Congressman Paulsen Addresses Nuclear Energy and Congressional Pay Freeze
Ben, a student at Eden Prairie High School, sent in a letter explaining his thoughts on nuclear energy. Tracey in Bloomington e-mailed in this week with her thoughts on recent legislation to continue the Congressional pay freeze.
Congressman Erik Paulsen (MN-03) answered constituent questions in his first installment of Erik's Correspondence Corner of 2013. This week, Paulsen answered questions sent in from Eden Prairie and Bloomington.
Ben, a student at Eden Prairie High School, sent in a letter explaining his thoughts on nuclear energy. Tracey in Bloomington e-mailed in this week with her thoughts on recent legislation to continue the Congressional pay freeze.
Each week, Representative Paulsen receives thousands of letters, emails, tweets, Facebook posts, and phone calls from constituents voicing their opinions. Through this video series, Representative Paulsen regularly responds to constituent correspondence on a variety of topics.
Carol Woehrer
9:14 am on Monday, January 14, 2013
Why keep the moratorium on nuclear energy? Nuclear energy is far more expensive than wind energy. Unfortunately, the new 2nd generation nuclear actors continue to use large amounts of uranium and produce a lot of nuclear waste.
Minnesota has the capacity to produce 32 times the electricity from wind than it currently uses. Wind costs much less than nuclear power. While wind is variable in one location, when wind turbines are spread over the state, the amount of electricity they produce is much less variable. Base power, like nuclear and coal, does not work well to balance the variability of wind because it cannot be increased or decreased. That's why coal and nuclear power are balanced with gas when the demand is higher than the base load. Wind power can be balanced in the same way when demand exceeds the supply. Denmark produced 24% of its electricity from wind in 2011 and aims to reach 50% by 2020. An excellent booklet explains how wind power works, including the methods that Denmark is successfully using to balance supply with demand. Scroll down this webpage to download a copy of "Windpower to Combat Climate Change:" http://www.energinet.dk/EN/KLIMA-OG-MILJOE/the-Danish-windcase/Sider/Den-danske-vindcase.aspx
Wind turbines owned by Minnesotans could keep the billions of dollars Minnesotans currently send out of state for coal, gas, and nuclear power in our own state, giving our state economy a big boost.
Mr. Dee
1:43 pm on Monday, January 14, 2013
The Congressman is poorly informed regarding nuclear energy.
1. Nuclear power plants can release dangerous, cancer-causing radiation like Iodine-131, Cesium-137, Tritium, and dangerous gases like Krypton-85, during their daily operations!
2. They use up to 20,000 gallons of water per minute and 200 chemicals.
3. They create dangerous nuclear waste which lasts for over 200,000 years. The ratepayer will pay for this forever.
4. 2 studies show higher leukemia rates in children living near nuclear power plants.
5. France dumps some of their nuclear waste into the sea and ships some to Siberia. They are not a model to follow. Plus, they buy energy from Germany during peaktimes.
Nuclear energy is THE most expensive and dirty energy for ratepayers.
Highly recommend everyone read these 2 free on-line books to learn the truth:
Cover Up by Karl Grossman
https://ia700802.us.archive.org/3/items/CoverUp-
StoryOfNuclearPower/KarlGrossmanCoverUpCropped.pdf
The Code Killers by Ace Hoffman
http://www.acehoffman.com/books/TheCodeKillers.pdf
Also, Check the headlines on www (dot) E N E N E W S (dot) c o m to read how Japan has suffered through their nuclear meltdowns.
Also, go to www (dot) karlgrossman (dot) com for articles and interviews on truly clean energy sources that are already perfected and utilized.
700,000 jobs have been created in Europe thanks to Renewable Energy, and many countries have EXCESS energy who use Renewable Energy.