It is interesting to see how often those who argue for government intervention manage to misrepresent the facts, or at least fail to tell the whole story. For example, the oft told tale of how "deregulation" caused the savings and loan crisis, which conveniently omits all the ancillary details, such as the fact that not all regulations were removed, or how the FSLIC still provided a safety net, providing for essentially no-risk investment, distorting market forces.

A similar argument is used in the area of nuclear power. Those who would find fault with nuclear energy finding their strongest argument in a situation brought about by their own actions.

Let us first state that nuclear energy is the safest form of large scale electrical power in the world*. The number of deaths directly attributable to nuclear energy production, even including the Chernobyl accident, are a minute fraction of the number of deaths caused by accidents in coal or petrochemical driven plants. When we add in mining accidents, coal becomes even less safe. Actually, even in terms of radiation, coal is as bad as nuclear, as the massive quantity of ash and smoke contains considerable quantities of uranium and other radioactive materials. And, for those who believe in global warming, or acid rain, the fact that nuclear power emits neither carbon dioxide nor nitrites/nitrates should be a welcome feature.

So, given all that, why are nuclear plants so reviled?

First, there is an understandable fear of the novel. We have lived with coal and petrochemical power for a long time, long enough that we have forgotten the days when boiler explosions killed dozens, even hundreds. So we think of coal and petroleum generation as safe. And, of course, the press feeds into this. Every incident at a nuclear plant is reported in detail, while accidents at other power plants make news only if quite dramatic, which makes the public think the newer type of energy is more dangerous.

Second, there is an environmental movement, or some segment within that movement, which opposes technology no matter how clean or successful it is. They have done a good job of propagandizing against nuclear power.Through propaganda pieces such as The China Syndrome, scare stories about Three Mile Island, and other means they have convinced many well meaning people that nuclear power is much more dangerous than it is.

I am sure some of you are asking "What? You say it is safe, but what about nuclear waste?"

Well, that is where my initial point comes into this story. From the combined actions of the two groups I mentioned, the question of nuclear waste, a completely solvable technical problem, has been turned into a huge politicized mess. And through their own actions they have managed to turn a simple technical issue into a huge problem.

Nuclear "waste" is, much more than normal trash, a candidate for recycling. Besides remaining uranium, a fair quantity of plutonium and other elements which can be used in varying types of nuclear power production. In addition to that, there are other radioactive elements which are useful for other applications, such as the americium used in smoke detectors. Not to mention non-radioactive elements which can be recovered and sued, such as technetium which can be used to replace scarce platinum in some applications.

And, for a time, nuclear "waste" was mined for these valuable components. However, during the Carter administration, when so many bad ideas found government support, fear of nuclear proliferation, and presumably theft of plutonium, led to the closure of nuclear waste reprocessing centers. These restrictions were removed during the subsequent Reagan administration, but the damage was done. Having spent a fortune in building waste reclamation facilities, as well as complying with all regulations, the reprocessors had lost a fortune during the Carter shutdown, and so no one was interested in starting up a new facility, as it could be shut down again.

Which left us not only with many times the physical volume of nuclear waste products, but waste that was much more intensely radioactive as well. Thus was the modern nuclear waste problem born**.

Confronted with a pile of nuclear waste which could not be processed,a nd which was growing too large to continue storing on-site, the government found a storage facility at Yucca Mountain. I won't bore everyone with the details, but it was a stable, dry location deep underground where waste could be encapsulated in borosilicate glass inside stainless steel containers and kept indefinitely.

As soon as the site was selected, the legal challenges began. Opponents raised a massive numebr of objections. They claimed the area was geologically unstable, that the salt mines were not sufficiently dry, that transportation tot he site was insecure, that reports had been falsified, anything and everything was alleged in an attempt to stop disposal at the site. And it worked. As of today, no waste has been deposited in Yucca Mountain.

And that, in a nutshell, is the nuclear waste "problem". It is not that there is a technical problem, or that the risks are too great. It is a problem because the environmental movement is unwilling to accept any risk at all, and will actively obstruct any attempt to sensibly handle waste. While accepting much greater risks in coal or gas driven generators, they insist on absolutely zero risk from waste disposal, which is impossible. For that matter, the risk they take in driving their car to file these petitions is greater than the risk posed by nuclear waste, yet they are unwilling to accept it.

And so, faced with rising cost of petroleum, and excessive environmental regulation on coal***, we are still denied the clean energy produced by nuclear power. Not because of any technological issues, but because the environmental movement obstructs even the safest solutions to the disposal of nuclear waste.

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* It is possible geothermal power is almost as safe, but it is not yet a large scale energy source. Wind, on the other hand, simply does not allow for reliable, large scale power generation and so is excluded. Which means, in essence, I am comparing nuclear to coal and petrochemical production of electricity.

** I am ignoring here the problem of low level waste. In respect to low level waste, our policy is imply bizarre. The definition sounds good, but in application we are nowhere close to consistent. eg. In outpatient nuclear medicine, everything is treated low level waste except the patient's waste, which contains most of the radiation. Or, the americium in smoke detectors, while produced by neutron bombardment, and thus low-level waste by definition, is most commonly thrown out by homeowners as if it were simple trash and not nuclear waste. Of course, given the ubiquitous nature of radiation in nature, a strict application of low level waste rules would probably be impossible. (I may go into this again in another essay.)

*** Given our reserves of coal, coal power is even a better solution for us, but, as with nuclear power, environmental regulations make it less attractive. It seems the greatest threat of energy production is not any sort of shortage, but a surplus of environmental legislation.