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Nuclear power remains too risky and too costly

As a part of the nuclear industry's new public relations campaign, Patrick Moore, co-chair of the industry-funded Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the St. Petersburg Times last Sunday (The nuclear option).

Moore trots out that he helped start Greenpeace. But he's been shilling for environmentally destructive industries for more than a decade, including a stint pushing logging in Western Canada.

While at Greenpeace, he described nuclear power plants in a 1976 report as "slow atomic bombs" and warned that radioactive waste was an "insoluble problem." Regardless of what he's being paid to say now, nothing has changed on that score. There is still no safe way to dispose of radioactive nuclear waste.

What has changed is we now know about the dangers of global warming, and the nuclear industry is cynically trying to capitalize on this crisis to grab billions of dollars in subsidies from U.S. taxpayers. But even if we added 700 new plants by 2050, and ran them through the end of the century, we would only prevent a global temperature increase of less than half a degree Fahrenheit. That wouldn't stop global warming, but it would cost all of us a lot of money.

Because of high construction costs, electricity from a new nuclear plant costs about 60 percent more than power from a coal-fired or natural gas-fired plant, according to a 2003 MIT study. Natural gas prices have jumped since then, but it still is cheaper than a new nuclear plant.

The Florida Legislature just made it easier for utilities to pass all of these costs on to you. Nuclear is simply not cost competitive, but utilities have lots of clout and lobbyists, so laws were changed. Nuclear plants can now be built without competitive proposals from other fuels sources. What's more, all the licensing and construction costs will be passed on long before we get any power. To add insult to injury, if a utility halts the plant's construction, it can pass those costs on as well.

Why would we want future generations to bear this risky technology when every dollar spent on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources is seven to 10 times more effective at cutting global warming pollution than a dollar spent on nuclear power?

It is short-sighted to mortgage our children's future to meet our energy needs today.

Susan Glickman, Florida Policy Director, Natural Resources Defense Council, Indian Rocks Beach 

An energy source too long impeded

Re: The nuclear option.

Patrick Moore's article on nuclear power brought very ambivalent feelings. I am delighted with his change of heart. I am sorry that he and his fellow "environmentalists" have caused our nuclear power program to be 40 years behind.

All the technical information he cited was known and taught in our engineering schools 40 years ago. In the industry, spent fuel is not referred to as nuclear "waste." The technology to recycle spent fuel is essentially the same technology required to enrich mined uranium. Naturally occurring uranium cannot support a chain reaction and the percent of Uranium 235 must be increased (enriched) from 0.7 percent to about 3 percent to be used as a nuclear fuel.

There are some things Moore did not note: Coalfired power plants discharge radioactive materials. Nuclear power plants capture and contain the radioactive materials.

The fossil fuel available on the planet is finite and will at some point be exhausted. The amount of fissionable material available is so vast that the planet will probably die before humans can use it all.

More people died at Chappaquiddick than died at Three Mile Island.

I was awarded a master of science degree in nuclear engineering in 1966. There were very few jobs for nuclear engineers in 1966, so I taught physics, mathematics, and computer science at the college level.

Thomas Black, Dunedin

Lawns work in our favor

Re: Conserving water is something we need to do every day, letter, May 9.

Hold on now! Conservationists are forgetting that one acre of healthy, growing St. Augustine lawn removes more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, a "greenhouse gas," from the atmosphere during the typical growing season through the photosynthesis process. That carbon dioxide is replaced with more than 750 pounds of oxygen, the element necessary to replenish the ozone layer, which protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation. A healthy, green lawn is more than just a cosmetic for our homes.

The water used to keep our lawns green is recycled back into the earth and/or into the atmosphere and is used again and again. It is not lost in this process. Maintaining a beautiful lawn is a universal benefit that must not be sacrificed for the sake of pseudoconservation.

Wilford O. Perry, Clearwater

Law-abiding citizens with guns

Re: Gun permits shouldn't be secret, editorial, May 10.

So your neighbor has a permit to carry a concealed weapon. What does that tell you? Well, it tells you he took a safety class, passed a background check, was fingerprinted and paid a licensing fee. People with these permits are law-abiding citizens. But they have a gun!

You already had to assume everyone on the block might be armed: You do not need a concealed weapons permit to own or buy a gun.

Now, checking to see if the Department of Agriculture is doing it job is interesting, but the statistics on CWP holders' involvement in criminal activity speak for themselves. But they have a gun!

The knowledge that someone has a permit to carry a concealed weapon is a deterrent to crime. The deterrent is in not knowing whom that specific someone is. But they have a gun!

And you want to make them out to be ticking time bombs. The "Wild West" that was predicted after the CWP became law never happened. The simple truth never crystallized for you: Having weapons in the hands of law-abiding citizens is good.

Winston Harr, Tampa

All gun owners won't be revealed

Re: Gun permits shouldn't be secret.

You don't need a gun permit to buy and own a gun in Florida. So even if gun permits are a matter of public record, you still won't know if your children's friends' parents own a gun.

Toni Arnett, St. Petersburg

A paperboy's memories

Re: Do you remember the paperboy? May 4.

I really enjoyed reading the story about who delivers your paper. In 1941, when I was 15 years old, I had a paper route, delivering the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin to 100 customers. The paper was 3 cents; I received 1¹/₂ cents for my delivery wage. That amounts to $1.50 per day, or $9 per week for six days. I didn't handle the Sunday paper because 100 copies were too heavy for my bike.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor at about 7 a.m. At 9 a.m., my newspaper branch manager called to tell me the paper was putting out an extra related to the attack. He asked me if I would like to sell them in my neighborhood. I said I would take 100 copies. I put them in my wagon, made a megaphone out of some cardboard and walked the streets, shouting "Extra, extra, Japs bombed Pearl Harbor." People came out of their houses in their pajamas to buy my papers. Many would hand me nickels, dimes or quarters and say, "Keep the change, kid."

I sold all 100 papers in a couple of hours with a total revenue of $8.50 - a king's ransom in those days. In 1941, for $2 you could take a girl to the movies and buy her a sundae after the show.

I remember the paperboy, because I was him.

Bill Scheiblein, New Port Richey

[Last modified May 14, 2006, 06:13:19]