In today's issue of Counterpunch, columnist Karl Grossman raises some critical issues about Obama's incoming energy secretary, Dr. Steven Chu. Many on this site have praised the choice as evidence of a return to pro-science, reality based energy policy, and I agree. However, Dr. Chu's wholehearted support for nuclear energy technology should give progressives pause.
"He’s really big on efficiency and renewables," says Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, of Chu. But he is "looking at nuclear as well. He and President-elect Obama are not anti-nuclear, and not perhaps as versed on it as they should be." Mariotte has a major concern that "they will accede to demands to fund nuclear power made by Congress"—awash in contributions from the nuclear power industry and with many members loyal to the national nuclear laboratories in their districts.
During the debates, Barack Obama embraced a range of energy options, from domestic drilling to so-called 'clean coal,' to nuclear, and not least conservation:
We're going to have to develop clean coal technology and safe ways to store nuclear energy.
But each and every one of us can start thinking about how can we save energy in our homes, in our buildings. And one of the things I want to do is make sure that we're providing incentives so that you can buy a fuel efficient car that's made right here in the United States of America, not in Japan or South Korea, making sure that you are able to weatherize your home or make your business more fuel efficient.
....
And that's why we've got to make some investments and I've called for investments in solar, wind, geothermal. Contrary to what Sen. McCain keeps on saying, I favor nuclear power as one component of our overall energy mix.
Because he kept so many options on the table, it was hard to read his intentions on energy, and I think most of us read into it what we wanted to see.
In the past, he has also expressed his understanding of the problems of nuclear waste production and disposal. In 2006 he wrote a letter with Dick Durbin to the Senate's energy sub-committee chair that highlighted the problems associated with nuclear waste disposal being proposed for Illinois:
"Senator Obama and I want to make it clear to the chairman that any plan to create regional nuclear waste sites without any local veto power is unacceptable," Durbin said at the time. "Illinois must not become a dumping ground -- even a temporary one -- for nuclear waste brought in from other states."
Nuclear power is big business, but it comes with its own special risks: environmental and public health risks, as well as security risks. As Helen Caldicott put it on Democracy Now last September,
What is predicted medically because of the nuclear wastes from nuclear power is epidemics of particularly childhood cancer, because they’re very sensitive to radiation, leukemia, and genetic disease for the rest of time. And we’re not the only species that have genes and get cancer. All other species do as well. So, a nuclear power is extraordinarily biologically dangerous.
This is where Dr. Chu's pro-nuclear sensibilities become important. As Grossman writes,
To the question put to him in a 2005 interview done by the public relations office at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—"Should fission-based nuclear power plants be made a bigger part of the energy-producing portfolio?"—Chu stated:
"Absolutely. Right now about 20 percent of our power comes from nuclear; there have been no new nuclear plants built since the early 70s. The real rational fears against nuclear power are about the long-term waste problems and [nuclear] proliferation. The technology of separating [used fuel from still-viable fuel] and putting the good stuff back in the reactor can also be used to make bomb material. And then there’s the waste problem: with future nuclear power plants, we’ve got to recycle the waste. Why? Because if you take all the waste we have now from our civilian and military nuclear operations, we’d fill up Yucca Mountain [under consideration as a long-term storage facility for spent nuclear fuel]. So we need three or four Yucca Mountains. Well, we don’t have three or four Yucca Mountains."
Here Chu shows an understanding of the proliferation problem of nuclear power—that all nuclear plants produce the plutonium from which atomic weapons are made—and reprocessing or separating out parts of nuclear waste allows plutonium to become readily available. But he then repeats the claim of nuclear proponents that "we’ve got to recycle the waste."
This theory has resulted in radioactive material from nuclear technology being spread—in the name of "recycling" and "reuse"—for such purposes as using radioactive Cesium-137 from reactor waste for food irradiation and depleted uranium for bullets and shells, hardening them but making them radioactive at the same time. In fact, "recycling" and "reuse" of nuclear garbage ends up spreading poisons that cause cancer, genetic damage and other causes of premature death.
There will be a lot of pressure to build new nuclear plants over the next few years. It's not just that the nuclear lobby has contributed to the Democrats' success this year; it is that nuclear plants will be billed as high-tech, infrastructure projects that will give the U.S. a chance to re-enter the global energy competition. In economic hard times, they will seem like cost-effective solutions: no need to worry about the radioactive waste down the road if the electricity is flowing now.
Last year, Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank voiced concerns in Dissident Voice about the influence of the Illinois-based nuclear power company Exelon on the Obama campaign.
Clearly Senator Obama recognizes the inherent dangers of nuclear technology and knows of the disastrous failures that plagued Chernobyl, Mayak and Three Mile Island. Yet, despite his attempts to alert the public of future toxic nuclear leaks, Obama still considers atomic power a viable alternative to coal-fired plants. The atom lobby must certainly be pleased.
I trust President-elect Obama to keep safety concerns in mind, and Dr. Chu appears ready to consider all energy options. But nuclear is going to be a seductive choice. The demand for cheap energy, combined with the typical heedlessness of the long-term health and environmental problems arising from nuclear waste disposal, mean that constant vigilance and regulation will be necessary as the new energy policy unfolds.
It's up to the progressive left to be the watchdogs here, because as we saw from John McCain's wholehearted embrace of nuclear technology, the GOP is going to be happy with such a policy. So we'll need to be the ones to make sure that plans for nuclear energy are completely transparent, that they involve cost-benefit comparison with more sustainable, eco-friendly alternatives, and that they are subject to robust public debate.