Obama's Stimulus Money Must Not Be Wasted on Nuke Reactors

A nuke power bailout must not be part of the hundreds of billions of federal dollars about to pour out of Washington to revive our Bush-whacked economy.

If the huge Obama stimulus package we all know is coming includes money to build new reactors, the whole venture could turn to radioactive dust.

This is the last gasp both for American prosperity and atomic energy. Nuke promoters are lobbying frantically to get some of that cash for a dying business in which Wall Street would not invest even before the last crash.

In 2007 a national grassroots campaign, led in part by Nukefree.org, helped get a proposed $50 billion loan guarantee boondoggle removed from the Energy Bill. In 2008 a blank check was on its way just as Wall Street tanked.

Now, with renewables booming ahead, this may be the last gasp for a desperate industry. Cut off from Wall Street, hordes of nuke lobbyists will descend like radioactive locusts on this gargantuan stimulus package. They must be stopped.

Here are some basic realities:

No reactors put into construction in the next few years could produce usable power for at least a decade, probably more;

By contrast, large wind farms can be installed in less than a year, as can many other renewable and efficiency installations;

Every dollar spent on efficiency can save seven times the energy one spent on an atomic reactor can produce;

The numbers of jobs new reactor construction might create is a bare fraction of the number that could come with comparable Solartopian investments in renewables, efficiency and restored mass transit;

Atomic energy is now fifty-two years of proven economic failure. From the 1957 opening of the first commercial reactor at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, to the hugely over-budget fiasco of a French reactor now being built in Finland, the "Peaceful Atom" has never turned the corner to true social profitability;

The true cost of nuke-generated electricity is obscured by massive "stranded cost" write-offs provided at tax-payer and rate-payer expense during the de-regulation fiasco of the turn of the century that allowed utilities to scam away up to a $100 billion in hidden construction costs;

The French nuclear power industry is almost entirely subsidized by the French government, and generates electricity that is expensive, unreliable, unsafe, polluting, has no radioactive waste solution, and cannot compete in the open marketplace;
By terror or error, every atomic reactor is an unguardable, uninsurable agent of a potential apocalypse; the human and financial toll from a possible melt-down is incalculable... which is why, after a half-century, only the government is willing to insure them;

Through the mining, milling, enrichment, transportation and waste management demands of the nuclear fuel cycle, atomic power is a significant contributor to global warming;

Water has become a major issue in the reactor calculus, to the point that shortages and overheating threaten their continued operation. Reactors in France and Alabama, among other places, have been forced to shut when rivers used to cool them have exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit;

Funds set aside to decommission aging plants such as Vermont Yankee and Indian Point, near New York City, have been decimated by the Wall Street crash, raising serious question about how they will be disposed of when they shut, which may be soon;

Aging US reactors are plagued with the embrittlement of key interior metal components which threaten their continued safety;

After a half-century, no real solution has been found for managing the high-level radioactive wastes that come from nuke reactors. The proposed Yucca Mountain dump, now approaching $100 billion, is a non-starter, with sworn opposition from the President-elect and Senate Majority Leader, and with no real alternative in sight.

A wide range of studies dating back to the late 1960s and findings by Dr. John Gofman, former Health Director of the Atomic Energy Commission, link "routine" radioactive emissions from America's nuclear plants to serious impacts on human health.

For these and many more reasons, any stimulus money spent on nuclear plants would be a major negative to our economy, ecology and public health.

Recent talk of a "fourth generation" of atomic reactors is pure pie-in-the-sky speculation. There are no proven nuclear technologies that can compete with wind, solar, increased efficiencies or other Solartopian sources.

It is critical that any proposed funding for new reactor construction that might be slipped into the stimulus package be entirely eliminated.

This massive new investment about to be made in the future of our economy must not be corrupted to bail out the very worst of the 20th Century's failed technologies.

Renewables and efficiency work. If we fund them now, the payback will be exponential.

Various petitions are circulating from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR.org), the Sustainable Energy Network and others. Or just call and write the White House, Senate, Congress and local officials where reactors are proposed and demand a halt to this suicidal madness.

Let's kill this so-called nuclear revival once and for all, so we can finally win a world powered by truly green technologies that actually work.

Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at http://www.harveywasserman.com. He edits http://NukeFree.org. This article was originally published by http://freepress.org.

Comments

[solarMD]

A Kilowatt-hour saved is so much easier to achieve than generating another kilowatt-hour!

Resources can be devoted to energy conservation, and to stimulate innovation in energy efficiency.
A kilowatt-hour saved takes much less investment then in new capacity to generate a kilowatt-hour!
Every person, every building has a carbon footprint. If everyone gets into a habit of conservation in every
thing we do, much can be achieved. All our footprints can easily be reduced by 20% to 30% quite easily, without much sacrifice, if we put our minds to it.

[newshawk14]

I completely agree, and would like to compliment you on being one of the few people
who have correctly said kilowatt-hours, rather than kilowatts. Getting your units straight
is important, if we're to have an intelligent discussion.

[newshawk14]

Neither Wasserman or the poster research seem to know much about nuclear reactors, only Semaj51 seems to understand. Naval reactors are fast neutron reactors, unlike slow neutron reactors that are used in commercial power production, and cause the transuranic elements to fission, leaving products, which undergo beta decay, that are safe in about 300 years. They also cause U238 to fission, which is 95.5 % of natural occurring uranium. I think there are good arguments, pro and com, but what I've seen
so fat seems more hysteria, than critical thinking.

[newshawk14]

Sorry that was supposed to be 99.5 % of natural occurring uranium.

[research]

See answer below. and check out my profile for extensive links.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research

[newshawk14]

I read your posts again, and looked at your profile, where I could tell that you
have an extensive knowledge of battery technology, however, I still stand by
what I said in my above post. Reactors, are a different animal. I would like to
see a much more thorough analysis of total life cycle costs. The days of the
AEC telling people that nuclear power would be too cheap to meter, are long
gone.

[research]

More nuclear power plants = more mushrooms clouds.

[Semaj51]

You obviously do not live up to your name. A simple research will show you that a nuclear reactor can not explode as a bomb.

[research]

Thinks again: More nuclear power plants, means more nuclear technology, means more reprocessing means more nuclear trained scientists means more bombs means

more mushrooms clouds.

[Semaj51]

It may surprise the author of this article to know that the U.S has been building scores of highly efficient nuclear reactors in the past decade. And they have been safely operating in some of the most harsh environments in the world and in the hearts of many of our major cities.

These nukes are located on the Navy's carriers and submarines.

[research]

Like the Thresher and the Scorpion?

"In 1963 the USS Thresher, a nuclear powered submarine, sank. The wreck is 100 miles off the coast of Cape Cod. The sub was broken into six pieces but the reactor is said to still be intact and not leaking. It lays at the bottom of the ocean with all its fuel just waiting to cause problems.

The USS Scorpion was another nuclear powered submarine that sank. It sank in May of 1968. Not only is the reactor at the bottom of the ocean, but also two nuclear tipped torpedoes. We are told that no detectable radiation is coming from the wreck. It is luck that the wreck is down very deep. It rests at over 3600 meters deep. This is about 11,850 feet down or over two miles."

http://aboutfacts.net/Weapons36.htm

[newshawk14]

Was it reactor failure that caused the subs to sink? I don't think so, in which case
your argument should be about the wisdom of placing reactors on naval vessels.

[research]

Nuke sub Thresher sank and still sits off Cap Cod.

Scorpion nuke sub also sit at the bottom of the ocean.

Not all that safe, huh?

[Hunffingtongreen]

Nuclear Power is clearly a very solid solution to our carbon energy problem. Massive amounts of energy and enough fuel to power the planet for a century or more. It's time to stop fighting the atom.

[research]

More nuclear power means more mushroom clouds.

Just to get past the 13year limit of easy uranium requires state of the art plutonium reprocessing.

Ideal for making bombs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research

[research]

Without breeder reactors there is only 13 years of easy uranium,

We are already mining the grand canyon for scarce uranium.

With breeder reactors we need plutonium reprocessing, perfect for bomb making,

Not to mention the million years of deadly intractable waste.

[newshawk14]

Your "million years of deadly intractable waste" is way off base, the transuranics have
to be managed for 10K to 20K years. The fission products which are beta emitters are
safe in about 300 years. If you build fast neutron reactors the transuranics undergo
fission., if you're dumb enough to build slow neutron reactors, then you generate
transuranics.