Japan reminds us a nuclear nightmare may be looming

The unfolding multiple nuclear reactor catastrophe in Japan is prompting overdue attention to the 104 nuclear plants in the United States — many of them aging, many of them near earthquake faults, some on the West Coast exposed to potential tsunamis.Nuclear power plants boil water to produce steam to turn turbines that generate electricity. Nuclear power’s overly complex fuel cycle begins with uranium mines and ends with deadly radioactive wastes for which there still are no permanent storage facilities to contain them for tens of thousands of years.Atomic power plants generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity. More than 40 years ago, the industry’s promoter and regulator, the Atomic Energy Commission, estimated that a full nuclear meltdown could contaminate an area “the size of Pennsylvania” and cause massive casualties. You, the taxpayers, have heavily subsidized nuclear power research, development and promotion from day one with tens of billions of dollars.Because of many costs, perils, close calls at various reactors and the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979, there has not been a nuclear power plant built in the United States since 1974.Now the industry is coming back “on your back” claiming it will help reduce global warming from fossil fuel emitted greenhouse gases.Pushed aggressively by President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu, who refuses to meet with longtime nuclear industry critics, here is what “on your back” means:1. Wall Street will not finance new nuclear plants without a 100 percent taxpayer loan guarantee. Too risky. That’s a lot of guarantee given that new nukes cost $12 billion each, assuming no mishaps. Obama and the Congress are OK with that arrangement.2. Nuclear power is uninsurable in the private insurance market — too risky. Under the Price-Anderson Act, taxpayers pay the greatest cost of a meltdown’s devastation.3. Nuclear power plants and transports of radioactive wastes are a national security nightmare for the Department of Homeland Security. Imagine the target that thousands of vulnerable spent fuel rods present for sabotage.4. Guess who pays for whatever final waste repositories are licensed? You the taxpayer and your descendants as far as your gene line persists.  Huge decommissioning costs, at the end of a nuclear plant’s existence, come from the ratepayers’ pockets.5. Nuclear plant disasters present impossible evacuation burdens for those living anywhere near a plant, especially if time is short.Imagine evacuating the long-troubled Indian Point plants 26 miles north of New York City. Workers in that region have a hard enough time evacuating their places of employment during 5 p.m. rush hour. That’s one reason Secretary of State Clinton (in her time as senator of New York) and Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for the shutdown of Indian Point. 6. Nuclear power is both uneconomical and unnecessary. It can’t compete against energy conservation, including cogeneration, windpower and ever more efficient, quicker, safer, renewable forms of providing electricity. Amory Lovins argues this point convincingly (see RMI.org). Physicist Lovins asserts that nuclear power “will reduce and retard climate protection.” His reasoning: shifting the tens of billions invested in nuclear power to efficiency and renewables reduce far more carbon per dollar (nirs.org/factsheets/whynewnukesareriskyfcts.pdf). The country should move deliberately to shutdown nuclear plants, starting with the aging and seismically threatened reactors. Peter Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) commissioner, has also made a compelling case against nuclear power on economic and safety grounds (nirs.org/factsheets/whynewnukesareriskyfcts.pdf).There is far more for ratepayers, taxpayers and families near nuclear plants to find out. Here’s how you can start:1. Demand public hearings in your communities where there is a nuke, sponsored either by your member of Congress or the NRC, to put the facts, risks and evacuation plans on the table. Insist that the critics as well as the proponents testify and cross-examine each other in front of you and the media.2. If you call yourself conservative, ask why nuclear power requires such huge amounts of your tax dollars and guarantees and can’t buy adequate private insurance. If you have a small business that can’t buy insurance because what you do is too risky, you don’t stay in business.3. If you are an environmentalist, ask why nuclear power isn’t required to meet a cost-efficient market test against investments in energy conservation and renewables.4. If you understand traffic congestion, ask for an actual real life evacuation drill for those living and working 10 miles around the plant (some scientists think it should be at least 25 miles) and watch the hemming and hawing from proponents of nuclear power.The people in northern Japan may lose their land, homes, relatives and friends as a result of a dangerous technology designed simply to boil water. There are better ways to generate steam.Like the troubled Japanese nuclear plants, the Indian Point plants and the four plants at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon in southern California rest near earthquake faults. The seismologists concur that there is a 94 percent chance of a big earthquake in California within the next 30 years. Obama, Chu and the powerful nuke industry must not be allowed to force the American people to play Russian roulette.Consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader grew up in Winsted and is a graduate of The Gilbert School.