Huey D. Johnson, who was secretary of the state Resources Agency under Gov. Jerry Brown, is president of Resource Renewal Institute in San Francisco.
Proponents of new nuclear power plants in California want us to believe nuclear energy is "environmentally friendly" because it doesn't emit greenhouse gases, that nuclear plants are safer and that the deadly radioactive waste problem is about to be solved. If you believe all that, you might as well believe in Peter Pan and the tooth fairy.
It's a failed technology. Remember the promises last time around? Nuclear energy was supposed to be safe and clean? It wasn't possible to have an accident?
Then came Chernobyl in 1986 and Three Mile Island in 1989.
The industry's apologists now argue that new technology will prevent similar accidents. Oh yeah? Remember the saying that nothing is so foolproof that some fool can't muck it up?
The nuclear promoters take heart from a new Field Poll that shows 59 percent of energy-starved Californians now favor building new nuclear plants. With lots of money (most of it coming from us taxpayers), the industry has launched a sophisticated public relations campaign.
Nonetheless, the "new" nuclear technology hasn't been proven. The much- touted pebble-bed reactors haven't had a real test during actual use. And in testimony before Congress, an industry spokesperson couldn't give assurance that there would be no repeat of Three Mile Island.
Owners of nuclear plants still can't buy insurance against reactor accidents.
And the largest problem facing the nuclear industry is still radioactive waste, one of the deadliest poisons known to humankind. It lasts thousands of years. It has to be guarded. The eventual cost is astronomical.
I remember they said the basalt rock formations of the upper Columbia River basin were perfect for storage of nuclear waste. Guess what? After the stuff was buried, it leaked. Portland is downstream. The cleanup cost is in the billions. So far.
But the advocates now claim that waste can be buried safely in a Nevada mountain. Maybe they picked Nevada because of its legalized gambling.
I prefer an idea from the late David Brower. Let volunteers store nuclear waste. Keep it where people will be aware of it. Put it in a mailbox in each community in America so people can watch it and be aware of the deadly waste for as long as it takes for it to become harmless. In the meantime, people can track their increasing cancer rates and decide if they want to continue with nuclear energy.
The industry is also saying nuclear power works in Europe, so why not here? The answer: cost. The French government owns and subsidizes its plants, so no one knows the actual costs. The French nuclear industry, estimated to be $30 billion in debt, has been accused of fiscal irresponsibility.
The president of PG&E once said in a speech that the company was blessed by having had effective opposition to its nuclear program. Had its proceeded to build more nuclear plants, he said, PG&E would have gone bankrupt. (He couldn't have suspected it would go bankrupt anyway, but for different reasons. )
In any case, California can't build any more nuclear plants just now. Proposition 15, enacted by the voters in 1975, requires that a safe waste- storage process be instituted before more plants are built.
There is no effective waste storage yet in this country or elsewhere in the world. The best efforts still are prone to produce leaks or create problems that will haunt us in the future.
The best the nuclear proponents can come up with is a carrot to dangle on a stick. They promise financial rewards will follow solution of the nuclear waste problem. They assume that the public is a poor old horse plodding along, trying to reach the carrot, forever out of reach.
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