More Reasons to Oppose Nuclear Power: DOE Official

Bill Becker, a former US Department of Energy official, published a very cogent article in the Denver Post, opposing nuclear power on the grounds that…

Those who say it will reduce global warming ignore the huge carbon cost of mining, milling, and transporting the fuel and of building the plant in the first place.

Many scientists say we only have a window of about a decade to turn our energy patterns around, if we’re to avoid catastrophic climate change. Nukes take many years to approve and build.

He also notes some of the more familiar arguments, e.g., terrorist target, weapons proliferation, and waste storage issues–although he only mentions these and does not elaborate.

So let me elaborate at least on waste storage. We’re looking at isolating extremely deadly and volatile compounds for longer than the span of civilization–a devil’s bargain if there ever was one.

This is an issue I know something about. I started researching issues around nuclear power in 1974, and my first book, published in 1980, was on why nuclear is a really stupid way to generate electricity, and I’ve seen nothing since to make me change my mind.

Want to know more? I still don’t know a better book on the subject than No Nukes, published way back in 1978 and apparently still in print.