[Sustain] Nader on target on nuclear energy:

[David Fairley]

A good article by Nader on the ills of nuclear power:

Weekend Edition
July 21 / 22, 2007
The New Face of Nuclear Power (Same as the Old)
Atomic Blowback

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.

Ralph Nader is the author of The Seventeen Traditions