Senators Kerry, Graham & Lieberman are on a mission to save the climate. Their answer? Nuclear power.
This essay seeks to cool their enthusiasm for this terrible idea. Please read on............
Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman are on a mission to save the climate. Oh dear. With such stalwart defenders of international capital at the helm, who can possible gain from their efforts? Oh yeah, nuclear power.
Leave it to the US Senate to turn such a critical issue such as global warming to the best financial advantage of international capital. Talk about going from the frying pan to the fire!
Without question, this planet needs to get a grip on its carbon emissions. But while cars and cows get all the bad press regarding their emissions, the real polluters – the real bad guys in all of this – are the myriad of factories and industrial sites that spew not only carbon emissions, but every other conceivable toxic waste into the sky, the water and ground. This is why cap-and-trade legislation faces such an uphill battle in Congress. Virtually every industry in the country is opposed to it, along with the coal and oil industries. Since these industries own our elected politicians, where is this idea supposed to go?
We don’t need coal, gas and oil to heat our homes. Solar energy – if it weren’t being sandbagged at every turn and at every level of governance – could satisfy the heating and electricity needs of most homes. Were it made affordable and our politicians not committed full-time to preventing its development, most homes could be off the electrical grid in 10 or 20 years. Perhaps it could happen even quicker if the US government made the same commitment to solar energy that it did to convert American homes to gas and oil in the 1930's.
With the emergence of hybrid cars – and electric cars still waiting in the wings – we can confidently look forward to the day when our cars won’t be as significant a contributor to the destruction of our ozone. If we eat a little less beef, we can get the cow problem under control as well. There is still the ugly matter of how war contributes to global warming, but if we can strain our impulse to kill everyone who opposes US hegemony, perhaps we can make progress there as well.
That leaves our belching factories and poisonous power plants. But in an economy that depends on overconsumption and overproduction, restraining those impulses challenges our ‘American way of life’. Yet, global warming threatens us anyway. It threatens our ability to produce the food we need. And even if that doesn’t motivate our paid-off politicians to act, there’s the dirty truth that fossil fuels are running out. So whether we just kill our way to the last barrel of oil or we plan ahead toward other energy resources, we will one day have to live in a world without oil.
Enter our heros, Kerry, Graham and Lieberman. Ever the forward thinking bunch – and thanks again, guys, for Iraq and Afghanistan – they are plotting the way toward our post-fossil-fuel future. And the winner is? Nuclear power.
Talk about a bad idea. I’m sorry, but even the most passive nuclear plant is just a bomb on the hillside. May I remind you about Chernobyl and Three Mile Island? Even if these plants don’t melt down or discharge their radiated waste into the rivers, streams, land or sky, there’s still the dangerous matter of what to do with the waste.
Shall we truck it all to Yucca Mountain? I’m sure the people of the southwest will welcome that idea with open arms. Uh, no. I think that those folks have made their opposition so clear that when Kerry was running for president, he promised, "When I'm president of the United States, I'll tell you about Yucca Mountain: Not on my watch."
I guess since he’s not president, that promise doesn’t matter anymore. But even if we can mow over the angry people of the southwest and make Yucca Mountain our final port for nuclear waste, there’s still the dangerous matter of moving that radiated material across the country. If your home is anywhere near an industrial railroad, pay attention. In the dark of the night, that train you hear may be pulling some heavy rads past your home, your child’s school or your place of work. The potential for nuclear disaster multiples exponentially the further we delve deeper into that misbegotten idea. Never mind the fact that nuclear power plants are only viable with enormous government charity, tax abatements, credits, and direct subvention.
Of course, should our gang of three have their dream, these power plants will be sited in zip codes that don’t matter. They will be sold to these poor neighborhoods as ‘jobs for the boys and girls’. Corporate auditors/consultants will be brought in to produce massaged polls that demonstrate popular support and boiler-plate studies that will show how cheap it will be. Then the charm offensive will begin. Local newspapers – ever the friend of elite corporate interests – will weigh in their support. There’ll be a round of town meetings, where the opposition can vent their frustration and be ignored (though their names will be taken down, just in case they don’t go away). In more affluent neighborhoods, we will be sold the idea that nuclear power is ‘cheap’ and plentiful’ and – of course – ‘safe’. No doubt the final study recommending nuclear power will have pictures of green parks and children playing to underscore what a happy future nuclear power will bring.
And all will be well until something does wrong. Then, no doubt, Senator Kerry demonstrate his famous Massachusetts two-step. You know, the one where he manages to get himself on all sides of an issue, while back flipping to face what ever side is throwing the darts hardest?
Controlling carbon emissions is a critical issue. Moving beyond fossil fuels is necessary for our planet’s health and survival. First we should get as many homes off the electrical grid as possible using solar power. Supplement what we can with ecologically responsible uses of wind and hydro-power. Reinvent that ‘cash for clunkers’ project again when enough hybrid and electrical cars are on the market. Eat less beef.
But then we have to face the really hard reality that our economy is built on overproduction and overconsumption. This recession/depression would be a lovely time to start addressing that problem, by developing new industries and employment sectors for people left idle by the consequences of our ‘free market’ economy. Its also a great time to start cultivating an anti-consumeristic social esthetic that reveres recycling (all forms), reusing and eschews ostentatious displays of consumptive arrogance. By reducing our dependence on having too much stuff or making stuff that we throw away in a garbage heap and buy again, we reduce our need for endless over production.
By removing the two places most people contribute to global warming from the energy grid – their homes and cars – we not only reduce our need for fossil fuels, we reduce our need for power plants. By reducing our need for useless stuff, by reusing what we have and embracing a social esthetic that frowns on wastefulness and conspicuous consumption, we reduce the need for overproduction. Use wind and hydro power where ever reasonably possible and responsible. Keep the research going on other forms of energy production and slowly but surely we will rid ourselves of the need for fossil fuels.
But pursuing nuclear power is simply forestalling the day when we will need to face the fact that the root of our energy problems lie in our culture and economy of over-consumption and over production, which has driven global warming. Nuclear power was a terrible idea in the first place, it will be our next great disastrous one, if this mode of energy production becomes the answer to our energy problems.