The Life of Nuclear

If you ever get a chance to see Monty Python's “The Life of Brian” - do so. It's hilarious. I know Christians that can do portions of the movie by heart and laugh with the movie.

There's one point in the movie where an agitator asks the question, “What have the Romans ever done for us?” He's a Jewish zealot trying to recruit followers for the People's Front of Judea.

After a bit one person mentions the roads. Another mentions the aqueducts. Yet another adds something else. And so on.

And the agitator goes off stating basically if they ignore all the good things that the Romans have done, what have they done? Only bad things. Like crucifixions.

Nuclear power advocates are trying to play the same game. Slightly in reverse though.

After all, given climate change and global warming, nuclear power is good because it has no emissions like coal, oil, and gas.

Well, there is the environmental damage it causes in the areas where the uranium is mined. After all, the piles of debris are radioactive and contaminate the water, land, and air. And then there are the cancer rates for the miners (100%) and elevated risks for the communities that live around and down stream from the mines.

OK. If you ignore the environmental devastation at the mining sites.

And the fact that many of the mining sites are on lands owned by First Nations peoples and that the government basically strong arms the leaders or gets the leadership to sell out so that the uranium cam be mined.

OK. If you ignore the environmental damage and the violations against the First Nations peoples land rights, it is a good source of energy that has no emissions.

Except for the fact that it needs to go by truck to the refining sites and there are no electric trucks to transport it, so the companies use diesel and gas powered trucks to get the uranium to the sites. And those trucks spew greenhouse gases like you wouldn't believe into the atmosphere.

OK. If you ignore the environmental damage, treaty violations, and greenhouse gas emissions from the trucks, it's an environmentally friendly power source that we can use to avert climate change.

Well, there is the refinement process that produces nuclear waste that we don't have any idea what we can do with and it is toxic for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. That's not good. We're still dealing with waste from World War II. And now we have more from the processing. And all the driving that the workers do to get to the plants to work. Most don't use electric cars. They use gas and diesel.

OK. Let's ignore the radioactive waste all together – from mining and production, the greenhouse gases from the transportation of uranium and the workers, and the treaty violations. It's still a zero emissions energy source.

There is the problem of the plants being built. Those workers drive around. Some use trucks that run on diesel.

Fine. Fine. Fine. We'll lump them in with the other exhaust gases.

And the fact that the power plants take 15 years or more to build. And they are always over budget. Between 400% and 1100%. At least. That's a long time to wait.

And then there are the cancer rates of the people that live around the plants. It's always the poor people that have the plants built near them.

Fine. Set aside all the treaty violations, environmental degradation, and time factors. And the costs – both in money and medical issues. Nuclear energy is a zero emissions energy source that we can use.

But climate change and global warming is happening now. We can't wait 15 years for plants to be built.

So why don't we just take all the money that the nuclear energy industry wants to waste on power plants and put it into solar, wind, and water? Portugal just went four days without needing to use carbon based energy. Everything went on wind and solar. Locally produced or piped around.

And there are parts of Texas that produce so much wind energy that their electric meters stop at night and the people get free electricity.

The First Nations peoples of the Plains have it figured that if they put up turbines on their treaty territories they could provide the US with ~70% of its electricity needs. Those Rocky Mountains always produce wind. Good downslope there.

And Scandinavia produces energy using turbines under water that run on the tides. The tides are always going in or out. That's electricity 24-7.

So, why do we need nuclear?

Um…..

I don't have a song written that works along the lines of the “People's Front of Judea.”

It is time we stopped nuclear in its tracks and said “No” to the wrong “green” energy.

The only green is the green going to the 1% and Wall Street.

And it's all coming out of our pockets.

Update: 

Crap.

I forgot to mention 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and the possibility of other nuclear mishaps and the problems related to them.

Then again, if we put wind turbines in front of the nuclear advocates' mouthes we'd have 24-7 energy and we wouldn't have to worry about planes, birds, and other problems…..