July 18, 2007
Congratulations to the district of Muskoka for opposing the dumping of nuclear waste within its borders. There is no safe way to dispose of nuclear waste, which is the number one reason why nuclear power plants should be phased out and no new nuclear power plants built.
I think MP Tony Clement’s comment that “the only way to get from suitable to recommended was by being a willing host” points the way for more wise communities to follow Parry-Sound-Muskoka’s fine example.
<b>Marion Odell
Toronto</b>
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2 comment(s) on this article.
Nuclear Power is Clean
Submitted by Matt Parks from New Brunswick
on Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 11:18 am
Generating electricity by means of nuclear reactor is the only way we're going to reduce green house emissions. Nuclear waste is a problem, but the only alternative right now is building more oil and coal power plants which release thousands of tons of greenhouse gases. Nuclear power is the lesser of two evils.
Nuclear by-products safely stored for decades
Submitted by Rod Adams from Annapolis, MD
on Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 2:28 am
Underlying all of the hype, fretting and repetitious statements about the by-products of operating nuclear power reactors, there is some truth that would surprise most people.
The most important part is that the world has been operating nuclear power reactors and storing the by-products for more than 50 years without those by-products causing a single death. (The accident at Chernobyl was a separate issue not associated with the stored by-products.)
We know how to safely capture and store all of the materials that are produced when uranium, plutonium and thorium are fissioned to produce energy. We CANNOT say the same thing about all of the deadly waste products that must be freely released into the environment when fossil fuels are burned to produce electricity.
The main reason that I am a huge fan of atomic fission is that it has proven its ability to take markets away from coal, oil and natural gas. By doing so, it replaces dirty, dangerous, polluting energy with clean, less dangerous, zero emission energy that actually costs less than the old fashioned fossil energy. There is a reason that utilities run nuclear plants as much as they can - they are really cheap to operate once they are built.
Of course there is opposition and controversy about atomic energy. Of course there are certain dangers associated with producing massive quantities of concentrated energy. Of course, operators need to take care when they are working with the potentially dangerous technology.
The fact is that much of the opposition and controversy is BECAUSE of the same reason that I cited above for loving the technology. Atomic fission based power plants CAPTURE MARKETS from fossil fuel combustion based power plants.
Allowing atomic fission to flourish would take money, power and control away from the fossil fuel industry that is spending so much to promote alternative energy (while spending almost as much in the development as in the promotion.)