AS GOES CALIFORNIA. . . .
A Message from Rochelle
An initiative has been filed for next year's California ballot that seeks to pave the way for the construction of more nuclear power plants in the state. Since 1976, California law has imposed a moratorium on siting any new reactors until a way has been found to permanently and safely store high-level radioactive waste. In the realm of nuclear power politics, this is perhaps the most obvious, common-sense law on the books anywhere in the country or the world. Imagine what the citizens of Japan would give right now to have had a law just like it, long before this summer's seismic portent of very bad things to come for their nation. The nuclear lobby has been unable to meet its simple terms or find a way around it, so now they're hoping to vote it out of existence.
Here’s what's heading for California: A massive ballot initiative campaign that nuclear power is the way and the light and the path to salvation from global warming, so let's just get rid of that silly old law and its unpleasant reminder that we still don't know what to do with all that ultra-toxic waste product, a problem the feds and the nuclear industry has not been able to solve in fifty years of trying and fifty years of promising.
If we buy into this claim, then we will have purchased the Bush administration's Energy Plan, replete with the “sky’s the limit” loan guarantees for nuclear power plants. Even if a utility never generates one watt of power, even if it never finishes construction of a new plant, Uncle Sam's got their back and will load up their corporate accounts with your money. The nuclear utilities have flatly stated that these are the only conditions under which they will agree to undertake the incredibly expensive, high-risk gamble of building more reactors. That measure just passed the Senate and is headed for the House. To voice your opposition to the House following the Senate’s irresponsible decision to spend $40 billion on new nuclear plants call: (202) 224-3121.
So, yes, global warming is a problem that needs to be solved. But more nukes is not any part of the solution. Even if you think they are worth the risk - the waste, spills, quakes, meltdowns, proliferation, terrorist strikes - in the name of fighting global warming, they are not worth the money.
Building nuclear power plants to save us from global warming is like building a pier to save a drowning man. While the pier contractor was arguing his case, you'd have to be thinking that there's a better way, and a faster, cheaper way to solve this urgent problem. And you'd be wondering why you're even listening to this guy. And you'd be right.
The truth is:
- Scientists say we have about ten years to pull back from the brink of global warming's worst impacts. That’s ten years if we're lucky, starting now. The average time to get a nuclear power plant designed, permitted, built and operational is ten years. That's what you call a disqualifier.
- Global warming emissions resulting from electrical generation could be cut by 47 percent right now by implementing improvements in the efficiency of power generation. http://www.graceenergyinitiative.org/Dev/download/FalsePromises.pdf - Footnote 48
- A dollar invested in efficiency displaces almost seven times as much carbon as a dollar invested in nuclear power. Decentralized power + energy efficiency cuts far more greenhouse gas emissions, much faster and cheaper, than nukes. http://www.graceenergyinitiative.org/Dev/download/FalsePromises.pdf - Footnote 86
- Nuclear power is not a “zero emissions” energy source. The mining, milling, processing and transport of uranium is fossil-fuel intensive. More plants will mean more uranium mined, which means a future of lower-grade ore and even higher greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to natural gas-fired power plants. http://www.graceenergyinitiative.org/Dev/download/FalsePromises.pdf - Footnote 27 The entire output of two coal-fired power plants is required to power one uranium enrichment facility in Paducah, Kentucky.
- The phenomenon of “peak oil” is about to meet “peak uranium.” http://www.dougcraftfineart.com/PeakOilandOurFutureEssaybyDougCraft.pdf
- Hey, renewables are great, except when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, right? This is probably the single favorite line of the nuke promoters, after “nuclear power is a zero emissions energy source,” and it's just as wrong. The International Energy Agency has studied this objection and answered it with the simple solution of mixing energy from different sources: on-site solar photovoltaics, plus wind farms, plus geothermal, different types of power integrated from different locations overcome any concerns about intermittency. http://www.graceenergyinitiative.org/Dev/download/FalsePromises.pdf Footnote 37
- Hey, what about France? The nuke nuts always point proudly to our plucky Gallic friends, their oodles of reactors and their 70% dependency on nuclear power. Less mentioned: The summer of 2006, when a record heat-wave wracked that country, forcing power reductions and reactor shutdowns across France. You can’t operate your nuclear reactor when the cooling water is too warm.
- Global warming has made nuclear utilities, our alleged savior from global warming, and the victim of irony: They will become increasingly unreliable as the water gets warmer. http://www.graceenergyinitiative.org/Dev/download/FalsePromises.pdf - Footnote 32
- About 2,000 new reactors would have to be built worldwide to make a dent in carbon emissions. Do you have a trillion dollars you’re not using? Do you know of a hundred-plus safe, permanent waste repository sites you haven’t told the Department of Energy about? http://a4nr.org/library/nuclearrenaissance/2007.01-
- Nuclear energy received 60 percent of all federal energy R&D funding from 1948 to 1998. Renewables got 10 percent. Energy efficiency got 7 percent. Yes, there’s something wrong with this picture. No, we shouldn't help to perpetuate this formula. http://www.graceenergyinitiative.org/Dev/download/FalsePromises.pdf - Footnote 155
California is the nuke lobby's Golden Domino, and if it falls prey to the hype that nuclear power must be part of our efforts to curb global warming, then we have turned out the beacon of a truly sustainable and renewable light that the nation and the world is watching.
We can defeat this ill-conceived initiative. The Alliance has received offers of support from across the state and the country, yet we need to reach out to all of our friends, our families, our co-workers, our religious community; everyone has a stake in this, and if we share this information we will succeed.
We have started a listserve dedicated to defeating the initiative to allow the building of new nuclear power plants in California. This will be an informational listserve for the purpose of educating people about the issue and working to bring people and groups from all over California to work together to stop this initiative. Please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nonewnukesca/ and sign onto this listserve. Together we CAN defeat this initiative.
The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility needs your help: Please send this message to everyone on your list, give what you can, and stayed tuned for an action alert to write your legislators in the next few weeks regarding this ill-conceived and short-sighted initiative to overturn California's law to protect it citizens from the growing stockpiles of highly radioactive waste in a very seismically active state.
In Peace
Rochelle
"The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth."
-Aldous Huxley
Rochelle Becker, Executive Director Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
www.a4nr.org
(858) 337 2703
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