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How Did an Idealistic President Become a Champion of Nuclear Power and By Default, Weapons Proliferation?
In 1983, Barack Obama, a senior at Columbia University described his visions of a "nuclear free world" in an article titled "Breaking the War Mentality" in the university newsmagazine, Sundial. He described discussions of "first- versus second-strike capabilities'' that "suit the military-industrial interests'' with their "billion-dollar erector sets,'' and called for the abolition of the global arsenals of tens of thousands of deadly warheads.
As a candidate he acknowledged that he was worried for the safety of his children who lived in Illinois because it has the highest concentration of nuclear reactors in the US - and opposed further nuclear subsidies. "I am not a nuclear proponent," he said:
Few people are so clear about their philosophical approach to life in the nuclear age, but President Obama was clearly a man with the correct instincts when it came to radiation, nuclear weapons and health.
However, not only in his State of the Union address did he strongly endorse the false concept of "safe, clean" nuclear power as one of the solutions to global warming - "But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives," he said. "That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country" - but he has just announced that he will spend $7.4 billion dollars in the next five years for the "security and maintenance" of the current enormous stockpile of nuclear weapons. So what has gone wrong?
I must admit that I have been worried since he appointed Steven Chu from Los Alamos Labs as his Secretary of Energy and John Holdren as science advisor because they are both enthusiastic endorsers of nuclear power. I had hoped that this president would be a true leader who would take advice from all sides but make decisions using his own instincts and innate wisdom. Clearly this has not happened either in the case of nuclear power or in his noble vision to seek a nuclear weapons-free world.
The never-ending persistence of the nuclear warriors who inhabit the Pentagon and nuclear weapons labs have prevailed yet again to influence this idealistic young president on whom many of us had placed our hopes for planetary survival. This wonderful vision can only be fulfilled if the great United States of America takes responsibility for initiating and leading the global nuclear arms race by reversing its ceaseless quest for global nuclear security and superiority. The steps are as follows
- Take all 5000 US and Russian strategic weapons off hair trigger alert immediately (the use of just 1000 would induce nuclear winter and the end of most earthly life).
- Include all nuclear weapons (strategic and tactical) in the new treaty being negotiated with Russia and move rapidly towards bilateral abolition within 5 years.
- Cease the sale of nuclear reactors globally by the US, Russia, France and others for they are fundamentally factories for nuclear weapons production because they manufacture plutonium which is the fuel for nuclear weapons.
- By example and through the UN enthusiastically encourage nuclear disarmament of all nuclear weapons states.
- Rigidly police plutonium and enriched uranium stockpiles in all relevant countries through an empowered and well-funded IAEA.
- Ultimately the goal should be the cessation of the production of enriched uranium and plutonium by closing all nuclear power plant operations in the US , Europe, Russia, Israel, Japan, China and worldwide.
There is no way to separate the production of nuclear electricity from the production of nuclear weapons. Nuclear power is the prodigal son of the weapons industry.
What then to do about global warming, an encroaching horror which is about to radically alter our lives and to threaten the existence of many millions of species?
Despite the Obama administration's push for nuclear power it, in fact, will never be the magic bullet which alleviates global warming because:
- It adds significantly to global warming gases through its vast industrial infrastructure - uranium mining, remediation of the mines (rarely if ever done), milling and enrichment of uranium, construction of the massive reactor, decommissioning of same, safe transport and storage of hundreds of thousands of tons of thermally, radioactive hot waste for at least 250,000 years.
- Nuclear power is exorbitantly expensive if all its modalities and externalities are included in the cost.
- To make any significant contribution to alleviate global warming, would mean the construction of some 2,000 to 3,000 one-thousand-megawatt reactors - one per week for 50 years.
- The enormous investment in nuclear electricity makes global warming a certainty because it siphons necessary funding away from the real solutions of renewable energy - solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tidal and of course conservation.
- Nuclear power, like nuclear weapon production, has been and always will be a socialistic enterprise almost totally supported, insured and funded by taxpayer dollars.
- Nuclear power not only induces the spread of nuclear weapons, it is and will be a potent promoter of cancer, genetic disease and congenital abnormalities for this and thousands of future generations.
- A meltdown induced by terrorist attack, human or mechanical error could kill hundreds of thousands from acute radiation sickness, leukemia and cancer
- 40% of the European land mass and hence food is still contaminated from Chernobyl and will remain so for hundreds of years .
- Nuclear power makes war obsolete. The Second World War if fought today would render Europe radioactive and uninhabitable for ever.
- Global nuclear meltdowns would exacerbate the catastrophic effects of nuclear war ensuring no survival.
It's little wonder that after his speech, more than 3,000 advocates of safe, clean energy wrote to President Obama in less than 48 hours rejecting his call for more nuclear power. "President Obama needs to remember what Candidate Obama promised: no more taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS). Mariotte also noted that the nuclear subsidies being promoted by Obama amount to the largest corporate bailout of them all.
For an idealistic student at Columbia who became a visionary, Nobel Prize-winning President, this is not the sort of change we expected, or indeed thought you meant.
Indeed, President Obama is forgetting the true cost of nuclear power to communities and nations, as these experts remind us in this video on nuclear energy's dangerous impact on health:
- Posted in
60 Comments so far
Show All-"It's little wonder that after his speech, more than 3,000 advocates of safe, clean energy wrote to President Obama in less than 48 hours rejecting his call for more nuclear power."
If letters were votes, you would have a good government. Electing corrupt corporate agents and then sending them letters, isn't getting you anywhere.
So true. So true.
The American people have to wake up.
Take a moment to envision a world, the future you wish for your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren with No Nuclear Weapons and No Nuclear Power Plants. Then envision the future your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be facing with the constant nuclear drumbeat ... as if that is the only answer ... whether it be nuclear weapons or nuclear power plants.
No Nuclear Weapons. No Nuclear Power Plants. Short and sweet. That's it! No compromise, period.
President Obama is our 'Manchurian' President.
President Obama has flip-flopped, turned inside-out, done cartwheels, all to please the real powers that be ... military industrial complex, multi-national corporations, Wall Street and the banksters.
He can pretend he's our democratically elected Democratic President but all I see is the same old Republican bull crap.
Well maybe President Obama is really a Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde?
I don't know but he sure isn't the man I voted for.
sputnik: "he sure isn't the man I voted for." Granted, what I'm wondering is whether you will vote for him at the next election when he makes some more stirring speeches about the dangers of nuclear annhilation and promises (sort of) to do something about it. I mean, are you going to believe what he tells you or what your own lying eyes tell you they have actually seen of his policies? If it's the latter you and others of his voters need to let him know that you won't vote for him again no matter what he tells you. Otherwise he'll continue to lie with impunity, because there are no punitive consequences of same.
It seems to me that he will be a one term president. When his supporters voted for him, they expected certain policy changes. Normally, there is a drop off in support from a political party's base when their president appears to be incompetent. This isn't the present case.
His complete abandonment of every progressive agenda item he said he supported is breathtaking to say the least. Many progressives don't see this as a matter of mere incompetence (which historically seems to be the democratic party's greatest skill). In this case, it appears to be an intentional betrayal by a corrupt official who never had any intention of pursuing a left agenda. Supporters, whether they be on the left or right, may get past incompetence, but they won't forgive betrayal. In the next election, the perception of betrayal will likely induce many on the left to stay home on election day.
After a year of doing nothing, this feckless fraud in the white house appears to have figured out that he will likely be living in his house in Chicago, and writing his memoirs, in 2013. That's why you see him thrashing about trying to look like he's doing something . . . anything. Unfortunately, after the health care fiasco, his only new ideas appear to be an escalation of aggression, a further shift to the right with more begging for Republican support that will never happen, a too little, too late, gesture to the gay community, more nuclear power plants and "clean" coal energy, more foreign policy blunders such as his attempt to provoke the Chinese, and fixing the deficit by cutting social programs rather than cutting the bloated war machine.
He does have one significant accomplishment so far. He managed to make Nixon and Hoover look like great presidents.
I don't know about sputnik but I will never vote repbulican or democrat again. BTW I never voted for anyone with an R- after their name. I was Green before '08, but I switched to vote for barack in the primaries. What a Rube, what a Maroon, I betrayed my ideals to vote for someone who takes betraying my ideals to new heights never before seen. Sorry guys, I voted for him. What an ass. Almost as bad as these pro-nukers, although they obviously care way less about your kids and grandkids than i do.
Brand Obama is an idealist or whatever else you want him to be. He is so eloquent that he can sell you yesterday's newspaper for twice what you would pay for today's newspaper.
President Obama guns for corporations 24/7 at your expense.
Caldicott's wholesale rejection of nuclear technology is, IMO,indefensible. What is missing in the Obama plan to increase energy production via nukes is the removal of this expansion from the private sector exploitation that has so drastically damaged the nuclear energy industry in the past.
In 1960 scientists all over the world petitioned the US government to delay licensing commercial nukes. The exploitation of nuclear power by private enterprise is no different from the exploitation of securitized substandard home mortgages by monster banks. And see what that has caused.
It is unregulated capitalism that has resulted in unsafe and inefficient nuclear power.
Excellent point. I've always thought nuclear power was the way to go, but was conflicted by the accidents, etc. Your point really clears things up - "it's capitalism stupid".
not an excellent post, "NO, Its Nuclear, Stupid!" and I am talking to you. What part of "no Solution to long-term high level radioactive waste" don't you understand, I think you freakin' must be getting paid to infiltrate this site. Hints of Cass Susskind anyone, I mean seriously, what the hell are all you pro-nuke fucks doing here and what the hell is your immediate long-term safe viable solution to long-lived radioactive freaking waste, geez you shills make me want to claw my own throat out for being a part of the same species. As far as I see it, you are willing to condemn countless generations to living with our nuclear waste. Answer that question or shut the hell up.
Seriously, we got one guy bill_y4 who I can believe just honestly likes nukes and seems like a nice guy if completely wrong headed. Most of these other people seem to be putting on an act as if they are just now waking up to how brilliant an idea nuclear power is, like somebody just came up with the slam-dunk solution to nuclears HUGE downside. I don't believe it for a second. Somebody's getting paid. At least Bill admitted he has been a nuclear engineer in the industry for 40 years, him I trust even if we disagree.
troll
This comment is not to the post, but so many comments I've been seeing here recently: CD has become the twilight zone.
i agree i think we have been infiltrated
Helen Caldecott is getting pretty old, and mustn't be getting out of Oz very often.
I thought this was an odd argument to come from a person I thought was on the left:
Nuclear power, like nuclear weapon production, has been and always will be a socialistic enterprise almost totally supported, insured and funded by taxpayer dollars...
So is she opposed to public schools, public transit, public highways too?
wasting taxpayer dollars on privatized boondoggles is "on the right", not the left
Yes, but she decrys it as being "socialistic".
And it isn't a "boondoggle", electricity is a vital public utility.
Do you also believe that there should also be no subsidies for wind and large-scale solar electric projects?
Journalists of all stripes are creating confusion by labelling corporate welfare programs that privatize profits and soak taxpayers for losses as "socialist" .
Socialism distributes resources equally across society. Subsidizing a very expensive method of boiling water (when more cost effective means of generating power exist)to enrich utility executives and stockholders is not socialism, it is fascism.
If all of the Government subsidies nuclear power has received (during the past 50+ years) had been used to develop and refine clean, renewable energy, we would not be considering coal, nuclear and other hazardous, polluting means of power production.
HERE HERE! You are dead on raydelcamino. Of course, this crop of pro-nukers who "suddenly" popped up (funny I never really saw them around here until somebody started paying them to be here) would say that if we had just devoted appropriate funding, the same would be true of nuclear. My response: what are you going to do with the waste!?!? And say nothing about reprocessing, that's about as disingenuous and realistic as "clean coal". "Clean Nuclear Power" what a load troll dung.
there should be ALL subsidies for wind and solar (including stripping current oil subsidies) and abolutely no subsidies for either coal or nuclear, both of which have long-term UNAVOIDABLE hazardous waste issues.
By the way I wrote a little cheer for you:
Gimme a "T"
Gimme an "R"
Gimme an "O"
Gimme an "L"
Gimme another "L"
WHAT DOES THAT SPELL?
well, I know you can read, so don't let the door (or my foot) hit you on the way out
just about everything i have seen from you hints at the fact that you don't really belong here... and take your gimmiky ideas about nuclear being socialistic and left-leaning with you. what a crock of troll shit
My guess, EG, is you've misunderstood the pjd412's comment. Helen Caldicott was using the analogy that government subsidies for nuclear power approached "socialism" in that governments fund the industry. It's supposed to be a negative example, I guess, tapping into people's knee-jerk reaction that socialism is bad. Since socialism, the sharing of the collective wealth of the country among all people is a good thing, Caldicott confused the issue by reaching for the negative stereotype in her analogy.
Government subsidies of private industry is not socialism, by the way, since it benefits just a few shareholders or private owners, not the general public.
Nuclear power is afforded unimaginable exemptions by the U.S. government. For instance, nuclear power companies are exempt from having to carry insurance for risks posed to the public, such as massive radioactive environmental contamination. If these companies had to pay such insurance costs, they couldn't be profitable companies.
So it is true that the nuclear industry very much relies on the public dole, even as they represent an enormous threat to life on the planet.
-TIA
Right, nuclear power industries have an exemption under Price-Anderson Act. I wasn't writing an essay about it. But your example is false in terms of being assured (and insured). Since, the biological effects of a release of nuclear contamination exceed the ability of humans to track it around the globe, over decades of time (the cancer gestation period), it is impossible for insurance companies to underwrite the nuclear industry.
How can you insure against billions of years of contamination? It's beyond human capabilities. So the Price-Anderson Act is just another fraud, benefiting the industry, while socializing the risk among nuclear power's potential victims.
-TIA
How Did an Idealistic President . . .
Stop right there. Obama is not and never has been an idealist. He's just another hurricane of corrupt political ambition.
My thoughts, exactly.
Exactly.
I can't be bothered digging for an article I skimmed through during the brouhaha immediately following the announcement of the ill-considered Nobel Peace Prize award to Obama.
Perhaps Ms. Caldicott wrote that one too. In any case, the article acknowledged that it was natural for eyebrows to be raised given Obama's unstinting warmongery since taking office.
However, this article explained that it was Obama's profound, long-held, unequivocal, and idealistic opposition to NUCLEAR WEAPONS, and corollary distrust for "peaceful" nuclear development that most impressed the Nobel Committee.
That article also referenced Obama's 1983 Columbia essay, etc. It suggested that even though Obama was susceptible to questionable compromises and decisions in managing the Global War on Terror, that he was "picking his battles" and would stand strong on reducing NUCLEAR weaponry and related development.
I was interested, though not persuaded, by the assertion that Obama had even ONE "core ideal" that he would promote aggressively in the face of a plurality of opposition.
"We'll see," I thought. And so we have.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Exactly.
His election campaign was "idealist-themed" which is even more cynical than most campaigns.
His marketing team exploited the demand for idealism by wrapping up the same old corporatism in a polyester Che Gueverra costume.
Nuclear power is no friend of the environment no matter what any pro nuclear shill would have you believe. Obama needs to stick to supporting wind turbine and solar panels. There are plenty of solar panel and wind turbine manufacturers ready to hire and carry out large scale production. Those are the companies he should give more funding for to reduce the costs.
Shawn -- The trouble is that nuclear power is the energy of choice of those who can see no alternative to elite control and maintenance of the society engendered by that control. It's big, it's centralized. A variety of clean energies is anathema to those whose reason for being is to perpetuate centralization and consequent continuation of control by the small class which is ever vigilant to protect its "interests".
You can't expect Obama to "stick to supporting wind turbine and solar panels". I hope you learn the principle behind that statement pretty soon.
This is, of course, over and above any discussion of safety and other considerations.
I had been told before the election that Obama was open to supporting coal and nuclear but he didn't sound clear about it. I expected that the least he would do is to fund them all equally. We could purchase our own wind turbines and solar panels or demand that we get have a choice of selecting utility companies that use solar panels and wind turbines to deliver electricity to the customers. I'm not sure what to say here.
i agree. no utility or gov operative wants to give the people the freedom and security that operating off of distributed wind and solar power would bring.
Carl Reynolds writes, above:
"The exploitation of nuclear power by private enterprise is no different from the exploitation of securitized substandard home mortgages by monster banks. And see what that has caused.
"It is unregulated capitalism that has resulted in unsafe and inefficient nuclear power."
Chernobyl was not the result of "unregulated capitalism," and neither was Three Mile Island. The nuclear power industry is among the most highly regulated of human enterprises regardless of the political system which creates it, because it is so inherently dangerous. Which is also what makes its exploitation different from the securitization of the housing bubble (of which "substandard home mortgages" were but a tiny part).
The view that nuclear power is or can be made safe at the level of production existing even today is the highest conceit of nations.
-30-
Hmmmmm....and in a paranoid, terrorist behind every bush, nation...
In that context, These new reactors will be just some more vulnerable targets that your government will have to use torture, killing and stealing in order to "make safe" from the "terrorists".
Chernobyl was an usafe reactor design that is totally different from the light-or-heavy water reactors used in the west.
equivocation
How ironic that the "highest conceit of nations" is pronounced quite so arrogantly - and no credentials are offered for such an authoritative claim . Lots of worthwhile activities are "inherently dangerous" . When these are pursued for profit they become far more dangerous, IMO. The most likely alternatives to nuclear power - eg burning coal - are also quite dangerous. We can kid around about safe wind, solar and geothermal, and of course they are preferable for the planet's ecology - but the reality is that billions of people are dependent on a far greater supply of energy than can be produced by green energy in time. Even nukes may take too long under a crash program.
nukes: the "cure" that was more dangerous than the disease!
My answer: political panicking.
Obama stated the goal of a nuclear weapons free world. Let's hold him to achieving that goal.
How did an Idealistic President Become a Champion of Nuclear Power and by Default, Weapons Proliferation?
In a word, CASH. And lots of it.
Helen Caldicott writes, "For an idealistic student at Columbia who became a visionary, Nobel Prize-winning President, this is not the sort of change we expected, or indeed thought you meant." This statement, as well as the title of the article, indicates Caldicott's mistaken assumption that "idealism" (or its cognates) connotes "politically good." This is historically false: The Nazis explicitly declared themselves idealists.
Also: Some of today's posts have tried to rescue the luster of "idealism" by declaring that Obama is no idealist. Not so: Obama has declared his belief in the supremacy of the supernatural (in the shape of the Judeo-Christian creator-god), which certainly is sufficient to qualify him as a philosophical idealist. ("It says, In The Beginning Was The Word. Already I am stopped! It sounds absurd. The Word does not deserve the highest prize; I must translate it otherwise . . . . The Earth Spirit helps me. Now it is exact. I write, In The Beginning Was The Act." --My paraphrase from memory of Goethe's Faust speaking. You'll find nowhere a better synopsis of the distinction between philosophical idealism and naturalism, aka philosophical materialism. And at the risk of courting bad puns, the reader should recall Nine Dollar Barry's (Obama) facility with words . . . .)
In the beginning, it was proposed that the UN be the sole regulator over ALL nuclear technology, including weapons. Then to the surprise of all, the USSR agreed to what was a joint US/UK proposal, which they thought Stalin would reject.
Opps. The proposal was very sane. The US/UK backpeddaling to renege on their proposal is one you won't find in any US or UK history textbook. In a similar manner, the criticism of Caldicott is unwarranted; I challenge her detractors to become as steadfast and dedicated as she.
In a purist sense, no method of energy generation aside from harvesting renewable biomass completely by hand is Green as ALL have fossil-fuel inputs at some point in their production and operation. Again, the underlying issue is the modern lifestyle and its profligate use of enegy.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Sorry Helen, but Obama was NEVER an idealistic President, but he was supposedly an idealistic Candidate !
****The day of his Inauguration, at his many Balls, He danced over the graves of 300 to 400 dead innocent children at Gaza, along with 1200 adults killed in the Zion Genocide.
Not one whisper of protest from the brand spanking new
Prez !!
****Still, after one year, not one whisper of sympathy from the Obama Administration for the 1500 dead Gazans !!!!
***Obama has totally failed to deliver on any of His campaign promises, refusing to look back at the Criminals Bush and Cheney' throwing Single Payer healthcare under his bus; joining the same ol Culture of Corruption in DC and the Pentagon. Part & parcel of the reigning military industrial complex !!!!
***And, yep===his favorite erector set product is now known as a Drone==his favored toy in his Crusade to Tora Bora !!
His manifest failures to deliver prove conclusively he lied to get into the White House===and since we fell for it and put him in there...He has been everything but an idealist !
DENNIS KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT.....A REAL IDEALIST !!
Is Barack Obama the "flim-flam" president?
And that is why the US Government owns it's own breader reactors, for the production of weapons grade plutonium. Which by the way the Congress has already approprioated funds for a couple of new breader reactors to replace their old ones.
the real question is: How did Obama, a Chicago political operative, get mislabeled as an Idealist?
There will always be people who are willing to risk life on earth for profit and ideology. Thank you Helen, for helping keep them at bay.
How did you ever conclude he is "idealistic"?
Go on Helen, just keep telling yourself, Obama's playing chess and we all are playing checkers. Really now! It's time to get over the idealism and face reality.
This is for the author
I am sure that you mean well, but you are very uninformed.
For starters:
" Steven Chu from Los Alamos Labs .."
Steve was director of the Berkley lab and and during his leadership lab did lot of good work om conservation of energy and production of biofuels .. see http://eetd.lbl.gov/
and for the author and quite a few of the comenters,
for example for
EricGregory February 4th, 2010 1:38 am
what are you going to do with the waste!?
Chu canceled the waste depository in Yuka Mountain.
Do you know why?
Today's reactors do release only a fraction of energy in
the nuclear fuel. Most energy remains locked in the "waste",
(including Plutonium). New generation of the reactors (breeders) produces only 1% of waste (which is also much less radioactive) AND it can use today's waste as fuel.
Before you can relay on your 'intuition and innate wisdom' you need to know the facts.
You can start with your education here:
wikipedia:
http://is.gd/7FViF
and Jim Hansen's blog:
http://is.gd/7FV2e
PS: And NO. I am not paid by anybody and do not work in the nuclear industry.
Petr_F
only an idiot accepts wiki as a credible source, also a blog is not a credible source people will say (or "blog") anything to make their point, it doesn't make it true. cite me some credible peer reviewed work or research by a specific credible agency not funded by a lobbying arm of the nuke industry that confirms your '1% of the fuel" claim. The most recent information I have seen is that reprocessing (in France, every nuke advocates love child) can only actually use 5% of the once through fuel. All if thus us besides the point: any nuclear waste is waste that lasts for thousands of years and when we are talking avout powering the world, even "one percent of the fuel used by old reactors" is too much. Also, once again, you cited wikipedia and a vlog as the source of your info, I have no reason to believe that you possess any real information at all. Go back to kindergarten.
Breeders have shown severe problems with stability.
In part for that reason, perhaps, the most recent generation of reactors in the US is not "today's" but those built up to the 1980's. Those currently proposed to be built are all light water reactors.
Light water reactors all leak. Their internals cannot be repaired efficiently.
Neither uranium nor plutonium releases "most" of its energy, even during an explosion. Unfortunately, a very small % of that energy is lethal. Because both of these are true, that waste remains deadly for a very long time.
Virtually none of the waste in the US is appropriately stored; the government has failed the power companies - not to speak of its citizens! - by failing its contract to store the waste. Since the companies can sue, they are likely not overwhelmingly upset.
Breeders also produce material that can be used in armaments -- the most destructive, most dangerous, least responsible possible use of waste.