As Japanese and world experts struggle to stop dangerous emissions from the nuclear plants damaged by the earthquake and following tsunami, opposition to plans for more nuclear plants grows.
An anti-nuclear political party in Germany made significant gains recently with attacks against the ruling party’s pro-nuclear policies. Here in the United States, some members of Congress are calling for a slowdown in plans to build more nuclear plants to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases which threaten climate change.
Once again scientists warn that the fuel rods used to generate electricity continue to emit life-threatening levels of radiation for hundreds of years after they have been replaced.
They point out that the United States has yet to build or discover storage space secure enough to hold high-level nuclear waste for the many centuries required to render them harmless.
Today nuclear waste is stored in heavy containers above ground, usually on the nuclear plant site. Is this safe? Above-ground storage on power plant sites has an important advantage. The containers can be monitored by experts frequently. Stored underground in a natural cavern they would be out of sight — and perhaps become out-of-mind over 1,000 years.
The hazard presented by long-lasting radioactive waste is counter-balanced by the clean power nuclear plants provide. In today’s energy world, nuclear power offers the only true alternative to carbon-based fuels. Wind and solar power are making significant strides but seem decades away from replacing coal or natural gas.
If the threat of climate change is as great as science now estimates, expansion of nuclear power is the only way to reduce the use of carbon-based fuels soon enough to prevent worldwide catastrophes.
A thoughtful, continuous consideration of these tradeoffs should busy the minds of the world’s brightest decision-makers.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
