NewsReport-"The Dirty Truth About the Nation's Most Polluting Power Plants

[RadiumProj@cs.com]

Radsafers:
A national environmental advocacy group together with US. Senator Jim 
Jeffords [R-VT] recently issued a report titled: "Lethal Legacy: The Dirty 
Truth About the Nation's Most Polluting Power Plants" concerning 594 fossil 
fueled power plants which are reported as being among the "nation's dirtiest 
power plants". The plants are ranked on four pollutants: nitrogen oxides, 
sulfur dioxide, mercury, and carbon dioxide.

A news report describing the report can be found at:

http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2000/04/04212000/power_12224.asp

<A 
HREF="http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2000/04/04212000/power_12224.asp";>Cl
ick here to see ENN News Article on fossil power plant pollution</A>


This report was recently the subject of a Washington, DC based news 
conference organized by the traditionally antinuclear Public Interest 
Research Group [PIRG] to  promote the passage of the "Clean Energy Bill" 
authored by US Sen. Jim Jeffords, which is aimed at cleaning up polluting 
fossil fueled power plants. Jeffords, joined PIRG [the truth to the old saw 
that politics makes strange bedfellows - a republican and PIRG?] at the April 
13 press event news conference pushing the report and the bill.

I would recommend radsafers read the news article about the report "Lethal 
Legacy" and obtain the report, if interested,  which is available from PIRG 
or perhaps your Senator related to consideration of the Clean Energy Act 
bill.  This report is relevant to the debate over alternate fuel cycle risk 
estimates and policy considerations. US Senator Jeffords, author of the Clean 
Energy Act bill is quoted as saying:

"It is long past time for this industry [electric utilities] to make a 
transition to clean, safe energy sources."

At last something we,  Earth Day backers,  and environmental activists can 
all agree upon. I would recommend we all contact our US Senators and express 
our support for the Clean Energy Act introduced by  Sen. Jeffords [R-VT] 
since it will lead to a more level playing field in considering alternate 
electric generating options.

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health 
Public Health Sciences
email: radiumproj@cs.com
(802) 496-3356

PS: I've attached below a post which I made to the ENN Forum Discussion Area 
on their recent news article about the Lethal Legacy Report.  If any 
Radsafers feel that today's nuclear generating plants or the next generation 
of plants on the drawing boards have something to contribute to the goal of 
clean energy, the theme of Earth Day 2000, perhaps they might post a comment 
to the ENN Forum Discussion of this report or other forums  there about 
Global Warming, or start a forum theme at the ENN [Environmental News 
Network] website. It is never too late to start a "dialogue" with traditional 
 critics or even hard-core opponents where there might be some common ground 
in reaching a desired endpoint.

========================
ENN Forum
Sunday, April 23, 2000  Comment on this story
Comment on this message
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Name: Stewart Farber 
Email: radiumproj@cs.com 
Date: 4/21/2000 11:12:47 PM 
Story: America's most wanted: Power plants urged to clean up their act 
Subject: Comment on America's most wanted: Power plants urged to clean up 
their act 

The introduction to this article notes that: "Cleaning up these plants is the 
single most effective way to make our air safe to breathe and to protect our 
environment from toxic pollution and global warming," said Angela Ledford, 
campaign director of Clear The Air, the National Campaign Against Dirty 
Power. 

The principal offenders - 594 in all - are cited in a report, Lethal Legacy: 
The Dirty Truth About the Nation's Most Polluting Power Plants, which ranks 
the dirtiest power plants, states and companies for each of four pollutants: 
nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury and carbon dioxide."

Having received my graduate training in Public Health and Air Pollution 
Control [UMass School of Public Health '73] and having done my graduate 
thesis on mercury pollution in the atmosphere as of 1972, I agree that 
"cleaning up" coal and other fossil fuel fired electric generating stations 
is long overdue. However, it is critical to note that working to clean up the 
dirtiest fossil fuel plants examined in the recent report is only a small 
part of the solution to the environmental challenges we face. Nothing planned 
or on the horizon is going to stop carbon dioxide emissions from coal/oil 
burning or reduce mercury pollution from coal/oil burning per unit energy 
produced. 

I feel the environmental movement must, but to date has largely failed to 
recognize that nuclear generated electricity, with its present role in 
generating 20% of all electricity in the US [more electricity than produced 
in total in the US as of about 1950], and 50% of all electricity today in 
France, and up to 80% in some other European countries is an essential 
contributor to having kept carbon dioxide emissions from having grown even 
more than they have to date, and is essential to reducing carbon dioxide in 
the future. The goals of the Kyoto Climate Change agreements to keep the 
greenhouse effect from overwhelming the earth's climate cycle in the next few 
decades absolutely cannot be met without continued and a substantial 
increased contribution from nuclear energy -- a source of electric generation 
which emits essentially no carbon dioxide, no mercury, no nitrogen oxides, 
sulfur dioxide per unit energy produced vs. any fossil fuel alternative. 
Merely cleaning up today's dirty coal, oil, or gas plants won't do the job 
needed.

The statements of most environmental groups on this matter have been 
contradictory at best and disingenuous to deceitful at worst. While many 
groups have in effect been hoisted on their own petard over their knee-jerk 
opposition to the use of nuclear energy while expressing their anguish over 
the trends in greenhouse effects and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, there 
is going to have to be a dramatic reappraisal of the incentives for nuclear 
energy [environmental, economic [considering all costs of environmental 
detriment --not just partial economic analysis, strategic, and climatic]. 

Please note that in posting the above, I am not an employee of any nuclear 
energy company or endeavor and in fact have been heading a grass roots 
organization trying to promote medical notice and follow-up recommendations 
for no fewer than 500,000 American's who were subjected to an ill-advised 
medical treatment as children involving truly significant radiation exposure 
[Nasal Radium Irradiation - NRI -see http://www.delphi.com/carsreap for info 
if desired]. The key point is that the oft-repeated claims of nuclear waste 
radiation risk to the general public are, on detailed examination of the 
scientific facts, largely a boogeyman, raised by some activists who fail to 
recognize that the radiological impacts of "natural" radionuclide emissions 
from coal plants in routine operation or from millions of tons per year of 
coal ash disposal; or even radon-222 in natural gas use in domestic burning 
[gas stoves & space heaters] result in far more radiation exposure and risk 
than will ever result from nuclear waste disposal or US nuclear plant 
operations. Again, I don't make these statements about radiological impacts 
casually. I spent 20 years working as a public health scientist involved in 
environmental radiation studies around nuclear plants, radiation impacts of 
wood burning power plants, elevated radon-222 inside solar heated homes and 
due to energy conservation. Popular perceptions just don't match the 
scientific reality of the concerns being raised against nuclear electric 
generation vs. coal and oil fired power. 

The environmental aspects of power generation and an honest health and safety 
evaluation of alternate available bulk electric supply fuel cycles is too 
important a subject to let the debate be driven by preconceived biases, 
dogma, half-truths, or worse. 

Stewart Farber
Director, Radium Experiment Assessment Project
Consulting Scientist
Public Health Sciences
email: radiumproj@cs.com
Website: http://delphi.com/carsreap 







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