Waste and cost raise doubts about nuclear power

When Barack Obama was campaigning for president, he unveiled an eight-page energy plan with progressive gestures toward renewables and conservation, green jobs and green technologies. Then, on page six, Obama dropped the n-bomb: “Nuclear power represents more than 70 percent of our noncarbon-generated electricity. It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power as an option.”

Obama’s Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu, echoed these sentiments during his confirmation hearings in January. Even while acknowledging nuclear energy’s persistent and unresolved problems with funding and waste disposal, Chu told the Senate committee that the “nuclear industry is, should have to be, part of our energy mix in this century.”

Nuclear, it appears, is now officially part of the solution, a potentially radical shift in consciousness 30 years after 1979’s Three Mile Island disaster.

Beyond the valid safety arguments (see “New revelations about Three Mile Island disaster raise doubts over nuclear plant safety”), which pro- and anti-nuke contingents have argued bitterly about for four decades, there are other concerns about the nuclear solution: the exorbitant cost to build the plants, their financial risk