Nukes: You Can Never Turn Your Back

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.otherwords.org/articles/nukes_you_can_never_turn_your_back

Supporters of nuclear power and nuclear weapons enjoy a number of intrinsic advantages over their opponents. The first is money. Atoms make for high stakes gambling. Anyone who wins a contract for bombs or electricity can make zillions. This means there's lots of cash available for lobbying, bribes, and campaign contributions.

A second big advantage is secrecy. Almost everything nuclear is a national security secret. But as WikiLeaks has shown, classification is also useful to cover up greed, incompetence, screw-ups, and other major embarrassments. Many revealing policy debates, investigations, and negotiations are carried out behind closed doors.

The third pillar of nuclear advancement is relatively new: climate change. The industry has won new life in claiming to be carbon-free. Coal clearly destroys our air. Natural gas ruins our water supplies. Oil makes us dependent on unreliable dictators. Only nuclear power is supposedly non-polluting. Remarkably ignoring common sense, the Department of Energy is furthering this mindless scam by funding small modular nuclear plants to supply its own power, thus supposedly reducing its carbon footprint.

Unfortunately, it's simultaneously expanding its radioactive footprint. So far, no one has figured out how to safely dispose of nuclear waste. Onsite spent fuel storage pools have lost their luster in light of the disaster at the Daiichi nuclear complex in Fukushima. Nevada has resisted becoming America's nuclear dumping ground and South Carolina has belatedly closed its own huge repository. Of course, this still leaves the usual suspects--Indian reservations and impoverished African nations. Not long ago, German farmers fought off riot police to keep such a dump out of their woods.

More at the link --