|
CASHING IN
First it was the airlines, then the insurance and defense industries,
and now nuclear power joins the list of big businesses that have
found a silver lining (if not salvation) in the brave new world
of post 9 - 11 America. By parlaying concerns over the vulnerability
of spent fuel rods with the fallout from California's disastrous
energy deregulation and renewed questioning of our dependence on
Middle East oil (along with more than $3,000,000 in political contributions
during the last election cycle), the industry won Congress's overwhelming
approval of Nevada's Yucca Flats as the future site for the nation's
first permanent nuclear waste repository - its first major legislative
victory in years.
Curiously, the same industry groups that continue to maintain that
there are no substantive concerns over the security of the 130-plus
plants themselves (where those same spent fuel rods are currently
stored) simultaneously argue that, for safety's sake, we should
set up a nationwide system for transporting those wastes hundreds
and often thousands of miles, around and through many of the nation's
population centers, to the Nevada desert.
While the proposal that one site is more easily protected than
13O has a certain intuitive resonance, there is also something to
be said for not having all radioactive roads lead to Rome (or in
this case, Yucca Mountain), and in the process consolidating these
ultra-toxic substances into what could be viewed as a single mega-target.
That debate is largely moot, though, since the real issue driving
Yucca Flats has never been safety or security, but rather the future
financial viability of the nuclear power industry. Without a publicly
declared "solution" for its mounting waste disposal problem,
preferably one that shifts as much of that liability as possible
onto someone else's ledger, the industry faces continuing stagnation
regardless of the nation's energy insecurities. In this context,
Yucca Flats is best seen as a multi-billion dollar fig intended
to cover this unseemly exposure, and in so doing resuscitate the
industry's dreams for a revival.
Yet while it is clearly in the public interest to address the dilemma
of long-term disposal of the most troublesome waste materials known
to man, in a rational political system the final disposition of
these materials would be part of a larger commitment to phase out
future production (i.e. PCBs, CFCs, and DDT), not a backdoor attempt
to increase it. Attempting to sell this snake oil under the banner
of greater energy independence only compounds the lie. With its
sorry history of cost overruns, surcharges, bond defaults, bankruptcies,
and bailouts, nuclear power is hardly the paradigm for any kind
of independence.
Ultimately, the only defensible approach to safeguarding the nation's
energy future lies in research and development of the next generation
of all manner of energy technologies. Not just those that may enhance
existing production, but also those that reduce consumption and
increase conservation, as well as those yet to be discovered. The
more resources we dedicate to (squander on?) propping up an increasingly
dysfunctional status quo, the less we will have available to achieve
these necessary and, in the final analysis, truly empowering results.
Back to Essays Index
|
