It's interesting how the right has successfully (again!) propagated this meme that the environmental movement is now all agog over nuclear power as the way to forestall global warming. Nonsense. A couple of noted environmentalists panic, and this is characterized as a movement.
While nuclear power plants emit no appreciable carbon emissions, that is about the only benefit they offer. However, there are numerous strikes against them.
Before I get into that, let me remind the less technically astute just how a power plant works. Electricity -- and remember, the point of this is electricity; there's no such thing as nuclear "energy" -- is created by spinning a power generator, which is somewhat like a giant version of any electrical motor you have lying around your house, except it works in reverse, sending electrical current back out into the world. Typically, the generator is attached to a steam turbine. Here's where the fun begins. To make the steam to turn the turbine (which turns the generator which makes electricity), you have to heat water. There are numerous ways to heat water, but basically you burn something: coal, natural gas, fuel oil, biomass, whatever. In a nuclear reactor, you run water pipes past the fuel rods, which are hot, to boil the water. Essentially, all that stuff and bother with nuclear technology is just another way to boil water. That's all. Think about it.
COST. Factoring in construction and subsequent decommissioning (and then more construction and decommissioning, since a nuke is only good for about 25 years before it's too hot for anyone to work in one any longer); the mining and processing and transportation of the nuclear fuel; and finally, the massive security needed to guard a plant: nuclear is hellaciously expensive -- certainly not "cost-free.". One poster was spot-on in pointing out that wind power is now cheaper per KwH than nuclear. I understand the public relations problems that wind has encountered (gee, I wonder who orchestrated THAT new opposition?!), but if nuclear -- NUCLEAR! for god's sake -- can be rehabilitated in the public's mind, making wind power seem like a great idea should be a piece of cake.
SAFETY. A nuclear plant can theoretically be run with little or no danger to the outside world. But complexity is the enemy of theory. In practical fact, nuke plants release toxic substances more frequently than people know, poisoning the air, ground water, and soil in the general vicinity. And while nuclear plants cannot explode like a nuclear bomb, they can have disastrous breakdowns, as at Chernobyl. (Yes, we have better designs now, blah, blah. But still, accidents do happen.) Beyond the plant doors are the long-term sites for the waste, the transportation of nuclear materials, the mining of the ore and the toll that takes on miners, and so on. Yes coal and other sources are no picnic either; but I didn't say I was a big coal fan, either. Finally, nuclear power plants fit in nicely to a world of terrorism. Foreign terrorists see them as both a site for mischief and a source of materials for their own bombs. And the US government has been terrorizing the planet with it own nuclear arsenal for a half century.
SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS. By it nature, nuclear power necessitates a police state approach to public power. There's nothing warm and cuddly about nuclear power or the people associated with it. No nostalgic image of the old wooden nuclear power plant out on the prairie. It's part of the world of the Pentagon, operating in a shadowy secret universe that fends off public scrutiny. More nukes means more places off-limits, more security patrols, more no-fly zones -- less freedom.
OPPORTUNITY COSTS. The massive amounts of money that will be needed to ramp up all the nuclear plants we might need to replace fossil fuel could be better spent on developing, improving and rolling out alternative energy sources. And the cheapest new energy source, of course, is conservation. We haven't even begun to achieve the efficiencies we can with all of our current (no pun intended) activities. Let's not just turn trillions of dollars over to the Bechtels et al who will give us nothing in return but heartache. Let's actually invest in a livable future.
Now let's look at GM food.
As Food First has noted for years, there is no scarcity of food in the world, merely injustices in distribution. http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/1998/s98v5n3.html
GM foods are a "solution" in search of a problem. GM has the primary goal of removing self-sufficiency from the farmer, who historically has saved seeds and replanted, and making the farmer completely dependent on the GM company (e.g. Monsanto) for everything from seed to the now-necessary chemicals, etc. Simply put, the farmer pays Monsanto for inputs that were (and still could be) freely available from nature. In a replay of the old feudal system, the farmer becomes nothing but a vassal to corporate America. This is socially evil and does nothing to provide good nutritious food ( whole other subject). It centralizes control of the very stuff of life into the hands of a few people who have profits, not the public good, at heart.
As for roads ... ROADS?! in the very year we are probably hitting the peak oil event, how can anyone talk of more roads? We need to budget our remaining fossil fuels, using that uniquely powerful energy source for rebuilding our infrastructure so that we can lead decent lives post oil. What we CAN continue to generate for the foreseeable future, albeit in smaller quantities, is electricity. Thus, the best long-distance conveyance might well be electrified trains. (What the airline industry is going to do in the future escapes me ... unless they will be given some alien-derived anti-gravity propulsion that the US government has been working on over in Area 51 :-))
Enough for now. Hard-headed business people need to come to grips. It doesn't even make ECONOMIC sense to continue in our prevailing, industrial mindset. Indeed, numerous studies have demonstrated the potential for a tremendous economic expansion from the transition. Only the totalitarian mindset can see a benefit from the status quo. Unfortunately, the totalitarian mindset, amplified by a culture of corruption and mind-boggling stupidity, is what is running things in America these days.
Ric