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Why Nuclear Energy is Still a Really Bad Idea

Why Nuclear Energy is Still a Really Bad Idea
Jonathan Cloud

After all the literature and public policy discussion and decision-making of the past 50+ years, it is hard to believe that there is still an industry – and a lobby – advocating for the expenditure of vast sums of money for the use of “controlled” nuclear reactions anywhere on this planet, let alone in the densely-populated Northeast.

But nuclear advocates have found new hope in the argument that nuclear power is “carbon-free.” New organizations have been formed to promote nuclear as “clean, affordable, and safe.” As Environment NJ’s Matt Elliott has noted, “Recently, Exelon Corp. funded the creation of a group with the misleading name of Affordable, Clean, Reliable Energy (ACRE) Coalition. The group is little more than a front for the nuclear industry.” (Philadelphia Inquirer – 2007-09-17)………………………………..As John Busby points out,
The claim for the carbon-free status of nuclear power proves to be false. Carbon dioxide is released in every component of the nuclear fuel cycle except the actual fission in the reactor. Fossil fuels are involved in the mining, milling, conversion and enrichment of the ore, in the handling of the mill tailings, in the fuel can preparation, in the construction of the station and in its de-commissioning and demolition, in the handling of the spent waste, in its processing and vitrification and in digging the hole in rock for its deposition.

June 15, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized