Nuclear Power is not a good option.
“A widely heralded view holds that nuclear power is experiencing a dramatic worldwide revival and vibrant growth, because it’s competitive, necessary, reliable, secure, and vital for fuel security and climate protection.
“That’s all false. In fact, nuclear power is continuing its decades-long collapse in the global marketplace because it’s grossly uncompetitive, unneeded, and obsolete—so hopelessly uneconomic that one needn’t debate whether it’s clean and safe; it weakens electric reliability and national security; and it worsens climate change compared with devoting the same money and time to more effective options.
“Yet the more decisively nuclear power is humbled by swifter and cheaper rivals, the more zealously its advocates claim it has to serious competitors. The web of old fictions ingeniously spun by a coordinated and intensive global campaign is spread by a credulous press” and boosted by the new nuclear enthusiasts.
http://rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E08-01_AmbioNucIllusion.pdf
Global warming from the carbon in coal, all the other air pollution from coal burning, and the destruction of Montana, Wyoming and Appalachia are all a part of a steamroller bearing down on us, one that if we act and act now, we can dodge to a fair degree. But there will soon be a worse steamroller bearing down on us if you and I let it happen. A planet so poisoned with radioactivity that all life will be sickly.
Nuclear Power is a dinosaur. But not just any dinosaur. It is unsafe, and it is too expensive. And during the nuclear cycle, plutonium for nuclear weapons is produced.
Regardless of the steady propaganda recently pumped into the major media outlets by the nuclear power industry, nuclear power’s time is past. Come on over to our side. We currently are staring at 2 steamrollers, and nuclear power apologists would have their steamroller BIGGER??
Barack Obama is a man of integrity. Our belief is that when all the facts about nuclear power are presented to him clearly, that he will reject it as an option. The large utilities eager to build nuclear power plants are now suddenly pressing Congress about global warming. Very convenient. But is nuclear power a solution for the problem of global warming? Hmmm, No. 1)Nuclear power plants are too expensive to build. The nuclear power industry refuses to accept responsibility for the unique risks of nuclear power and demands massive federal subsidies so that they can rake in profits on their suspect investments. To quote the Rocky Mountain Institute (rmi.org) position on nuclear power: “Contrary to an argument nuclear apologists have recently taken to making, nuclear power isn't a good way to curb climate change. True, nukes don't produce carbon dioxide—but the power they produce is so expensive that the same money invested in efficiency or even natural-gas-fired power plants would offset much more climate change.” Quoting the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC): "Our national electricity needs could be met, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent or more, through a combination of increased energy efficiency, wind power, solar power, advanced coal-fired plants with carbon capture and storage, and high-efficiency natural gas turbines." 2)Nuclear power is extremely unsafe. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acknowledged in a reference document “that early containment failure cannot be ruled out with high confidence for any of the plants.” Even with the most technologically advanced checks and safeties, eventually some critical part of everything man makes fails. If an explosion occurs at a gas-fired or coal-fired plant, this is not good. But if a nuclear reactor melts down and breaks through its containment vessel, we have at least a regional catastrophe. Large areas of necessary habitable land are rendered uninhabitable, and people die of radiation-caused cancer. 3)To again quote the Rocky Mountain Institute's position on nuclear power: "Nuclear power poses significant problems of radioactive waste disposal." 4)Quoting the NRDC: "Plutonium is a normal by-product of electricity production in conventional reactors. Thus, the same reactors and fuel-processing facilities that are used for energy production can also be used for the manufacture of weapons." "Perhaps the most serious of all the problems that would be exacerbated by dramatically increasing global nuclear capacity is the threat of nuclear proliferation."
Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program said, "Switching from coal to nukes is like giving up smoking and taking up crack."
Here is the NRDC's position on Nuclear Power: http://nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf.
Make a small statement. Join our My.BarackObama.comgroup, Nuclear Power?, here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/NuclearPower
Comments are closed for this post.
