Safe, Clean Nuclear Power?

Why the nuclear solution isn't.

Safety

Nuclear Energy cannot be safe - by definition. As long as fissionable material is employed, 

 by definition,

I. In the United States, Nuclear energy is not clean. Every year, tons of pollution from coal-fired plants is produced to power the processing of fissionable material.

II. From Edison to Einstein, history informs us that energy policy starts in the United States and spreads to the rest of the world. If the US decides the final solution is nuclear, so will every third-world tin pot dictator, and the prospect of preventing an army of underpaid nuclear technicians in corrupt regimes from being tempted by terrorists to trade a few morsels of uranium for a bribe equivalent to the salary of several lifetimes is preposterous. What father, when confronted with the medical necessity of his child, would concern himself with the morality of which despot should and should not have the bomb?

III. Nuclear waste storage is a misnomer. No one can guarantee the geologic stability of a site over the period of time in which fissionable material is dangerous. If a volcano should decide to push through and bring the material up and into the air, the devastation would be incalculable.

IV. Nuclear is higher cost and much higher risk than renewables.

V. If someone had said in 2000 that terrorist would hijack four airplanes and use them as bombs, almost everyone would say they were imagining things. In fact, we know terrorists want to gain access to fissionables, we know that border security is a fiction and airport security a farce; the belief therefore that nuclear plants are somehow secure is nothing short of a self-induced cognitive coma - an irrational supposition held only because it is calming.

If we fail to provide a viable alternative to nuclear energy, we will have admitted that every nation, region, tribe and village is entitled to nuclear power and conceded the moral authority to insist otherwise.

We owe it to our future to spend as much effort studying renewable energy as we have invested in poisonous alternatives.