We wish to challenge many of the \facts"" presented in Thursday's editorial that opposed nuclear energy generation. While it is true that the waste disposal site at Yucca will eventually fill up, it will definitely take more than a mere 30 years for that to happen. The space available for waste disposal at Yucca Mountain has not been fully decided yet. With that in mind, consider that in the next 40 years of powering 20 percent of this country with nuclear power, the total amount of waste produced would only cover roughly one football field. When you consider the enormous proportions of Yucca Mountain, waste capacity is hardly an issue worth mentioning.
Nuclear waste is of course radioactive. However, the waste will not simply be dumped into the ground or the rivers of Wisconsin, as was implied by Thursday's editorial. Rather, the material will be completely and safely contained so that there is no possibility of ground, air or water contamination.
One very important issue that the Yucca site addresses is that of economics. Think about it: by placing all the waste in one place you can have a more concentrated effort ensuring security of the waste. This saves a large amount of money when compared to the many hundreds of sites that currently must be secured. It also provides for more effective security measures to be taken. Further along the lines of economics, the average kilowatt-hour cost of nuclear energy is about two and a half times cheaper then gas and oil, and the Yucca site will make total expenses even less.?? If you wish, you can check that at www.nei.org.
The last issue from the editorial we wish to address, and the most important one, is that the propagation of nuclear energy in the United States does in fact bring us closer to the typical environmentalist's ideal of ""green"" energy.??Nuclear energy generation is simply the cleanest energy available!??It emits no greenhouse gases.??Its cooling ponds are so clean and safe that many of them house wildlife refuges. Nuclear power generation facilities use very little space (especially compared to wind farms and solar parks) and produce very little waste. Even solar parks generate waste:??as the solar panels deteriorate, they must be replaced. The panels are made of many toxic materials that cannot be recycled and damage the environment.
People will always resist nuclear power because of irrational fears that radioactive waste will fry us all, or radiation will cause gigantic monsters to mutate and take over the world.??It reminds us of the irrational fear people once held of microwave ovens when they were first introduced. It is undeniable that every form of energy generation is dangerous to some extent.?? Windmills gruesomely kill countless birds every day, and solar panels contain dangerous chemicals.?? Some believe that burning fossil fuels will cause the earth to become a hot, barren wasteland (or a frozen, barren wasteland, depending on which radical idea you subscribe to).
The fact remains that dedicated engineers are improving our understanding and safety record of nuclear power every day.??For instance, the Three Mile Island disaster will never happen again in the United States because of lessons learned from that unfortunate event.??Even still, it should be noted that the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere from that event is the same as the amount of radiation received from living in the mountains of Colorado for six months. We have not come across any radical environmentalists screaming for us to come out of the mountains.
All of these concerns are definitely worth considering.??Safety should always be the most important issue.??If one uses common sense, rather than the hyperbole and rhetoric coming from the anti-consumption camp, then one will realize that nuclear power is our best bet for a strong economy and that we will all be better off because of it.
Mike Dattner
Volunteer, CFACT's ""Big Red, Glow Green"" pro-nuclear power campaign
