Let’s Talk Nukes and Politics

I consider health care to be the #1 concern for the future viability of this nation, though oil wars/energy independence, revamped ag policies top to bottom and regulatory housecleaning across the board are all important issues as well.

Under the heading of energy policies, I’m going to have to weigh in on the whole renewed “nuclear option” horsehockey disguising itself as a cure for global warming and a means to energy independence in the 21st century. Nuclear power is a pig not even in its poke anymore – it’s fat and ugly, it’s voraciously greedy, it’s arrogant of its filth, and it can’t even fly. Hogzilla Unleashed.

We tried to leash it, honest. Succeeded for more than a quarter of a century, too. But they think we’re all dead now, or maybe just so old we’ve forgotten. We have not.

Way back in 1979, when TMI didn’t mean “Too Much Information” but “They Melted It.” Our field was health physics. Those are the folks who measure the releases and doses, make sure nothing’s leaking, monitor the reactor’s chemistry, and if something is leaking, they’re the ones who make sure workers have the right protection before they go in to clean it up.

HPs have never been very popular in the industry, though they are required to have HP staff on-site as part of oversight and safety. Apart from regular operational coverage at the plant, the HPs have a further task of ensuring that the public is NOT exposed to excess radiation, by promptly reporting over-limit leaks, accidents and any practices that break the rules. This is the power to “Stop the Job,” even order shut-down if it is warranted.

We worked for a technical support staff subcontractor rather than for utilities. This gives the HPs a measure of independence and a little job security if they happened to have to actually blow the whistle. It paid extremely well, but in the end the whole of the civilian industry was so filthy compared to the US Navy’s nuclear power program – where most reactor operators and HPs got their primary training and security clearances – that it just wasn’t worth it. So when told US military top level security clearances were no longer enough to justify our participation in the industry’s daily cover-up game, we told ‘em to take the job and shove it.

When TMI melted, we were called to meet in a Middletown motel room with the HP crew and handed a copy of 10CFR21 with the pertinent reporting sub-clause highlighted in dayglow yellow. We were given a copy of the GPU sequence of events for the accident’s 16-hour evolution, and got a thorough run-down on initial conditions – it was a horror story deluxe. We took the job measuring (and recording) releases, scans, isotopic analyses and doses beginning just four days after the accident and stayed for a month to monitor the recovery. Then we left to go back to being civilians.

We moved to a cabin in the mountains of New Mexico and wrote a book detailing the nature of the accident, its causes, and its serious effects which we’d hoped to publish while there was still time to mitigate some of the damage with intensive medical intervention and monitoring. We had help from a couple of other HPs we knew, one who had worked at TMI’s sister plant and then came to the meltdown (with the full tech schematics in tow), another who was at a different plant but checked our data per current NRC incoming. That one was my brother, HP site coordinator at the Hatch plant in Georgia before he was killed in one of those notorious one-car ‘accidents’ hours after arriving in NM to consult with us.

The book was finished by May of 1980, but was never published due to intervening murder, mayhem (and post-classification). The full investigation report – including data from and analysis of the Kemeny and Rogovin Technical Assessment and Health Physics Task Forces reports – was completed by June of 1981 and filed with the NRC, the chair of the Congressional Committee on Energy and Environment, and the chair of the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee. In 1985 we testified before Congress and the NRC, then our house promptly burned down in a not-so mysterious “electrical wiring” fire taking what little we had left. Absolutely nothing whatsoever was done about the bad technology that led to TMI or to mitigate the harm to the public from its aftermath. The rest is history.

So we went on with our lives, did something else for a living. Now, like Zombies or some other ghostly specter of the Undead, They’re Baaaack…!!! Once again touting their golden goose as the Great Green Answer to all our energy woes – “Clean, Safe, Too Cheap To Meter!” Some things just never change, I guess.

All the top contenders for both the Republican and Democratic nominations support nuclear power as ‘Green Energy’ and a band-aid for global warming. Except John Edwards, who happens to be the candidate I support. Now, I do understand that professional politicians – particularly those nervy enough to vie for the top post – are not scientists. Nor do I expect them to be. They have probably never seen a nuclear plant, or toured one, and wouldn’t know a GELI from a TLD if it bit them on the ass. So when wannabe Theocrat (and current Republican front-runner) Mike Huckabee says…

“There’s been a real bias against nuclear energy in the United States, going all the way back to Three Mile Island in 1979, but I think most of it is unfounded,”

…I just have to roll my eyes. I was there. He was not. He doesn’t know shit.

When John Edwards was asked “Would you be in favor of developing more nuclear power here in the United States?” at a recent appearance in New Hampshire, he said very simply and unequivocably, “No.” That deserves all our applause, and certainly our votes. He may not be a scientist or a nuke, but he is a tort lawyer. If you’ve any doubts, Google “Price-Anderson.”

Now his campaign is running ads in New Hampshire touting his anti-nuclear stance, and I hope that resonates with the electorate. We can do better than nukes. All we have to do is put our national will into it, and we’ll surprise even ourselves! John Edwards believes it. I believe it too, and I’ve the experience in operational health physics (and TMI) to know what I’m talking about. No Nukes.

Links:

FOE Action: New TV and Radio Ads for Edwards in NH

WaPo: Video of Sleeping Guards Shakes Nuclear Industry

SFBG Politics: The candidates on nuclear power

LATimes: Nuclear power gets boost from candidates

USNuclear: Presidential Candidates’ positions on Nuclear

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Filed under Campaigns, Energy, John Edwards, Nuclear Power | Comment (1)