Recognizing the Danger

Now that the Sierra Club's goal of a no-growth economy has been achieved, the Naders, Ehrlichs and McCloskys are redoubling their efforts to strike at energy, the life blood of an industrialized society. And they have correctly discerned that of all forms of energy, nuclear power has the biggest potential.

The anti-nuclear movement is now at last taking off its environmental mask and turning into a political movement closely allied with the radical left. The turning point came with Nader's "Critical Mass 74" meeting last November, which, he boasted, heralded "the beginning of a democratic control of all technology." In this he was fervently supported by an impressive number of political radicals who, like Nader, are totally disinterested in any technological aspects of nuclear power. The AEC commissioner who was unwise enough to address this mob was met with sneers, and was asked questions like "How many atomic explosions in our cities would you accept before deciding that nuclear power is not safe - no complexities, just a number!" There were, as yet, no jack boots or storm troopers.

On the face of it, these medieval buffoons stand no chance against rational arguments. After all, nuclear power is something whose parameters can be exactly measured and are well known. There is no such thing as a "critical mass" for the type of uranium used in power plants; it is a physical impossibility to make them explode. The annual radiation dose received by the US citizen from nuclear power reactors is 2 millirads; compared to 111 from medical equipment, and another 1Q0 from natural sources (at sea level; almost 30% more in mile-high Denver, Colo.). The reliability of nuclear plants has so far been slightly higher than that of fossil-burning plants of comparable capacity. The loss of life in a major accident at a nuclear plant would be comparable to that resulting from an explosion of an oil or gas storage tank for a fossil-burning plant; but the probability of the nuclear accident is incomparably lower. In mining, the loss of life per 1 billion MWh of generated electricity is 20 lives for uranium, 1060 for coal (of which 1,000 by black lung). The dollar price per produced kWh is now six times lower than that of the average fossil fuel, though the investment costs are higher for a nuclear plant.

But if the medieval buffoons are totally ignorant of nuclear power, they have learned the political lessons of the last few years well. They know where the real power in the United States resides today: no longer in smoke-filled convention rooms, but in the newsrooms of NBC, CBS and ABC. From here the fashionable superstitions are hammered home to a hundred million viewers and listeners almost every day, while the analyses by such experts as the Energy Research Group are suppressed. Last month, the networks gave the usual exaggerated coverage to Nader, the UCS and similar mavericks, but they set a new record in censoring a unique appeal for nuclear power by 34 of this country's foremost scientists, including 11 Nobel Prize Laureates.

The danger is deadly. And the first step in combatting it is to recognize it.