Published on Saturday, July 21, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
No Future for Nuclear Energy
by Ralph Nader
Here they go again. After thirty years without a firm order, the atomic
power companies are pushing their radioactive, costly technology for a
comeback on the backs of you the taxpayers.
The old argument in the Seventies was that nuclear powered electricity would
reduce our dependence on foreign oil. With only three percent of our
electricity coming from burning petroleum, the pro-nuke lobby is now jumping
on the global warming bandwagon. Uranium, they argue, does not release
greenhouse gases like coal or oil.
What nuclear lobbies ignore is all the coal and oil that needs to be burned
to enrich uranium, to transport radioactive wastes with protective highway
and rail convoys and provide security since they would be a priority target
for sabotage.
Apart from that, let's start with the technological insanity of the nuclear
fuel cycle-from uranium mines and their deadly tailings, to the refining and
fabrication into fuel rods, to the multi-shielded dome-like nuclear plant,
to the necessity for perfect operation of the facility, to the still
unresolved problems of the location and containment of hot radioactive
wastes and contaminated material for the next 200,000 years!
All this for one objective-to boil water into steam. A pretty complex chain
of events in order to boil water. There are far better, cheaper ways to meet
the electricity needs of today's generation without burdening future
generations for centuries with the deadly waste products.
Back in the Seventies, before the public rose up and said no to nuclear
power, helped by Wall Street's reluctance to finance these trouble-prone
plants, the Atomic Energy Commission projected the construction of 1000
atomic power plants in the U.S. by the year 2000. There are today 103
plants.
Placing the predicted 100 plants up and down the California coastline would
have been an act of peerless recklessness, especially given the earthquake
faults.
Just this week, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Kashiwazaki, Japan and
disabled a gigantic nuclear power plant which the New York Times reported,
"raised new concerns about the safety of the nation's accident-plagued
nuclear industry." It turns out that this plant, owned by Tokyo Electric
Power, may be sitting directly above an earthquake fault line.
Each day, reports show damage greater than believed the day before,
including radiation leaks, damage to exhaust ducts, burst pipes and other
"malfunctions" beyond the fires. Several hundred barrels of radioactive
waste were toppled.
The problem with nuclear power is that it gets one bite of the apple.
Just one major meltdown could provoke a demand to close the industry down by
overwhelming adverse public outrage. You see, way back in the Fifties and
Sixties, the Atomic Energy Commission, a booster-regulatory agency for
atomic power plants, estimated that an "area the size of Pennsylvania" would
be contaminated in such a disaster.
Remember, Chernobyl in Ukraine is still surrounded by vacant towns and
villages following the 1986 tragedy. Radioactivity found its way as far as
sheep in England, nuts grown in Turkey and elsewhere.
Do you know any other industry producing electricity that has to have
specific evacuation plans for miles around it, is inherently a national
security risk, cannot be privately insured without Congress mandating severe
limited liability in case of massive casualties and requires massive
taxpayer subsidies?
A most concise, authoritative case against the electric atom was recently
released titled "Why a Future for the Nuclear Industry is Risky" by a group
of environmental health and social investment groups. (See
www.cleanenergy.org)
In the introduction to the report, the case against nuclear energy was
summarized this way: "Wind power and other renewable technologies, combined
with energy efficiency, conservation and cogeneration can be much more cost
effective and can be deployed much sooner than new nuclear power plants."
Yes indeed, efficiency or conservation, with a national mission, can cut in
half the waste of energy, using currently available technology and know-how,
before the first privately capitalized nuclear plant opens. One scientist
once described the primary output of electric generating plants as "heating
the heavens."
If this insensitive industry cannot be revived by Uncle Sam's tax treasury,
Wall Street certainly has given no indication that private investment would
take on the risk. Investment money is pouring presently into wind power,
solar and other renewables and this is just the early springtime for these
benign sources of energy.
The International Energy Agency sees a 25% cost reduction for wind power and
a 50% cost reduction for solar photovoltaics from 2001 to 2020. Without Wall
Street's private capital and with rising construction and operating costs in
other countries, the prospect for nuclear power being competitive, even
deducting decommissioning costs, and the many millennia of waste storage
costs, is not there.
Add a major accident and you'll see, in addition to casualties and
contaminated land and property, every private investor running for cover
while the bill is passed on to taxpayers.
Here is a suggestion to put the industry's propaganda to rest. Will any high
nuclear industry executive debate physicist Amory Lovins at the National
Press Club filled with electric company leaders? If so, please visit
http://www.rmi.org and contact Mr. Lovins.
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