President Joe Biden, 78, and his 62-year-old Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm let the cat out of the bag how they intend to get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050: Nuclear power. All the happy talk about renewable wind, solar, hydro, recycled garbage, etc. have given way to a major comeback for nuclear power, something the European Union decided years ago to replace with methane gas-fired powered plants. Once Japan’s 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant meltdown, world powers, including the U.S., began dismantling old and worn out nuclear power plants. No technology has figured out what to do with nuclear waste, other that storing it in remote locations to prevent radiation from polluting air and ground-water, causing a variety of carcinogenic problems for humans exposed to the toxic waste. Yet the Biden administration has a new brainstorm for zero carbon.
No scientist knows whether reducing man-made carbon in the earth’s atmosphere will have any impact on climate change or its consequence of global warming. What’s known for sure is that nuclear power has historically created a number of major disasters causing far more catastrophic damage to Mother Earth than fossil fuels. Yet the new Biden brainstorm has the U.S. returning to nuclear power without any plan of disposing of the nuclear waste other than burring it like before. Whatever benefits, if any, in reducing carbon dioxide emission, they’re more than offset by the undeniable problems with nuclear waste and possible meltdowns. Granholm argues at Glasgow that renewable energy like wind, solar and hydroelectric can’t create the “baseload” needed to supply enough electricity to replace methane and coal-fired power plants. Biden’s ace-in-the-hole is now nuclear energy.
U.S. total electric power from nuclear stands at 19.7%, about the same as 19.3% from coal, with methane gas-fired plants accounting for about 40%. Biden and Granholm are dreaming that they’re going to sell the Green New Deal progressives on ramping up what they’re calling “safe” nuclear power. Nuclear power plants are subject to far more environmental regulation and labor-intensive maintenance than methane-fired power plants, certainly more that wind, solar and hydroelectric. “Half of the United States’ clear power now—when I say ‘clean’ I’m talking about net-zero carbon emissions—is through the nuclear fleet,” Granholm said, selling nuclear energy. Granholm knows she’s going back to the future, when the first nuclear power plant went online in 1958 in Shiipingport, near Pittsburgh. Like the space program, the Russian opened up their Obalinksl nuclear plant in 1954.
Whatever problems the world faces with global warming from carbon dioxide pollution, can you imagine the potential for nuclear pollution if Biden and Granholm convince enough world leaders to jump back on the nuclear bandwagon. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel committed Germany May 30, 2011, after the Fukashima-Daiichi nuclear meltdown in Japan, to terminate nuclear power in Germany by 2022. “These advance nuclear reactors and existing fleet are safe,” Granholm said. “We have the gold standard in regulation in the United States. Whether that’s true or not, it didn’t stop the March 28, 1979 Three Mile Island from melting down, nor did it stop Pacific Gas and Electric ]PG&E] from shutting down San Onofre in 2018. Biden and Granholm are so self-dealing they don’t see the danger to the planet—and people—from nuclear power in their carbon pollution hysteria.
Whatever problems the planet faces from greenhouse gasses, they pale in comparison to what could happen if the world jumps on the nuclear bandwagon, replacing coal and methane-fired plants with nuclear power. Not only will electric power prices go through the roof, the world would be infiltrated with nuclear power plants with all the problems faced by the current aging fleet of nuclear power plants that continue to produce nuclear waste, something that cannot be disposed of without great risk to people and the environment. “And they’re basload power,” Granholm said, dismissing wind and solar as an acceptable option. “The holy grail is to identify clean, baseload power . . Nuclear is dispatchable, clean baseload power, so we want to be able to bring more on,” dismissing nuclear waste problems. Biden and Graholm are obviously in the pocket of the nuclear power industry.
Biden and his zealous nuclear power energy secretary don’t know what they’re doing pushing nuclear energy. Like so many other carbon hysterics, they cite just enough spurious research to justify their plans to get the United State to carbon-neutral by 2050. What they don’t consider are the recognized, proven hazards from nuclear power plants that periodically, due to aging an poor maintenance, meltdown, causing catastrophic damage to people and the environment. Talking about the great safety of nuclear power is pure speculation, calling U.S. nuclear power the “gold standard,” is a cheap sales pitch not bound to fool everyone. As Chancellor Merkel said in 2011, Germany, Europe’s most technologically advance country, decided to get out of nuclear power. Nuclear waste disposal is a real problem. But far more ominous are the periodic meltdowns, like 1986 Chernobyl disaster, exposing the dangers of nuclear power.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
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