The Top 10 ProNuclear Arguments... Answered

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

ARGUMENT 7: Antinuclear activists often complain that the potential damage caused by atomic power isn't covered by any insurance companies. But the reason such businesses haven't insured the industry is simply that they have no actuarial experience on which to base their rates.

GOFMAN: Yes, the insurance companies have said, "We don't know the safety of nuclear power plants, so we won't insure them." For this reason, Congress passed—and twice renewed-the PriceAnderson Act, a law that relieves the nuclear power industry of any liability claims beyond $560 million (a small sum in the event of a major catastrophe). Congress has also decreed that the taxpayers would, in effect, reimburse the nuclear industries for $460 million of that $560 million!

The insurance companies are smart . . . they don't know the risks, so they won't insure. Does that mean it would be a good idea for you to "bet your life" on nuclear power?

If the utilities were sincere about the safety claims that they make publicly, they would agree to repeal the Price-Anderson Act and say, "We'll put our assets on the line and insure each other." None of the power companies has done so . . . which should tell you what they really think about the safety of their plants.

ARGUMENT 8: Nuclear power supplies 13% of our country's electricity today. If Industry isdenied thatenergy, many jobs will surely be lost.

GOFMAN: The relationship of employment to energy is a very complex matter. If you simply shut off the electricity serving a specific factory tomorrow, then of course the people working there will be out of work. On the other hand, the longrange increased use of electricity in factories often results in more mechanization and a decrease in the number of humans required to conduct the businesses' activities.

Furthermore, there's little reason to believe that the method of energy production affects employment . . . though many solar advocates claim that "their" energy source will produce more jobs per dollar than most other power alternatives.

And as for any possible energy —not jobs—shortage that could occur if we were to abandon atomic power (nuclear plants do produce 13% of our electricity, but that amounts to only 3% of our total annual energy consumption) ... the American Institute of Architects has calculated, in two carefully researched reports, that we could work up to a 26% saving in America's projected energy use by 1990 (which would be equivalent to the production of about 430 giant nuclear plants ) simply by putting conventional technology to work to make our buildings energyefficient.

ARGUMENT 9: The question of the risks of nuclear power is a deeply technical issue that only well-informed scientists, in that specific field, can understand .. . and the majority of such people support nuclear power.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print