[Peace-discuss] Obama's biggest con?

[C. G. Estabrook]

Published on Saturday, March 19, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
Nuclear Nightmare

by Ralph Nader

The unfolding multiple nuclear reactor catastrophe in Japan is prompting overdue 
attention to the 104 nuclear plants in the United States—many of them aging, 
many of them near earthquake faults, some on the west coast exposed to potential 
tsunamis.

Nuclear power plants boil water to produce steam to turn turbines that generate 
electricity. Nuclear power’s overly complex fuel cycle begins with uranium mines 
and ends with deadly radioactive wastes for which there still are no permanent 
storage facilities to contain them for tens of thousands of years.

Atomic power plants generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity. Over forty 
years ago, the industry’s promoter and regulator, the Atomic Energy Commission 
estimated that a full nuclear meltdown could contaminate an area “the size of 
Pennsylvania” and cause massive casualties. You, the taxpayers, have heavily 
subsidized nuclear power research, development, and promotion from day one with 
tens of billions of dollars.

Because of many costs, perils, close calls at various reactors, and the partial 
meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979, there has not 
been a nuclear power plant built in the United States since 1974.

Now the industry is coming back “on your back” claiming it will help reduce 
global warming from fossil fuel emitted greenhouse gases.

Pushed aggressively by President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu, who refuses to 
meet with longtime nuclear industry critics, here is what “on your back” means:

1. Wall Street will not finance new nuclear plants without a 100% taxpayer loan 
guarantee. Too risky. That’s a lot of guarantee given that new nukes cost $12 
billion each, assuming no mishaps. Obama and the Congress are OK with that 
arrangement.

2. Nuclear power is uninsurable in the private insurance market—too risky. Under 
the Price-Anderson Act, taxpayers pay the greatest cost of a meltdown’s devastation.

3. Nuclear power plants and transports of radioactive wastes are a national 
security nightmare for the Department of Homeland Security. Imagine the target 
that thousands of vulnerable spent fuel rods present for sabotage.

4. Guess who pays for whatever final waste repositories are licensed? You the 
taxpayer and your descendants as far as your gene line persists. Huge 
decommissioning costs, at the end of a nuclear plant’s existence come from the 
ratepayers’ pockets.

5. Nuclear plant disasters present impossible evacuation burdens for those 
living anywhere near a plant, especially if time is short.

Imagine evacuating the long-troubled Indian Point plants 26 miles north of New 
York City. Workers in that region have a hard enough time evacuating their 
places of employment during 5 pm rush hour. That’s one reason Secretary of State 
Clinton (in her time as Senator of New York) and Governor Andrew Cuomo called 
for the shutdown of Indian Point.

6. Nuclear power is both uneconomical and unnecessary. It can’t compete against 
energy conservation, including cogeneration, windpower and ever more efficient, 
quicker, safer, renewable forms of providing electricity. Amory Lovins argues 
this point convincingly (see RMI.org). Physicist Lovins asserts that nuclear 
power “will reduce and retard climate protection.” His reasoning: shifting the 
tens of billions invested in nuclear power to efficiency and renewables reduce 
far more carbon per dollar 
(http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whynewnukesareriskyfcts.pdf). The country should 
move deliberately to shutdown nuclear plants, starting with the aging and 
seismically threatened reactors. Peter Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC) commissioner has also made a compelling case against nuclear 
power on economic and safety grounds 
(http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whynewnukesareriskyfcts.pdf).

There is far more for ratepayers, taxpayers and families near nuclear plants to 
find out. Here’s how you can start:

1. Demand public hearings in your communities where there is a nuke, sponsored 
either by your member of Congress or the NRC, to put the facts, risks and 
evacuation plans on the table. Insist that the critics as well as the proponents 
testify and cross-examine each other in front of you and the media.

2. If you call yourself conservative, ask why nuclear power requires such huge 
amounts of your tax dollars and guarantees and can’t buy adequate private 
insurance. If you have a small business that can’t buy insurance because what 
you do is too risky, you don’t stay in business.

3. If you are an environmentalist, ask why nuclear power isn’t required to meet 
a cost-efficient market test against investments in energy conservation and 
renewables.

4. If you understand traffic congestion, ask for an actual real life evacuation 
drill for those living and working 10 miles around the plant (some scientists 
think it should be at least 25 miles) and watch the hemming and hawing from 
proponents of nuclear power.

The people in northern Japan may lose their land, homes, relatives, and friends 
as a result of a dangerous technology designed simply to boil water. There are 
better ways to generate steam.

Like the troubled Japanese nuclear plants, the Indian Point plants and the four 
plants at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon in southern California rest near 
earthquake faults. The seismologists concur that there is a 94% chance of a big 
earthquake in California within the next thirty years. Obama, Chu and the 
powerful nuke industry must not be allowed to force the American people to play 
Russian Roulette!


Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book - 
and first novel - is, Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us. His most recent work of 
non-fiction is The Seventeen Traditions.