Producing nuclear energy is anything but green

Government administrators and industry loyalists call nuclear power a green alternative. They fail to admit that the entire fuel cycle, including mining and milling uranium, producing fuel rods, building nuclear power plants and dealing with nuclear wastes is anything but green. These processes use so much fossil fuel that the words describing the amount are outside our common vocabulary.

Nuclear power is the most dangerous way to boil water. Nuclear fission produces heat that boils water that in turn powers generators that produce electricity. Everything leading up to and following that process is fossil fuel intensive or a threat to health and safety.
That ugly word “reprocessing,” associated with extraction of usable weapons- grade uranium and plutonium from nuclear wastes, is now “recycling.” The industry claims untested technology will “recycle” some of the wastes by turning them into reusable material to produce more nuclear power. Let’s hope so because there is a limited amount of uranium and only some of it is suitable for energy production.

Green is supposed to mean sustainable. Nuclear power relies on a limited resource that will disappear faster as more nations build more reactors. In the wake of nuclear energy production we find horrible environmental damage that no one willingly takes responsibility for. What color is this?

Western New Yorkers ought to be especially conscious of the devastation caused by nuclear waste. The West Valley nuclear site near Buffalo houses this nation’s most complex mix of nuclear and hazardous wastes. The site is governed by a federal statute that requires the high-level wastes be moved to a national repository.

Yucca Mountain is the only site under consideration. But if Yucca opened tomorrow, the wastes stored in West Valley would not move to the front of the queue for 40 years. By then, it is expected Yucca will be full.

Yet every day more nuclear wastes are created. With the push to expand nuclear power there will be even more wastes with improper storage, monitoring and maintenance. Where in the world can all these wastes go? Where do we put the rubble from demolished nuclear plants and waste sites? There are no answers and no political will to resolve the problems.

Buffalo News