GNEP discussion

We have to get it out of our heads that this is an American issue. This issue is already out of our hands.

Let’s look at this from the perspective of what is happening internationally. China and to a lesser extent other countries are power hungry. If nuclear power didn’t exist, China would be building coal-fired plants on a massive scale. What do you think would be the appropriate international response to that? The most constructive thing to do would be to provide China with as much carbon emission mitigation technology as humanly possible. But I’m afraid in that scenario our best efforts would fall far short of what would be needed.

Instead China is building fewer coal plants and looking at as many nuclear plants as possible. Again I ask, “What should our response be?” It seems to me that the best way to mitigate the harm is to get into nuclear waste mitigation in a big way. At one time the US was the leader in that technology. That lead has lapsed.

A disturbing fact is that the United States is no longer the world leader in nuclear energy development. Most of the commercial nuclear power concerns in the States except for the utilities themselves are already owned by British, French, and German companies.

So whether we like it or not, we must either do something about commercial nuclear power waste, let it pile up around the world, or just let other countries do their own thing with it (whatever that may be). When you consider the fact that the US will remain the primary target for terrorism as far as we can see into the future, it would border on the criminal to ignore the dangerous potential of accumulated spent fuel scattered around the world.

This is the case for action. More about what might be done in the next post.