McCain and Obama both wrong on nuclear power

September 20, 6:29 PMPolitical Issues ExaminerJudah Freed

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CNN yesterday released a fact check report proving another John MCain lie about Barack Obama. In this case, McCain claimed in a Michigan stump speech that he favors nuclear power while Obama is against it. In reality, CNN reported, the Obama-Biden New Energy for America Plan includes a section entitled "safe and secure nuclear energy."

If you visit Obama's website, as did CNN, you'll find in the plan this statement: "Nuclear power represents more than 70 percent of our non-carbon generated electricity. It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power as an option."

Obama's plan concedes, "before an expansion of nuclear power is considered," his administration would need to account for nuclear fuel and waste security, waste storage, and nuclear proliferation.

With due respect for senators Obama and McCain, they both are venting radioactive nonsense.  Millions of lives are at stake, so let's dispel the absurd fantasy of "safe and secure" nuclear power. The only thing "green" about nuclear power is the money its backers hope to pocket.

Abandoned nuclear power plant cooling tower in Satsop, WA. (Source :Voodoo Zebra. CC)

We can start with the storage of nuclear waste from fission reactors.

The U.S. Government plans on storing nuclear wastes inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada from 2020 until 2133 at a total project cost of $96.2 billion in 2007 dollars, according to a Department of Energy study released in August (Reuters report).

Before the Yucca Mountain facility goes into operation, the project must survive lots of lawsuits. Although litigation may end up before federal judges appointed by the Bush administration, which could skew the outcomes, if the cases are fairly tried on their merits, the facility may never start full-scale operations.

One of the strongest legal claims challenges the Energy Department assertion that the site will reach peak contamination in 10,000 years. Opponents assert a more reliable scientific estimate, based on the 24,000-year half-life of plutonium, saying site contamination won't cease for at least 300,000 years. Will humanity still be living on our home planet by then?

Another major legal challenge involves the Yucca Mountain storage facility being over a fault line. In the event of earthquakes, what would stop radioactive wastes from contaminating the underlying aquifer that supplies water for agriculture and urban populations throughout the West? Again, millions of lives are at risk, and this does not begin to count the peril to the Native Americans living nearby.

Even with the very best safety precautions, however, Yucca Mountain lacks the capacity to store all of the wastes now being stockpiled at more than 120 sites in the continental United States. If more nuclear power plants are constructed, as McCain and Obama intend, still more radioactive waste will have to be stockpiled without sufficient safe and secure storage. More millions of Americans will risk exposure to deadly radiation.

If Yucca Mountain ever goes into operation, what about the safety and security of transporting all those wastes from their current storage sites to Nevada? Actually, this concern same applies to any other massive storage sites we might construct in any isolated part of the country we wish to make inhabitable. 

No reasonable person can absolutely guarantee 100 percent safety and security along the hundreds or thousands of highway miles between current and future storage sites. Traffic accidents are a danger, of course, and so are attacks or hijackings by nuclear terrorists. How many could die as a result?

If the shipments are sent by train, imagine the catastrophe from even one derailment, as happened recently with the non-nuclear toxic spill inside the rail tunnel under the English Channel. If the waste is transported by air, image the widespread contamination if an aircraft goes down or gets blown up. Again, how many could die as a result?

And what's to prevent theft? A fast search of the Web produced more than 30 fairly recent reports of radioactive materials being lost or stolen. In most of the reported cases, the loss was attributed to inattention or incompetence, yet other disappearances seem more sinister. What happens when there is much more nuclear materials available? Will more waste or spent fuel rods disappear? What if stolen nuclear materials are used to manufacture a bomb?

Don't take my word for these hazards. Contact the administrators of your state's radiation protection program (see the CRCPD link below). Ask for straight answers on the effectiveness of source radiation control in your region. Ask the regulators if they truly believe federal and state governments can safely and securely protect more nuclear materials than we already produce.

I say it's time We bust the myth of nuclear power ever becoming a "safe and secure"  alternative energy source.

Do not believe the propaganda from those with a financial interest in nuclear power. They see global climate change and rising petroleum prices as a chance to regain the public support lost after the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident. In my opinion, they're trying to trick you.

Instead of spending many billions to build more nuclear power plants, instead of spending more billions to develop ways and means for securing all the additional radioactive materials these plants would produce, instead of spending billions to treat all those exposed to radiation when the inevitable accidents finally happen (or terrorist acts), let's spend those billions to develop sustainable sources of clean and renewable electrical energy.

I'd prefer we invest in improving the efficiency and lowering the costs of wind, solar and hydrogen fuel cell power. I'd prefer that we invest in battery technology breakthroughs. I'd also welcome a fresh infusion of capital into researching  nuclear fussion, which would not produce the waste of nuclear fission.

As just one example of the options available, Managed Energy Technologies recently completed a proof-of-concept experiment for long-distance microwave transmission of electrical energy. Solar generators in geostationary orbit above the earth could transmit narrow beams of pure electrical power to earth-based receivers below. For more information, please read Amos Wright's September 12 report here at Examiner.com (see link below). That experiment only hints at the possibilities if we invest seriously in human ingenuity,.

Given all of this, I urge both McCain and Obama to disavow support for building more nuclear-powered electricity generating plants. I urge both nominees to stop pandering to the "greenwashing" campaigns of the nuclear industry.

(I can say the same about both candidates' support for building more "clean coal" power plants, for that oxymoron is another misleading ploy to exploit the current energy crisis to deceive the public into backing pollution-prone technologies. However, we'll save that discussion for another day.)

If you really care about creating a sustainable future on our homeland earth, please visit both the Obama and McCain websites to send a message that you do not want any more nuclear power, that you want them to pledge support for a sensible, realistic energy plan that invests in genuinely clean energy technologies.

We can't afford to base our future on fatal fantasies.