| Nuclear power may or may not be part of a comprehensive energy program for the future, but it is neither inexpensive nor pollution free. |
| Nuclear power plants are ridiculously expensive. No one has yet figured out what to do with the nuclear waste, which continues to accumulate every day from already existing nuclear plants. The threat from nuclear power plants is twofold: grand scale catastrophe and continuing health problems connected with radioactive contamination in our air, water, soil and food supply — both short-term, high-level contamination and the long-term, low-level kind. Coinciding with the first anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster . . . In Japan, radiation was detected in beef, milk, spinach, tea leaves and rice. And more than a dozen cities in the United States tested positive for fallout from Fukushima in their water supplies. Scientists found radiation from Japan in milk from Phoenix to Little Rock, Ark., to Montpelier, Vt. A year later, many questions about Fukushima’s operations remain unanswered. Rocky Flats, the now notorious Colorado bomb factory, produced plutonium “triggers” for nuclear weapons in the United States from 1952 to 1989. There were countless fires, leaks and accidents at Rocky Flats; after decades of weapons production, and little environmental oversight, the area was profoundly contaminated. In 1995, the Department of Energy said it would take 50 years and $37 billion to clean up Rocky Flats, and it wasn’t sure the technology existed to do the job. The D.O.E. later awarded a $3.5 billion contract to Kaiser-Hill to clean up the site. The Energy Department based the standards for the cleanup project on the exposure level of a wildlife refuge worker rather than families and children. Now, despite public opposition, the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility is the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Except for the 1,300-acre portion of the site so drenched in plutonium that federal and state officials say it is not safe for human activity. Source: "Nuclear Fallout" By KRISTEN IVERSEN - NY Times - March 10, 2012 |
No one has submitted a comment on this statement yet.
Be the first and submit your feedback below.
Submit your comment below |