The administration's National Energy Program calls for speedy approval of nuclear plant proposals, re-licensing aging nuclear power plants, lifting regulations, and increasing the profit in nuclear plant construction through government subsidy. The Bush administration insists that current technology makes nuclear power safe. This was also the government argument 30 years ago during the last wave of nuclear plant construction. That building boom ended with the partial core meltdown and radioactive leak at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979. And conference organizers handed out Superballs that glow in the dark as fun souvenirs.
Nuclear power produces intense radiation that is deadly to human beings and other life.
A 1986 core meltdown and explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine sent dangerous clouds of radiation for thousands of miles. No safe means exists for storing or transporting the nuclear waste that the currently existing nuclear power plants produce. There are currently 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste piling up at temporary sites across the U.S. with no permanent way to store it. How it will get there, and who will convince the people in Nevada and along the transport routes to accept it was not spelled out. This imbalance, if allowed to continue, will inevitably undermine our economy, our standard of living and our national security.