nuclear-news

Don’t throw good money after bad to the nuclear industry

we have to stop making the problem worse. We shouldn’t be throwing good money after bad and using taxpayer dollars to subsidize the construction of new nuclear plants. Instead, we should be deepening our commitment to an aggressive transition toward cleaner energy resources, like solar and wind, that don’t cause catastrophic meltdowns, don’t cause massive spills on our coastlines, and don’t contribute to global warming. Clean energy can also create more jobs and make our energy supply much more safe and secure.

What’s next for nuclear power: Michael Brune – CNNMoney.com, 24 march 11, “……The situation at Fukushima is still developing, so we don’t yet know how bad it is, but certainly it’s quite frightening. Over the past few years those of us who have been critical of nuclear power have been perhaps a little bit lonelier than we were 20, 25 years ago. But the reality is that the industry hasn’t changed all that much, and the risks that were inherent in nuclear power in the 1970s and 1980s, as we’re seeing, are still very present today……we’ve known for a long time that the consequences of partial or full meltdowns are high, and that it’s almost impossible to design backup systems that eliminate human error or eliminate the impact of natural tragedies.

What do we do with the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California, for instance, which is designed to withstand an earthquake of only 7.5? There are a lot of plants like this one in the United States that aren’t fully equipped to deal with a range of catastrophic events.
I’d say that there are a couple of different rational responses to a crisis like this. One, we should look at the country’s most vulnerable, riskiest plants and set them on a rapid timeline for being decommissioned. We probably can’t shut down the entire nuclear fleet in the short term. It’s providing about 20% of our electricity.
Two, we have to stop making the problem worse. We shouldn’t be throwing good money after bad and using taxpayer dollars to subsidize the construction of new nuclear plants. Instead, we should be deepening our commitment to an aggressive transition toward cleaner energy resources, like solar and wind, that don’t cause catastrophic meltdowns, don’t cause massive spills on our coastlines, and don’t contribute to global warming. Clean energy can also create more jobs and make our energy supply much more safe and secure.

What’s next for nuclear power: Michael Brune – FORTUNE Features – Fortune on CNNMoney.com

March 26, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general