No More Nukes!

Should the US start building new nuclear reactors?

President Barak Obama thinks so. He just announced that the US Department of Energy would provide $8 billion in loan guarantees to help a private utility build two new reactors in Georgia. Obama has proposed additional loan guarantees of more than $40 billion for other reactors. The guarantees are intended to encourage Wall Street into funding a renewal of nuclear power.

The US now has 104 reactors, which together supply roughly 20 percent of our energy needs. No new reactors have been built since the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in 1979. Many energy experts, economists and even environmentalists—notably Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue; and Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace—support a resurgence of nuclear power, which could help counteract global warming by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.

In an editorial praising Obama’s loan guarantees, the New York Times asserted that “the risks are worth taking to get the United States back into the game, for the sake of the climate, this country’s energy future and the jobs a vibrant nuclear technology industry could create.”

I have a more sceptical view of nuclear power, based in part on where I live. On September 11, 2001, one of the hijacked jets that eventually struck the World Trade Center, American Airlines Flight 11, flew down the Hudson River right past Cold Spring, New York, my hometown. My local hair-cutter was gardening that morning when she was startled by a huge jet roaring overhead, just a few hundred feet above her. Moments later the jet skimmed past the twin domes of the Indian Point nuclear-power plant, which squats on the east bank of the Hudson River less than 10 miles south of Cold Spring.

As the CBS television show “60 Minutes” pointed out in a terrifying report soon after 9/11, the jet could have caused much more death and destruction if it had plowed into Indian Point and created a radioactive “dirty bomb.” In 2004 the 9/11 Commission reported that Mohamed Atta, one of the pilots who flew into the Twin Towers, considered attacking a nuclear facility in the New York region, almost certainly Indian Point. More than 250,000 people live within 10 miles of Indian Point, and 16 million live within 50 miles.

Immediately after 9/11, officials declared the airspace around Indian Point a no-fly zone, and the plant’s operators installed an antiaircraft battery. Helicopters and boats also patrolled the perimeter of the plant. Today, armed guards, including troops from a nearby National Guard base, protect Indian Point, but it remains vulnerable to attacks by land, water or air.

If Indian Point released a radioactive plume as a result of an attack, a rapid evacuation of nearby residents would be impossible, because roads would quickly become clogged with traffic. I and other parents in this region were alarmed rather than reassured when our childrens’ schools distributed potassium iodide pills, which supposedly prevent thyroid glands from absorbing the radioactive isotopes released in a reactor accident.

In the event of a radioactive release, the best hope for those of us living north of Indian Point would be for the wind to blow south toward New York City, less than 30 miles away.

Obviously, these vulnerabilities are not unique to the Indian Point plant. Another problem with reviving nuclear power is that we still haven’t resolved the question of what to do with radioactive waste.

For decades, the Department of Energy has planned to bury the waste in an underground repository in Nevada, but the project has bogged down in technical and political obstacles, notably opposition from Nevada state officials. The Obama administration recently proposed abandoning the Nevada repository and searching for a new site.

That process could take decades more to complete. And even if the U.S. had a site ready to receive spent nuclear fuel today, there remains the problem of transport. Waste cannot be flown by air - because an airborne explosion would be too catastrophic - and no states are going to want the literally hot fuel passing through on trains or trucks. So for the foreseeable future - and conceivably forever - waste will keep accumulating at nuclear plants around the country.

Each of these waste-storage sites represents another potential target for terrorists, in addition to active reactors.

We’re stuck with the existing reactors and storage sites. But given the volatility of world affairs, creating still more potential targets for nuclear terrorism would be irresponsible. To my mind, these security issues trump economic and even environmental considerations. That is why I say: No more nukes!

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