Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Presidential administrations in the United States have been more con-
cerned about electricity shortages and resulting public outcry than about
the long-range safety implications of nuclear reactors (and fossil fuels).
But the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an
appointee of President Obama, has indicated a new direction for Amer-
ica's energy policy. He said that no new nuclear or coal plants may ever
be needed in the United States and has emphasized the development of
alternative energy sources.
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Scenarios illustrating the adequacy of nonnuclear alternative tech-
nologies have been compiled repeatedly by the Union of Concerned
Scientists in the United States and organizations of scientists in Europe.
While none of these analyses has ever been refuted, they are ignored
by nuclear power advocates.
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Alternative and nonpolluting sources of
electrical power such as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal can be
brought online as rapidly as new nuclear plants can be built. Nuclear
plants are unnecessary and extraordinarily dangerous. Nuclear reactors
should be sent to a technology museum as an example of a bad idea.
Future generations will look back at our current folly and wonder why
their ancestors were so blind.
