Editorial on nuclear power

["Elizabeth M. Brackett" <brackett@CSHORE.COM>]

The following editorial appeared in last Friday's Journal Inquirer, a small local newspaper serving several towns in north-central Connecticut.

Nuke Power: Clean, green, and necessary

We have a Congress, and perhaps also a public, that says "no" to drilling for oil in Alaska and "no" to higher standards of fuel conservation.
How can we choose not to generate new energy and not to conserve?

This is like being broke and refusing to spend less or work more.

It is called denial.

The United States is in denial about energy.

So a call for more nuclear power is probably not likely to meet with loud cheers and applause just yet.

But it is rational.

And inevitable.

Our nation's rate of consumption will not diminish.

No real alternative exists.

Anti-nuclear activists express concern about damage discovered in reactors last year and earlier this year.  And they are right to do so.

Indeed, southeastern Connecticut is in peril because Congress will not deal with the matter of nuclear waste and the federal government has yet to deal fully with security at nuclear plants.

But (again) that is a problem of national denial and national leadership.

The nation's long-term needs for energy are not negated by congressional inaction.

And the efficacy of nuclear energy is not negated by poor public policy in the past.

The fact is, nuclear power is clean and has never killed one soul in this country.

Coal-generated electricity pollutes heavily and coal mining has killed thousands.

Sen. Eugene McCarthy used to say that to argue for coal power over nuclear power is to make a class argument, because one is really saying that the actual deaths of poor miners matter less than the convenience of the suburban middle class.

America's current crop of nuclear plants are aging.  Unless we want to give up the nuclear power we already have, or watch aging facilities become truly unsafe, we will have to build new plants.

(We must also, obviously, resolve the waste storage problem.  Congress must make Nevada take the waste.)

Nuclear power is the future, like it or not, for there remains no other sources of massive amounts of power, and our nation's energy appetites have not been moderating.

So: How to do it right?

Nuclear power is actually relatively cheap to produce once plants are constructed, but constructing the plants has traditionally been expensive because there is no one standard or formula for construction.

This expense could be greatly reduced if all plants were built along much the same lines - in accordance with a standard approved by the government beforehand.  This is what has made nuclear power workable in Europe.

These new nuclear plants could be made environmentally friendly, and they should be safer than the essentially safe ones already in place.

In any case, these plants are vital to this country's energy future.  They are simply what will eventually have to happen.

What stands in the way, mainly, is public superstition and Congressional and presidential timidity.  It's time to grow up.




Elizabeth M. Brackett, CHP
Senior Health Physicist
MJW Corporation
brackett@cshore.com
(860) 872-2137
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