WASTES: AN UNSOLVED PROBLEM

And here is what is produced when those 1,000 MW are produced by burning coal: One ton of carbon dioxide every five seconds (not a toxic gas, but its production in such vast quantities may not be healthy for the atmossphere), 10 lbs of sulfilr dioxide per second (toxic), carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides (the principal automobile pollutants) at a rate equal to the simultaneous discharge of 100,000 automobiles; and particulates in the smoke in such quantities that fully one quarter of all man-made particulates come from coal-fired power plants. And that is just what goes into the air; the remainder goes into the ash pile at the rate of a ton a minutes (Data from a pre-print by Prof. B. L. Cohen, U. of Pittsburgh.)

Tile sulfur dioxide correlates with 60,000 respiratory diseases, 25 fatalities and $12,000,000 in property damage per year. Even without the l00,000 automobiles, or the particulates, or the ash it is clear that from the aspect of public health. the ease and safety of nuclear waste disposal is one of the points that make nuclear power attractive and it is not, by far, the only such point.

Anyone opposing nuclear power on grounds of safety and public health without comparing it to the present sources of electricity that it is replacing is therefore, consciously or not, advocating that the public death toll linked to power generation be kept needlessly high.

We have pointed that out before. But here is a new and disgusting twist that emerged in the nuclear initiative campaigns: A handful of physicians were among the vocal activists opposing nuclear power.

Now Commoner, a biologist, or Ehrlich, an entomologist, or Alfven, an astrophysicist, or Pauling, a chemist, can always plead utter incompetence in both nuclear power and public health. But such a defense is not open to physicians: They need not know about nuclear power, but they are expected to know about public health. If a physician opposes the immunization of children against diphteria, he is expected to have done his homework by examining the alternatives. Few reputable physicians will today oppose it, because the alternative risks are too well known. But all too many of them oppose nuclear power, where the alternatives are not yet widely known, though they should be well known to those who speak as servants of public health.

The Colorado initiative, for example, had as one of its sponsors Dr John Cobb, professor of preventive medicine (yes, preventive medicine) at the U. of Colorado Medical Center; 114 Colorado physicians publicly endorsed the initiative without uttering as much as a peep on the health hazards of non-nuclear power, or on the lives that nuclear power can save. In announcing the endorsement, Dr. Raymond Gutin of Denver said, with a straight face, "As doctors, we have the scientific training to make reasoned judgements of the data compiled over the years on the safety of nuclear-generated electric power.

What doctor. speaking as a doctor, would put his name on a list of those who would curb, if not ban, the power that reduces the present public toll of electricity-linked deaths and diseases? What doctor would do so without mentioning the risks of the alternatives?

To subscribers in Colorado who send us a self-addressed, stamped envelope we will send the whole sorry list.