This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: August 25, 2008 - Ameren UE's pursuit of a second nuclear power plant should be viewed by environmentalist opponents as a challenge and an opportunity. To see why, let's start with a menu of pro and con arguments.
Opponents of nuclear power point correctly to the absence of a plan to store waste that will remain deadly for centuries. So ad-hoc onsite efforts remain the inadequate norm. Inevitable companions include radioactive leaching into groundwater, human frailty regarding security and threats like earthquake and terrorism.
Opponents emphasize low-probability - but high-consequence - events like core meltdown, airplanes flown into cooling towers and attacks on waste storage tanks. They fear the theft of weapons-grade plutonium and highlight enormous construction costs, elevated cancer rates among plant workers and multiple alternative approaches to the battle against global warming.
Supporters of nuclear power who ignore these observations are avoiding adult conversation.
Proponents of the nuclear option observe that nuclear plants emit no carbon dioxide and none of the immediately toxic pollutants that kill tens of thousands of Americans annually; that new plants will be safer than old ones; that the accident at the primitive Chernobyl plant, which had no containment tower, is a barometer of nothing.
Proponents note that Chernobyl remains the only deadly accident in five decades of plant operation; that without nuclear power we would have more coal, more carbon and more lethal particulate matter. They argue that uncertainty regarding other anti-global-warming efforts renders nuclear power a necessary ingredient in the oleo of remedies.
Opponents of nuclear power who ignore these observations are avoiding adult conversation.
So What Should an Environmentalist Do?
In a sane world, there would be no dilemma. Nuclear power would be a relic of bygone romance; safe remedies would be reversing global warming. There would be no trade-off between nuclear power and coal.
But that is a world of dragons and mythology. In the real world, environmentalists pursue the closure of Vermont's nuclear plant amid the quandary of awareness that the majority replacement will be fossil fuels from the grid and carbon for the air. They know that well-meaning state efficiency programs consistently yield increased energy use because of entrenched behaviors, resistance to mandates and population growth.
In the real world, haphazard and politically compromised anti-carbon efforts outflank focused policy based on science and global needs. The real world of science says 80 percent carbon reductions are essential. The fantasyland of politics yields persistent increases, crippling inertia and majority support for offshore drilling and more carbon.
So, if you accept Al Gore's warnings , ending the energy stalemate must be a transcendent goal. But a pitched battle with Ameren will have the opposite impact.
Believe what you must about nuclear power, about the trade off between no carbon and the eternal, insidious waste. But don't be imprisoned by those beliefs.
Nuclear power is expensive in the extreme. It will die of its own weight as renewables become cheaper. We will survive a new plant in Missouri and in a dozen other states.
The world has survived 13,000 plant years of operation and will outlive this nascent renaissance. But we may not survive ongoing inertia and the increased carbon it portends.
Negotiate with the Devil
So, using tactics that are routine with coal plants and that even George Bush has belatedly pursued with North Korea, environmentalists must negotiate with the devil if that is the path to reversing global warming. To do less is to place ideological orthodoxy before the needs of the planet and the unknowable potential of dialogue.
The Ameren announcement gives environmentalists the opportunity to leave all legal and delaying options open while dangling compromise that asks the utility to
- Build no more coal plants;
- Pursue defined renewable energy projects;
- Lobby legislative friends to support subsidies for efficient cars and appliances;
- Implement demanding safety procedures.
This approach may or may not bear fruit. But the alternative is years of combat with little likely impact on Ameren's ultimate economic decision about the plant. It's feel good lose, even-if-you-win, futility. It rejects accommodation on renewable energy and abandons carrot and stick incentives. It propels Ameren toward its comfort zone with coal magnates if it doesn't build the nuke. And it renders planetary warming the proud and singular beneficiary.
Ken Schechtman is an associate professor of biostatistics at Washington University who has long been active in environmental issues.