Why Greens don't support nuclear energy

Your views are reasonable, balanced, and fairly widespread. However, I don't agree with the "Nuclear Genii out of the bottle" metaphor.
We first developed and used nuclear technologies to produce a bomb. Soon, the idea of generating electricity from these reactors was proposed and implemented. Like any other government program, military or otherwise, there were particular interest groups behind this. Now, there is a large constituency for nuclear weapons production and proliferation as well as nuclear energy for "peaceful uses."
Amory Lovins, in his book "Breaking the Nuclear Link" (from the late 1970's or early 80's) refutes all of the arguments in favor of nuclear power. Check out the website for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation www.napf.org for all sorts of links to current thinking on this issue. Even such stalwart Cold Warriors as George Schulz and Henry Kissinger recently published an article advocating the total abolition of nuclear weapons. There was actually quite a movement for this cause in the 1980's.
The key is that ALL nations must do it, according to an internationally (UN) administered and enforced program. If we can eliminate all nuclear weapons according to a timetable (and this is clearly possible), then the problem remains of dismantling the means for reconstructing them, and that is the "peaceful" nuclear industry, itself.
So long as any nation has a large, technologically sophisticated nuclear power industry, the ability to make more nuclear weapons is only months away. All the materials and tools are already there, along with huge plutonium supplies which are found in spent fuel rods. All that has to be done is to refine it, machine it into the right shapes, and trigger it as an implosion device (like a soccer ball). By adding tritium in a casing, a fusion (thermonuclear) bomb is created.
So, I believe that a complete elimination of uranium/fission power technologies is necessary. (And so does the Green Party -- see the Nuclear Issues section of the GPUS Platform, section III Ecological Sustainability, which I've just added to the website). In fact, the costs and problems associated with nuclear fission are far greater than any possible benefits. So far, the nuclear arms race is estimated to have cost the world over $6 Trillion -- money which could have been far better spent on other things. And nuclear power, when all costs are included, is several times more expensive than clean, safe, alternatives. As they say, it's your (and my) money. -- PHS

sam

This is a link to wikipedia about Fusion energy in the future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power

I guess it's a difference in the recognition of history that leads me to being unable to accept your view regarding the prevention of mankind from utilizing a technological discovery. I can't off hand think of an example in history when something once learned was put to the way side due to societal consensus that it had no relevance because it was dangerous. Granted the planet could be destroyed in the twinkling of an eye as a result of the use of nuclear weapons on a massive scale , but that fact does not lead to the elimination of the technology that can produce such weapons as you seem to be suggesting. This may well be to philosophical a discussion for this forum, so I will end it here. sam

Hey, it ain't over til it's over. And with nuclear weapons, it's over forever.
Nothing is too philosophical for the Greens. When we abandon philosophy for Reakpolitik, we will no longer be Greens.
Einstein said something like the following (in the 1950's), in reference to the early development of nuclear weapons:
"Everything has changed except our ways of thinking." We imagine that nuclear bombs are actually battlefield "weapons" amenable to traditional military tactics, when in fact they constitute a Doomsday Machine which, if ever unleashed, will destroy the world and everything we know as "civilization." Einstein's phrase became a kind of motto for the "Beyond War" movement of the 1980's, which had a decent chance of succeeding politically, except that the Left sabotaged it at every opportunity, for being middle-class, yuppie techies, rather than traditional anti-war protestors.
It was Einstein, more than anyone else, who was responsible for the Manhattan Project, since he claimed, in a letter to Roosevelt, that the Germans were developing nuclear weapons, and he believed they were feasible. Therefore, the U.S. must establish a crash program to match the German effort. This was prior to America's entry into the war. As it turned out, Hitler disbelieved the Jewish scientists who were at the forefront of nuclear research, and never put any significant resources into developing nuclear weapons. The scientists he had, like Heisenberg, were way off track in their research, but of course we didn't know that, then.
Sam, the issue isn't that I think or believe we can and should eliminate nuclear weapons. It's that those leading our country don't think it's possible to eliminate them, or step back from the brink of nuclear holocaust. Indeed, everyone, including you, seems to be saying "Jump." "Get it over with." "Let's have the Rapture. Jesus will save those who believe."
These are the "philosophical," (a)historical views we must examine and refute.
I would ask you: Why do you think a nuclear holocaust is necessary and unavoidable? If you think it can be avoided, and civilization can continue more or less as it is, today, then we are in agreement. We only need to figure out a program to eliminate the threat of nuclear war. For me, that means eliminating nuclear technologies completely. (In my long paper on this subject, from 1980, I hypothesized that a one-world dictatorship which had eliminated all national movements and the incentives for war, might be able to use nuclear technologies safely. However, that is an undesireable - and unrealizeable - regime, which could break down at any time. And it does not address the environmental issues, either, which have proven to be quite unsoluable.) Tell me where and how you will dispose of the nuclear wastes, and isolate them for the next billion years, before we go any further.

Many of the best minds on the planet, beginning with Bertrand Russell's Committee of 100 (which Einstein signed on to just days before his death), have devoted themselves to these questions. Needless to say, none of them, nor anyone with similar views, is serving in the Bush Administration, today. I've been living with the guardians of one of the world's largest nuclear arsenals for 45 years (all of my adult life) here in Great Falls (Malmstrom AFB). Believe me when I tell you that no one wants or needs to have these "jobs." Indeed, I would maintain that the threat of nuclear war has driven the whole world insane, starting with our own government and the other leaders of the nuclear-armed nations. That these now include such "nations" as Zionist Israel, Islamic Jihad Pakistan, and Hindu Fundamentalist India moves us that much closer to the Nuclear Midnight of civilization.
Don't give up hope! A solution is possible! But only if we stop denying its very possibility.

Paul Stephens

Even if no more nuclear bombs are ever dropped, which I find hard to believe, we still have created a huge stockpile of radio active material with a half life of 4.5 BILLION years. What are we going to do with that? In the beginning of the nuclear age, the government decided to put it in metal drums and bury it at Hanford, Wa. Now the drums have rusted, and are leaking radio active material into the ground water and the Columbia River (which empties into the Pacific Ocean). This is only one of many sites. To me it's logical that the overall level of radiation on the planet is increasing because of our activities.

Radiation is very dangerous to animal life, including humans. It causes cancer,birth defects, and sterility. Plants and insects do pretty well with increased radiation,so maybe future life on Earth will be just plants and insects. Or maybe long exposure to increasing radiation will cause us to mutate. I wonder what we'll look like, and what the Earth will look like. If reincarnation is true, maybe we'll find out. If it's bad, we might be cursing the generation that did this. Which would be ourselves. Maybe there's a little justice in the universe after all. And a little humor.