By Johanna R. Thibault, Esq.
April 11, 2012
I am starting a new blog series regarding nuclear power. This is a controversial subject at best that is wrought with legal overtones as well as environmental impacts and benefits. It's the crossroads between the immediate gains and the potential for significant impacts that makes this a good topic for environmental discussion and legal debate.
Having worked for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for several years, I was consumed by the breadth of knowledge behind the regulatory side of the nuclear controversy. My job was decidedly unbiased as I clerked for the administrative law judges and was put in a position of viewing the issues relatively equal from all sides.
To this day, I remain uncertain how I feel about nuclear power. My goal is to provide an eminently fair view of the issues facing nuclear power and invite discussions from all angles. I invite you to convince me that nuclear power is the answer to climate change or that it should be abolished.
I hope you enjoy the series and I welcome your comments and suggestions on any future blog posts.
April 11, 2012
I am starting a new blog series regarding nuclear power. This is a controversial subject at best that is wrought with legal overtones as well as environmental impacts and benefits. It's the crossroads between the immediate gains and the potential for significant impacts that makes this a good topic for environmental discussion and legal debate.
Having worked for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for several years, I was consumed by the breadth of knowledge behind the regulatory side of the nuclear controversy. My job was decidedly unbiased as I clerked for the administrative law judges and was put in a position of viewing the issues relatively equal from all sides.
To this day, I remain uncertain how I feel about nuclear power. My goal is to provide an eminently fair view of the issues facing nuclear power and invite discussions from all angles. I invite you to convince me that nuclear power is the answer to climate change or that it should be abolished.
I hope you enjoy the series and I welcome your comments and suggestions on any future blog posts.
I think we all are ambivalent on nuclear power plants. We know they provide cheap power. But, given the "quality" of the staff, errors are going to happen. And, then we have to deal with the potential failure (which often is a cascade). We need to solve the waste issue (burying it- or our heads- in the sand is not a solution). We need better designs- which probably won't come unless they are more in demand. We need to have better siting (I was a lone wolf asking why Vepco could build a plant on the only active fault in the East Coast. Exactly where the earthquake hit last year- some 35 years after the plant started up. Oh, and it was off line for about 4 months due to the "non-damage" that it took).
ReplyDeleteI could not agree with you more on nearly all these points. I'm not sure that the power is "cheap", but it's most certainly very clean from an operational standpoint. The waste is a huge issue, and now that Yucca Mountain has all but died, we really have a cunundrum on our hands in the U.S. to figure out how we are going to deal with the waste from nuclear power.
Delete