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A timely add-on to our recent Science and Society discussion with historian Michael Egan about his book on Barry Commoner, Science, and Environmentalism (Part I, Part II) is an article in today's New York Times about and with Commoner. And it refers to Egan's book. So ha, we didn't make all that up.
A quote:
Q. There's been some second-guessing about using nuclear power instead of fossil fuels. Do you agree?A. No. This is a good example of shortsighted environmentalism. It superficially makes sense to say, "Here's a way of producing energy without carbon dioxide." But every activity that increases the amount of radioactivity to which we are exposed is idiotic. There has to be a life-and-death reason to do it. I mean, we haven't solved the problem of waste yet. We still have used fuel sitting all over the place. I think the fact that some people who have established a reputation as environmentalists have adopted this is appalling.
Also some answers from Commoner about DDT, mass transit, his 1980 Presidential Bid, and more. And more from The World's Fair on the nuclear issue here.
Comments
Cast my first vote for POTUS for BC back in 1980. He's the Real Deal.
Posted by: CCP | June 19, 2007 2:30 PM
While traveling around the US, the number of people I've heard say the same thing makes me think. Forget Ohio 2004 and Florida 2000, the real conspiracy took place in 1980. Maybe we should have a recount...
Posted by: M. Egan | June 19, 2007 3:40 PM
As a liberal/environmentalist/physicist, part of me is starting to think nuclear power might be the only way, the lesser of two evils, the segway between oil and renewables.
Posted by: jeffk | June 19, 2007 8:52 PM
Jeffk -- why do you suppose that? We have but two options? Can you explain more? M.B.
Posted by: Mart Benton | June 20, 2007 7:52 AM
This kind of mentality makes me supremely uncomfortable. I don't understand how nuclear power could ever be a rational option, so perhaps jeffk could elaborate for me as to why he's warming to the idea. Or, how it would be the lesser of two evils?
Chernobyl is not the issue here (though what if Three Mile Island or Hanford had been 9/11 targets instead of the WTC?). The bigger issue is waste disposal. Even as a short-term solution (and developing more nuclear power will only be economically viable if we think about it over the long-term), what do we do with that waste? Nobody has yet come up with an acceptable solution for storing nuclear waste safely in perpetuity. Yucca Mountain is a very bad idea, and not just for folks in the area. How do you safely store spent fuel rods? And how do you positively guarantee that radioactive waste won't leak out of any repository? If not now, how about 250 years from now? Or 1,000? Or does it not matter that far in the future, because--with any luck--by then they'll have found ways to use nuclear waste as a safe and reusable fertilizer for organic foods...
But back to money: the real reason nuclear power was dropped in the US in the early 1980s was that no one was willing to insure nuclear power plants without government backing. I'm not sure anything has changed. Further, there is no conceivable way that the US could bring a series of power plants online quickly and cheaply, which means that any move in the direction of nuclear power would be a long-term plan, and one that would continue to leach resources and funds away from research for viable alternatives.
Posted by: M. Egan | June 20, 2007 9:30 AM
If we take the current scientific consenses on global warming as more or less fact (and I do), then we're looking at about a 10 year window to make HUGE changes in the way we make and use power. And yet you can't even get Americans to give up their beloved 8mpg SUVs when gas is $3.50 a gallon. Do you REALLY think that we're going to switch to mostly renewable power while cutting our consumption drastically in the next ten years? Hundreds of thousands of windmills, hundreds of square miles of solar panels? And if you agree that that is impossible (not for reasonable people, but for Americans), then you should be prepared to start making hard decisions about consequences.
Nuclear waste sucks. And yet it doesn't cause global warming. It would be better to bury a billion tons of nuclear waste in Nevada and move everyone out of there than it would be to let all of the costal cities get buried under a rising ocean while causing drastic changes to the ecosystem and climate of the entire planet.
I don't know the details about why people won't insure the power plants, but they're not having any major problems in France, where almost all of their power is nuclear. And they re-use most of the waste with by using more modern technology.
Posted by: jeffk | June 20, 2007 9:56 AM