There’s Nothing Energy Independent (and sustainable) about Nuclear Energy
Suppose we suspend our “precautionary principle” and understanding about the Three Mile Island crisis. You know, that 1979 national emergency caused by a partial meltdown triggered by a loss of reactor cooling water. Unfortunately, over the last three decades, neither plant owners nor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have adequately addressed the basic flaws in U.S. nuclear safety that led to the Three Mile Island accident, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
And suppose we just forget about what to do with the nuclear waste from the reactors, lethal to all life for more than 10,000 years. Even if we can contain the nuclear waste (a big “if” for many of us to swallow in these days of unforeseen financial market meltdowns), why pass this waste on to future generations, on to our great, great, great grandchildren?
That we’ve been unable to agree politically on a safe place to store nuclear waste (in Yucca Mountain, Nevada) masks the fact that we still need to move this toxic waste from as many as 104 currently operating nuclear reactors scattered throughout the continental U.S. Nice targets for those terrorists we’ve been unable to locate or perhaps for the swelling homegrown terrorist types as of late, folks who have come on hard times and can think of better things to do with a $700 billion bailout package and don’t like the way things are headed in Washington D.C. By the way, these nuclear reactors with a 40 year lifespan aren’t cheap, therefore they’ve been partially subsidized by American taxpayers for years.
What Senator McCain and Senator Obama seem to leave out in all their debates and public discourse is that America is no more energy independent with nuclear power than it is with oil. A key rationale for expanding nuclear power generation touted by those concerned about climate change – including both Presidential candidates: Nuclear power plants generate energy by splitting uranium atoms, resulting in no carbon dioxide emissions, standing in stark contrast to those CO2 emissions created by burning coal or oil. But the U.S., as it turns out, has even less uranium than oil as a percentage of domestic production.
