Green Like Money

According to a report filed by Dave Gram and Frank Bass for the Associated press, the corporations that own nuclear plants are not putting aside enough resources to dismantle them. The high costs of building and operating the plants aside, the current problem is being blamed on the financial crisis and the loss of investments that were to pay for the decommissioning of the plants.

The underlying problem is not just that the projects will be delayed, the consequences of the delays are more the concern. The possibilities of nuclear leaks, either into the atmosphere or into groundwater, are but one aspect of the delay. Workers needed to maintain the site, with inadequate funds to do so, will be at increased risk of accidental exposure. Then there are the not so accidental risks -- soft targets for terrorists, getting softer by the day.

Let us debunk the myth once and for all that nuclear power is clean, safe, or cheap. It is none of these. The whole process of producing nuclear power is an environmental nightmare. From the mining of uranium at the beginning of the process, to the storage of the spent fuel rods at the end, there is no means by which nuclear energy is clean. While it may not produce carbon emissions, there is more to caring for the environment than just limiting carbon. Just as we need to limit the amount of carbon floating around in the atmosphere, we even more so need to limit the amount of plutonium floating around the planet.

Safety is ludicrous to even discuss when it comes to nuclear energy. The precautionary principle would suggest that the possible damage that could be inflicted by even one catastrophic meltdown or other accident, no matter how remote, renders the whole notion of nuclear power illogical. Accidents happen: Three Mile Island and Chernobyl drew the most attention because they happened early on in the nuclear power game. Japan recently revealed a number of small nuclear accidents. The more nuclear plants built, the greater the odds become for a major accident. In a probabilistic sense, it is only a matter of time before there is an incident of unimagined proportions.

Safety also has to take into account the possible deliberate misuse of the nuclear material. Efforts to secure this material at increasing number of sites becomes more and more difficult as we build more nuclear plants. That, in turn, drives up costs. Costs, in the energy business, are just passed on to customers. The idea that nuclear energy is cost efficient is a myth propagated by energy producers who base these statements on some mythical "costs per unit" that calculates the costs after the reactor is up and running. Mining costs, building reactors, etc. are out of the calculation. When you sell energy, demand is what matters.

Calls for nuclear power are driven by a desire to control the flow of energy by corporations in order to maximize profits. Mostly these are the same transnationals that are in control of the old petroleum-based economy. The only green that nuclear energy is associated with is money.