UNPRINCIPLED NUCLEAR ADVOCATES

"Industry groups at Kyoto meeting call for more use of nuclear energy'' in Nuclear News, January 1998, p 12, published by the Ameri-can Nuclear Society, 555 N. Kensington Ave., La Grange Park, IL 60526, is a depressing account of current attempts by the nuclear power industry to use the myth of global warming to promote their own economic interests.

Meanwhile, the Nuclear Energy Institute ran a full-page four-color ad in in the January 1998 issue of The American Spectator touting the reductions in carbon dioxide pollution offered by nuclear power.

Of all industrial groups, one would have hoped that the nuclear power industry would be the most vocal in its opposition to the use of pseudoscientific propaganda to cripple technology. Nuclear power generation, which (as discussed extensively in Access to Energy for more than 24 years) enjoys great real advantages, has been severely damaged in the United States during the past three decades by just such propaganda. Yet, now that the nuclear industry has seen advantages for itself in promoting enviro propaganda, it is joining the feeding frenzy right along with the most unprincipled priests of the green religion.

Do these nuclear power executives really think that the enviros are going to give up the myths about nuclear power that they have so painstakingly ingrained in the public mind? The only way to remove those myths from the body politic is by dissemination of the truth. The public is not likely to be impressed by truths emanating from an industry that simultaneously promotes lies when it perceives that this may give it a short-term advantage.

We recommend that nuclear power executives read "Dam-busting: Victory for the fishes'' in The Economist, December 6, 1997, p28, which describes the destruction of a hydroelectric dam by the enviros.