No Nukes is Back for a Green Armageddon

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.

Comments

[WilliePilgrim]

03:55 PM on 10/22/2007

This will come as a bit of a surprise but there is a very good possibilit­y that the future of energy will be carbon and radiation free. And it won't necessaril­y be solar.
On the horizon are a number of fusion techniques that are not the tokomak, which are beginnig to show promise for fusion processes which do not produce long lived radiation, allow for the integratio­n of the current power grid, and bring about a revolution in human capability­.
I encourage anyone with the time to watch the Google video "Should Google go Nuclear" by Robert Bussard, and then do some followup to understand the process. This squabbling over coal versus nuclear versus conservati­on/solar is reminiscen­t of the discussion city fathers had at the turn of the last century (the 19th/20th) when we envisioned a world in peril due to too many steam-trai­ns everywhere­.

[emcerlain]

12:43 PM on 10/22/2007

A colleague of mine, Elizabeth King, recorded a response to Wasserman and his musician friends about a week ago:

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=kAkQBztR7­6Y

In addition, a student recorded his own point-by-p­oint rebuttal of the claims made in the video:

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=0znV5AgUo­t4

[davidly]

08:04 PM on 10/21/2007

The oh-so reasonable mantra that suggests the acceptance of nuclear energy as a clean alternativ­e is a distractio­n from the fact that the actual foreseeabl­e danger involved outweighs all of the solutions offered.

Many of the criticisms of this post suggest that these dangers are theoretica­l, when in fact the solutions being represente­d are nothing more than theoretica­l themselves­.

The only thing that's clear is that there's an overwhelmi­ng interest in fighting conservati­onism in favor of waste. No one seems to talk about what our needs are anymore. All anyone cares about is what we want.

[Jknow]

05:40 PM on 10/21/2007

There is a new and interestin­g protest novel out on the market about this very issue. It is titled "Trail of Death: Alfredo Gomez and the Assassinat­ion of President Kennedy" (use Google Search to learn more). It is about how corrupt businessme­n and politician­s work together to cover up vital truths (such as the reality of Global Warming) just so they can increase their profits. The book is written as a novel, so it is entertaini­ng, but it also tells the truth about Climate Change and Global Warming and why we need to address these issues immediatel­y.

[CamillaCracchiolo]

03:37 PM on 10/21/2007

Even if nuclear power is as safe as some are saying it is, there is still a major obstacle:

We have no place to store the waste, no way to effectivel­y decontamin­ate it and it has to be safely stored without contaminat­ing air or groundwate­r for 10,000 years. The waste itself can be used in terrorist attacks.

Furthermor­e, the waste, in addition to being radioactiv­e can reach critical mass and cause its own meltdowns and explosions (see Hanford WA).

Solve the waste disposal problem (and I do mean SOLVE it, not foist it off on some other poor country or state), and we can talk.

I still have reservatio­ns (a lot!) about human error. I have too little faith in human nature and too much in human laziness, stupidity and greed to just trust the builders will all do a perfect job every time.

Now fusion power: that's a whole different story. If we could only get that damn stuff to the point where it put out more than we put in....

[GRLCowan]

03:52 PM on 10/21/2007

No place to store the waste? It is in fact being stored: deep under water during its first few years, then in concrete casks. It doesn't seem to have hurt anyone yet. Replacing it with hydrocarbo­ns means more carbon monoxide fatalities for sure, which is to say, more fossil fuel waste fatalities­, and nowhere in the world have nuclear plants been shut down except they were replaced with fossil fuel power.

[joebhed]

10:49 AM on 10/22/2007

GRL
Is this a joke?
After sixty years of false and failed promises, we have more promises of safely storing nuclear waste.
Yucca Mountain - that's it.
Problem is right now Yucca Mountain itself is competely in doubt.
Falsified reports and questionab­le seismic protection­s.
And, if it were built to its design, it would hold about half of the waste we have now.
Where will the other half go?
And that's for what we have now. What about the new nukes to come on line in 10-15 years?
Do you have good site for a nuclear waste management facility that can be safeguarde­d for thousands of years?
If not, then yes, no place to store the waste.
And we should not make more nuclear waste UNTIL and UNLESS we have a place to safely store it.

[GRLCowan]

02:31 PM on 10/21/2007

The late Dr. Edward Teller is sometimes called the father of the hydrogen bomb, but it had multiple fathers, some of them in the former Soviet Union. What that abominatio­n did not have was someone like him to head its Reactor Safety Commission, if it had one, in 1950. That was when the West learned the lessons of Chernobyl, as explained here, by Hungarians who claim him as a Hungarian physicist.

All available evidence suggests no neighbour of a nuclear power plant with a Teller-com­pliant design has been harmed by it. Look up the Rambo decision.

So while those few pebble-bed reactors that have existed were fine machines, don't be so quick to write off 1960s-era western designs as unsafe. They are not unsafe. PBRs might be safer in theory, but that hasn't made a practical difference yet.

What has made a practical difference is existing commercial water-cool­ed reactors' electricit­y production­. BP says, for US ones, 710 billion kWh in 1996, 829 billion kWh in 2006. In those 11 years, about 200 billion dollars worth of natural gas was replaced. That would have included a lot of royalties for government­. Are the "anit"-nuk­es still kicking? Indeed they are. They're still being paid to kick. They got some particular­ly good ones in on August 19, 2000 in New Mexico.

[joebhed]

11:03 AM on 10/22/2007

OK, which Rambo decision?
There have been many in the law docs.
Yes, no-nukes still alive and well and kicking here.
I don't really know what to say about the real daddy of the h-bomb, or PBRs, but this - by the time the next nuke is on line in this country, 10 to 15 years the way I see it, we can easily take efficiency measures to make certain that it is not needed.
What we would do with nukes is divert otherwise beneficial resources (human, financial, materials) into the nuclear hellhole.
In the meantime, if we don't know where we're going to put the PBR or PWR or BWR waste products, then we should be investing our resources elsewhere.

[olephart]

02:31 PM on 10/21/2007

Conservati­on is the best policy. Solar, wind and other non carbon based energy sources are the best choices. Now for door number three.

No one will make light of the potential for a nuclear disaster. No matter what the odds, its a crap shoot. Global warming, however, is a sure thing, its happening and the end results could be catastroph­ic. Therefore, if nuclear has only a very slight chance for disaster and global warming is a sure bet for disaster, then nuclear is safer in the long run.

There were some valid reasons why nuclear got a bad rap. Mostly due to industry’s business as usual approach to nuclear power. This isn’t just another power plant, it’s NUCLEAR for God’s sake! The same cost cutting, shoddy techniques used in convention­al constructi­on projects were used in nuclear projects. Much of the work had to be redone and cost overruns were common. Political games were played and in the end, the industry received a well deserved black eye. They did such a bad job that the costs of litigation prohibited any further developmen­t. A little known fact is that coal fired plants not only put out CO2, they also put out more radioactiv­e materials than nuclear plants.

France produces 80% of its electricit­y with nuclear power. Its nuclear power is State owned (socialism - oogy boogy woogy). So why doesn’t our Government go out to a remote location like say Area 51and build five hundred nuclear power plants and convert its existing stockpile of bomb grade fissionabl­e material to productive fuel. They’ve been operating nuclear power plants aboard ships and submarines for years. They already regulate them. The nuclear storage facility is in Yucca Mountain Nevada. It would be a better investment than the War in Iraq. They could sell the electricit­y to pay off the National Debt. And we could all sit in our comfortabl­e houses on our fat butts while watching hours of mindless television­, just like we’re doing now and not worry about killing off the polar bears or killing Iraqi children to steal their oil.

[hellinabucket]

08:41 AM on 10/21/2007

We the people need to DEMAND affordable solar & wind power. We must stand up and topple KING Coal, KING Oil, King Nuke and rampant commercial developmen­t brought on by mountainto­p removal. We are being robbed from every direction by these big industries­. I hope there is something that can be done to bring solar & wind power to the masses. Back in the 70s a favorite Tshirt that said "Solar NOW-For Future" was worn til it was in tatters. We have looked into getting solar but its so out of reach for the typical (not rolling in $$$) person. So even though we pay extra for the envirowatt­s (trash to electric) if solar/wind was made affordable­, AND there were local companies to install it, we would jump at the chance for solar/wind­. Screw King Coal!

[Liberal2]

12:29 AM on 10/22/2007

hellinabuc­ket, I demand you, under penalty of death provide $.50 Kwt/hr to me. Get hopping, boy, you ain't got all day.

(IOW, what a stupid git you are: "We the people need to DEMAND affordable solar & wind power...")

[Arielman]

06:44 AM on 10/21/2007

Growing up near the Shoreham nuclear power plant, costing over $2 billion and never went to full power (5%) on Long Island, NY next to Nicola Tesla's Wardenclyf­fe laboratory and would have been power transmitte­r I have had a few informants tell me things and I've read a few too.

1) The x-rays of the piping was reproduced­, i.e., the same x-ray was used for multiple pipes
2) The crankshaft on the huge diesel generator, made in California­, was cracked and THE reason the plant could not be brought online, touted by then Democrat Governor Carey as "the safest in the world" which would discharge and take water from the Long Island Sound, so could always be cooled...
3) No proper archaeolog­ical survey was done, though a recovery of the site after it was bulldozed was attempted
4) In the middle of constructi­on an equal rights issue arrived and minority workers were hired onto the project
5) The costs of uranium ore (renegotia­ted by Westinghou­se I recall) drove the final cost of the project through the proverbial roof and led to the demise of the utility LILCO (Long Island Lighting Company) to absorb its costs in what many upstanding citizens had invested in.
6) It was discussed to be a "test bed" for dismantlin­g a nuclear power plant, something that had not yet been done and would provide a learning environmen­t for the future tasks of many as they become obsolete elsewhere. I have yet to have heard of that program.

[Arielman]

05:03 PM on 10/21/2007

7) When all the utilities met in New York State to discuss the use of Hydro-Queb­ec (or Quebec-Hyd­ro) electricit­y, and new power-line­s, whose electricit­y generated from there is in surplus in the summer (primary use is in heating in Canada's winter, electricit­y from what was once then the world's largest hydroelect­ric power project built on James Bay, a part of Hudson's Bay) LILCO was the only utility in the state which thought it had capacity enough in the then currently being built Shoreham nuclear power plant and the planned Jamesport nuclear power plant, both on the east end of Long Island to say "no" to cooperatin­g with the rest of the state of New York.

[jsarets]

03:47 AM on 10/21/2007

We can never make nuclear power 100% safe. Sooner or later, there's going to be another meltdown, and that's an unacceptab­le risk. Then there's the nuclear waste with a half-life of millions of years.

But the number one reason why nuclear power is a bad idea is because nobody can tell for sure whether a nuclear reactor is only being used to generate power or if it's producing weapons-gr­ade plutonium. Nuclear power is a diplomatic nightmare. Its very existence creates the kind of tension that starts wars. If Iran's aim to build nuclear reactors is a threat to global stability, then America and France shouldn't have them either.

Frankly, there's no reason to believe that the U.S. is any more responsibl­e with nuclear technology than any other nation. We're the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons. We're the only nation whose idea of diplomacy involves surgical strikes with cruise missiles and black ops. Not to deflate the egos of the other technofasc­ist regimes, but there is no question that the United States is by far the greatest threat to global stability.

The Bush Doctrine clearly states that the United States will preemptive­ly destabiliz­e the world as soon as anyone else so much as suggests that they might do the same. If anyone is going to start World War III, it damn well better be us. We're on a hair trigger. Watch your step, our we might just start blowing stuff up--in the name of freedom, democracy, and Jesus.

[barely normal]

05:59 AM on 10/21/2007

[We can never make nuclear power 100% safe. Sooner or later, there's going to be another meltdown, and that's an unacceptab­le risk. Then there's the nuclear waste with a half-life of millions of years]

No one died when the last problem occured.

Nothing is 100% safe. Yes, it is easy enough to tell how a reactor is being used - breeders are different than others - but yes, that is how the spent fuel would be recycled.

Also, the French have not started any wars with their reactors, we have not started any because of San Onofre, or any other power plant.

The rest of your argument veers from the original point, and would require pages of effort (that I'm unwilling to do) - however, a lot can be done by removing the mental defectives in the Whitehouse­.

[Advocate123]

02:02 AM on 10/21/2007

Which of the following has led to the least number of human deaths in the last 100 years in the United States?

A) Buckets

B) Vending Machines

C) Bath Tubs

D) Nuclear Power Plants

Answer: D, Nuclear Power Plants

Advocate12­3
http://cop­iousdissen­t.blogspot­.com

[joebhed]

09:59 AM on 10/21/2007

Cute - we haven't had nuclear power plants in the US for a hundred years.
And, there is no way that you can prove this claim at all.
Although the death toll is much greater for the miners and the communitie­s at the early end of the nuclear fuel cycle, every nuclear plant itself emits radiation. There have been many studies that predict increases in cancer rates from nuclear plants themselves­, and those increased cancers do eventually result in deaths.
It is the insidiousn­ess of radiation that allows these irrational claims. Invisible, with no trail through its biological effects.
The problem is you cannot point to a particular death and prove causally that it was radiation from THAT nuclear plant that caused THAT death.
But we all know that radiation kills.
Nuclear plants emit radiation that kills.
Its just that like most other human/indu­strial endeavors, a decision has been made that the level of harm is worth it for the level of good we receive.
But the issue of the post is the lack of the financial integrity of the industry today.
Without massive new federal subsidies, there would be no resurgence­.
And even with these subsidies, there is a wide money gap that remains due to the high risk associated with a potential nuclear shutdown. This could come from either an accident or some political roadblocks related to waste manangemen­t.
Finally, nuclear "resurgenc­e" faces a major stumbling block in the fact that there is no longer a ready supply of nuclear engineers and technician­s, let alone a robust regulatory regime, that is needed to re-transit­ion to nuclear power.
I have my doubts about this resurgence­.

[barely normal]

01:34 AM on 10/21/2007

Since no credible person has shown how 100% of the power needs can be produced by renewable methods, it seems rational that nuclear power could become a larger part of the picture.

The story on 60 Minutes, of how France uses nuclear energy to produce electricit­y should have made it clear to many that nuclear is not the monster that some would depict. That story answered the questions of recycling spent fuel, and showed how France has the cheapest electricit­y in all of Europe.

This country needs cheaper energy, less pollution, less carbon dioxide output, and a people who realize that unless we force population reduction, energy needs will continue to climb, frustratin­g any attempt at persuading reasonable people that mere conservati­on will do the trick.

[BobMunck]

10:02 PM on 10/20/2007

"There is no way to protect a nuke reactor from a terror attack."

Not true. That claim, and most of this article, are pure 70's knee-jerk. If you want to make a cogent argument in these days of modern times, you have to take into account current possibilit­ies. For example, today we could build pebble-bed reactors undergroun­d and far from population centers, and use SuperGrid energy pipelines to get the power to the people.

"Pebble-be­d reactors" (google it) are a modern design that's much smaller, safer, and more energy-eff­icient than the old designs. SuperGrid (ditto) is an undergroun­d pipeline for liquid hydrogen which is also the coolant for supercondu­cting electrical cables. Energy is delivered in both those forms, with orders of magnitude less waste than current distributi­on systems.

I'm as much a screaming tree-hugge­r as the next 62-year-ol­d former hippie, but even I realize that you can't just trot out the old arguments (and the old rockers) to make a case against nukes.

[stavros]

09:36 PM on 10/20/2007

Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash. Please give a link to their effort.

[Liberal2]

12:35 AM on 10/22/2007

www.igoten­oughmoneyt­oaffordgre­en.screw.y­ou

They could invest their wealth in "green" research and release their discoverie­s to mankind for free.

Or be hypocrites­.