EDITORIAL
A NUCLEARIZED FUTURE? The election past settled more than the occupancies of political seats. Some 300 special questions were placed before voters in 41 states-none of which were more important...
...Stop and think...
...The presumption is unwarranted...
...A six-state decision in no way constitutes a national industrial mandate...
...Indeed, it is even questionable whether, at this point in scientific knowledge, nuclear power should be a matter of public referendums, so many are the imponderables...
...In the six state referendums, for instance, the nuclear industry spent millions, while proponents of caution and controls could counter with but small amounts...
...it is also a meaningless one, which probably only reflects business's ability to shape opinion by spending enough dollars to propagandize a point of view...
...There are studies, such as the Brookhaven Report of 1957, which estimate that a nuclear accident (no remote possibility) in a small nuclear plant in a nonurban location would kill some 3,400 persons, injure 43,000 more, and cause property damage of $7 billion-deaths occurring at distances up to 15 miles, injuries up to 45 miles...
...And these are just some of the problems...
...Had Gerald Ford been continued in office, there could have been as many as 200 more by 1985...
...Presently there are 58 nuclear power plants in operation in the U.S...
...Whether there should be one more until much more is known about the risks and consequences of a nuclear-energy commitment is the question...
...Global oil supplies are limited and nonrenewable...
...Let's hope he will...
...Nuclear powei likely has a place in the world's future, but only after numerous problems are resolved...
...Some 300 special questions were placed before voters in 41 states-none of which were more important than those in Ohio, Montana, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Arizona that would have placed restrictions on the development of nuclear power...
...But right or wrong in specific details, Flowers's warning is one to be taken seriously in England, and no less so in the U.S., where the nuclear commitment is so much larger...
...Furthermore, there remains the fact that no satisfactory method has been found for the storage and disposal of nuclear wastes, some of which have radioactive life cycles of 200,000 years...
...Nuclear power issues reach out across generations, even centuries, and are much too sensitive, and right now too obscure, to be decided by polls or referendums...
...and coal and lignite, for which there are reserves to carry the world beyond the year 3000...
...The preoccupation with nuclear energy is understandable...
...Please ask yourself if that's the path down which you want to go," he declared...
...nuclear power means profits as well as energy-and has postured since as if the referendums amounted to a carte blanche for unrestrained development into the indefinite future...
...Based on a world population of 3.3 billion, consumption rates of 1965, and known deposits of 1969, one source actually has crude oil reserves expiring before the year 2000...
...The Brookhaven Report is outdated to be sure-but because the situation has changed for the worse, not the better...
...According to the Gallup Poll, 71 percent of Americans approve of nuclear power in principle...
...Flowers attacked the prevailing assumption that energy demands will continue to grow exponentially, so that there will thus always be an energy gap-a tack, incidentally, that could render him right about his warning, but wrong in his reasoning, particularly as exponential growth applies in energy-gluttonous societies, of which the U.S...
...If anyone is looking for an additional reason to welcome the election of Jimmy Carter, it is on this general score...
...The issue is whether the reliance on nuclear power should be as unqualified as it is...
...The nuclear power industry was ecstatic-understandably...
...Stop and' think before you take the next major step...
...Admittedly, much talk by environmentalists about nuclear energy rings of hysteria, but not all of the talk is as crazy as it sounds...
...This is an imposing figure...
...Here the new President will have a decisive role to play...
...Look at what is happening to the Hudson River Valley, now known by some as "nuclear alley...
...Meanwhile, there should be a much more serious exploration of alternatives-solar energy, for example...
...So of course alternative sources of energy must be found, and soon, without painful dislocations occurring throughout the world...
...This is not a comfortable supply margin, new discoveries in the North Atlantic and along the Alaskan northern slope notwithstanding...
...Contrasting sums aside, the very approach is at fault...
...as a nuclear engineer, he should bring a special perception to their handling...
...In all six states, the initiatives of petitioners lost...
...Recently, Sir Brian Flowers, the physicist who helped usher England into the nuclear age, urged his government to pause before proceeding further with nuclear development...
...As a nuclear engineer, he does not have to be educated to the problems of nuclear energy...
...is a far more striking example than England...
Vol. 103 • December 1976 • No. 25
