In honor of the 138th Open Championship held this past weekend in Ayshire, Scotland, The Fly enters the Fray About Nuclear Energy – with a Scottish brogue and the perfect sunglasses!
So now in the name of those two hallowed political phrases: “job creation” and “energy independence”, the infamous “they” are trying to make nuclear energy generation all warm and fuzzy like, I dunno, a killer rabbit maybe?
As our favorite Scotsmen might say while staggering back from a celebratory pint or five after kicking some nine-iron ass on the greens at Turnberry, that’s Fookin’ Shite, Brotha’! (trans: f@%$%ing sh*^*t brother!)
Of course, no course of action (or inaction) is risk free – as our dear, green expert Steve Colbert expertly reports here about why the earth is really heating up.
The truth is that just like a free lunch or the Easter Bunny, there is no easy answer. But not all risks are created equal. Here’s a quick history lesson for the uninformed.
First: April 26, 1986 – The Chernobyl nuclear power plant explodes, releasing 100 times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This means millions of people had to relocate because the surrounding area was no longer livable. The soil and water were deemed toxic and, to this day, nothing can be grown in the surrounding area. Local and worldwide effects of the explosion include long-term health issues (think cancer caused by radiation exposure) as well as agricultural and population issues. Another report done by Greenpeace is entitled “An American Chernobyl?” and talks about how we have already come “uncomfortably close” to a Chernobyl here in America, documenting many near-misses that could have been catastrophes. The point? We are not infallible creatures. And big risks, such as building more nuclear power plants and depending on those plants for “clean energy”, only need one mistake to make a huge and terrible impact on millions of people (and flies too!)
Our second history lesson happened this past Dec 22, 2008 – The giant TVA coal ash spill near Kingston, TN where 5.4 MILLION cubic yards of toxic coal ash spilled when the retaining wall of an ash pond gave way. TVA stands for Tennessee Valley Authority, but we like to think of them as Totally Vain Administrators. TVA uses coal-burning plants to generate energy for much of the southeastern US. At some point, someone thought that a coal-burning plant was a good idea. The New York Times called it an “environmental disaster of epic proportions,” described by many as “the worst man made environmental disaster since Chernobyl.”
A near-by resident interviewed in the article says, “It was nice that they came by to talk to us. They’re making an effort. But what upsets me is they didn’t have a plan in place. Why hadn’t anybody thought, ‘What happens if this thing bursts?”
Back to the idea that all risk is not created equal. Let’s say that the stupid TVA put up solar panels on 10% of the homes in Nashville and a tornado took out 10% of them. The resulting effect is minimal – there’s no radiation spilling into your meat ‘n’ three; and, if the grid is redesigned to mimic the Internet, then the system would still be working the same way the wonderful Internet does – because there would be so much redundancy, the knockout of any single node would not result in a blackout.
But if TVA builds a nuclear power plant and a tornado takes that out, well let’s just say we’ll need to redesign bras and jock straps to accommodate the extra lobes and globes. And that ain’t right!
Btw, it’s not like we don’t have better alternatives – check out Katherine Hamnett’s excellent treatise on concentrated solar power.
The Fly holds Katherine in a particular esteem – we wear her sunglasses all the time . . . even outside
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