NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT A SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

In November, the world will again come together to decide specific ways to address global climate change using the Kyoto Protocol. This conference will decide many issues, among them, whether or not nuclear power should receive credit for reducing greenhouse gases. Countries such as Russia (Chernobyl), Japan (Tokaimura) and the United States (Three Mile Island, et al.) could be eligible to receive such credit if they constructed nuclear reactors in other countries. This means they could get credit for reducing greenhouse gases without actually addressing the emissions problem domestically.

The nuclear power industry is using our concern over global climate change to strong-arm governments, particularly the Clinton/Gore administration, into reviving its moribund technology here and abroad. The industry’s bid for increased sales of atomic reactors raises grave concerns over weapons proliferation, health effects and waste issues without addressing the global climate change issue as efficiently as more prudent technologies. Recent surveys show Americans overwhelmingly support renewable and energy efficiency technologies, and that a majority opposes using nuclear power to address climate change. Unfortunately, the Clinton/Gore administration is poised to allow nuclear power to receive the same credits as renewable energy, thus placing nuclear energy on par with truly sustainable sources.

Nuclear power is economically untenable. Nuclear energy is one of the most expensive ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Reactors coming on-line in the late 1980s and 1990s averaged 4-7 billion dollars each and required a decade or more for construction. Ratepayers could be forced to pay as much as $500 billion in so-called "stranded costs. How much would a new generation of reactors cost ratepayers and taxpayers? According to a 1988 study by Rocky Mountain Institute, replacing fossil fuel with nuclear power worldwide would require building a new reactor every 1-3 days for the next 40 years at a cost of $200 billion per year.

If we want climate change addressed more immediately and more efficiently, we should begin by devoting more resources to energy efficiency programs. Rocky Mountain Institute claims every dollar invested in energy efficiency will reduce seven times more CO2 emissions than that same dollar invested nuclear power. Therefore, using nuclear technology instead of energy efficiency could actually result in more greenhouse gas emissions, not less. According to congressional testimony by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE), energy efficiency alone could account for 60 percent of the emissions reduction necessary to meet the Kyoto protocol. Furthermore, implementation of efficiency measures actually would result in a total savings of $160 billion or approximately $1,600 per household.

Nuclear power, including so-called "advanced" reactors, creates lethal radioactive waste for which we have no scientifically-defensible storage method. Nuclear power creates radioactive wastes that are dangerous for hundreds to millions of years. There is no proven storage technology able to last for the entire hazardous life of these radioactive wastes, natural and man-made barriers included. The federal Nuclear Waste Fund, collected from ratepayers to pay for permanent nuclear waste storage, will fall at least 12 billion dollars short if this generation of nuclear reactors operates for its full life and receives no license extensions. What would additional waste disposal cost for additional reactors or reactors granted license extensions? All six "low-level" radioactive waste dumps in the U.S. have leaked, but this does not stop persistent attempts by the industry to construct more ill-fated facilities, especially in economically disadvantaged communities.

Nuclear power is a proliferation risk. Each current 1000-megawatt reactor produces 40 bombs worth of plutonium per year. It is morally unjust for the United States and other industrial powers to foist outrageously expensive nuclear reactor technologies and their ensuing baggage on countries which are financially and/or politically fragile. Instead, the U.S. should encourage use of sustainable energies and energy efficiency which carry much less of a price. Of course, the U.S. also acts unjustly when it forces nuclear facilities upon unwilling communities, proving time and again that nuclear power and democracy are incompatible. Indonesia, The Philippines, and Singapore have gone on record opposing nuclear energy as a way to address climate change. These countries have the most to loose when the sea level rises.

Nuclear reactors threaten our health. Nuclear reactors are a polluting technology. As a matter of normal operation, reactors release radioactivity to the air and water. Many human population studies demonstrate that additional, low, constant levels of radiation can cause cancer and genetic mutations. Subjects of these studies are often nuclear facility communities that suffer higher rates of diseases than non-nuclear communities, even with apparent normal operation of these facilities.

Radiation biologists now suspect that low levels of radiation could be causing genetic mutations responsible for diseases not currently recognized as radiation-induced. Many of these effects would appear in future generations and their link with radiation would be difficult to detect by current epidemiological methods. Are we poisoning the gene pool and subjecting current and future generations to a life of ill health? If we are, will we act in time, or will the damage be done? The father of health physics, Dr. Karl Z. Morgan states, "There is no safe level of exposure and there is no dose of radiation so low that the risk of a malignancy is zero" which makes "permissible" discharges of radioactive material morally indefensible.

The nuclear industry claims we must address global climate change by giving their technology another chance. However, we can’t afford nuclear energy, economically or otherwise. Abandoning fossil fuel technology for nuclear reactors is trading one form of devastating pollution for another. This either/or "choice" is clearly false since we have far better options—all of them non-nuclear.