Green Options › Articles › Alec Baldwin says nuclear is "Filthy energy" (and lots more)

Alec Baldwin says nuclear is "Filthy energy" (and lots more)

 

I get a lot of people asking me why I’m so negative about nuclear power. Today I’ll let Alec Baldwin, star of 30 Rock, explain why nuclear reactors are a filthy form of energy.

But first, the pros and cons:

Pro: Compared to oil, gas and coal, it’s relatively low-carbon, and in a world where we need to be doing everything we can to cut the amount of carbon we belch into the atmosphere, shouldn’t nuclear be part of the mix?

Con:  This week we learned that the Fukushima Daichi plants that went beyond meltdown after the tsunami in March have contaminated a vast area which will probably not be habitable again for generations.

And we learned that here in the US, the North Anna nuclear plant DIDN’T melt down, but may nevertheless have exceeded its design limits in the Virginia earthquake. In other words: after all the reassurances that our reactors are so marvelously designed and fail-safed that nothing could go wrong  - we just got lucky. (I can almost hear them, “But what about the 500 nuclear power plants that DIDN’T melt down this year? Why do you always focus on the negative?”)

And of course, we still have NO plan for long-term storage of this stuff. Yucca Mountain will probably never be a viable storage option – and do we really want them transporting nuclear waste through our communities by truck or rail?

In the meantime, the Virginia plant stores its spent waste in pools. If anything goes wrong, there’s very little keeping that fuel from contaminating the groundwater relied upon by hundreds of thousands of people.

That’s enough from me right now. Listen to Alec tell the Huffington Post Green all about it:

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More on nuclear power:

(Springfield nuclear reactor image © FOX Television)

Source: Red Green & Blue (http://s.tt/13amD)

Comments (5)

Jonathon H 11/1/11 at 9:39am
It is reassuring to hear that the North Anna nuke shut down as expected due to the earthquake, and that it was able to withstand an earthquake of higher magnitude than designed. I will take the word of the NRC over an actor any day.
greencheapsk8 11/16/11 at 6:42pm
Long term storage? Scholars in the early 20th century belittled crude oil because of its horribly toxic unusable by-products of making diesel and petrol. We now know these horrible un-storable by products as plastics, latex, oils, engine lubricants, coolants and everything else we use on a daily basis. So who knows what the future of nuclear is?
greenthriller 1/28/12 at 10:34am
Sacramento voters were one of the first groups of concerned citizens in the country to bring about the closing of a nuclear power plant. Yes, in June of 1989, Ranch Seco Nuclear Power Plant was ordered to be shut down by a ballot initiative. Even though the environmental thriller novel, Green Power, is fictional, its opening revolves around this event.
CensorshipSucks 4/27/12 at 1:09am
Apparently neither yu nor Alec Baldwin know about safe, clean, and green Thorium nuclear plasma batteries that live longer than people and don't need a recharge. But 250 million other Americans are kept in the dark as well. The military has been using this incredible technology for almost 6 years, and if we had it, we would never need to pump another dollar of gas and coal plants would be obsolete in a month. This link will tell you what I am talking about: http://open.salon.com/blog/green_energy_reports/2012/04/15/censorship_-_the_only_reason_we_are_still_addicted_to_oil
Green Options › Articles › Alec Baldwin says nuclear is "Filthy energy" (and lots more)