Just Say No to Nukes

My son’s professor at Huxley College compared using nuclear energy to produce electricity to ringing a doorbell with a cannon.
The technology is inappropriate. Economically and environmentally, it is a disaster.
The long-suffering taxpayers/ratepayers of Washington State are still shelling out for the aborted construction and mothballing of four nuclear reactors when along comes the Bush administration, which never saw dirty industry they didn’t like, pumping new life into the veins of the defunct nuclear power industry.

Washington State has the dubious honor of having one of the most contaminated pieces of real estate in the US Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The payload for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki was made at Hanford, as was a good chunk of the plutonium for today’s nuclear arsenal.

Waste material is stored in metal drums, half of which are leaking and the other which will leak, and buried in vesicular basalt above the water table.

After years of clean up, contaminated material is still leaking into the Colombia River. Even the tumbleweed is radioactive.

Like so many issues these days the discussion on nuclear energy has been obscured by lies, more lies and damned lies.
Thank heaven for groups like Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility who are doing the work of sifting the wheat from the chaff. If you want to find out more, visit their website.
These men and women are very concerned about the “nuclear revival” and with good reason.

Nuclear energy and nuclear weapon are both controlled by one of largest and most mysterious government agencies, the DOE. There is link between the two industries that should worry us. Nuclear power plants produce the material needed for nuclear weapons. Bush and the crazies-in-the-basement want a new generation of nuclear weapons. That is the main reason they want more plants on line.

What’s more, they want new weapons and power plants based on new technologies, the development of which will suck up billions that should go to developing renewable energy. To no one’s surprise their science is questionable. It's an industrial welfare program for their friends and political supporters with nuclear hegemony the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The business plan for nuclear energy is and has been large tax payer subsidies, leveraging, licensing shortcuts, and externalizing risks. Wall Street will not loan them money. They are lobbying congress right now for huge loans that are guaranteed by us.

Disposal of waste material is a never ending nightmare. Not one spent fuel rod has ever been successfully disposed of. Vitrification and burial are the only real options and that has yet to be done successfully. Since the DOE owns all nuclear material, the responsibility for their disposal is ours.

A return to mutual assured destruction is not a sane option. What we should be doing is keeping our commitments to draw down our nuclear arsenal and helping our neighbors to do the same. These large arsenals serve no purpose, encourage proliferation and in the age of terrorism are a recipe for disaster.

Nuclear energy, contrary to popular belief, will not reduce our carbon footprint. The production the fuel, transportation costs, the operation of the plants and the disposal of the material all suck up huge amounts of fossil fuels. Increasing the efficiency of our current energy system is seven times more effective in reducing carbon emissions than nuclear energy.

Reprocessing has been a failure. All but two of the nation’s who had reprocessing programs have shut them down. Japan is about to discontinue its program and France will be forced to do so soon because it is contaminating the English Channel.

The public health issues are overwhelming and largely ignored. Accidents, earthquakes, contamination and cancer are all part of the scenario. Chernobyl cost Russia 350 billion dollars and counting. These facilities are prime targets for terrorists.
The nuclear industry has always managed to shift the burden of it's dangerous, dirty technology onto the backs of tax payers.

Our congressmen and women are being lobbied right now to fund another nuclear boondoggle. We must make very clear to them that if they want to continue representing us, they must reject absolutely anymore investment in nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration and the industry are trying to bamboozle congress into believing our nuclear weapons don’t work and we need new ones.
As one nuclear physicist said, if they don’t think our weapons are any good, I suggest they stand under one. Leave the wife and kids at home.

CarolDW