Since that first nuclear blast at Trinity in July, 1945, the US has participated in a nuclear arms race of frightening proportions based on the terrifying concept of mutually-assured destruction. Searching for a peaceful use for nuclear energy, we’ve given huge subsidies to the nuclear power industry. But as our traditional enemies disintegrated and the costs and dangers of nuclear became clear, our country looked to other cleaner and safer sources of non-fossil fuel power.
Yet (remarkably) today, even as some warn about terrorists’ capacity to detonate small nuclear weapons, as Los Alamos “copes” with radioactive debris, as Hanford’s “temporary” holding tanks of nuclear wastes leak into the Columbia River, a new push for nuclear is gaining converts.
Hello from Ground Zero © SR Euston
And the traditional nuclear interests are on a roll. Even as some giant utilities question the financial feasibility of nuclear power, the Obama administration has tentatively pledged several billion dollars of loan guarantees for nuclear reactors. Unfortunately for green sustainable energy, the legacy of Trinity retains its hold on energy policy. Monied interests are resurrecting nuclear power in the guise of answering the climate change challenge.
Here’s the problem. Governmental resources are contracting. Clean energy funding is finite. Pork barrel, special interest pressure is spearheading funding for nuclear and “clean” coal. And it’s all at the expense of government support of research, development and subsidies for solar, wind, geothermal, energy efficiency and energy conservation.
Is it possible that once again, as in the early 1980s, clean energy is about to be ambushed? Even as the planet continues to warm? And by an administration committed to the environment and to pragmatic solutions?
An energy-conscious congress and administration must take a very hard second (and third and on and on) look at energy policy, beyond parochial and special interests. Scarce federal clean energy dollars must go to ramping up truly clean energy. Ignoring the obvious issues with nuclear don’t make them go away.
Back at the Trinity Site, we walk through the nearby McDonald ranch building, miraculously spared in the blast. This is the woebegone place where the bomb’s core was assembled. Inside, I’m imagining the grim and dangerous routine of putting the explosive innards together to make that plump torpedo, that shatterer of worlds.
Barn at MacDonald Ranch ©SR Euston
To most of us the atomic legacy is disturbingly ambiguous. Of course there are constructive peaceful uses for nuclear discoveries. But not the generation of electricity, especially when its development saps scarce resources better used for developing benign, decentralized and safer, green, renewable energy.
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