Letters to the Editor: The most toxic substance on the face of the earth
Most toxic substance on face of the earth
Your front page article (Sunday, Jan. 23, “Majority of US states pursue nuclear power for emission cuts”) states renewable power sources might not be enough to keep the lights on. It adds nuclear power is emerging as an answer to fill the gap as we move from carbon fuels.
This sounds like more nuclear industry hokum. On the front end of the complex process of mining, milling and enriching uranium, there are tremendous amounts of fossil fuels being burned.
The article continues: “Nuclear Power comes with its own set of problems.” Think of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. The greatest problem is: “The U.S. has no long-term plans for managing or disposing of the waste that can persist in the environment for hundreds of thousands of years,” it says.
It is the most toxic substance on the face of the earth and there’s no safe way to dispose of it. We are seeing this problem at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station with the horrifying thought of Holtec releasing radiated water into Cape Cod Bay!
The article puts out the hope for developing smaller, cheaper reactors, also known as small modular reactors. The nuclear industry just asks for more time and hundreds of billions of dollars for development and research.
All this leaves me with three questions. 1: Couldn't that time, money and research be better spent on renewables? 2: Isn't this the same old saw the nuclear industry peddled in the 1950s and 1960s when they predicted that nuclear power would be too cheap to meter? 3: How gullible does the nuclear industry think the American public is?
Elaine Dickinson, Harwich
