Loving Nuclear Power

By Peter Asmus, AlterNet. Posted December 21, 2005.

One would think that environmentalists these days would be giddy over the high price of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas. It has long been the prediction that when these finite and polluting fuels increased in cost due to supply shortages, that we as a society would finally make the transition to the renewable, sustainable energy system that has always seemed to lie just out-of-reach, beckoning to us just over the horizon.

But then something shocking happened. Growing numbers of "green" visionaries started beating the drum for more nuclear power, a technology that in the past has been a lightening rod to spur on activists to protest and demand for a greater reliance upon efficiency and solar, wind and other renewable energy technologies.

Among those endorsing the process of splitting atoms to generate the majority of our future electricity are the following "environmentalists:"

• James Lovelock, the fellow from London who came up the "Gaia" theory of the earth being a self-regenerating organism, proclaimed that nuclear power was "the only green solution" to our power supply woes, maintaining that there wasn't enough time to allow renewable energy technologies to fill the gap.
• The Bay Area's Stewart Brand, the utopian thinker behind the "Whole Earth Catalog," echoed Lovelock's claims, adding that the nuclear power industry's half century of experience rendered concerns about safety and waste as obsolete.
• Patrick Moore, co-founder of the radical Greenpeace activist group, has proclaimed: "There is now a great deal of scientific evidence showing nuclear power to be an environmentally sound and safe choice."

Nuclear power is suddenly in vogue. Even the alternative LA Weekly newspaper has a two-part feature touting nuclear power by author Judith Lewis, whose blog is entitled "Another Green World." In essence, she argues the good outweighs the bad when it comes to nuclear power. "Is it possible that we have come to this: a choice between a catastrophic warming trend and the most feared energy source on earth?" she asks in the first of a two part series entitled "How I tried to stop worrying and love nuclear power."

Our federal government has now launched a "Nuclear Power 2010" program that hopes to jump-start a nuclear industry that has not constructed a new power plant in two decades. Certainly, the biggest push for nuclear has come from the Bush Administration. While visiting a Maryland nuclear power plant earlier this year, President Bush proclaimed: "There is a growing consensus that more nuclear power will lead to a cleaner, safer nation. It is time for this country to start building nuclear power plants again." But you can add Democratic Senators Joe Liebermann of Connecticut and Barack Obama of Illinois to the growing list of federal lawmakers calling for the construction of new nuclear power plants.

I first learned about nuclear power in my own backyard when I was living in Sacramento, California in the late 1980s. A laundry list of safety, environmental and economic issues resulted in a ballot initiative vote to close the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant in 1989. Energy experts across the country predicted that the owner of this nuke -- the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) -- would be in dire straits once such a large portion of its power supply portfolio went away.

Interestingly enough, SMUD's closure of its nuclear power plant was the best thing to happen as it was forced to launch major solar, wind and energy efficiency programs. Instead of being viewed as one of the biggest losers among electric utilities, SMUD's embracing of clean power sources helped this troubled municipal utility turn around, gaining it respect from around the world. SMUD is now in the process of expanding its service territory due, in part, to its progressive and attractive clean power plans.

The underlying assumption of those now clamoring for a major expansion of nuclear power is that the threat of global climate change is so great, that we have no other choice. What a bunch of baloney! Wind and solar power have been the fastest growing power sources globally over the past several years, and we have barely begin to tap these abundant non-polluting and increasingly cost-effective sources of power.

Today, wind power is already cheaper than the dominant competition -- natural gas-fired power plants -- in many regions of this country and the rest of the world. Solar power, though still expensive, is the kind of modular, small-scale and customer-friendly power sources that allow communities, businesses and individuals to take control of their own energy needs, the key trend of the future if we truly want to become sustainable.

The cost (and time involved) in adding a whole new fleet of nuclear reactors around the world is just as staggering as the alternative route: a gradual shift to all renewable energy fuels, including solar, wind, geothermal steam, biomass (including urban waste streams), hydroelectric, wave, ocean current and tidal power technologies. Renewable energy technologies keep dollars in communities and spread far greater amounts of good jobs throughout rural and urban areas, In contrast, nuclear power concentrates power and money into the same entities that created our current power supply woes in the first place.

Peter Asmus is author of "Reaping The Wind, Reinventing Electric Utilities and In Search of Environmental Excellence."

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