Bob Herbert: "The potential problems with nuclear power abound."

[Better Believe It]

Op-Ed Columnist
We’re Not Ready
By BOB HERBERT
July 19, 2010

Nuclear plants are the new hot energy item. The Obama administration is offering federal loan guarantees to encourage the construction of a handful of new plants in the U.S., the first in decades. Not to be outdone, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a certifiable nuke zealot, would like to see 100 new plants built over the next 20 years.

There is no way to overstate how cautiously we need to proceed along this treacherous road. Building nuclear power plants is mind-bogglingly expensive, which is why you need taxpayer money to kick-start the process. But the overriding issues we need to be concerned about, especially in light of our horrendous experience with the oil gushing in the gulf for so long, are safety and security.

We have to be concerned about the very real possibility of a worst-case scenario erupting at one of the many aging nuclear plants already operating (in some cases with safety records that would make your hair stand on end), and at any of the new ones that so many people are calling for.

The problem is that while the most terrible accidents are blessedly rare, when they do occur the consequences are horrific, as we’ve seen in the gulf. With nuclear plants, the worst-case scenarios are too horrible for most people to want to imagine. Denial takes over with policy makers and the public alike. Something approaching a worst-case accident at a nuclear plant, especially one in a highly populated area, would make the Deepwater Horizon disaster look like a walk in the park.

“We are way, way behind when it comes to the hard work of preventing accidents and responding to these catastrophes when they happen,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “With the deep-water oil drilling, we allowed the technological advances to drive the process at a rate that was unsafe, and we got really badly burned. The potential of a nuclear catastrophe is a major disaster in waiting.”

The potential problems with nuclear power abound. No one knows what to do with the dangerous nuclear waste that is building up at the plants. And no one wants to have an extended conversation in polite company about the threat of terrorists who could wreak all manner of mayhem with an attack on a plant.

For many very serious people, our overreliance on foreign oil and the potential dire consequences of global warming make the case for moving more toward nuclear energy a compelling one. But if this is done without a whole lot more serious thought given to matters of safety and rigorous oversight, it’s a step we’ll undoubtedly come to regret.

Read the full article at:

[me b zola]

1. Recommended

-however the nuke-nuts are out and about.

[NoNothing]

2. I'm genuinely curious, or maybe just not polite

What exactly is it that we are supposed to worry that terrorists are going to do?

[Better Believe It]

3. Break into a nuclear power plant and mess with the controls.

You think terrorists might want to do something like that?

[NoNothing]

6. No, I don't

It's a secure, hardened target that is also designed to make it almost impossible to destructively tamper with, even for someone who knows all about nuclear control systems, which most terrorists do not.

[Lance_Boyle]

4. I think he means like when 3 Mile Island blew and took out half the continental US...

Nuclear is safer than oil/coal. Worried about old plants? Replace them with newer, safer ones. Mindless fearmongering ("Something approaching a worst-case accident at a nuclear plant, especially one in a highly populated area, would make the Deepwater Horizon disaster look like a walk in the park.") is not productive.

[Better Believe It]

5. Right. Herbert is just one of those "fearmongering" lefty pinkos! Thanks for the info.

Nukes are good!

Can we dump the waste in your backyard?

It'll make the grass grow greener and much higher!

:)

[NoNothing]

7. Can we put a sewage treatment plant in your living room?

No? Why are you against clean water?

[Better Believe It]

8. Is the sewage at a treatment plant highly radioactive?

If it is, I don't even want a sewage plant in my city!

I didn't know that sewage treatment plants are just a dangerous as nuclear power plants and that sewage plants produce tons of nuclear waste.

Thanks for the info!