No Nukes - JDSender_160311

Large scale nuclear power plants were originally sold to the public as safe, clean and inexpensive. At one point, the nuclear proponents claimed that the electricity produced would be too cheap to even meter. There’s no better sales pitch than “free electricity”. Unfortunately, it was all sales pitch and no truth.

The actual cost of producing electricity in a nuclear plant is higher than any other alternative. In order to hide this fact, the nuclear industry has shifted their expenses to both the government and individual taxpayers. Government taxes have subsidized land acquisition, financing, and paid for basic research and safety monitoring. Both federal and state governments have spent billions of dollars for the temporary handling of used nuclear fuel produced by these plants. No long-term solution to managing nuclear waste has been found, or funded. 

The largest subsidy to the nuclear energy industry, however, is greater than all of the government hand-outs and is far better hidden: every property owner within 100 miles of a nuclear plant is paying the true cost of insuring these dangerous facilities. The Price-Anderson Act of 1957 protects the nuclear industry from having to pay the full cost of the damages they may create. This law, which has been cosmetically modified over the years, limits the liability this industry would pay to a small fraction of the actual damage it can cause. Every property owner in the United States is betting the full value of their property that a nuclear incident will not render their property worthless. If a nuclear event causes enough damage, the liability limit will prevent fair compensation to the injured citizens.

Nuclear proponents claim “…this limitation recognizes the benefits of nuclear power and the tacit acceptance of the risks a State takes by permitting power plant construction and operation …”

Only the energy industry demands that private citizens accept the risk of industrial liability.

Repeal of the Price-Anderson act would end the ability of nuclear facilities to purchase insurance. Without liability insurance, nuclear plants could not operate. The insurance underwriters would become the greatest of all nuclear opponents. And that would be a very good, honest response.

The truth is that operating a nuclear facility safely is very expensive. Nuclear proponents often site the nuclear programs of the U.S. government as proof that this technology can be managed safely. Indeed, most nuclear sites run by the Department of Energy, including the nuclear weapons arsenal, have operated with very few incidents. These facilities are very different from the for-profit nuclear energy facilities.

DOE nuclear sites are not required to make a profit and have been given enough taxpayer resources to safely handle nuclear components. Managers are rewarded for safety, not profits. The for-profit power industry, however, is motivated to cut costs, and have shown less interest in safety. After all, any liability, beyond their insurance coverage, will be not be paid by them.

The nuclear power industry has a history of putting profits ahead of safety. Anti-earthquake supports for one of the two reactors built at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California were actually installed backwards. X-rays of pipe welds, which are required to verify the welding is safe, have been falsified. Every leak of radiation has been described as ‘minor’ and the cause of cancer clusters near nuclear plants are always ‘unknown’.

Even after the recent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), claimed the release of radiation was ‘quite small’. This lie was exposed within a week.

On May 27, 2011 the Associated Press reported exclusively that the Fukushima tsunami plan was a single page.

Clearly safety was not a real concern.

Terrorists, earthquakes, tsunamis, and airplanes all threaten the containment of dangerous nuclear materials at these power plants. Even something as simple as poorly trained technicians, which caused the nuclear disasters at Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl, can make a small accident a global disaster.

The 2011 Fukushima disaster is ongoing; the extent of that disaster will not be known for many years.

This is an editorial rebuttal to the 1981 endorsement of Nuclear Power by KNBC-TV Los Angeles. Unfortunately, little has changed since 1981.

KNBC says that the only thing wrong with nuclear powered generating plants is that there are not enough of them. I say that we should close them all down: They leak dangerous radiation and they produce the most poisonous substance ever known - plutonium. Their operation is too complex to be trusted to an industry that has shown itself to be more concerned with profits than with the public safety.

Despite proven scientific evidence, KNBC naively likened a small dose of radiation to a harmless weight placed upon your head. However, the effects of radiation exposure are cumulative, they "add up" with each new exposure. No matter how you look at it, a one ton weight will crush you, whether it is dropped on you all at once, or only one spoonful at a time.

Without massive doses of federal subsidies and some very deceptive bookkeeping, the nuclear industry could never show a profit. Even with indirect subsidies, such as the increased medical costs of treating radiation-induced cancers, they find there still isn't enough money to make the nuclear cycle safe.

The radioactive garbage that they drop into our surroundings constitutes a health threat to every creature on Earth today, and tomorrow ... and tomorrow , and tomorrow again, for the next 20,000 years. The future life on this planet must not be sacrificed because some bureaucrats have invested too much money in the wrong technology.

The safe and sane energy alternatives are being ignored. We can harness the wind, the sun's light, and the tides. We can build a strong economy supported by an array of renewable energy resources. The United States of America, the most technologically advanced nation on earth, can do better than nuclear energy.

The only sane response to the unlimited disaster these power plants pose is to shut them all down now.

Take away the liability limit and the insurance companies and investors will abandon this expensive and dangerous industry.

It's not just about money; we need to protect ALL life on earth.