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A Chicago-Area Electoral Victory Says 'No We Won't' to Nuke Power
As the world media filled with the victory of Barack Obama, a defeat for atomic power in his own back yard sent a Solartopian message to the new administration.
In the Chicago-area communities of Oak Park, Berwyn and Riverside, voters approved by well over two-to-one a referendum asking that "our elected officials in Illinois take steps to phase out nuclear power in the state, replacing it with renewable sources such as wind and solar."
The three communities currently rely on atomic power for some 75% of their electricity, which is supplied through Commonwealth Edison, a subsidiary of Exelon, America's largest nuke owner. With 11 operating reactors, Illinois has more reactors than any other state.
But 31,586 (68.3%) voters approved the referendum, versus 14,676 (31.7%) opposed.
Atomic energy will be one of the most critical issues the new administration will face. Obama was criticized by eco-advocates for taking campaign donations from Exelon. Both he and Vice President-elect Joe Biden expressed campaign support for atomic power.
But their stance was moderated by Obama's insistence that atomic power be "safe," and by his ads he ran in Nevada opposing the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste dump. Some 80% of Nevada citizens oppose that project, whose projected cost now runs about $100 billion.
By contrast, John McCain vehemently advocated the quick construction of some 45 new reactors. He pointed with pride to his own naval service on nuke-powered vessels.
But the issue of how to finance such a "nuclear renaissance" now overshadows all the rhetoric, and will define the technology's future.
A strong lobby with a slick, expensive pubic relations campaign is now pushing new nukes. New ratepayer-based reactor financing is now being shoved through state public utilities commissions in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and possibly elsewhere, with tens of billions in potential liability.
But Wall Street has given thumbs down to a technology that can't compete with Solartopian sources like wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and other green energies.
The future of new reactor construction thus depends on massive federal and state subsidies. In the fall of 2007, the industry inserted into a Congressional energy bill a package of loan guarantees meant to provide $50 billion in taxpayer-backed funds to build new reactors.
Reactor projects fail about 50% of the time, and such a package could have stuck taxpayers with a massive liability. A national grassroots campaign led in part by NukeFree.org and musicians Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash helped defeat the package. Not a single major national environmental organization supported the guarantees.
This fall an even larger federal loan plan, offering virtually unlimited funds, was on its way to the US Congress. It could have provided a half-trillion dollars in new taxpayer guarantees to build just the 45 reactors McCain proposed.
But when Wall Street collapsed, the federal bank bailout made the idea of taking on still more huge financial liabilities untenable.
As Barack Obama takes office in January, green power advocates will again argue that along with questions of terror and error, radioactive waste and ecological harm, nuke power is far too expensive to compete with Solartopian green power.
The clock is ticking very fast on the idea of new nukes. With projected construction times of a decade or more, new reactors cannot begin to deliver energy until many years after the installation of competing green sources, whose comparative costs continue to drop.
So this small but strong Chicago-area vote for a Solartopian future sends a very clear message. A powerful new nuke lobby will be pushing hard from Day One of the new administration.
But in today's financial and political climate, atomic energy cannot compete. A green-powered planet is the only one that will sell on both Main Street and Wall Street.
- Posted in
14 Comments so far
Show AllThank you Harvey. I agree with your analysis. We must end this big energy insanity.
Until recently, electric utility companies were required to wait until nuke plants were operating before charging ratepayers for their construction. The nuke lobby has now succeeded in having laws revised in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas to allow electric utilities to charge ratepayers for the construction of new nuke plants long before they are ever built. The nuke lobby will continue to lobby for this revision in other states.
I was a bit disappointed when Obama was for "clean coal" and "safe nuclear" when neither of those terms exist in reality. Coal has and always will be dirty and nuclear energy will never be safe no matter how well it's guarded. Government can either subsidize wind and solar or at least stop those HOA laws from allowing us the freedom to set up solar panals and wind turbines so that we can harness the energy ourselves and learn why conservation really helps.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
As one of the participants to the debate which took place in Oak Park about this referendum question, we advocated people examine the "Carbon Free - Nuclear Free" energy approach found at:
http://www.carbonfreenuclearfree.org/
It is a 40-50 year phase out of nuclear and fossil fuels; while phasing in a multitude of alternative energy options. It is well thought out, the numbers are crunched rigorously, and comes to the conclusion that, "yes, we CAN!" get off of the fossil and nuclear addictions in a responsible cost-effective manner, while reducing global warming gases simltaneously.
Nuclear and coal plants did not materialize from thin air; they were planned and built methodically. They can -- and must -- be removed in the same way. This is one way to do it.
--Dave Kraft, Nuclear Energy Information Service, www.neis.org --
Nukes are exactly the wrong way to go. They add massive heat to the eco-sphere, concentrate power, wealth and control/police state, and U-pollute the future.
If the climate change (CO2/temp spike resolution), which is upon us, includes a heavy dose of ice, we risk China syndrome steam chimneys at the plants already existing---we need no more.
To Snydly---
Please explain your final sentence, which was:
"If the climate change (CO2/temp spike resolution), which is upon us, includes a heavy dose of ice, we risk China syndrome steam chimneys at the plants already existing---we need no more."
I know quite a bit about nuclear power and global warming---including the possibility that a global warming cycle can induce an ice age primarily by changing ocean currents---so enlighten me further, please.
Thanks in advance. This is a really serious, serious subject. People the world over are dying due to the profligacy of this industry, which has contaminated every political system, bar none.
One more, important, point [Harvey also], back in 1982-83, newly elected Governor of Ohio Richard Celeste, a Democrat, obtained $100 million from the State of Ohio as a bond issue to subsidize fluidized coal bed research! $100 million in state bonds!
A generation later, what have we to show for it? Harvey Wasserman writes from Columbus Ohio and is starting to get to be a wise old man. He knows that the real problem is the global Ecological Crisis. This is not a matter of Party affiliation, unless of course you want to discuss future genocides. If so, welcome to Hitlerville!
-30-
Hello.
The scenario is speculative, but I think, backed up by data from disparate sources.
The ice core data used as a basis of the Gore/IPCC Nobel show spikes of CO2/Temp-deviation-from-mean. Six over the last 650ky. The main characteristic of a spike is a rapid/sudden change in the status quo, in this case climatic parameters. These spikes beg the question, "what type of weather/geo-tectonic event(s) can defeat and reverse such a momentous rise?" Hollywood has taken an overly dramatic stab at it with "Day After Tomorrow". The long and short of it in regard to nuclear power plants is that they are extremely vulnerable to the sudden onset of massive amounts of ice and snow. My overly dramatic take on that is that a plant, if not perfectly and timely shut down in the face of a devastating ice storm of planetary proportions would likely meltdown. A meltdown covered with ice would soon form an ice chimney spewing radioactive steam into the ecosphere, be incorporated into the water cycle and pollute the entire hemi-sphere.
The case for sudden change is strong: ref: "Under a Green Sky", and ice core chart.
The case for meltdown is strong: old plants, Chernoble, 3mi.Isl.
The case for geo-tectonic event lies at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean in the paleo-magnetic striping record, which the Navy might have. It can be inferred that since the earth bulges at the equator, the mass of land-based melt water will spin to the equator, changing the earth's angular momentum, tweeking the plates, which, along with the rising of unburdened formerly ice-covered land masses, will loose under-sea volcanism, flash-heating the oceans, charging the atmosphere with moisture and providing the energy to move that water back to the poles in a grand and magnificent manner. A forcing of the forcings, if you will.
Very counter-intuitive and non-linear, and likely, more answer than you were asking for...
cheers
I have always enjoyed Harvey's articles opposing nuclear power plants. One thing he failed to mention was that last year several nuclear plants in the south east had to be shutdown because of the drought. Because they produce so much heat, as was mentioned by snydly, they need lots of coolant water. When the lakes and reservoirs that these plants rely on recede they have to be shutdown. France had to shut down her plants when water temperatures in the water sources those plants rely on rose above regulated safe limits too.
snydly
Actually, it says everything about shutting down the nukes---nuke construction is virgin-resource-heavy, trashes nature, wastes energy, re-cycles into bombs, threatens wilderness areas, is vulnerable to attack and possible seismic and meteorological events associated with climate change.
Bill --
WHile the information you were given by the website may be correct, the actual ballot language from the Cook County Clerks Office can be read at:
http://cook.voterinfonet.com/sub/view_all_referenda.asp
In all three communities the language on the ballot is listed as:
"Shall our elected officials in Illinois take steps to phase out nuclear power in the state, replacing it with renewable energy sources?"
You are also correct that this is an advisory referendum.
--Dave Kraft, Nuclear Energy Information Service, www.neis.org --
Harvey fails to mention that the true cost of nuclear power includes the
environmental and public health damage and water consumption from uranium
mining.
The environmental and public health impacts from uranium mining are staggering and speculation driven uranium miners have staked claims throughout the West.
A recently discovered cluster of pancreatic cancer near a uranium mine in Nebraska and a new Johns Hopkins Study linking diabetes with inorganic arsenic in the water (a by-product of uranium mining) highlight the health risks to people who live or work near the mine.
Further, in the West, where uranium mines are prevalent, spills and leaks have contaminated rivers and drinking water. Our environment and public safety are too important to sacrifice for uranium mining.
Given the environmental realities and shortages of potable water, the so-called “nuclear renaissance” must be given a hard look and seen for the PR fiction it represents. Anyone who advocates for so-called “clean” nuclear power, must take responsibility for the harms caused by uranium mining which is the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
Since no uranium mine has ever managed to restore the water supplies to pre-mining levels of contaminants and heavy metals, it is reckless to call nuclear power 'safe.'
Please include the costs and harms to communities who live near uranium mines among the true costs that make nuclear power not clean and not a good idea -
Thanks, everyone, for your comments. The article and the portrayal of the referendum are accurate as they stand.
Nuke power is a plague that must be ended. If we can stop federal financing in the first year of the Obama Administration, we may have won the distance needed to end this insane experiment. Reactor costs are now being admitted to as high as $11 billion. They will go far higher.
Aside from Washington, the key battles are now in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, where the utilities have gotten public service commissions to approve forcing ratepayers to pay for reactors AS THEY ARE BEING BUILT. This bit of economic suicide would allow the companies to avoid financial responsibility EVEN IF THE REACTORS NEVER OPEN.
We are all relieved and hopeful for the new administration, but should have no illusions. If we work hard, and can cut off federal funding, then win these state battles, we can take on fossil fuels and sooner or later, get to Solartopia!
No Nukes/No fossils....green power forever....HarveyW...www.solartopia.org