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We no longer need to be environmentalists to understand the need to find alternatives to oil. But rather than embrace the opportunity to develop clean alternative energy forms—something environmentalists have long promoted—President Bush has proposed increasing the use of nuclear power as "one of the most promising sources of energy," including rehabilitating the country's 103 nuclear reactors and building more than 30 new ones nationwide.
Bush's plan follows on the heels of a 150-page report from the National Commission on Energy Policy calling for the US to invest billions in subsidies in reinvigorating the nuclear industry—approved by a board that includes a Harvard professor emeritus of environmental policy and a senior attorney for the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the nation's largest environmental action organization, with over one million members. That report was rejected by the NRDC, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, but nuclear power is still finding favor with environmentalists.
The most infamous pro-nuke convert is Patrick Moore, cofounder of Greenpeace. In 1986, after 15 years fighting nuclear testing, uranium mining, and toxic waste dumping, Moore suddenly left the international nonprofit to become a spokesman for nuclear energy. "Climate change is a wonderful example to demonstrate the limitations of science," he notes on his website, www.greenspirit.com.
In recent months, three other prominent environmentalists have publicly defected to the pro-nuke side. James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia Theory—that the earth's living matter functions as a single organism—criticized the Kyoto Treaty as a cosmetic attempt to hide the political embarrassment of global warming, in the Independent, (5/24/04), and complained that nuclear energy isn't popular because of "irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies, and the media." For Lovelock, nuclear energy's risks are "minute" compared to global warming's devastating effects: "Nearly one-third of us will die of cancer anyway." In October, British theologian Hugh Montefiore was dismissed as a trustee at Friends of the Earth for calling nuclear energy the most viable alternative to global warming. And last month, Jonathan Lash, president of World Resources Institute, a green think tank, launched "ecomagination," an initiative designed in collaboration with General Electric to accelerate development of alternative energy sources by stating: "Global warming is the most pressing environmental problem humankind has ever faced. I think nuclear has to be a part of the carbon-free energy mix."
Some environmentalists say they could accept nuclear power if certain problems within the industry were resolved: prohibiting plants from recycling fuel; strengthening reactor facilities' security; updating aging plants, increasing safety protocols and improving supervision; finding a secure place, or national interim storage system, for storing nuclear waste; using cleaner extraction methods; and toughening regulations for uranium mining.
For other environmentalists, the concept of safe, clean nuclear power remains an oxymoron. Nuclear power creates massive amounts of hazardous radioactive waste, which must be stored somewhere, Julia Willebrand, cochair of the Green Party International Committee, announced in response to the president's plans to upgrade nuclear power. "Nobody wants to live near a nuclear waste facility. Wherever the waste gets stored, the danger of leakage threatens the environment, especially water tables." Instead, says Willebrand, we should focus on conserving more, consuming less, and developing renewable alternative energy.
"Energy planning will always involve unknowns and trade-offs and a mix of sources and conservation options," says Melissa Everett, director of Sustainable Hudson Valley. She believes the New York State Public Service Commission's Renewable Portfolio Standard Policy, issued last September, is a hopeful sign for the future of alternative energy—not nuclear.
The renewable portfolio policy calls for an increase in renewable energy used in the state, from its current level of about 19 to 25 percent by the year 2013, and utilizes a central procurement approach that provides for increases to about 24 percent and a voluntary green market to provide one percent minimum. New York's energy plan requires wind power to account for 5percent of its renewable energy requirement, primarily because Niagara Falls—also a renewable resource—already provides 17 percent.
New York State's electricity is generated by means of natural gas (29 percent), nuclear (23 percent), coal (18 percent), hydrogen (17 percent), oil (11 percent), and biomass (2 percent). Of the 31 states with nuclear capacity, New York ranks fourth, with six nuclear power plants—of which Indian Point, located in Buchanan, 24 miles from New York City, ranks 67th out of the 100 largest US power plants. Indian Point's evacuation plan for the 20,000 people living within its 50-mile has been judged by many as unworkable. Several citizens and environmental groups—including the Westchester County Legislature and Riverkeeper—have formed coalitions to work for its closing. But regardless of safety issues, some believe the energy produced at Indian Point is unnecessary. Even if Indian Point were retired, claims Riverkeeper, New York City still would have over 13,100 megawatts of electric generating and transmission import capacity available to meet peak demands and keep adequate system reserves.
But James Steets, external communications manager at Entergy, operator of Indian Point, disagrees. "Indian Point is an important stabilizing factor, an anchor of sorts that provides electricity for the grid," he says. The plant is safe, he says, "because it was always regarded as a potential terrorist target, before 9/11." Steets says that in the next 10 years nuclear power will "play a bigger role" because it's "already been proven safe, and the newer [reactor] designs give more confidence." Nuclear power also has the "obvious advantages" of being reliable without "emitting combustible toxic gasses." Steets sees wind farms and natural gas supplementing nuclear-produced electricity. "Coal and oil will hopefully be diminished," he says. "Everybody wants clean air."
But nobody seems able to agree on how to get clean air and keep life-as-we-know-it running along. "It's understandable as energy prices rise that there would be curiosity about every possible option," says Everett. "However, I think that the attractiveness of nuclear energy is sharply reduced when we look at the whole system. This is an argument environmentalists have made for the past 30 years, but it's an argument that needs to be made until it is heard."