$50 billion giveaway to Nuclear Industry.
This Friday, Congress may pass $50 billion worth of loans to the nuclear industry. The problem is that the nuclear industry has not met the burden of proof to show that nuclear power is safe. Nuclear power has already had numerous detrimental health effects on the people who actually mined the uranium. And just this week, Representative Henry Waxman is chairing hearings on the 40-year federal mismanagement of uranium on Navajo lands, creating negative health effects for them.
Now, the nuclear industry says that they have developed a new line of plants that they say are much safer than the old ones. But when handling materials for compounds that are inherently unsafe and dangerous such as nuclear waste, the burden of proof is on the industry to prove that these new plants will be safe. The problem is that they have not.
There are other problems as well. The nuclear industry has not met the burden of proof showing that they are more efficient than alternative fuels:
By contrast, no federal guarantees are needed for the billions of dollars being invested in building new wind farms all over the world. Now the reactor industry falsely claims that it can help solve the global warming problem, even though all reactors emit huge quantities of excess heat directly into the air and water.
They also cause major CO2 emissions in the mining, milling and enriching of nuclear fuel, in the reactor construction and decommissioning process, and in the long-term management of spent radioactive fuel, for which there is no real solution.
A single dollar spent on increased efficiency saves as much energy as ten dollars spent on nuclear power can produce.
They have also not met the problem of storage and disposal of the wastes, which are not biodegradable and will be here for thousands of years after we are gone. Congress should reject this bondoggle.
Obamathon
