A Reasonable Bet on Nuclear Power

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/opinion/18thur2.html?ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 10:32 AM
Subject: re: A Reasonable Bet on Nuclear Power
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    As we try to undo the damage that 200 years of industrialization have wrought on our planet, it would be reckless to ignore nuclear power generation, and myopic to focus only on light-water-cooled fission plants.  The nuclear power plants that supply 20% of the U.S. power grid at present rely on large amounts of petroleum to mine, transport, refine and enrich the relatively rare U235 fuel. The cost of safely storing their radioactive waste for thousands of years has never been tallied.  We mustn't ignore breeder reactors, which use vastly cheaper U238 while producing far less radioactive waste. We face a crisis and an opportunity. Now is not the time to invest in old reactor designs when something better could be built.

Barry Levine

Find more of my (largely one-sided) correspondence with the New York Times at:

http://forgottencenter.blogspot.com/

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