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Ho-hum. Here we go
again.
"But nuclear
power presents a whole host of dangers that pose even more serious problems than
fossil fuel." None that we haven't known
about and dealt with successfully for years.
"Nuclear
waste is recognized as the most dangerous substance known." By whom? Given a choice between a snootful of nuclear waste
or a snootful of nerve gas, which would you choose? The snootful of
nuclear waste presents a slight possibility that you MAY develop cancer in 30 or
so years. The snootful of nerve gas guarantees you will be dead in 30
seconds. Or how about the venom of a Coral snake? One bite and
you're probably gone. Botulism? The list goes on and on.
Nuclear anything is far from "the most dangerous substance on
earth."
"nearly half of the
nation's nuclear power plants failed to repel small groups of intruders on foot
in "force-on- force" exercises" And the point
is what? Penetrating the outer perimeter of a nuclear facility, or even
penetrating into the control room does not threaten the integrity of the
reactor. The primary lesson learned from Three Mile Island is that humans
cannot make enough mistakes (or in the case of terrorists, take enough
deliberate actions) to overcome the multiple levels of safeguards built into
American nuclear facilities. So unless the terrorists happen to be
carrying a nuclear weapon when they penetrate the facility, the reactor will
survive. And if the terrorists have a nuclear weapon, there are more
effective places to detonate it than at a nuclear facility (downtown San
Francisco, Chicago, New York City, to name a
few).
"The industry recently convinced Congress to bury the
problem in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, even though. . ." And once again we see the same list the anti-Yucca forces have
used for years. It obviously hasn't convinced government decision makers
or the U.S. Senate that Yucca Mtn is a problem, and no matter how many times the
same arguments are used, they will be discounted. [If you keep doing the same
thing every day, you will get the same result every
day].
"Lynn Woolsey is the representative from the Sixth
Congressional District and a member of the House Subcommittee on Energy."
Now that scares me more than Yucca Mtn or
nuclear power - a representative sitting on the Subcommittee on Energy who
thinks wind, geothermal and solar power can solve our future energy
shortages.
Les Aldrich, CHP
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