Pro-Nuke Washington Post Article

[Lorna Bullerwell <ljb1@cornell.edu>]

This posting was sent to the TRTR email list and I haven't seen in on
RADSAFE, so I thought I'd send it along.

Lorna

------------ Forwarded by Anthony J Vinnola/AJV/CC01/INEEL/US on 03/17/2000
05:30 PM ---------------------------


Here is a very pro-nuke editorial by columnist Charles Krauthammer in the
WP on 3/17/00.

You have been sent this message as a courtesy of the Washington Post
(http://www.washingtonpost.com).

To view the entire article, go to http://washingtonpost.
com/wp-dyn/articles/A26549-2000Mar16.html

A Nation of Oil Addicts

Let's see: (1) Flush and prosperous, America goes on a decade-long,
gas-guzzling SUV binge. (2) Out of deference to calving Arctic caribou, the
government declares off limits for exploration the largest oil repository
in the United States. And (3) a brand new $5.5 billion nuclear reactor on
Long Island is shut down and dismantled before selling a single kilowatt of
electricity, part of a general "China Syndrome" panic about nuclear power.

Oil consumption up. Oil exploration stymied. Oil substitutes shackled.
Surprise! Gasoline prices are high. Pump prices are hitting $1.80 a gallon,
and the politicians are scurrying about, expressing outrage and looking for
villains. We have been here before.

When gasoline prices last spiked in 1996, President Clinton, ever feeling
our pain, ordered Energy and Justice Department investigations to find out
why. A few months later, the reports concluded that high prices were caused
by--brace yourself--high demand and tight supply. (Alas, not price gouging
by the oil companies.)

Why do oil prices periodically spike? No mystery: backsliding on
conservation, irrational restrictions on oil exploration and a nuclear
phobia that keeps us from substituting uranium for fossil fuels. OPEC sees
all this, watches supplies tightening, seizes the opportunity for a
windfall by restricting supply even more, and presto!--oil hits $30 a barrel.

What to do? Some Republicans have decided to take a whack at Clinton's 4.3
cents-a-gallon gas tax. Oh, the courage. Aside from the fact that repeal,
literally, won't make a dime's worth of difference at the pump, it betrays
a total misapprehension of the problem. The reason we are in our current
state is not high, but low gas taxes.

The other industrial nations pay far more than we do in energy taxes. When
the price of oil dropped from $20 a barrel to $10, gas was so cheap that
people stopped demanding fuel efficiency in their cars. That was the time
to slap on a nice hefty gas tax.

If we had kept the retail price at, say, $20 a barrel by progressively
adding taxes as the price went down to $10, we would have (1) encouraged
conservation, (2) produced huge revenues for government (enabling a cut in
other taxes) and (3) kept the price relatively stable.

That tax could have been lifted gradually as the price began to rise. But
the price would not have risen as much, because consumption would have been
tempered by the artificially high price during times of plenty.

The other current idea is to lower prices by pumping out the strategic
petroleum reserve. Nothing terribly wrong with that. If oil producers
abroad are going to artificially lower supply, we can artificially raise it.

It is, however, not going to make much difference to prices. We just don't
have that much in the reserve--no more than a 56-day supply. The only good
reason to use the strategic petroleum reserve now has nothing to do with
helping the consumer, but a lot to do with making easy money for the U.S.
government. Why shouldn't the government sell its oil at $30--and then
refill the reserve at a later time when the price falls, as it inevitably
will, to $20 or $10? It is about time that government, the eternal
spendthrift, sold high and bought low.

These temporary measures, however, will make as little difference at the
pump as did the peregrinations of the U.S. energy secretary begging U.S.
client states to be nice and raise oil production.

What to do in the long run? Reduce our dependence on oil. Historian Richard
Rhodes and nuclear engineer Denis Beller make an unimpeachable case for
nuclear power in the January-February 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs.
Nuclear is both more efficient and cleaner than fossil fuels. A 1,000
megawatt oil-powered plant produces 300,000 tons of solid waste; a nuclear
plant
about 20 cubic meters.

Nuclear produces almost no atmospheric pollutants. Oil spews huge amounts
of particulates and toxic gases into the atmosphere, including carbon
dioxide, a major cause of global warming. Nuclear is safer, too. A European
Union and International Atomic Energy Agency study concludes that oil kills
32 times as many people through exposure to its pollutants.

Electric cars are seen as a panacea by some. But unless we go nuclear, all
they do is transfer the site of energy- and pollution-generation from the
car itself to some central power plant that produces the electricity. If
that power plant is fueled by oil, no pollution or conservation saving has
been achieved.

There is a way out of our energy dilemma. It involves not idle fiddling now
with taxes or petroleum reserves. It involves a rethinking of our energy
prejudices. Try selling that in an election year.


***********************************************************************
Any statement above is 100% my responsibility.  
Don't blame Cornell!
***********************************************************************
Lorna Bullerwell			Phone:  (607) 255-8816
Radiological Safety Specialist		Fax:  (607) 255-8267
Cornell University			mailto:ljb1@cornell.edu
Department of Environmental Health and Safety
Laboratory and Radiation Safety Section
125 Humphreys Service Building,  Ithaca, NY  14853
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