Is Anti-Nuclear group actually only a few individuals who are ignoring the real science?
The Energy Fair Group, which recently promoted their anti-nuclear agenda in press releases and a report appears in reality to be just a few individuals who are anti-nuclear.
According to their website, a whole 5 (five) people met in London in October to discuss the problem.
Outside the radical ant-nuclear crowd even staunch environmentalists including Whole Earth Catalog author/publisher Stewart Brand, recognize that there has never even been a serious civilian injury from nuclear plants in France (90% of the electricity in that country comes from nuclear plants) or the U.S., where the most famous nuclear power plant accident (Three Mile Island) actually didn’t result in a single casualty or even real injury requiring so much as a band-aid.
Coal mining, on the other hand, results in vast mountains of polluting tailings, equally or larger vast sludge ponds such as that which result from the virtually unregulated fly ash dumping near U.S. coal-fired power plants.
A recent 3 million cubic yard spill of coal ash in Kingston brought home the real dangers in coal which were previously apparent mostly to those who lived near strip mines.
Coal-fired plants spew poisons into the air and produce 100,000 times greater volume of dangerous residue than do nuclear plants.
Which do you think would be easier to find a safe place to store?
The truth is that mining rare earths (for wind generators and electric cars), coal, or uranium all involve about the same levels of danger at the raw material stage.
Unlike most environmentalists, I actually live near strip mines and worked in one when I was younger so this is something I actually understand here on my organic ranch.
But the bottom line everyone should keep in mind is that only nuclear power has the potential to provide even a tiny fraction of today’s need for electricity to power a civilization AND produces ZERO carbon dioxide at the production plant, AND produces only a tiny amount of toxic waste (measured in 55 gal. drums for nuclear plants and in millions of tons for a single coal-fired plant.)
At worst we could drop all of North America’s nuclear waste into a tiny part of just one uranium mine which- by the way, is already radioactive anyway!
See a recent New York Times article for a more balanced view of the dangers involved in non-nuclear power production.
The Energy Fair Group is based in the U.K. which views wind power as a major energy source while “third-world” countries such as Iran look to nuclear power.
Wind and solar other technology would make a lot more sense if every wind generator and solar cell didn’t require vast quantities of highly-toxic rare earth metals to construct – metals, which, happen to be owned almost entirely by China which may just decide to keep all it’s rare earths to manufacture the electric vehicles and power plants which that country has already started building.
Think for yourself or sit in the dark.
