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Dems need to consider nuclear energy
Will Marshall
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TEXT OF STORY
KAI RYSSDAL: Hillary Clinton is going to be the headliner tonight at the Democratic National Convention. She and the other speakers taking the podium can be expected to hammer the Republicans on the economy. While the convention's on we've asked Democratic policy junkies to tell us about an issue they think the party's neglecting. Today, commentator Will Marshall says Democrats are short one plank in their energy platform.
Will Marshall: Party platforms aren't exactly beach reading. But they do tee-up the critical choices voters will face in this fall's presidential election.
The Democrats, for instance, devote big chunks of their platform to energy security and climate change. They rightly blast the Bush-Cheney policies that have turned a blind eye to science and made our country more dependent than ever on fossil fuels. And they spell out a smart, clean energy alternative.
But there's a missing element in the party's platform, and that's any discussion of the future of nuclear energy. In fact, nuclear power doesn't rate a single mention in 57 pages.
That doesn't make a lot of sense, especially in a document that calls man-made climate change the greatest threat to our planet. If that's true -- and most scientists believe it is -- shouldn't we be expanding nuclear energy, instead of ignoring it?
Nuclear energy has a huge advantage over coal. It's climate friendly. It doesn't pump any carbon dioxide into the earth's atmosphere. And it generates loads of power -- almost 20 percent of America's electricity needs.
Nuclear energy is no panacea. It's expensive and generates a lot of waste we haven't figured out how to get rid of yet. And Democrats are absolutely right that our country needs to invest big-time in clean and renewable fuels. But in the near term, there just isn't going to be enough solar, wind, hydro or geothermal power to keep the lights on in our offices and factories and heat our homes in the winter.
If we don't expand nuclear energy, we'll have to turn to coal and gas to meet America's growing appetite for electricity. That's an inconvenient truth for environmentalists whose hostility to nuclear power hasn't changed since the Three Mile Island incident back in 1979.
Other countries aren't so superstitious. China has plans to build dozens of new nuclear plants. And France already gets 80 percent of its electricity from atomic energy.
It's time for U.S. progressives and Democrats to break the taboo on nuclear energy. What better way to show we're serious about protecting our planet?
RYSSDAL: Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute. That's a think tank affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council.
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I guess Mr. Marshall's commentary must have been interesting. But Jason is right. Alas, I only heard one word--over and over and over--NUKE-U-LER. Can't help myself, folks. He said it so many times, it almost sounded correct! I'm sure he'd wanna know. Would someone please pass it on to him?
The credibility of any policy organization decreases exponentially every time its head says "nucular" -- especially as many times as Will Marshall said it in yesterday's piece. My opposition to this form of energy has now grown by leaps and bounds, purely out of spite.
What Will Marshall faled to mention in his commentary is that the nuclear fuel cycle,mining refing disposal etal will, in fact exacerbate carbon emissions leading to climate disruption. But the media, by and large is too busy promoting nuclear power to tell us that. By the way, this is hardly the first time 'public' radio has shilled for nuclear energy. MornEd. had a shamelessly biased piece on 'environmentalists" reconsidering nuclear energy. But they didn't talk to any serious environmentalists. Could that be because businesses with a vested interest in nuclear give alot of financial support to National "public" radio?
If Wall Street won't back these projects, why should we (the taxpayers) be forced to? Nuclear is the most expensive, least viable soltuion to the problem at hand. Without government subsidies, it has no chance. Perhaps we should listen to the market on this one.
Mr. Marshall missed an excellent opportunity to correct a glaring misconception about nuclear energy: that it necessarily leaves behind dangerous nuclear waste.
We've known for decades how to separate the still-radioactive (i.e., energy-containing) material from spent fuel rods, reprocess it into new fuel rods, and discard the non-radioactive "ash". Jimmy Carter, however, unilaterally decided that the United States just wouldn't do that anymore, leaving us with the mess we have now.
Energy companies don't like radioactive waste any more than anyone else--it's literally wasted product. The real tragedy is that even though we've known how to eliminate it for decades, the federal government has refused to be dragged into the 1980's.
The DOE's solution to nuclear waste is to rename it. Everything has been reclassified to low level except spent fuel rods. For 20 years low level nuclear waste was shipped to and contaminated Middle Point Landfill in Murfreesboro, Tn, about 25 miles from Nashville. Now the big push is to "recycle" spent fuel rods. Reprocess is the correct word. Look at Hanford Washington and Savannah River Site to understand the magnitude of the problem of waste left over from recycling millitary spent fuel at these locations. Since 1990, DOE has been spending over $1 Billion each year trying to vitrify it at SRS. So far, only 2 of the 51 tanks, each larger than the state capitol dome of Georgia, have been emptied enough to grout them. Even those two tanks still had heavily radioactive crud in the bottoms and on the sides. Jay Hakes new book, "A Declaration of Energy Independence" proposes very deep well injection of the spent fuel rods instead of reprocessing. No Yucca Mountain and no reprocessing. But that will still leave the low level waste. I don't want it in a landfill near me. Do you? Since there is no acceptable way to dispose of nuclear waste, the only sane solution is to stop making any more of it.
Nuclear Power can not survive without mass government subsidies. Stop the subsidies now. Look at the newest attempt to slip hundreds of billions of dollars for nuclear into oil drilling legislation. Follow Al Gore's recommendation and go 100% renewables in 10 years. Yes we can. I want to be personally energy independent. I want an affordable solar array on my roof. Nanosolar Power sheets ware projected to cost only 10% the price of conventional photovoltaics. I want a plug in hybrid or all electric car in my garage, so that I can, as S. David Freeman said in his new book "Winning our Energy Independence," put sunshine in my tank.
I find it interesting that so many people who are pro-nuclear power point to France and how much of their energy comes from nuclear power plants. That is fine. Almost no one points to Germany which has scheduled to take ALL of its reactors off-line by 2021. They will be going green, but not radioactive.
Will -- some simple math:
Pickens wants a fast energy transition (anyone awake does too) -- he is putting billions into wind -- Amory Lovins says you get 2 -- 4 times more GHG reduction from a dollar into new wind than into new nukes...
Energy efficiency -- or smart use of power? Not only cost effective -- profitable! A dollar in EE = 7 -- 10 times more GHG reduction than a dollar into new nukes... don't forget the waste, security issues, and oh yeah, like another commenter said -- who is it that gets these in THEIR back yards? If you go look, it is primarily rural, low -income, and minority Southern communities...
SO nuclear = REGRESSIVE
Smart use of renewable energy = PROGRESSIVE
Please pass it on.
Mary Olson
To: Will Marshall and Kai Risdal
From: YOUR NAME HERE
I've been an energy/environmental activist since the first Earth Day in 1970 and served for 30 years as a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Central Florida's Florida Solar Energy Center.
I do not support construction of new nuclear reactors as a means of addressing the climate crisis. Available renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are faster, cheaper, safer and cleaner strategies for reducing greenhouse emissions than nuclear power. Huge investments in new nuclear power simply diverts funds needed more for energy efficiency and renewable energy.
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." --Albert Einstein
Sincerely,
Dr. Ross McCluney
Chattanooga, TN
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