Dear Editor:
In the current ideological and political battle over who is to blame for the energy shortage in California and the rising prices for petroleum products, the mention of nuclear reactor power is roundly denounced in a knee-jerk fashion.
While we blithely accept the horrendous loss of life from the use of the automobile — both for business and recreation — we are overwhelmed with fright at the prospect of a USSR-type nuclear reactor meltdown.
In France, 55 percent of their electrical energy needs are met with nuclear-generated energy, although France is a demonstrably smaller nation than the USA (both in acreage and population.) Japan’s energy production is similarly based largely around nuclear reactors; despite the atomic bomb raids of World War II, this country does not equate nuclear reactor plants with the dropping of atomic bombs.
What is generally forgotten is that: 1) our nuclear-reactor submarines, containing up to 300 crew, have been operating safely for decades; 2) no nuclear-reactor energy plant malfunction has resulted in the “nuking” of any in its neighborhood; 3) thousands of workers toil in close proximity to the reactor within the plant; 4) new aircraft carriers are built with this fission-produced energy.
The oil companies, however, rejoice in the orchestrated attack against nuclear reactor energy; one wonder whether some of the not-so-clean environmental activists are being funded (taking kickbacks) secretly by the oil industry. It is strange that this likely potential connection has not been explored.
If we are ever to solve some of our biggest problems, we must accept the concept of balance: the good vs the bad being weighed on a cost (including lives) benefits (including lives.) The automobile would not exist today if we only looked at injuries and lost lives.
Frank X. Landrigan