SierraScape August - September 2006
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by Ken Schechtman, PhD

My guess is that 90% of you share my disdain for nuclear power. There are radioactive wastes that will be deadly for generations, madmen seeking airplanes to home in on containment towers; radioactive tritium leaks into underground water; the would-be meltdown that could transcend Chernobyl. How can one justify such potential when easy-to-implement conservation measures can save millions of barrels per day, when clean and healthful fuels already exist, when they are pleading for their day, waiting for a Manhattan Project in alternative fuels and for enlightened thinking that would be long past reality if sanity were the norm?

And also, if I were to guess, there is an incipient sharing among some Sierrans of my nagging, almost embarrassed sense of doubt. It's hidden away in some remote synapse where a lifetime of opposition resists a disquieting perception of tomorrow. It raises its tentacles in the dead of night when the world I seek meets melting ice and corporate greed, when the timeline for ubiquitous alternative fuels meets the timeline for global warming and a plaintive cry for courageous political leadership.

Every environmental advocate should be suspicious of nuclear energy. But we do not inhabit some pristine utopia where public policy responds seamlessly to the public interest. Instead, we are combating the potential of greenhouse gas-induced catastrophe with a dysfunctional political system that has widespread sympathy for powerful oil and coal interests and, of course, for energy from the atom. And nuclear power can provide large amounts of energy without belching smokestacks.

So environmentalists must look beyond the powerful arguments for opposing nuclear power. We must fight the reactionaries in power even as we recognize that the unwillingness to propose a genuine solution to the energy crisis is a ubiquitous two party phenomenon. If you have seen Al Gore's wonderful documentary about global warming, you may have noticed what, for me, were disturbing omissions. The film performs a unique service in providing graphic evidence of the devastating potential of global warming. Its plea for political action and individual commitment is both admirable and essential.

But it doesn't talk about sacrifice. It doesn't advocate gas taxes or carbon taxes. It doesn't argue that that government policy should make it expensive to drive big cars or that we should pay for European style intercity trains with expensive toll roads. The film's invaluable message is about the causes and consequences of global warming. But it allows the viewer to believe that we can avoid the devastation with no personal price beyond the minor discomforts of conservation.

So how are we to respond when our most influential ally is so cautious about the seminal political challenge of the global warming conundrum? For me, it is one more reminder of the daunting barriers. It adds fuel to the fear that the timeline for catastrophe may outrun remediation. In the nuclear energy domain, it suggests that we must bite our tongues and debate the possibility that some sort of political compromise may be required. Not because we want to, but because political realities and moral obligations demand that we leave no stone unturned.

We must begin by rejecting the logical fallacy that understanding can flow from an exclusive focus on one side of a debate. So let's stipulate the obvious: Nuclear energy is associated with a broad array of dangerous potential outcomes. Let's stipulate that the catastrophic potential of global warming may far exceed that which might emanate from incremental additions to the 103 existing US nuclear plants. And now let's move on to the issues.

Let's explore the possibility that in a world of political Neanderthals, global warming may be too advanced for an exclusive focus on conservation and renewable fuels.

Let's consider the potential that one escape route might include a grand political compromise: We give you some cherished nuclear plants as a temporary bridge to sanity. You give us serious conservation and a multi-billion dollar crash alternative fuels program.

If the above scenario were implemented, one could imagine that the early successes of adequately funded and widely advertised conservation/alternative fuel programs might sour the public on the decades-long start up for the nuclear part of the deal. Maybe we would reach our Valhalla with a palatable increase from 103 to 109 or 110 nuclear plants. Maybe, and maybe not.

But are we so certain of the success of our preferred path, so confident that we can defeat global warming, so self-assured that there is no room for doubt and no need to consider horse trading with the corporate power brokers and the right wing half of the country? Are we so absolutely convinced that we need not even explore the possibilities and evaluate the details of scenarios like the above?

I wish there were easy answers. As I suggested in an earlier article in this series, exposure to low levels of background radiation is associated with limited health risks that are often overblown. The same is true of the aftermath of Three Mile Island. But, of course, we have no idea what to do with the wastes and our superior technology cannot rule out a Chernobyl-like disaster and has no impact on corporate incentives to pursue safety on the cheap. Moreover, a dalliance with nuclear power could slow a nascent momentum towards conservation and alternative fuels.

But each point has its devilish counterpoint. Some estimates suggest that the objectionable nuclear power deal recently reached with India could prevent nearly as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as a fully implemented Kyoto Protocol. Greenhouse gas increases by a burgeoning China will be several times as great as the savings from Kyoto during the near term decades. And Kyoto is opposed by Republicans, is as strong a treaty as Democrats have been capable of pursuing, excludes China and India, and has modest goals that are not being met by key European signers.

Fully legitimate or not, there is a counter to every corner of the debate with this singular exception: Our response to the energy crisis will be a defining cornerstone for our generation just as surely as 20th century history was the depression, the World Wars, the technology revolution, and the Cold War. The traditional environmentalists focus on global warming and toxic pollutants are just one measure of the threat.

Energy imports are the largest cause of our trade deficit and are a billion dollar a day engine of inter-generational debt. Energy dependence constrains our foreign policy, empowers Iran, is a major source of competition with China, and costs tens of billions of dollars per year as we defend both our suppliers and their export routes.

The arguments for conservation and alternative fuels are so numerous and transcendently vital that one is breathless with incredulity at the generations of political inertia and the widespread popular indifference. Even as thousands die in a second energy-related war in Iraq, the energy focus in Washington remains those deck chairs on the Titanic.

Yes, there are hopeful tealeaves in the background. But it remains "an inconvenient truth" that environmental concerns are near the bottom of Americans' priorities; that most Americans and most of our political representatives want low gas prices while environmentalists want gas taxes; that one poll ranking ten environmental issues rated global warming as ninth in importance.

It is an inconvenient truth that during 30 years of multifaceted environmental successes since the gas crises of the 1970s and the birth of our modern movement, annual carbon dioxide emissions in the United States have increased by more than half. The world cannot afford another 30 years of comparable success, especially because of the energy needs of China and India. But we continue to have a piecemeal energy policy.

The nuclear conundrum is not about support or opposition. In a politically rational world, the negatives of nuclear energy and the multifaceted conservation and alternative fuel options would overwhelm any need for discussion. But we do not inhabit that world.

So if we are to remain opponents of any nuclear compromise, we must define a clear and politically feasible path that quantifies the would-be greenhouse gas reductions and that can be supported by Congress and even by the Chinese. It is fine to emphasize CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) standards or the benefits of a Prius. But in a not-in-my-backyard world where even the Kennedy's oppose local windmills, they are feel good applause lines if there is no political path. They are words on a paper if the roadmap is unworkable or the timeline is too distant. So we must weigh the political constraints and explore every political escape route as the most singular challenge we face.