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Mark
Donham
Contact
Mark Donham
ENERGY
INDEPENDENCE ISN'T ENOUGH
To
hear the audio of this commentary click here
There
has been a lot of talk lately about the U.S. becoming energy
independent. This is a great goal. We, as a nation, as a locality,
and as individuals, should always strive to produce for ourselves
or acquire locally as much of our needs as we can. That drives
the local economy, and makes us less vulnerable to forces beyond
our control. But, if we had to depend on the oil we produced
locally or even nationally to keep up with our growing population
and consumption, we would all be doing a lot less driving. But
corporate industry, driven by profits, will do just about anything,
not just to encourage increasing demand, but to meet it. The
more you sell the more profits you make. It just so happens
that supplies of the oil left on earth sufficient to meet our
current demands are located mostly elsewhere, in places unfriendly
to us. Our ease at having cheap access to this supply is getting
more problematic. These problems range from getting involved
in wars to causing undue economic burden on working class Americans.
So
wisely, many good advocates for better policy see that dependence
on oil from elsewhere is causing us all kinds of headaches.
They are pushing for development of alternatives to buying oil
from hostile areas of the world. Good idea, to a point. Unfortunately,
it isn't going to be enough to just be energy independent, if
the consumption of those energy products is threatening the
natural systems that support life on our planet. We have to
be both independent and environmentally sound, and that means,
for example, considering the impacts of our energy use on climate
change. Yes, we have coal to burn. Mining it has caused many
problems. Burning it is altering our global ecosystem. Taking
almost pure carbon in the form of oil and coal from the ground
and putting it into the air is the major contributor to the
rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is our greatest
global environmental threat. Yet, our transportation and electricity,
which have become routine and inextricably tied to our survival,
are fueled primarily by burning coal and oil. It isn't a good
combination. Ethanol is not a good answer.
It's
not energy efficient, will drive up food costs, and also takes
stored carbon and puts it into the air when it's burned, even
if switchgrass or some other non-food plant is used. At this
point, burning just about anything is going to contribute to
climate change, coal, oil, gas, wood chips, garbage, ethanol
or anything else you can think of to burn, especially in the
quantities required to meet our energy needs. We need to seriously
reduce our demand, and make the number one priority of our nation
the widespread development of much cleaner energy sources such
as solar and wind. There are likely clean sources we haven't
even discovered yet. We must reduce the levels of CO2 in the
atmosphere. We need to protect our forests, which absorb CO2.
If we don't, then we will likely continue to see more and more
weather extremes with more and more people in the way. The long
term costs of that scenario make the cost of changing energy
systems seem like small change. We should have started 30 years
ago. Hopefully it isn't too late.
GNEP
Too Risky for our Region
Listen
to the audio of this commentary here
This commentary is about the wisdom of the recent grant application
by the Paducah Uranium Plant Asset Utilization Task Forcefor
funding to study the feasibility of the Paducah nuclear site
being the location of the Bush administration's initiative,
called "GNEP."
Of course, the next natural question is "what is GNEP?"
Well, GNEP is one more of a long line of governmental based
acronyms. Wouldn't it be nice if it stood for something like
"Good News for Every Person" or Great Nectarines and
Excellent Peaches?" I'd be writing letters of support!
Unfortunately, it doesn't stand for anything so good. It stands
for Global Nuclear Energy Project. Yuck!
Let's not beat around the Bush here. (No pun intended.) This
Global Nuclear Energy project is a proposal to take spent nuclear
fuel rods from nuclear power plants around the globe, bring
them to locations for "reprocessing" into fuel for
more nuclear power plants around the globe. The proponents even
go so far as to call this "recycling."
One big problem is that these spent fuel rods are extremely,
extremely radioactive and hot. In fact, they are some of the
most radioactive materials on earth. 95% of all radioactivity
produced in nuclear power production comes from these spent
fuel rods, and they much more radioactive and hotter after being
in the reactor than before they were put in. They contain a
number of deadly transuranic elements and fission products,
such as plutonium and strontium. Because of this, they are very
very very dangerous. (And that's probably not enough verys).
These materials have the potential of contaminating large areas
and making them uninhabitable not just for people but for just
about everything. Even in the casks, they still emit a notable
dose of radiation. In addition, the reprocessing and power plants
create more high level waste, which will still rquire high-level
nuke waste dumps - so it isn't true recycling.
Nuclear power is one of the most highly subsidized industries.
If the cost of nuclear power included the cost of dealing with
these spent rods, the cost of cleanup at the fuel cycle plants,
such as Paducah, where a billion dollars spent on cleanup hasn't
cleaned up much, and the cost of health care of sick industry
workers, all of which are currently primarily funded by the
taxpayers, it would not be a viable industry. Yet this intense
form of corporate welfare isn't questioned by the generally
conservative interests that support the proliferation of nuclear
power. So much for letting free market forces work!
The Paducah site is surrounded by the communities of Heath,
Kevil, West Paducah, and Grahamville. It sits in a high risk
earthquake zone, near to a major river, across from which is
located Metropolis's Harrah's Casino, a major economic driver
for the region, for better or worse. The Paducah site is simply
unsuitable for this very dangerous industry.
Currently these spent fuel rods are stored on site at the nuke
plants where they were generated. While there are problems with
this, improvement for the long term storage should occur at
the sites where they are currently located. Transporting these
materials around the country and globe is simply too risky.
I'm a strong supporter of recycling. In fact, I would like to
see Paducah get involved in a municipal recycling program, but
let's start with bottles and plastic first.
Mark
Donham is a resident of Brookport, Illinois, and is Program
Director of Heartwood, a regional environmental organization.
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