Needlenose

It seems like only yesterday people were screaming “Fission, Baby Fission!”  The Media gushed over a few environmental leaders who had converted to the cause of nuclear power in the face of (or with a face full of) fossil fuel emissions warming the biosphere.   During the BP Oil Spill (anybody still remember that??) I pulled out the old crystal ball and reminded y’all about Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and mused if it would take a similar incident to remind folks of why nuclear power sucks so badly…and sadly, here we are - a couple of explosions at Japanese nuclear reactors following the ‘quake, some venting of radioactive gas, and a strong chance remaining of partial reactor core meltdown.

As a Californian in particular, I can’t help but be concerned as we have 2 similar reactors at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon, situated not far from active fault lines.

It’s bad enough that industry and their Capitol Hill whores have been clamoring for new nukes here since the dark years of Bush’s Reign of Error, even stuffing lots of glowing pork in the awful Energy Bill ’03, but what’s worse is that they only plan to create more of the inherently dangerous ‘light water reactors,’ not the somewhat safer reactor models in which other countries are investing.  As we had already learned at Three Mile Island, the light water reactors rely on active safety systems in order to keep from melting down.  If something goes wrong, like say an earthquake forcing the plant to go offline and destroying the diesel backup generators in the process…the reactor core overheats, risking a meltdown.

I’m against nuclear power for a variety of reasons, but if we must have it shoved up our asses, at least let’s go with safer reactors as well as use heavy-metal/fast neutron reactors to burn up a larger % of the fuel and the long-lasting transuranic elements.

It seems like only yesterday when politicians were shouting Drill, Baby Drill to a growing chorus of SUV-drivin’ whiners.  Frankly, given the history of oil spills, I couldn’t help but wonder how politics in the U.S. could have shifted so sharply in my lifetime from a moratorium on new drilling to supposed Totalitarian Liberals like Obama and a ‘moderate’ Repug like Schwarzenegger pushing for renewed coastal drilling.

What a difference a multi-million gallon oil spill off wetlands, fisheries and resort beaches makes.  Now, thanks to BP’s fuckup and the failure of an oil rig that was supposedly spill-proof, it looks like additional coastal drilling may be off the table…at least while this is still in the news.

It really comes down to this – I don’t believe Americans can really remember stuff that happened before the current news cycle.  Seriously, just watch – somebody will discover some politician or celebrity’s reproductive organ lodged somewhere it isn’t supposed to be, the oil spill will fade from memory (along with countless threatened and endangered spills in the Gulf of Mexico), and Palin et. al. will be out screaming Drill, Baby Drill with renewed vigor.

It’s like all that talk a few years ago about how nuclear power was gaining new support. Obama even included building a few new of the unstable light water reactors in his energy plan.  What the hell will it take to take that option off the table, another Three Mile Island or a Chernobyl (history of those nuclear power accidents, in case you too have amnesia)?