Nuclear power will be the radioactive cousin of the fossil fuel industry
A doll dressed with a gas mask sits on a chair among hundreds of gas masks lying on the floor of abandoned School Number 3 in the ghost town of Pripyat not far from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on Aug. 18, 2017 in Pripyat, Ukraine. ()
Corporate thirst for nuclear energy is growing to dangerous levels, and Colorado will take its first steps into that fire by passing the pro-nuclear bill, House Bill 25-1040, unless Gov. Jared Polis vetoes it.
As we allow our civilization to become more dependent on electronic communication systems and press the boundaries of those systems, corporations are incentivized to produce and consume higher levels of energy every day. With the threat of human-caused climate change becoming a more widely acknowledged reality, lobbyists are persuading decision makers and the public that nuclear reactors are the solution we need to feed our needs and addictions while fending off climate disaster.
Unfortunately, nuclear power will prove to be the radioactive cousin of the fossil fuel industry and continue to fuel the oligarchical social structure that eats at our humanity and resources.
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I spent eight years in the Navy operating nuclear reactors. The U.S. Navy provides a rigorous education and training program that includes many lessons about the history of nuclear energy and the Navy's immaculate operational record. But what does it take to maintain that record? Ask yourself why we thank veterans for their service. Military service comes with some inescapable horrors, including forfeiture of most of our rights. We are held to a standard of pursued perfection that can only be asked at gunpoint or under threat of imprisonment. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Department of Labor don't allow the private sector to make you scream. We serve with the intention that civilians will not have to live that life, including ourselves once we have completed our duty.
Can we trust civilians to operate nuclear reactors with the same dedication to perfection over their own well-being? Will power companies spend more than the minimum in order to hire enough engineers to ensure alert-attentive care of reactor systems? Most likely, at least 50% of the nuclear workforce will be former Navy operators like me. That sounds like a good idea, but these are people that have already served their time doing the hardest parts of power plant maintenance, and they are not as motivated as you might think to go back to it.
Additionally, those same operators have pride that can become complacency in a civilian position. Educational corners will be cut and staff shortages abound across an industry wielding an extremely dangerous product. There are operating plants today that allow the same alarm to flash for months — the exact behavior that led to the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island nuclear accidents.
Can we trust profit-driven corporations to hold a standard that will guarantee the safety of our communities? Oil companies cause spills that destroy entire regions. Plastics producers have lied about the recyclability of products that have infected almost all life on Earth with microplastics. Extraction industries around the world, including uranium mining, are responsible for ecological deformation and human rights abuses everywhere they exist. The Diné nation has generational scars specifically caused by the uranium industry that have driven them to ban even the transport of the substance through their territory. Even if we find relatively safe storage locations for fuel and waste, they will likely travel our highways and railroads, where accidents happen all the time. And I have yet to delve into the negative impacts on our water supplies.
Our local and national elected officials have already been bought by industry owners and their own avarice, so convincing them to give up a potential cash cow seems futile. The only hope I have left is in the education we provide for each other. Do not fall victim to propaganda, but seek the lessons of history. The wealthy elite have always been willing to sacrifice others to realize their own gains and we would be fools to believe they will take any accountability for future harm caused by their business.
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