Nuc-U-lar Nonsense

President George W. Bush can't even pronounce the word "nuclear." However, this week he signed into law a bill that could potentially fund almost $13 billion worth of nuclear power projects. The U.S. stopped commissioning new nuclear power plants in 1979 after the partial meltdown of Unit 2 at Three Mile Island. It appeared that, even before the Chernobyl disaster (an understatement) in 1986, we had learned our lesson. Apparently G.W. was left behind on that one because he thinks it's a great idea to start building nuclear plants again.

I plan to use this space to cover basic history and current news of nuclear energy. I'm not going to discuss atom bombs. Those are obviously dangerous, as they are intended to be. Nuclear energy is argued by many to be the safest, cleanest source of energy. I disagree. With nuclear energy there can be no errors. A few degrees can mean the difference between a clean, safe reactor and a reactor whose 1,000-ton biological shield is thrown askew, releasing thousands of types of radionuclides into the atmosphere. Humans are not perfect, we make mistakes all the time. For this reason, we should not be playing with nuclear fuel.