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NEWS & LETTERS, August - September 2008
No New Nukes
On the 63rd anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, with steam billowing out of two towers of the Fermi nuclear power plant in Newport, Michigan, in the background, presidential candidate John McCain repeated his pledge to continue Bush's policy to build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030. McCain would continue Bush's proposal to produce 125 new nuclear bombs per year while dismantling old bombs.
Barack Obama, who is against the opening of the Yucca Mountain Dumpsite, is for new nuclear power plants only if safety issues are satisfactorily addressed. He has received $180,000 in campaign contributions from employees of Exelon, which represents the nuclear power plant industry. As over three decades of the anti-nuclear movement has shown, there is no safe way to produce and operate nuclear power plants.
Although nuclear power plants emit no greenhouse gases, highly toxic radiation has gotten into our water, air, land and food. Many Native American reservations, such as the Pine Ridge, Hopi and Navajo, Flathead, Wind River and the Yakima, are polluted from uranium mining.
The 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island reactors, which came within 30 minutes of a meltdown, spewed radioactive wastes over a wide area and resulted in mutations of plants and animals and widespread opposition to nuclear energy. No nuclear power plant has been built in the U.S. since. However, G.E. and Westinghouse have sold nuclear power plants to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and the E.U. since 1979. Westinghouse is a leader for China's market, which has plans for 27 1000-megawatt nuclear reactors.
Neither Nuclear Non Proliferation, the comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Kyoto Accord nor mass worldwide demonstrations for over three decades, such as the Sane Freeze movement in the 1980s or at the Nevada Test Sites, has stopped the industry's drive for growth. Nuclear energy is touted as economical, but many problems and delays occur during construction with massive cost overruns, and it ends up as the most expensive source of electricity. Developing solar, wind, or other alternative energy sources would be a much saner alternative.
Conventional and nuclear weapons cannot be developed without scientists, engineers and various technicians. These mental workers are the essential laborers in a life-destroying business. As Marx stated, if you have one basis for life (human rights and freedom for all) and another for science (destruction and death), it (science) is a priori a lie.
--Basho
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