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Letters to the editor |
Article published Sunday, August 25, 2002
Going
nuclear is a destructive choice
As the U.S. nuclear industry
tries yet again to retool its corroding image, it lies about nuclear
power being a global warming "savior." In fact, the nuclear fuel
cycle works to destroy the global environment, even when nuclear
plants operate "safely."
The uranium enrichment plant in
Paducah, Ky. - the country’s nuclear fuel factory - is, hands-down,
the country’s largest volume producer of CFC-114, a refrigerant
chemical that eats the Earth’s protective ozone layer, more than
400,000 pounds per year. This is at least 44 percent of the total
U.S. CFC leakage, and is fully 7 percent of the leakage in the
world.
But CFC-114 emissions are merely one example. The
hidden costs of nuclear power to the environment and human health
also include health effects on workers and the public at every stage
of the fuel cycle; environmental damage during uranium mining; the
dangerous difficulty of handling radioactive waste generated during
enrichment and by reactors; the potential for devastating radiation
leaks at power plants, and other kinds of waste from the Paducah
plant. The manufacture of nuclear reactor fuel also produces
mercury, arsenic, and cadmium, which are disposed of on and off
site, and hydrochloric acid aerosols and chlorine gas, which are
released into the air. Add to this list the occasional Three Mile
Island or Chernobyl, and nuclear clearly remains the destructive
energy choice it has always been.
The Davis-Besse crisis
teaches us, again, that utility industry spin-masters lie
relentlessly about every aspect of nuclear power. It’s time for the
people to unplug nuclear utilities forever.
TERRY
LODGE
Holland
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