Nuke Supporters Caught With Pants Down

The rhetoric that we have heard over the past few years about energy generally and nuclear energy specifically has been severely skewed by several factors. The current President of the United States of America being from Illinois has more to do with the policies that are being put forth than we might understand. Illinois is notorious for lying to their population, promising to meet unrealistic expectations and looking away from obvious liabilities that come with their chosen path. I am old enough to remember the rhetoric that surrounded the toll roads, the state lottery and such "inventions" as the cloverleaf (yes, invented in the Illinois Department of transportation) Each of these developments came with promises and none of those came to pass. The massive subsidization of the nuclear industry is also a factor. I understand the urgency that is felt by most policy makers regarding long term energy independence, but their fall back position is rife with ill conceived and utterly nonsensical "facts". The first, has been repeated ad-nauseum, and is no less false for the repetition. Nuclear energy is not carbon neutral. Mining, milling, processing, concentration, and transport of the vast quantities of ore required to yield useful fuel for nuclear electrical generation are energy intensive and the vast majority of that energy comes from dirty fossil fuels. I wish that everyone could study this for themselves because once you understand the massive costs associated with this energy source, the lies told about it seem even more asinine. The massive concrete facilities that are meant to contain the radioactive material are also created using cement which is created by heating limestone in giant kilns to extremely high temperatures, you guessed it, using, most commonly, dirty coal.

Now that we are beginning to see, arguably, the most technologically advanced people in the world have their own devastating problems with this technology, we can begin to ask better questions about what went wrong and why. In spite of all the assurances that we get from the corporations who run nuclear electric generating stations, we cannot say that another accident will not happen right here in our own country. It certainly lies within the realm of possibility that it could happen at nearly any moment and any day. I lived within eighty miles of Three Mile Island, (TMI) when it released radioactive material in central Pennsylvania. We still have not had an accounting of health effects from that accident. For over two weeks, radioactivity spewed from the facility while the public was not informed about the leak. Considering that the best time to use iodine to combat negative effects of radiation exposure is inside a window two weeks before exposure and up to eight hours after exposure, this delay was unforgivable. How facility managers could have kept that accident quiet for so long isn't the least bit confusing. Those sorts of things happen every day.

While our government is courting the nuclear industry, carving out huge pieces of the budgetary pie for low interest and government backed loans for them, the reactors that we have on line now continue to age. Inspections routinely turn up worse wear and tear than designers thought would occur. Billions have been spent on several plans for what to do with the waste, but to date, none make sense or are capable of providing the thousands of years of "safe" storage that are required. It would be far less costly and infinitely easier to use available technologies to save 20% of our electrical energy, and phase out our use of nukes than to continue to taunt fate with this ill-conceived production method. We continue to be fed lies about the dangers, the real costs of production and the problematic disposal of waste that is generated by these facilities. Understanding the temptation of virtually limitless power might help us to see how easily our decision-makers fell into bed with the nuclear industry, but understanding the ultimate costs of this relationship of convenience begs the question, why have we not come to our senses yet?

Please, don't take my word for it, learn for yourself what it takes to make this type of energy possible. I'm sure it will be enlightening.