More thoughts on the insanity of investing in nuclear power

Since the Japanese tsunami damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant earlier this year, I’ve posted several times at Katalusis on the dangers of nuclear power: here, here, and here.

And yes, I noted Germany’s wise decision to shut down its nuclear plants.

So it’s gratifying this morning to read Lester R. Brown and Yul Choi’s  “global viewpoint” at the Christian Science Monitor titled, “Fukushima fallout: time to quit nuclear power altogether.”

In a nutshell:

Experience in northern Japan illustrates that even incremental investment in nuclear power threatens human civilization. The Fukushima disaster should once and for all drive global society away from nuclear power, and toward renewable energy.

Brown and Choi effectively summon rational people around the globe to come together in an all out effort to ban any further proliferation of nuclear plants and close the existing monstrosities as soon as possible. Let’s heed their wise counsel:

In August, just months following the tsunami-induced crisis at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, the 2011 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs gathered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two Japanese cities destroyed in 1945 by atom bombs, becoming forever linked to the birth of nuclear weapons and the nuclear age. The world conference was formed in 1995 to work toward a nuclear-weapon ban and foster solidarity and support for A-bomb survivors and victims of nuclear disasters.

A few of the 70,000 victims of the Fukushima disaster joined us at the August meeting, riveting the attendees with first-hand accounts of the devastating effects of radioactive contamination. According to the reports delivered by these eyewitnesses, nearly 300,000 Fukushima children continue to live in wretched conditions, continuously exposed to the dangers of radioactivity. The health hazards of radioactivity are far deadlier to children than the effects of radiation on adults. Annual blood tests are now a life-preserving necessity to track the potential onset of disease.

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Germany takes the lead in shutting down its nuclear plants

Other countries, including the United States with its 104 reactors, would be wise to follow Germany’s lead in its decision to shut down its nuclear plants.

George Ismar for the Sydney Morning Herald has the story:

GERMANY has announced plans to become the first major industrialised power to shut down all its nuclear plants, with the last to be closed by 2022.

Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen announced the government's "irreversible" decision, which was prompted by the Japanese nuclear disaster.

Germany has 17 nuclear reactors, eight of which are currently off the electricity grid. Seven of those off-line are the country's oldest nuclear reactors, which the government shut down for three months pending a safety probe after the Japanese disaster at Fukushima. The eighth, in northern Germany, has been mothballed for years because of technical problems.

Most of the plants are to be off-line by 2021, sources said, but three plants were to serve as a back-up in case of energy shortages and would be closed a year later.

The decision comes after the environment ministers from all 16 German regional states on Friday called for the temporary order on the seven plants to be made permanent. The agreement emerged after 12 hours of negotiations between Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of the three government parties — Dr Merkel's Christian Democrats, the Christian Social Union and the pro-business Free Democrats. Also involved in the talks were the chiefs of the two main opposition parties.

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For peace or war, nuclear facilities pose worldwide safety threats

The horrific effects of the earthquake and resulting tsunami have literally shaken Japan to its core and as if that were not enough, the country is now struggling with a potential nuclear meltdown.  

The ongoing crisis in Japan raises questions pushed aside in recent decades in the rush to develop more and more nuclear reactors around the world – supposedly for peaceful purposes.

When was the last time you heard a debate over the disposal of hazardous waste or accident prevention measures at nuclear facilities? And has anyone in our country mentioned lately the possibility of a natural catastrophe that might unleash radioactive fallout?

Korea’s Airang News reminds us:   

In 1979, large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant escaped at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania, United States, resulting in the release of radioactive gases.The accident prompted the evacuation of roughly 140-thousand people, and although no leaks were reported outside the plant, 11 out of every 1,000 local residents has suffered from cancer since the accident.

Now consider this CBS report on the developing nuclear crisis in Japan:

Japanese officials were struggling Sunday with a growing nuclear crisis and the threat of multiple meltdowns, two days after the country's northeastern coast was savaged by a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.

A partial meltdown was already likely under way at one nuclear reactor, a top official said, and operators were frantically trying to keep temperatures down at the power plant's other units and prevent the disaster from growing even worse.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Sunday that a hydrogen explosion could occur at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, the reactor that could be melting down. That would follow a blast the day before in another unit at the same power plant, as operators attempted to prevent a meltdown by injecting sea water into it.

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