'Tis the season to try new things. This week the closest nuclear power station to Green Bay, the Kewaunee facility began the process of being decommissioned. Ironically, the outdated facility was built on rented land. If one fails to recognize the difficulty that this presents for local citizens, try this one on for size. Their rent was set at the cost of a fire department, which the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) required for the township if they were to "host" such activity. In addition, the company who built the nuclear generating station paid to install cable television in each and every home and has been paying the bill for tat since operations commenced, there was an additional cost to install a county-wide siren system in case of nuclear melt-down (even though evacuations would be many times larger than just their county) and to offset any possible litigation, if they proved to be bad neighbors, their "rent" was set at the level of the taxes on all the property in the township of Two Creeks. Now, if you have a tenant who is planning on leaving, but they left a bunch of nuclear waste lying around, it really won't matter if you are cutting 900 jobs out of the local economy, unles the gravy train of awesome rent goes with them.
As a landlord myself, I have had bad tenants, but none have ever left me with a pile of nuclear waste. Anyone who is not seeing that Dominion (the company that is the current owner of the power generating station) is looking to cut their losses is not seeing the whole picture. They have said that producing electricity from nuclear sources of energy is not cost competitive in this market. Shutting down will cost them millions and over time, many millions more. Just how long do we expect them to be good neighbors when they have no interest in what is not profitable? Will it be deemed unprofitable to permanently remove the waste? What about the containment building itself that has been bombarded with radioactivity for forty years, who will pay to "dispose" of it? Whatever "security deposit" has been put aside surely cannot begin to touch the true cost of tens or hundreds of thousands of years of safe storage that will be required for their relentless pursuit of capital.
We make the best of what we are given I suppose. The resources that are available limit our choices, but our imaginations, perhaps can allow us to think in new ways about the old palette of ideas. What we have been told has certainly not been true. As the reality of our current state of affairs, not only with regard to nuclear issues, but with energy and ecological crises as well, we will inevitably have to do the best in spite of prior mistakes. We are the first generation who owes our forefathers nothing. What we have been left by them is actually worse than what they had inherited and they squandered ecological integrity for short term gain. We are left in the lurch, facing the most severely impacted planet that we can imagine. Water quality has been flushed down the toilet in search of profit, the soils themselves have been toxified for the benefit of far off profiteers and the air we breathe has been tainted with toxic and carcinogenic substances for the sake of economic expediency. The way we adapt our thinking and our way of life will not be able to stem the rising tide of cancer, of the impending economic bust, or the truncation of possibilities as the ice melts and the oceans rise.
Unique combinations of what works are being tried in places around the world and the feedback loops of cause and effect are just beginning to gain momentum. The creativity with which we face our current challenges in unlimited. It is truly time to get creative.
As a landlord myself, I have had bad tenants, but none have ever left me with a pile of nuclear waste. Anyone who is not seeing that Dominion (the company that is the current owner of the power generating station) is looking to cut their losses is not seeing the whole picture. They have said that producing electricity from nuclear sources of energy is not cost competitive in this market. Shutting down will cost them millions and over time, many millions more. Just how long do we expect them to be good neighbors when they have no interest in what is not profitable? Will it be deemed unprofitable to permanently remove the waste? What about the containment building itself that has been bombarded with radioactivity for forty years, who will pay to "dispose" of it? Whatever "security deposit" has been put aside surely cannot begin to touch the true cost of tens or hundreds of thousands of years of safe storage that will be required for their relentless pursuit of capital.
We make the best of what we are given I suppose. The resources that are available limit our choices, but our imaginations, perhaps can allow us to think in new ways about the old palette of ideas. What we have been told has certainly not been true. As the reality of our current state of affairs, not only with regard to nuclear issues, but with energy and ecological crises as well, we will inevitably have to do the best in spite of prior mistakes. We are the first generation who owes our forefathers nothing. What we have been left by them is actually worse than what they had inherited and they squandered ecological integrity for short term gain. We are left in the lurch, facing the most severely impacted planet that we can imagine. Water quality has been flushed down the toilet in search of profit, the soils themselves have been toxified for the benefit of far off profiteers and the air we breathe has been tainted with toxic and carcinogenic substances for the sake of economic expediency. The way we adapt our thinking and our way of life will not be able to stem the rising tide of cancer, of the impending economic bust, or the truncation of possibilities as the ice melts and the oceans rise.
Unique combinations of what works are being tried in places around the world and the feedback loops of cause and effect are just beginning to gain momentum. The creativity with which we face our current challenges in unlimited. It is truly time to get creative.
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