!") More isn't always better. But this really is a conversation for another thread.


Greenpeace needs to change tactics. What they did was wrong, and not really effective in terms of changing views on the issues. This is why I'd rather support the likes of David Suzuki.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

The_Jazz

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aberkok

I don't think it's possible to protest peacefully. It sounds like an oxymoron to me. I mean, if you're so peaceful, how are you going to get your message out? "Peaceful" is an awfully subjective term, no?

The only people I feel sorry for here are Lucifer and his crew. Lucifer, you are my friend and I can deeply empathize with wanting to get off the ship. I'm sorry you were stuck on the boat longer than you wanted to be.

I support Greenpeace's actions, and for those who argue that no good can come of it, know that I am renewing my donations to them because of this thread. Change comes from shit-disturbers and the way they spread awareness.

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Ustwo

Perhaps it would be better to join directly? How are your ship climbing skills?

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Lucifer

Please don't joke about that. There was too much ship-related death in my summer to end up with that kind of nonsense at the end. These things aren't toys, and they are quite dangerous to be on. If you don't believe me, check out my journal.

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1123, 6536, 5321

Ustwo

I'm on your side, I think people supporting this kind of crap have their heads in the wrong spot. You can guess which spot

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Willravel

MLK Jr. never hurt anyone.

The_Jazz

Physically, no. Economically, he absolutely did. Just ask the lunch counter owners and the Birmingham bus drivers. The whole point of his civil rights movement was to use economic pressure to solve the problem. You could use the term "economic violence" and wouldn't be far off the mark.

The US is currently using economic violence against Cuba that's had mixed results.

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"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo