Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: Stewart Brand: Why Environmentalists Must Accept Nuclear [View all]FBaggins,
I totally agree with you that Brand demolished Jacobsen.
Jacobsen technical errors were numerous and naive.
However, those who are not schooled in science, like kristopher; won't recognize the errors as errors because they don't know any better. They accept anything that Jacobsen says as factual because they don't know enough to know that Jacobsen was wrong.
Any weapons physicist knows that the link between nuclear weapons and nuclear power reactors is tenuous at best. Every nuclear weapons state, including the USA; had nuclear weapons before they had commercial power reactors. In fact, commercial power reactors are really very poor at making weapons grade material. Every nuclear weapons state that uses plutonium made that plutonium NOT with a commercial power reactor, but with special weapons material production reactors, like those at Hanford and Savannah River in the USA; which are specially designed for the purpose.
Jacobsen exhibited an almost childish grasp on the relevant physics.
PamW