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Nuclear Power and the Obama Administration

By S. T., on January 18th, 2010

Conceptual view of Nuclear Power Plant-- Esquire

Yucca Mountain Haunts the Obama Administration. By Katherine Ling, Greenwire, “While President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget proposal is expected to sound a death knell for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the administration has so far failed to launch the blue-ribbon commission it promised almost a year ago to decide on a waste-disposal alternative. Hanging in the balance is 60,000 metric tons of commercial and defense nuclear waste. I find it quite disconcerting that a commission with a proper broad charter to look at this problem hasn’t been created, said Arjun Makhijani, president of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research [IEER], a nonprofit opposed to nuclear power. ‘I think the bigger danger is that inaction will simply lead us back to Yucca Mountain,’ Makhijani said, adding, ‘Leaving the problem to fester is not good.’

“Obama dramatically cut funding for the Nevada repository in his fiscal 2010 budget request and announced his intention to form a commission to chart an alternative waste-management solution. Energy Secretary Steven Chu quickly followed up, telling Congress last March that the commission would be formed ‘ideally’ within a month and would craft recommendations by the end of 2009. Last week, Chu responded to questions about the commission by saying the Energy Department is ‘working as hard and fast as we can on that.’ The lawmaker who has led opposition to the Yucca project, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), is confident that the administration’s delay won’t translate into a revival of the Nevada project… But despite agreements between Reid and the administration, Yucca Mountain remains — by law — the disposal site for U.S. nuclear waste. The DOE repository license has not been withdrawn, nor has the department moved to do so, according to an industry source. Meanwhile, Reid is facing a tough re-election battle this year. Moreover, some say that disagreement over whether the blue-ribbon panel should consider Yucca Mountain as a potential waste management solution is one reason the administration has taken so long to get the commission going. Qualified candidates, several sources say, do not agree Yucca should be taken off the table.”

I thought Yucca Mountain was off the table, but apparently it’s still being considered. Some people are still arguing for its use as a nuclear waste repository. (They are mostly Republicans who are against Obama’s energy policy in general). According to others, on-site nuclear waste storage is just fine for now until a better national site is found. (Some people whose land is used for this would disagree). Stewart Brand feels that the threat from nuclear waste pales in comparison to the threat from the continued use of coal. (e360 interview) and he has said that we can figure out where to put the nuclear waste later on, in another interview heard in the Climate Files podcast.

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Alt Energy

Nuclear Debate Headed for a Meltdown

By S. T., on October 27th, 2009

Last week, Earthbeat Radio released a podcast featuring an interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott. I have never heard anyone as hysterical and fearful of nuclear power in my life. She called it “witches brew” and even used the word “Satan”. Sure, there are certainly safety concerns and radiation and waste concerns with nuclear power, but it’s not Satanic or from ‘witches’. Caldicott also claimed that if liquid salt is used in new fast reactors, and oxygen leaks in, it could lead to a nuclear explosion that could destroy the entire country! Caldicott even seems to despise physicists (she spits the word out). (Caldicott herself is a physician, not a nuclear scientist.) She epitomizes the latest general fears that have resurfaced since Congress includes funding for new Third and Fourth-generation nuclear nuclear plants in their latest legislation on climate.

Nuclear power is used quite a bit in my state and there have been no serious dangers that I’m aware of. In my opinion, coal and the tar sands of Alberta, as well as the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing to drill for natural gas, are more dangerous and much more likely to harm people on a regular basis than is nuclear power. Natural gas drilling can be very toxic and coal kills people every year. Burning coal also creates an incredible amount of health problems from soot, particulates, the chemicals it emits, and from mercury. It’s waste ash is radioactive also. This ashy sludge is kept in open-air, unlined holding ponds. It seems to me that if Caldicott wants to warn people about deadly energy sources that threaten peoples’ lives on a daily basis she should have chosen coal.

James Hansen on nuclear power:

“Some of the anti-nukes are friends, concerned about climate change, and clearly good people. Yet I suspect that their ‘success’ (in blocking nuclear R&D) is actually making things more dangerous for all of us and for the planet. It seems that, instead of knee-jerk reaction against anything nuclear, we need hard-headed evaluation of how to get rid of long-lived nuclear waste and minimize dangers of proliferation and nuclear accidents. Fourth generation nuclear power seems to have the potential to solve the waste problem and minimize the others. In any case, we should not have bailed out of research on fast reactors.”

It’s time to fast track sustainable nuclear

From Green Left Weekly, by Barry Brook

Let’s start by establishing some common ground between myself and anti-nuclear campaigners like Jim Green. Green and I both understand the seriousness of the climate crisis and the imperative for a rapid transformation of our energy system to technologies that emit no carbon when generating power.

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