How do you drive a stake through the heart of an industry that doesn't have one? And how do you open the last door on a technological revolution that could stop global warming and give us true energy independence?
Those are the big questions being asked by respected rock musicians Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash in a critical return of committed anit-nuclear activism that could make a big difference.
As you read this Nash, Browne and Raitt are headed to Capitol Hill, rounding up support to beat back an attempt by the atomic power industry to grab a blank check loan guarantee for building who-knows-how-many new atomic reactors. The industry has been a rotting corpse for thirty years and now, suddenly, on the brink of a revolution in renewable energy, it's baaaaaaack for one last stab at the Apocalypse.
Starting in the mid 1970s, these three and a host of their fellow musicians sang for a long series of benefits that raised awareness about energy and the environment and helped stop atomic power in its tracks. The biggest of their concerts were the five legendary No Nukes shows they did in Madison Square Garden in September, 1979. Some 90,000 paying customers came to the landmark events, followed by 200,000 at a free rally in Battery Park City. A major motion picture followed, along with a triple album that went platinum.
John Hall, one of the organizers of Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE), which staged the shows, is now a US Congressman from New York. The Battery Park City site hosts Solaire, a pioneer solar housing development.
Since then there've been no nuke reactor orders in the US -- until a few weeks ago. Using global warming as a cover, the industry is now lining up to build more of these massive power plants all over the world.
Problem is: nobody wants to invest in them. In the 50 years since the first commercial plant opened at Shippingport, Pennsylvania in 1957, atomic power has distinguished itself as what Forbes Magazine has said is "the largest managerial disaster in business history." The reactors have been everything their critics warned: dirty, dangerous, expensive, unreliable and unsustainable. The radioactive waste they produce is the ultimate killing machine. The dump being built for them in Nevada can't open for a decade -- if ever -- and has 80% opposition from the people around it.
Since 9/11, it's also become clear that these nukes are all potential terrorist targets.The first jet that flew into the World Trade Center went directly over the Indian Point reactor complex, 45 miles north. Had it dived down a minute early, casualties could still be mounting into the hundreds of thousands. The radioactive property damage would have been incalculable.
Problem is: something similar could be happening as you read this. There is no way to protect a nuke reactor from a terror attack. No wonder the industry can't get private disaster insurance, and has relied since 1957 on the government to limit its liability in case of just such a catastrophe. For all their hype about improved safety, the new reactors are demanding the same taxpayer-financed coverage -- which could stretch the program to a century and beyond.
But there is a way to get our energy cheaply and cleanly. The nuke industry is now claiming their reactors can help solve the global warming problem. But in fact they dump huge quantities of excess heat into the air and water, and the process of mining, milling and enriching nuclear fuel is an enormous consumer of fossil fuels.
Better to look at what's happening with green power. After its "alternative" beginnings, wind power and its renewable cohorts have boomed into a multi-billion-dollar global bonanza. Returns on wind farms are strong and steady, with investment capital lining up to jump in. Production costs for solar cells and bio-fuels are plummeting, while profits soar. New breakthroughs in ocean-based thermal, wave and current energies are increasingly promising.
Meanwhile, the payback for increased efficiency and conservation is higher than ever. A dollar invested in streamlining energy consumption can save ten times the energy as a dollar invested in a nuke can produce.
All of which could be good news for our ecology and economy. But the reactor industry has plenty of money for buying media and the Congress. Its lead Senator, Pete Domenici of New Mexico, has slipped into the Energy Bill a sentence offering his sponsors a blank check to get government guarantees to anyone who wants to invest in a nuke.
And thus the return of Nash, Browne and Raitt to the anti-nuke trenches. They've issued a music video with a retake of Stephen Stills's classic "For What It's Worth" and launched a web site at www.NukeFree.org to gather signatures to stop this bailout. Tuesday they'll hold the first of what will likely become a long series of public events, this one a DC press conference. They most likely will have some 100,000 signatures to present to Congress, gathered in a scant few weeks.
The fight over these guarantees and the return of nuke power in general promises to be a long one. But they've already won once. With the groundswell of support for real solutions to global warming, the threat of the horrors of 9/11, and the rapid rise of the renewable energy industry, it could happen again.
Since 1979, it's a become a lot easier to be green, and the technology for making it even more so has definitely come of age.
Harvey Wasserman is editor of www.nukefree.org, and author of SOLARTOPIA: OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030.