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July 22nd, 2008, 03:30 AM
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#1 |
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Evil Incarnate
Name: Nick Matthews
School: UCLA
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: The Pit of Insufficient Light
Posts: 1,478
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[ENERGY TOPIC] Round 68: TheHutt (AFF) vs. Username420 (NEG)
RESOLVED: The United States federal government should substantially increase alternative energy incentives in the United States.
Affirmative: TheHutt Negative: Username420 Judges: We need three. Post with judging paradigm if interested.
OUTLINE OF THE ROUND (These aren't rules. This outline is for your convenience)
__________________
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. "You lied to them and took their money. Do you know what that makes you?" "The winner!" |
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July 22nd, 2008, 03:54 AM
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#2 | ||
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the strongest man in the world
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 7,207
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I'll judge.
Paradigm: Quote:
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Quote:
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July 22nd, 2008, 03:58 AM
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#3 |
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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Sounds good.
Just need 2 more judges. |
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July 22nd, 2008, 03:58 AM
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#4 |
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Commence the Jigglin'
Name: Max
School: Yeah.
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Ohio
Posts: 801
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I would be interested in judging.
Short version - I'll vote on anything well-warranted. I like to think I'm tab, but everyone knows that biases will affect our decisions. I'll try to not let it affect me. Longer version/Specific arguments T/Theory - Important to the game of debate. I think most debaters don't debate T or theory very well, mostly because they require much more technical skill to win than most other arguments. Blippy arguments that end in "voter for fairness and education" don't dazzle me. Disads - Fine, but I think too often debaters get away with a lot of sketchy link evidence... especially on politics disads, and more especially on elections. CPs - I'll vote on them... even PICs (but I won't like it). I think they are much more compelling with solvency advocates. Ks - I'm a fan of the K, but I dislike when the debaters begin using only buzzwords to describe the argument. Too much jargon begins to sound pretentious and makes it more difficult, not less, to understand the argument. I have seen far too many debates in which the judge doesn't actually understand what the K means until the 2NR. Also, Ks probably don't need an alt if they turn solvency. Other things I'm with Mr. Micah Miller; I think that debaters are best served by making arguments that they actually believe. Yes, you can win a debate on an argument you don't believe, but if you DO believe it, then you're less like to be backed into a corner thinking "Oh no, they're right!" That said, I have run a Politics Disad and Heg Good on a (very) few occasions. I WILL pull the trigger on Inherency. Respect for your opponents is compulsory. This doesn't mean you can't make fun of them, but there's a line, and I think most of you know when you're crossing it. This is a virtual debate - that means you have extra time to write/review/edit your speeches. This is the perfect forum to work on word economy; take advantage of that! |
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July 22nd, 2008, 04:12 AM
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#5 |
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Longtime Member
School: UT
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Austin
Posts: 119
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I can judge
I like Max's paradigm - the same things apply for me except I really like PICS if they are clever and it's probably harder for me (but definitely not impossible) to pull the trigger on inherency. |
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July 22nd, 2008, 04:23 AM
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#6 |
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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Sweet 3 judges
Post the 1AC whenever. |
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July 22nd, 2008, 04:42 AM
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#7 |
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Evil Incarnate
Name: Nick Matthews
School: UCLA
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: The Pit of Insufficient Light
Posts: 1,478
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Judges are fine with me. 1AC should be up some time tomorrow when I finish it.
Take note - I've made the rules so that there's no arbitrary figure for prep time, it's expected that you be reasonable in posting speeches. If that's a problem let me know.
__________________
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. "You lied to them and took their money. Do you know what that makes you?" "The winner!" |
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July 22nd, 2008, 10:32 AM
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#8 |
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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Nope thats fine with me.
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July 23rd, 2008, 03:22 AM
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#9 |
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Evil Incarnate
Name: Nick Matthews
School: UCLA
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: The Pit of Insufficient Light
Posts: 1,478
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1ac - 2020 Words
Contention One: ”Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.”
A. CURRENT U.S. NUCLEAR ENERGY POLICY RELIES ON THE OPEN FUEL CYCLE Bodansky 06 [David, emeritus prof physics- U of WA, Physics Today; Dec2006, Vol. 59 Issue 12, p80-81] Theonce-through (also called open) fuel cycle, which does not include reprocessing, is currently used for US commercial nuclear power. Spent fuel is initially kept in water-filled cooling pools at the reactor site, pending eventual transfer to a central repository for interim storage or long-term disposal. No central repositories have been developed yet, and some of the cooling pools have reached their capacity. A common solution has been dry storage--moving the fuel to on-site, heavy, protective casks where convective air cooling suffices. An American Physical Society study published in 2005 judged that dry cask storage, either at the reactor sites or at central facilities, would be "safe and affordable" for at least 50 years. Two years earlier an MIT study recommended continuing the US reliance on the once-through fuel cycle "for the next decades." The possibilities of interim storage and of long-term disposal in the Yucca Mountain repository do remove the urgency of selecting a reprocessing option, but the once-through cycle will not suffice for the long-term, large-scale use of nuclear energy. B. USDOE ENERGY POLICY MARGINALIZES FAST REACTORS US DOE ’08 [US Dept of Energy, April 25, http://nuclear.energy.gov/genIV/neGenIV4.html] While the Department is supporting research on several reactor concepts, priority is being given to theVHTR, a system compatible with advanced electricity and hydrogen electricity generationcapabilities. The VHTR concept is being pursued in the United States as the next generation nuclear plant (NGNP) in accordance with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The emphasis on VHTR reflects its potential for economically and safely producing electricity and hydrogen at high efficiency without emitting noxious gases. This fits within the medium-term Administration goals of enhancing the security of our energy supply and doing so in an environmentally responsible manner. Fuel cycle options for the VHTR (a thermal-spectrum reactor) are more limited than for fast-spectrum reactors. Fast-spectrum reactors are a potential component in our long-term energy solution and, as such, are researched at a lower level of activity than the other reactor concepts. Their mission strengths result from their superior ability to burn recycled nuclear fuel. Closing the fuel cycle by recycling will reduce quantity and radiotoxicity of nuclear waste and increaseuraniumfuel utilization. C. FAST REACTORS ARE KEY TO CLOSING THE FUEL CYCLE Stanford 03 [George, nuclear physicist, ret Argonne Nat’l Lab, from the Proceedings of “Global 2003,” ANS Winter Meeting, New Orleans, November 16–20, http://www.nationalcenter.org/LWRStanford.pdf] At present the nuclear fuel cycle is “open”—that is, the spent fuel that is now considered waste still contains most of the energy it started with. Current U.S. policy is to use the fuel once and then throw it away, along with more than 95% of its original energy. In addition, a huge amount of energy is latent in the depleted-uranium residue from military and civilian enrichment activities. In a fully closed cycle, essentially all of the energy in the mined uranium would be exploited, with only the real waste— the fission products— left over for disposal. The fuel cycle cannot be closed with today’s thermal reactors by themselves, even with recycling.* It can be done, however, by supplementing them with fast reactors, which can use as fuel the heavy, fissionable isotopes that accumulate in thermal-reactor fuel. D. THE REST OF THE WORLD IS GOING NUCLEAR - THE U.S. MUST CATCH UP Campbell’06 - President ofAmerican Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness, Energy Strategies International, LLC, Former Director, Office of Policy, Planning and Analysis, U.S. Department of Energy 2006 (Scott L., Remarks, “The Nuclear RenaissanceSeizing the Historic moment”, http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/ANS_Remarks_Nov_2006_Campbell.pdf) Does it matter if American companies are no longer in the nuclear business? In short, it matters greatly…because nations that are engaged in the nuclear energy business sit at the non-proliferation table, have the technology to address global climate change, have the keys to combating global poverty and failed states, and hold the catalyst to advances in science and technology. Having American companies competing in the global nuclear energy market will deliver more revenue and better paying jobs to America, and will, thus, help improve American competitiveness. It’s no secret that nuclear power in the United States was almost knocked out by its opponents. No orders for new nuclear plants have been made for thirty years. U.S. companies that once dominated the design and manufacture of nuclear reactors have largely disappeared or been sold to foreign companies. Former administrations halted reprocessing and eventually cut nuclear R&D funding to zero. Increasingly, the U.S. has been out of the nuclear game andnow it is largely in the hands of foreign, state owned or directed companies. While the United States argued about its nuclear future (and that argument finally has turned markedly pro-nuclear recently),the rest of the world recognized nuclear energy’s benefits and moved aggressively forward. We see this in France, Japan, Russia and China. Countries all across the globe are looking to expand their use of nuclear energy and this is, of course, an exciting development. But the United States can’t flounder in indecision and inaction anymore. The world is going nuclear and we must too or fall sadly, irrevocably behind. Plan: The United States federal government should substantially increase incentives for commercial closed fuel cycle, integral fast reactor technology using pyrometallurgical processing, specifically: offering first mover tax credits, loan guarantees, and cooperative agreements for collaboration on Research & Development demonstration programs. I’ll clarify if needed. Contention Two: U.S. Leadership A. THE U.S. CAN STILL EXERT INFLUENCE ON NUCLEAR ENERGY - BUT THE WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY IS RAPIDLY CLOSING Marsh 07 [former DoD consultant on strategic nuclear tech and policy, Gerald E, “Can the Clash of Civilizations Produce Alternate Energy Sources?”, USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education, Vol. 135, January 2007.] Nuclear power is going to expand globally whether the U.S. plays a role or not. China brought six new reactors on-line between 2002-04, and plans at least another 30 in the next 15 years. India is planning for 30, with seven due to come on-line by 2008. For nuclear power to spread through the developing world beyond these two countries without the threat of additional proliferation of nuclear weapons, we need a new model, hopefully one fashioned by the U.S. with its ability to structure the necessary international framework.A somewhat promising start has been made with the U.S. Global Nuclear Energy Partnership initiative, under which the world's leading nuclear exporters would guarantee that all countries have access to a reliable source of fuel for civilian reactors at a reasonable cost. The spent fuel would be returned for recycling and waste disposal. In return, the non-nuclear weapons nations would renounce enrichment of uranium and reprocessing of spent fuel. To win acceptance, the supplier nations' fuel and waste-disposal services must be guaranteed by a global entity such as the International Energy Agency or the International Atomic Energy Agency.The technical part of the new model already exists: Under an arrangement known as "hub-spoke," self-contained reactors, sometimes called "nuclear batteries," would be available in a variety of sizes. Sealed and failsafe, they would be manufactured at a central location and rented to nations needing more energy. Running them would not require advanced nuclear expertise. At the end of their 15- to 30-year life, the exhausted reactor cores, still sealed, would be traded for rejuvenated ones. In fact, Toshiba has developed a nuclear battery and, to demonstrate it, the company has offered to install one at Galena, Alaska (population 650) for free. The reactor would put out 10 megawatts of electricity--just right for Galena--although much larger modular units can be produced. The combination of hub-spoke with a secure, internationally guaranteed fuel recycling and waste disposal arrangement for all nations having conventional nuclear reactors would permit the inevitable spread of civilian nuclear power without making the proliferation of nuclear weapons any more likely. If the IEA is correct, the time we have to formulate an appropriate policy and begin investment is a mere five to seven years. We need to act now. B. PUREX SPENT FUEL RECYCLING IS GAINING MOMENTUM Hannum, Marsh and Stanford 07 [William H, Gerald E, and George S. Stanford is a renowned nuclear physicist recognized for his work on the IFR. “Recycling Nuclear Waste.” American Physical Society Special Session on Nuclear Reprocessing, Nuclear Proliferation, and Terrorism, 15 April, http://www.gemarsh.com/wp-content/up...ing_APS_07.pdf. Accessed 7/15/08] Nuclear power will be rapidly expanding worldwide for the foreseeable future—and plans and policies announced by China, India, Japan, France, and other nations make it clear that recycle of nuclear fuel will be a growing part of the picture. The growth of nuclear power will displace much of the demand for fossil resources, and will relieve much of the concern over release of CO2 to the atmosphere.However, the growing use of nuclear power around the world contains the prospect of de facto acceptance of PUREX type reprocessing.The French model is considered to be successful -it allows distinct waste management advantages in terms of engineered waste forms, a modest resource extension, and at least a partial recovery of waste management costs from plutonium recycle.However, it will lead to expanded inventories of and commerce in separated plutonium, complicating the already challenging safeguards problem. C. THE PROLIFERATION OF WEAPONS-GRADE PLUTONIUM VIA PUREX IS A DANGEROUS REALITY Gilinski, Miller, and Hubbard 04 [Victor, Marvin, and Harmon, The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. “A fresh examination of the proliferation dangers of light water reactors.” October 22, http://www.npec-web.org/Essays/20041...kyEtAl-LWR.pdf, accessed 7/17/08] Conclusion: small-scale clandestine reprocessing is a credible possibility in countries seeking nuclear weapons.It is credible that states that operate nuclear reactors could also build and operate small PUREX reprocessing plants to extract militarily significant quantities of plutonium from LWR spent fuel. It is also credible that they could extract such quantities before detection by the IAEA or by national intelligence. The clandestine reprocessing of old spent fuel— that has been in storage for many years—is particularly worrisome because its lower radiation level makes it easier to divert, transport, and reprocess, and more difficult to detect. Krypton-85, the most detectable signature for reprocessing plant operation decayswith a ten year half-life.These considerations underline the fact that the once through fuel cycle is not a panacea for preventing proliferation, and cast doubt on current proposals to lessen theIAEA inspection effort at LWRs, at least without further assessment. D. PROLIFERATION CAUSES COLOSSAL NUCLEAR SHOOTOUTS. WITH SUCH MASSIVE DEVASTATION EXTINCTION IS VIRTUALLY ASSURED. Utgoff 2002 (Victor A., Deputy Director of the Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of the Institute for Defense Analysis, Survival Vol 44 No 2 Proliferation, Missile Defence and American Ambitions, p. 87-90) Many readers are probably wilting to accept that nuclear proliferation is such a grave threat to world peace that every effort should be made to avoid it. However, every effort has not been made in the past, and we are talking about much more substantial efforts now. For new and substantially more burdensome efforts to be made to slow or stop nuclear proliferation, it needs to be established that the highly proliferated nuclear world that would sooner or later evolve without such efforts is not going to be acceptable. And, for many reasons, it is not. First, the dynamics of getting to a highly proliferated world could be very dangerous. Proliferating states will feel great pressures to obtain nuclear weapons and delivery systems before any potential opponent does. Those who succeed in outracing an opponent may consider preemptive nuclear war before the opponent becomes capable of nuclear retaliation. Those who lag behind might try to preempt their opponent's nuclear programme or defeat the opponent using conventional forces. And those who feel threatened but are incapable of building nuclear weapons may still be able to join in this arms race by building other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons. Second, as the world approaches complete proliferation, the hazards posed by nuclear weapons today will be magnified many times over. Fifty or more nations capable of launching nuclear weapons means that the risk of nuclear accidents that could cause serious damagenot only to their own populations and environments, but those of others, is hugely increased. The chances of such weapons falling into the hands of renegade military units or terrorists is far greater, as is the number of nations carrying out hazardous manufacturing and storage activities. Increased prospects for the occasional nuclear shootout Worse still, in a highly proliferated world there would be more frequent opportunities for the use of nuclear weapons.And more frequent opportunities means shorter expected times between conflicts in which nuclear weapons get used,unless the probability of use at any opportunity is actually zero.To be sure, some theorists on nuclear deterrence appear to think that in airy confrontation between two states known to have reliable nuclear capabilities, the probability of nuclear weapons being used is zero." These theorists think that such states will be so fearful of escalation to nuclear war that they would always avoid or terminate confrontations between them, short of even conventional war. They believe this to be true even if the two states have different cultures or leaders with very eccentric personalities. History and human nature, however, suggest that they are almost surely wrong. History includes instances in which states known to possess nuclear weapons did engage in direct conventional conflict.China and Russia fought battles along their common border even after both had nuclear weapons. Moreover, logic suggests that if states with nuclear weapons always avoided conflict with one another, surely states without nuclear weapons would avoid conflict with states that had them.Again, history provides counter-examples. Egypt attacked Israel in 1973 even though it saw Israel as a nuclear power at the time. Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and fought Britain's efforts to take them back, even though Britain had nuclear weapons. Those who claim that two states with reliable nuclear capabilities to devastate each other will not engage in conventional conflict risking nuclear war also assume that any leader from any culture would not choose suicide for his nation. But history provides unhappy examples of states whose leaders were ready to choose suicide for themselves and their fellow citizens. Hitler tried to impose a 'victory or destruction' policy on his people as Nazi Germany was going down to defeat.} And Japan's war minister, during debates on how to respond to the American atomic bombing, suggested 'Would it not be wondrous for the whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower''- If leaders are willing to engage in conflict with nuclear-armed nations, use of nuclear weapons in any particular instance may not be likely, but its probability would still be dangerously significant. In particular, human nature suggests that the threat of retaliation with nuclear weapons is not a reliable guarantee against a disastrous first use of these weapons. While national leaders and their advisors everywhere are usually talented and experienced people, even their most important decisions cannot be counted on to be the product of well-informed and thorough assessments of all options from all relevant points of view. This is especially so when the stakes are so large as to defy assessment and there are substantial pressures to act quickly, as could be expected in intense and fast-moving crises between nuclear-armed states.' Instead, like other human beings, national leaders can be seduced by wishful thinking. They can misinterpret the words or actions of opposing leaders. Their advisors may produce answers that they think the leader wants to hear, or coalesce around what they know is an inferior decision because the group urgently needs the confidence or the sharing of responsibility that results from settling on something. Moreover, leaders may not recognise clearly where their personal or party interests diverge from those of their citizens. Under great stress, human beings can lose their ability to think carefully. They can refuse to believe that the worst could really happen, oversimplify the problem at hand, think in terms of simplistic analogies and play hunches. The intuitive rules for how individuals should respond to insults or signs of weakness in an opponent may too readily suggest a rash course of action. Anger, fear, greed, ambition and pride can all lead to bad decisions. The desire for a decisive solution to the problem at hand may lead to an unnecessarily extreme course of action. We can almost hear the kinds of words that could flow from discussions in nuclear crises or war. 'These people are not willing to die for this interest'. 'No sane person would actually use such weapons'. 'Perhaps the opponent will back down if we show him we mean business by demonstrating a willingness to use nuclear weapons'. 'If I don't hit them back really hard, I am going to be driven from office, if not killed'. Whether right or wrong, in the stressful atmosphere of a nuclear crisis or war, such words from others, or silently from within, might resonate too readily with a harried leader.Thus, both history and human nature suggest that nuclear deterrence can be expected to fail from time to time, and we are fortunate it has not happened yet. But the threat of nuclear war is not just a matter of a few weapons being used. It could get much worse.Once a conflict reaches the point where nuclear weapons are employed, the stresses felt by the leaderships would rise enormously. These stresses can be expected to further degrade their decision-making. The pressures to force the enemy to stop fighting or to surrender could argue for more forceful and decisive military action, which might be the right thing to do in the circumstances, but maybe not. And the horrors of the carnage already suffered may be seen as justification for visiting the most devastating punishment possible on the enemy.'Again, history demonstrates how intense conflict can lead the combatants to escalate violence to the maximum possible levels. In the Second World War, early promises not to bomb cities soon gave way to essentially indiscriminate bombing of civilians. The war between Iran and Iraq during the 1980's led to the use of chemical weapons on both sides and exchanges of missiles against each other's cities. And more recently, violence in the Middle East escalated in a few months from rocks and small arms to heavy weapons on one side, and from police actions to air strikes and armoured attacks on the other. Escalation of violence is also basic human nature. Once the violence starts, retaliatory exchanges of violent acts can escalate to levels unimagined by the participants beforehand.' Intense and blinding anger is a common response to fear or humiliation or abuse. And such anger can lead us to impose on our opponents whatever levels of violence are readily accessible. In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot-outs will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possiblewith the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed toward a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear 'six-shooters' on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations. E. THE IFR SOLVES PROLIFERATION - EXTRACTING PLUTONIUM FROM THE CLOSED-FUEL CYCLE IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE Stanford '01 [George, Ph.D., nuclear reactor physicist, retired from Argonne National Laboratory, http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA378.html, accessed 7/17/08.] Why is the IFR better than PUREX? Doesn't "recycling" mean separation of plutonium, regardless of the method? No, not in the IFR - and that misunderstanding accounts for some of the opposition. The IFR's pyroprocessing and electrorefining method is not capable of making plutonium that is pure enough for weapons. If a proliferator were to start with IFR material, he or she would have to employ an extra chemical separation step. But there is plutonium in IFRs, along with other fissionable isotopes. Seems to me that a proliferator could take some of that and make a bomb. Some people do say that, but they're wrong, according to expert bomb designers at Livermore National Laboratory. They looked at the problem in detail, and concluded that plutonium-bearing material taken from anywhere in the IFR cycle was so ornery, because of inherent heat, radioactivity and spontaneous neutrons, that making a bomb with it without chemical separation of the plutonium would be essentially impossible - far, far harder than using today's reactor-grade plutonium. So? Why wouldn't they use chemical separation? First of all, they would need a PUREX-type plant - something that does not exist in the IFR cycle. Second, the input material is so fiendishly radioactive that the processing facility would have to be more elaborate than any PUREX plant now in existence. The operations would have to be done entirely by remote control, behind heavy shielding, or the operators would die before getting the job done. The installation would cost millions, and would be very hard to conceal. Third, a routine safeguards regime would readily spot any such modification to an IFR plant, or diversion of highly radioactive material beyond the plant. Fourth, of all the ways there are to get plutonium - of any isotopic quality - this is probably the all-time, hands-down hardest. F. PLAN SOLVES - ADVANCING IFR TECHNOLOGY IS KEY TO REASSERTING U.S. NUCLEAR ENERGY LEADERSHIP & PREVENTING RAMPANT PROLIFERATION FROM TAKING GRIP UPON THE WORLD Hannum, Marsh and Stanford 07 [William H, Gerald E, and George S. Stanford is a renowned nuclear physicist recognized for his work on the IFR. “Recycling Nuclear Waste.” American Physical Society Special Session on Nuclear Reprocessing, Nuclear Proliferation, and Terrorism, 15 April, http://www.gemarsh.com/wp-content/up...ing_APS_07.pdf. Accessed 7/15/08] The choice facing us in the United States is stark: participate or not. Our country is still the single most important economy, and continues to have by far the most important political voice in the world. We need to be a leader both in the technology of nuclear power, and in the diplomatic initiatives to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. None of the international structures set up since WW-II would exist if it were not for the United States. Without strong U.S. participation, the needed international structures will not be developed, and the unrestricted spread of technology that can be subverted to bomb-making is assured. Widespread nuclear power—properly managed, and made feasible by the advent of effective recycle technology—will provide a major economic benefit, will have a huge, positive environmental impact, and will be a major part of a successful counter-proliferation strategy. Contention Three: Biosphereicide A. THERMAL REACTORS CREATE THE NEED FOR WASTE STORAGE FOR A SPAN OF AT LEAST 10,000 YEARS Llanos 08 [Miguel. Staff reporter, MSNBC, “Nuclear waste: No way out?” MSNBC Interactive, 2008, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3072031/] The slow ride into the belly of Yucca Mountain offers time to reflect on the magnitude of what’s going on here. Never before has man tried to dig a tomb shielding us from something so deadly for so long — at least 10,000 years. What the $58 billion project would bury is 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants across the United States. For Abe Van Luik, a senior policy adviser for the U.S. Energy Department’s Yucca Mountain Project, that engineering challenge is what drives his dedication. And that dedication makes him defensive about the work that’s gone into the project so far — $7 billion to pay for millions of manhours of research and the exploratory tunnel that takes scientists and visitors into the mountain. “They try to make us look like dopes and doofuses,” he says of critics. “It’s time for the gloves to come off.” But critics, including environmentalists and the state of Nevada, say that even more time and thought should go into how to dispose of the waste, especially since it would be lethal for thousands of years. Burying the waste in Yucca Mountain is “extremely bad science, extremely bad law and extremely bad public policy,” Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, told Congress shortly before the U.S. House voted overwhelmingly last month to back President Bush’s recommendation that Yucca go forward. B. YUCCA IS PRONE TO EARTHQUAKES Macfarlane 2k (Allison, The Earth Around Us, Jill Schneiderman- editor, pg. 291) Perhaps the second most pressing technical issue at Yucca Mountain has to do with its geological stability Actually, the Yucca Mountain region is not as stable as it first looked. It is located in the heart of the Basin and Range Province of the western United States, an area that was and still is tectonically active. The majority of recent earthquake activity is located south and west of Yucca Mountain, relatively close to the San Andreas fault system. The Yucca Mountain region itself has experienced seismicity. On 29 June 1992,a magnitude 5.4 earthquake centered on an unknown fault in Little Skull Mountain, six miles southeast of Yucca Mountain, rocked the area.’4 There are other active major faults in the region also. The length of the mountain runs north—south, parallel to the most potentially hazardous fault in the region, the Bare Moun*tain fault, located about six miles to the west of Yucca Mountain. There are active faults within the repository itself, the largest of which are the Ghost Dance and Bow Ridge faults. C. AN EARTHQUAKE WOULD CAUSE PLUTONIUM LEAKS Cyber West`97 (Cyber West Magazine, Earthquake could cause flooding of Yucca Mountain repository September 2, 1997 http://www.cyberwest.com/cw14/14scwst2.html) But within a 6-mile area north of the proposed storage facility the groundwater level rapidly rises to a more normal depth of about 600 feet. The reason for this abrupt change in the water table is a cause for concern, Davies said. Davies and Archambeau believe that the presence of open fractures underneath Yucca Mountain has allowed the water table to descend to unusually low depths, and that closed fractures to the north have resulted in a more normal water table level. The danger is that an earthquake of sufficient magnitude could cause the open fractures underneath the Yucca Mountain site to squeeze shut, forcing the water upward into the storage facility. "If water hits the storage area it could cause a rapid corrosive breakdown of the containers and allow the plutonium to leak into the water table and the atmosphere," Davies said. D. BIOSPHEREICIDE MEANS THE EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE ON EARTH - THIS MUST COME FIRST BECAUSE OF MAGNITUDE Comarow, 2001 Yucca Mountain: Time to Think the UnthinkableTestimony presented at US Department of Energy Public Hearing 12-8-2001 by David Comarow http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key...2001-12-08.htm None of that is impossible, and therefore none of that is unthinkable. We are not talking about the short-term or even long-term economic prosperity of Las Vegas. We are talking about nothing less than the survival of the human race. Lest you dismiss this as just more fanatic hyperbole, let this be a reality check: Yucca Mountain will hold all of the high level nuclear waste ever produced from every nuclear power plant in the US - with about 10% additional defense waste-- some 77,000 tons. The danger of getting it here aside for a moment, the amountof radioactivity and energyto be stored in one place, under that relatively tiny little bump in the desert is easily enough to contaminate and sterilize the entire biosphere.Is that unthinkable? No. If it is possible, it is thinkable.When you are talking about these types of risks, risks that can endanger entire segments of our population, let alone the entire earth, then the risk analysis must go into higher gear. It is not enough to merely calculate the risks as "extremely low" - because there is no "low enough" when the consequences are so cataclysmic. We accept certain risks, which are relatively high - 50,000 traffic deaths per year for example. But, as terrible as those deaths and injuries are, they do not imperil our culture, our nation or the survival of the human race. We are less willing to accept such risks when the consequences happen all at once -- plane crashes for example. That is our human nature. We are willing to spend much more to lower the risk of death in groups than chronic deaths spread out over time and space.As a people, as caretakers for future people, we cannot create unnecessary catastrophic risks like biosphereicide, the agonizing death of billions. E. THE IFR SOLVES YUCCA Ockert,’06 [Carl E., retired nuclear engineer. “Energy Alternative”. The Washington Times, May 7] Although dangerous, atomic power has the best safety record of any U.S. industry. That is because we have from the beginning designed each such power plant with triple redundant safety features. The biggest problem we have had is the safe and efficient disposal of the spent fuel. However that problem was solved over 12 years ago at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. Their final design, called the Integral Fast Reactor, essentially burns up the portion of the spent fuel elements that require permanent storage. It not only eliminates almost all its own long storage waste, it can efficiently extract power from existing waste fuel produced by the current generation of pressurized water cooled nuclear reactors. In addition to solving the fuel storage problem, the IFR introduces passive safety features such that under any conceivable circumstance, even with a total loss of electrical power and a total disablement of the reactor operators, the reactor will safely shut itself down. Contention Four: Solvency A. ONLY A FAST REACTOR CAN CLOSE THE FUEL CYCLE - THE U.S. SHOULD ACT NOW Stanford ’03 [George, nuclear physicist, ret Argonne Nat’l Lab, from the Proceedings of “Global 2003,” ANS Winter Meeting, New Orleans, November 16–20, http://www.nationalcenter.org/LWRStanford.pdf] A technology that fully closes the fuel cycle must consume the plutonium and minor actinides almost completely. Currently, at least, that can only be done in a fast-neutron spectrum. Under the present schedule, the United States is putting off the decision as to whether to close its fuel cycle until the year 2030.[3] That decision could be made much sooner, however. Technologies that can do the job have already been established or are close to being demonstrated. Of potential fast-neutron systems, the one that is closest to commercial viability is the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (ALMR; PRISM), developed by General Electric with support from Argonne National Laboratory, [3] and converted by GE to a larger design called Super-PRISM (SPRISM).[4] The reactor uses metallic fuel and a liquidmetal coolant (sodium), and is passively safe. It operates in conjunction with a pyrometallurgical reprocessing facility that is part of the reactor complex,* thereby minimizing the need to transport plutonium and spent fuel. The pyroprocess is non-aqueous and exceptionally proliferation resistant—its plutonium is sequestered in an inert atmosphere in very radioactive surroundings, never has the chemical purity needed nor the isotopic purity desirable for weapons, and never leaves the complex during the plant’s lifetime (except for possible shipment of startup fuel for a new plant, when spent fuel from thermal reactors is no longer available). The details of a feasible system for integrating the thermal- and fast-reactor cycles have been presented by Dubberly et al.[5] Ehrman et al. have shown that LWR spent fuel can be processed to supply LMRs at no cost to the government— the cost being covered by the (competitive) busbar cost of power from the LMRs.[6] In 1994 a consortium headed by General Electric proposed to design, construct, and test a functioning prototype ALMR in less than fifteen years. Such a project could be initiated immediately, while optimization studies for future systems proceed in parallel under Gen-IV. B. REAL WORLD RESEARCH PROVES - IFRs WORK Berkeley Dept of Nuclear Engineering ’03[July 25, “Introduction to Argonne Nat’l Lab’s IFR Program,” http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/designs/ifr/anlw.html] TheIntegral Fast Reactor (IFR) program was the nation's premier research and development effort focused on the basic design concepts and testing the next generation nuclear power plant. The IFR development work provides solutions in the areas of concern for today's nuclear plants. These solutions are integrated into a single, coherent nuclear plant concept. The work at Argonne included real-world testing, not just computer simulation, so that the results are not open to question. This was being done to allow larger, commercial plants to be built with confidence. The IFR work included research and development in plant safety, waste, transportation, economics, prevention of the diversion of nuclear materials, and includes a plant for which the fuel is so plentiful that fuel costs cannot reasonably outrun inflation. Theseimportant areas of focus are all included in the IFR, hence the name "Integral". The objective for this work was to determine the best approach for the design of the next generation nuclear plant -- to build on the excellent record of today's nuclear plant, but to simplify, integrate, and take maximum advantage of natural phenomenon for protection and operation. A system has been worked out in which a new fuel type has allowed major advances in improving safety, economics, and minimizing the need for waste storage. It is now clearthat the IFR effort would have resulted in a "new and improved" nuclear plant -- one that can serve as the electric power source of choice for an energy hungry, but environmentally aware and concerned world. C. FIRST MOVER TAX CREDITS ARE THE BEST INCENTIVE FOR IFR PROJECT COMPLETION MIT Faculty Group 2003(distinguished team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard released today what co-chair Dr. John Deutch calls "the most comprehensive, interdisciplinary study ever conducted on the future of nuclear energy, Chapter 3) http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/ We believe the government should step in and increase the likelihood of practical demonstration of nuclear power by providing financial incentive to first movers.4 We propose a production tax credit of up to $200 per kWe of the construction cost of up to ten “first mover” plants. This benefit might be paid out at 1.7 cents per kWe-hr, over a year and a half of full-power plant operation, since the annual value of this production credit for a 1000 MWe plant operating at 90% capacity factor is $134 million. The $200 per kWe government subsidy would provide $200 million for a 1000 MWe nuclear plant, about 10% of the historically-based total construction cost estimate; accordingly the total outlay for the program could be up to $2 billion paid out over several years.We prefer the production tax credit mechanism because it offers the greatest incentives for projects to be completed and because it can be extended to other carbon free electricity technologies, for example renewables (such as wind which currently enjoys a 1.7 cents per kWe-hr tax credit for ten years) and coal with carbon capture and sequestration. D. LOAN GUARANTEES WOULD STIMUATE THE INDUSTRY AND COST TAXPAYERS NOTHING Adams`8 (Theodore G., a physicist at T. G. Adams and Associates in Springville., Federal loan guarantees key to nuclear plant construction, The Buffalo news, 6/08/08 http://www.buffalonews.com/367/story/365369.html) With America’s greenhouse-gas emissions increasing daily, it is time to stimulate the use of nuclear energy. Only then will we be able to deal with the challenges of atmospheric pollution and climate change, while meeting our nation’s growing need for electricity.Electricity companies plan to build more than 30 new nuclear power plants in the United States, but few, if any, are likely to get beyond the drawing- board stage until the government provides loan guarantees. Because high up-front costs have made nuclear plant construction potentially risky, Wall Street investors say federal loan guarantees are needed in the event that unanticipated delays from intervention or litigation drive up the cost of construction, as happened during the 1980s. To facilitate the construction of new plants, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved several plant sites, certified designs for new reactors and modified its plant licensing process. If nuclear plant construction proceeds pretty much on schedule, loan guarantees will cost taxpayers nothing. Congress two years ago approved loan guarantees for the first few new nuclear plants. E. FINALLY, COOPERATIVE AGREEMENTS ARE A KEY INCENTIVE FOR NUCLEAR R&D PROGRAMS Bengelsdorf & McGoldrick 07 [Harold D. Bengelsdorf, consultant, formerly held top positions with US Atomic Energy Commission, US Department of Energy, former Senior office director in the Department of State for dealing with international nuclear and non-proliferation negotiations, and Fred McGoldrick, principal associate in global consulting firm Bengelsdorf, McGoldrick and Associates, LLC. Has held senior positions in the Department of State, the Department of Energy, and the U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency. THE U.S. DOMESTIC CIVIL NUCLEAR INFRASTRUCTURE AND U.S. NONPROLIFERATION POLICY. May 2007. American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness. <http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/COUNCIL_WHITE_PAPER_Final.pdf> Accessed: July 17, 2008 4:50 PM] Further, the revitalization of the U.S. nuclear infrastructure will depend on the U.S. ability to provide sustained bipartisan support for nuclear R&D programs in order that they can be sustained from one administration to another. The ability of the United States to continue to make significant contributions to the improvement of safeguards, physical protection and proliferation resistance of nuclear systems is dependent, at least in part, onthe continued health of the U.S. technological base. This assumes close collaboration between industry and the national laboratories, which could be increased through greater use of Cooperative Agreements between U.S. firms and national laboratories.
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Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. "You lied to them and took their money. Do you know what that makes you?" "The winner!" |
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July 23rd, 2008, 11:13 AM
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#10 |
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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1. What are fuel cells?
2. Is PUREX just a form of reprocessing? 3. What do you use to power your nuclear plants? 4. Your Marsh 07 card talks about how the GNEP is talking a role in nuclear energy now. How is your heg advantage still inherant? 5. Do you throw your waste on Yucca? 6. Do you read evidence that and Earthquake will happen? Or do you just assume one will? |
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July 23rd, 2008, 12:14 PM
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#11 | ||||||
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Evil Incarnate
Name: Nick Matthews
School: UCLA
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: The Pit of Insufficient Light
Posts: 1,478
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Quote:
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__________________
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. "You lied to them and took their money. Do you know what that makes you?" "The winner!" |
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July 23rd, 2008, 12:18 PM
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#12 |
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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P.S. Is it possible to post adobe cards? It doesn't show the card just says "object"
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July 23rd, 2008, 12:22 PM
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#13 | |
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Evil Incarnate
Name: Nick Matthews
School: UCLA
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: The Pit of Insufficient Light
Posts: 1,478
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Quote:
__________________
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. "You lied to them and took their money. Do you know what that makes you?" "The winner!" |
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July 23rd, 2008, 12:43 PM
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#14 |
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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1. Maybe i'm confuesd. Are IFR's plants or batteries?
2. What powers them as in .. Electricity, oil, ect. 3. How many diffrent types of nuclear power plants are there? 4. Why are IFR's key your heg advantage talks about how any nuclear power will solve. 5. Can the states do this? |
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July 23rd, 2008, 02:14 PM
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#15 | |||||
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Evil Incarnate
Name: Nick Matthews
School: UCLA
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: The Pit of Insufficient Light
Posts: 1,478
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Quote:
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__________________
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. "You lied to them and took their money. Do you know what that makes you?" "The winner!" |
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July 24th, 2008, 12:10 AM
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#16 |
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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Alright well I was at work for the past 9 hours. I will have the 1NC up probably later today.
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July 24th, 2008, 12:11 AM
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#17 |
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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Wait last question.
How many types of reactors fall under each category? |
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July 24th, 2008, 01:29 AM
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#18 |
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Evil Incarnate
Name: Nick Matthews
School: UCLA
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: The Pit of Insufficient Light
Posts: 1,478
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I don't have a specific number. There's quite a few, though.
Take your time with the 1NC. I'm at camp so I'm probably not going to have time to post a 2AC until Sunday when I get home.
__________________
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. "You lied to them and took their money. Do you know what that makes you?" "The winner!" |
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July 24th, 2008, 11:47 PM
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#19 |
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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2 Off and Case in order. First topicality. 1. Definition - Nuclear is not considered a alternative energySimon, Christopher Alternative Energy: Political, Economic, and Social Feasibility, 2007, p. 39-40 “The federal definition of alternative energy is best summarized by Title 25, Chapter 79 % 7701 of the revised US Code: “The term ‘alternative energy facility’ means a facility for producing electrical or thermal energy if the primary energy source for the facility is not oil, natural gas, coal, or nuclear power.” 2. Violation - The affirmative incentives nuclear power. 3. Standards A. Limits - Nuclear power could be a resolution of its own. The number of different plants and the infinite number of ways to incentive it make it a exponentially growing case list. This explodes the limits, making a impossible research burden on the negative. The number of types of nuclear power is limitless. Tom Ordeman, technical writer for a major defense contractor in Hampton Roads, Virginia July 22, 2008 [“Exclusive: The Anatomy of a Civil Nuclear Reactor” http://todays-nuclear-news.blogspot....-nuclear.html] Not all reactors are alike; different designs are used for different purposes, and have different capabilities. A detailed description of each and every combination could easily fill a textbook 4. Voters A. Education - What we learn from this round is a huge impact. The limits debate proves the topic specific education skew, instead were forced to debate this T violation or the generic K that links to any ‘eco’- solvency. B. Fairness - The affirmative could spike out of any case arguments or DA links claiming we’re rather not specific enough and that’s a problem, or they’re dealing with a different type of nuclear power. Next off. K. A. The links - ‘Control’ or Management of the Environment is utopian - This ‘solution’ to all our environmental ‘problems’ is what lead to the environmental problems in the first place. McWhorter, Professor of Philosophy at Northeast Missouri State, 1992 Heidegger and the Earth, p. vii-viii Today, on all sides of ecological debate we hear, with greater and greater frequency, the word management. On the one hand, business people want to manage natural resources so as to keep up profits. On the other hand, conservationists want to manage natural resources so that there will be plenty of coal and oil and recreational facilities for future generations. These groups and factions within them debate vociferously over which management policies are the best, that is, the most efficient and manageable. Radical environmentalists damn both groups and claim it is human population growth and rising expectations that are in need of management. But wherever we look, wherever we listen, we see and hear the term management. We are living in a veritable age of management. Before a middle class child graduates from high school she or he is already preliminarily trained in the arts of weight management, stress management, and time management, to name just a few. As we approach middle age we continue to practice these essential arts, refining and adapting our regulatory regimes as the pressures of life increase and the body begins to break down. We have become a society of managers of our homes, careers, portfolios, estates, even of our own bodies - so is it surprising that we set ourselves up as the managers of the earth itself? And yet, as thoughtful earth-dwellers we must ask, what does this signify? In numerous essays - in particular the beautiful 1953 essay, "The Question Concerning Technology" - Heidegger speaks of what he sees as the danger of dangers in this, our, age. This danger is a kind of forgetfulness - a forgetfulness that Heidegger thought could result not only in nuclear disaster or environmental catastrophe, but in the loss of what makes us the kind of beings we are, beings who can think and who can stand in thoughtful relationship to things. This forgetfulness is not a forgetting of facts and their relationships; it is a forgetfulness of something far more important and far more fundamental than that. He called it forgetfulness of `the mystery'. It would be easy to imagine that by `the mystery' Heidegger means some sort of entity, some thing, temporarily hidden or permanently ineffable. But `the mystery' is not the name of some thing; it is the event of the occurring together of revealing and concealing. Every academic discipline, whether it be biology or history, anthropology or mathematics, is interested in discovery, in the revelation of new truths. Knowledge, at least as it is institutionalized in the modern world, is concerned, then, with what Heidegger would call revealing, the bringing to light, or the coming to presence of things.. However, in order for any of this revealing to occur, Heidegger says, concealing must also occur. Revealing and concealing belong together. Now, what does this mean? We know that in order, to pay attention to one thing, we must stop paying close attention to something else. In order to read philosophy we must stop reading cereal boxes. In order to attend to the needs of students we must sacrifice some of our research time. Allowing for one thing to reveal itself means allowing for the concealing of something else. All revealing comes at the price of concomitant concealment. But this is more than just a kind of Kantian acknowledgment of human limitation. Heidegger is not simply dressing up the obvious, that is, the fact that no individual can undergo two different experiences simultaneously. His is not a point about human subjectivity at all. Rather, it is a point about revealing itself. When revealing reveals itself as temporally linear and causally ordered, for example, it cannot simultaneously reveal itself as ordered by song and unfolding in dream. Furthermore, in revealing, revealing itself is concealed in order for what is revealed to come forth. Thus, when revealing occurs concealing occurs as well. The two events are one and cannot be separated. Too often we forget. The radiance of revelation blinds us both to its own event and to the shadows that it casts, so that revealing conceals itself and its self-concealing conceals itself, and we fall prey to that strange power of vision to consign to oblivion whatever cannot be seen. Even our forgetting is forgotten, and all traces of absence absent themselves from our world. The noted physicist Stephen Hawking, in his popular book A Brief History of Time, writes, "The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe.” Such a theory, many people would assert, would be a systematic arrangement of all knowledge both already acquired and theoretically possible. It would be a theory to end all theories, outside of which no information, no revelation could, or would need to, occur. And the advent of such a theory would be as the shiningof a light into every corner of being. Nothing would remain concealed. This dream of Hawking's is a dream of power; in fact, it is a dream of absolute power, absolute control. It is a dream of the ultimate managerial utopia. This, Heidegger would contend, is the dream of technological thought in the modern age. We dream of knowing, grasping everything; for then we can control; then we can manage, everything. But it is only a dream, itself predicated, ironically enough, upon concealment, the self-concealing, of the mystery. We can never control the mystery, the belonging together of revealing and concealing. B. Storage technologies are the worst kind - they allow for natural resources to harnessed and used for arbitrary human purposes, ultimately they are just turned into a ‘standing reserve‘. Tad Beckman 2000 [“MARTIN HEIDEGGER AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS” http://www2.hmc.edu/~tbeckman/personal/HEIDART.html] Heidegger clearly saw the development of "energy resources" as symbolic of this evolutionary path; while the transformation into modern technology undoubtedly began early, the first definitive signs of its new character began with the harnessing of energy resources, as we would say. (7) As a representative of the old technology, the windmill took energy from the wind but converted it immediately into other manifestations such as the grinding of grain; the windmill did not unlock energy from the wind in order to store it for later arbitrary distribution. Modern wind-generators, on the other hand, convert the energy of wind into electrical power which can be stored in batteries or otherwise. The significance of storage is that it places the energy at our disposal; and because of this storage the powers of nature can be turned back upon itself. The storing of energy is, in this sense, the symbol of our over-coming of nature as a potent object. "...a tract of land is challenged into the putting out of coal and ore. The earth now reveals itself as a coal mining district, the soil as a mineral deposit." {[7], p. 14} This and other examples that Heidegger used throughout this essay illustrate the difference between a technology that diverts the natural course cooperatively and modern technology that achieves the unnatural by force. Not only is this achieved by force but it is achieved by placing nature in our subjective context, setting aside natural processes entirely, and conceiving of all revealing as being relevant only to human subjective needs. The essence of technology originally was a revealing of life and nature in which human intervention deflected the natural course while still regarding nature as the teacher and, for that matter, the keeper. The essence of modern technology is a revealing of phenomena, often far removed from anything that resembles "life and nature," in which human intrusion not only diverts nature but fundamentally changes it. As a mode of revealing, technology today is a challenging-forth of nature so that the technologically altered nature of things is always a situation in which nature and objects wait, standing in reserve for our use. We pump crude oil from the ground and we ship it to refineries where it is fractionally distilled into volatile substances and we ship these to gas stations around the world where they reside in huge underground tanks, standing ready to power our automobiles or airplanes. Technology has intruded upon nature in a far more active mode that represents a consistent direction of domination. Everything is viewed as "standing-reserve" and, in that, loses its natural objective identity. The river, for instance, is not seen as a river; it is seen as a source of hydro-electric power, as a water supply, or as an avenue of navigation through which to contact inland markets. In the era of techne humans were relationally involved with other objects in the coming to presence; in the era of modern technology, humans challenge-forth the subjectively valued elements of the universe so that, within this new form of revealing, objects lose their significance to anything but their subjective status of standing-ready for human design C. Impacts - Managerial approaches to the world leads to viewing everything as a tool for human will, a standing-reserve. Even people become nothing more than a standing-reserve. McWhorter, Professor of Philosophy at Northeast Missouri State, 1992 Heidegger and the Earth, p. 6 The danger of a managerial approach to the world lies not, then, in what it knows - not in its penetration into the secrets of galactic emergence of nuclear fission - but in what it forgest, what it itself conceals. It forgets that any other truths are possible, and it forgets that the belonging together of revealing with concealing is forever beyond the power of human management. We can never heave, or know, it all: we can never manage everything. What is now especially dangerous about this sense of our own managerial power, born of forgetfulness, is that it results in our viewing the world as mere resources to be stored or consumed. Managerial or technological thinkers, Heidegger says, view the earth, the world, all things as mere Bestand, standing-reserve. All is here simple for human use. No plant, no animal, no ecosystem has a life of its own, has any significane, apart from human desire and need. Nothing, we say, other than human beings, has any intrinsic value. All things are instruments for the working out of human will. Whether we belive that God gave Man dominion or simple that human might (sometimes call intelligence or rationality) in the face of ecological fragility makes us always right, we managerial, technological thinkers tend to belive that the earth is only a stockpile or a set of commodities to be managed, bought, and sold. The forest is timber; the river, a power source. Even people have become resources, human resources, personnel to be managed, or populations to be controlled. D. Human management practices lead a loss of relation to our Being leading to an ‘Ontological Damnation’. The impacts are worse than nuclear omnicide. Micheal E. Zimmerman, Professor of Philosophy at University of Tulane, 1993, Contesting Earth’s Future, Radical Ecology and Postmodernity. Pg. 119-20 Heidegger asserted that human self-assertion, combined with eclipse of the being, threatens the relation between being and human Dasein. Loss of this relation would be even more dangerous than a nuclear war that might "bring about the complete annihilation of humanity and the destruction of the earth."54 This controversial claim is comparable to the Christian teaching that it is better to forfeit the world than to lose one's soul by losing one's relation to God. Heidegger apparently thought along these lines: it is possible that after a nuclear war, life might once again emerge, but it is far less likely that there will ever again occur an ontological clearing through which such life could manifest itself. Further, since modernity's one-dimensional disclosure of entities virtually denies them any "being" at all, the loss of humanity's openness for being is already occurring.55 Modernity's background mood is horror in the face of nihilism, which is consistent with the aim of providing material "happiness" for everyone by reducing nature to pure energy.56 The unleashing of vast quantities of energy in nuclear war would be equivalent to modernity's slow-motion destruction of nature: unbounded destruction would equal limitless consumption. If humanity avoided nuclear war only to survive as contented clever animals, Heidegger believed we would exist in a state of ontological damnation: hell on earth, masquerading as material paradise. Deep ecologists might agree that a world of material human comfort purchased at the price of everything wild would not be a world worth living in, for in killing wild nature, people would be as good as dead. E. Reject the 1AC’s calculative thought - Allowing us to break from the typical framework lets us rethink and reflect in a non-calculative way to open up space for creation of the Being. McWhorter, Professor of Philosophy at Northeast Missouri State, 1992 Heidegger and the Earth, page 5. Our usual response to such prophecies of doom is to ignore them or, when we cannot do that, to scramble to find some way to manage our problems, some quick solution, some technological fix. But over and over again new resource management techniques, new solutions, new technologies disrupt delicate systems even further, doing still more damage to a planet already dangerously out of ecological balance. Our ceaseless interventions seem only to make things worse, to perpetuate a cycle of human activity followed by, ecological disaster followed by human intervention followed by a new disaster of another kind. In fact, it would appear that our trying to do things, change things, fix things cannot be the solution, because it is part of the problem itself. But, if we cannot act to solve our problems, what should we do? Heidegger's work is a call to reflect to think in some way other than calculatively, technologically, pragmatically. Once we begin to move with and into Heidegger's call, and begin to see our trying to seize control and solve problems as itself a problematic approach if we still believe that thinking's only real purpose is to function as a prelude to action, we who attempt to think will twist within the agonizing grip of paradox, feeling nothing but frustration, unable to conceive of ourselves as anything but paralyzed. However, as so many peoples before us have known, paradox is not only a trap; it is also a scattering point and passageway. Paradox invites examination of its own constitution (hence of the patterns of thinking within which it occurs) and thereby breaks a way of thinking open, revealing the configurations of power that propel it and hold it on track. And thus it makes possible the dissipation of that power and the deflection of thinking into new paths and new possibilities. Heidegger frustrates us. At a time when the states are so very high and decisive action is so loudly and urgently called for, Heidegger apparently calls us to do - nothing. If we get beyond the revulsion and anger that such a call initially inspires and actually examine the feasiblity of response, we begin to undergo the frustration attendant upon paradox; how is it possible, we ask, to choose, to will, to do nothing? The call itself places in question the bimondal logic of activity and passivity: it points up the paradoxical nature of our passion for action, of our passion for maintaining control. The call itself suggests that our drive for acting decisively and forcefully is part of what must be throught through, that the narrow ooption of will versus surrender is one of the power configurations of current-thinking that must be allowed to dissipate. Case, Leadership/Prolif 1. Turn - NRC already overstretched - New plants increase proliferation chances. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland, 2004, Atomic Myths, Radioactive Realities:Why Nuclear Power Is a Poor Way to Meet Energy Needs, Journal of Land, Resources, & Environmental Law, Vol. 24 No. 1 2004, Utah College of Law The proliferation implications of building so many plants and supplying them with fuel are stupendous. Inspecting them, enriching the uranium, ensuring that materials are not diverted into weapons programs would present challenges that would make today's proliferation concerns look like the proverbial Sunday school picnic. We already have confrontations between the United States and other countries over alleged nuclear weapons aspirations from far more modest programs involving a handful of power plants. The risk of losing a city once in a while to nuclear bombs should be an unacceptable part of an energy strategy. 2. Their Marsh evidence talks about how the US is already attempting to solve proliferation through the GNEP. Meaning SQ solves. 3. They don't claim any spillover evidence, or evidence saying other countries will use IFR's. Yet their own evidence talks about other countries like India, Japan, France using PUREX. Means proliferation is inevitable. 4. Turn - ITER is low on congress’s list of priorities - New Alternative energy programs kill ITER. (Peter Fairley, Contributing Editor Peter Fairley has reported for IEEE Spectrum from Bolivia, Beijing, and Paris., February 14th, 2008, “Does Fusion Have a Future?”, http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb08/5980) The $10.7 million provided by Congress will cover only U.S. personnel posted to ITER in France and a skeleton staff in the States. ITER supporters say the setback is temporary. They note that congressional committees fully funded ITER in draft legislation last fall, only to see the funds shed in the course of a larger budget battle between President Bush and Congress. At the last minute, Congress slashed $22 billion to avoid a threatened veto, and ITER was an obvious target as a new and nondomestic project. “It’s just one of those things that happen because of this financial mess we’re in,” says Stephen Dean, president of Fusion Power Associates, a nonprofit research and educational outfit based in Gaithersburg, Md. Dean says that slowdowns at ITER, as officials grapple with more than 200 proposed design changes, will blunt the effect of U.S. delays. “The impact is going to be relatively small, provided that it doesn’t happen again next year,” says Dean. But some observers say it could happen again if the “financial mess” endures, because ITER—the core of the U.S. fusion program—appears to be low on Congress’s list of priorities. James Decker, a principal with Alexandria, Va., lobbying firm Decker Garman Sullivan and former director of the DOE’s Office of Science, notes that Congress instead provided extra funding for shorter-term energy solutions. For example, Congress gave a 23 percent raise to the DOE’s energy R&D programs, covering such areas as carbon sequestration and solar energy. If the United States does drop out of ITER, that could weaken support among other ITER players. Britain pulled its funding for another international R&D megaproject, the $6.7 billion International Linear Collider, after Congress effectively froze U.S. participation in the project. The International Linear Collider is the successor to the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) Large Hadron Collider, which is to begin operations this year. B. Cutting ITER destroys US scientific leadership. (Abdou Et. al, Jan 17, 2008, “Letter Seeks U.S. Funding for ITER”, http://www.iterfan.org/index.php?opt...d=352&Itemid=2) "ITER is a joint project of the China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States. Congress authorized U.S. participation in this project in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the President committed the United States to its approximately 10% share of the ITER construction just a few months ago. Failure by the United States to sustain its international commitments to ITER seems certain to establish the United States as an unreliable partner not only in the ITER project, but in many other areas of science. This comes at a time when the expense and scope of many critically important scientific activities suggest international partnership and cooperation. "Therefore, for the sake of the international and domestic fusion effort and for the sake of the U.S. reputation in the international scientific community, we most respectfully urge that funding be provided for continued U.S. participation in ITER. C. Destroying Heg (Adam Segal, November/December 2004, “Is America Losing its edge?” Foreign Affairs) The United States' global primacy depends in large part on its ability to develop new technologies and industries faster than anyone else. For the last five decades, U.S. scientific innovation and technological entrepreneurship have ensured the country's economic prosperity and military power. It was Americans who invented and commercialized the semiconductor, the personal computer, and the Internet; other countries merely followed the U.S. lead. Today, however, this technological edge-so long taken for granted-may be slipping, and the most serious challenge is coming from Asia. Through competitive tax policies, increased investment in research and development (R&D), and preferential policies for science and technology (S&T) personnel, Asian governments are improving the quality of their science and ensuring the exploitation of future innovations. The percentage of patents issued to and science journal articles published by scientists in China, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan is rising. Indian companies are quickly becoming the second-largest producers of application services in the world, developing, supplying, and managing database and other types of software for clients around the world. South Korea has rapidly eaten away at the U.S. advantage in the manufacture of computer chips and telecommunications software. And even China has made impressive gains in advanced technologies such as lasers, biotechnology, and advanced materials used in semiconductors, aerospace, and many other types of manufacturing. Although the United States' technical dominance remains solid, the globalization of research and development is exerting considerable pressures on the American system. Indeed, as the United States is learning, globalization cuts both ways: it is both a potent catalyst of U.S. technological innovation and a significant threat to it. The United States will never be able to prevent rivals from developing new technologies; it can remain dominant only by continuing to innovate faster than everyone else. But this won't be easy; to keep its privileged position in the world, the United States must get better at fostering technological entrepreneurship at home. 5. Imperically denied - Cold War proves proliferation doesn't lead to a war. On biosphere 1. Don't belive the tag - There is no warrant to "weighing his impact first". 2. No impact - His Cyber West card is from 97: Historically Yucca is unaffected and constructed for defense against earthquakes. Ed Mueller, Director Esmeralda County Repository Oversight Program 2006 http://esmeraldanvnuke.com/facts/FAQ8.pdf The repository would be located about 1,000 feet underground in a relatively stable block of solid rock, which would keep its contents safe from any significant impacts of any earthquake. Because vibratory ground motion decreases with depth, earthquakes have much less impact underground than on or near the surface. Underground inspections at Yucca Mountain and the tunnels at the Nevada Test Site, some of which are over 40 years old, have revealed little disturbance from historic seismic events. This phenomenon is not unique to the Yucca Mountain area; worldwide, inspections of subsurface structures after major earthquakes have reinforced this observation. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations require that all facilities it licenses be designed and constructed to withstand the effects of natural phenomena, including earthquakes, without representing a threat to public health and safety from their operations. 3. Their Ockert 06 card states it can only extract power from the waste of pressurized water cooled nuclear reactors. Means their will still be waste from other types of reactors. 4. No TF - It would take years for the IFR's to be set up. Yucca mountain will of already leaked into the water system. 5. They don't remove the waste from Yucca Mountain now meaning the impacts are inevitable. Solvency 1. Turn - By the time plants are established there won't be any uranium left to power them killing solvency. Co-op America 05 (Ten Strikes Against Nuclear Power, http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/...gy/nuclear.cfm) Not enough uranium – Even if we could find enough feasible sites for a new generation of nuclear plants, we’re running out of the uranium necessary to power them. Scientists in both the US and UK have shown that if the current level of nuclear power were expanded to provide all the world's electricity, our uranium would be depleted in less than ten years. As uranium supplies dwindle, nuclear plants will actually begin to use up more energy to mine and mill the uranium than can be recovered through the nuclear reactor process. What’s more, dwindling supplies will trigger the use of ever lower grades of uranium, which produce ever more climate-change-producing emissions – resulting in a climate-change catch 22. 2. Turn - Reprocessing leads to terrorists getting weapons. Dr. Edwin Lyman, UCS Senior Staff Scientist, 6/17/08, Nuclear Terrorism and Nuclear Reactors Nuclear Reprocessing: Dangerous, Dirty, and Expensive, http://www.ucsusa.org/global_securit...pent-fuel.html Less than 20 pounds of plutonium is needed to make a nuclear weapon. If the plutonium remains bound in large, heavy, and highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies (the current U.S. practice), it is nearly impossible to steal. In contrast, separated plutonium is not highly radioactive and is stored in a concentrated powder form. Some claim that new reprocessing technologies that would leave the plutonium blended with other elements, such as neptunium, would result in a mixture that would be too radioactive to steal. This is incorrect; neither neptunium nor the other elements under consideration are radioactive enough to preclude theft. Most of these other elements are also weapon-usable. Moreover, commercial-scale reprocessing facilities handle so much of this material that it has proven impossible to keep track of it accurately in a timely manner, making it feasible that the theft of enough plutonium to build several bombs could go undetected for years. A U.S. reprocessing program would add to the worldwide stockpile of separated and vulnerable plutonium that sits in storage today, which totaled roughly 250 metric tons as of the end of 2005—enough for some 40,000 nuclear weapons. Reprocessing the U.S. spent fuel generated to date would increase this by more than 500 metric tons B. Which kills us all. (Al-Ahram Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, 8/26/2004, "Extinction!", http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm) What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.. |
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July 25th, 2008, 01:58 AM
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#20 |
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Evil Incarnate
Name: Nick Matthews
School: UCLA
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: The Pit of Insufficient Light
Posts: 1,478
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1. Status of the K? What's the alt?
2. On T - on limits you talk about there being an infinite number of incentives for nuclear energy, how is that not true for any other case? 3. On Yucca, why does your timeframe arg apply when the USFG's most optimistic date for opening Yucca is 2017? There's no waste there now. 4. Since Congress gave ITER literally $0 in funding in FY 2008 how does your tradeoff turn even apply? 5. Why should we prefer the word of Lyman over that of expert bomb designers from Livermore national lab who actually did real-world testing and analysis on an IFR to come to their conclusions? Where does Lyman mention the IFR fuel cycle or pyroprocessing?
__________________
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. "You lied to them and took their money. Do you know what that makes you?" "The winner!" |
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July 25th, 2008, 11:55 AM
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#21 | |||||
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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July 25th, 2008, 12:32 PM
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#22 |
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Evil Incarnate
Name: Nick Matthews
School: UCLA
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: The Pit of Insufficient Light
Posts: 1,478
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1. Has the international landscape not changed at all since the collapse of the USSR?
2. Where's your the impact to hege? Or are you just assuming hege is good? 3. Where in your Makhijani evidence does it say the NRC is overstretched? Where's the warrants in that card?
__________________
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. "You lied to them and took their money. Do you know what that makes you?" "The winner!" |
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July 25th, 2008, 12:42 PM
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#23 | |||
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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July 25th, 2008, 01:26 PM
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#24 | |
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Evil Incarnate
Name: Nick Matthews
School: UCLA
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: The Pit of Insufficient Light
Posts: 1,478
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2. Can GNEP solve prolif with $0 of funding? 3. Your ITER turn assumes a near-term tradeoff in funding right? 4. Would you exaggerate a need for a car/expensive item to your parents to get them to buy you one?
__________________
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. "You lied to them and took their money. Do you know what that makes you?" "The winner!" |
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July 25th, 2008, 01:37 PM
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#25 | ||||
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Longtime Member
Name: Joe Enimabag
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 112
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