Croaking Canaries

When even Democratic politicians start warming to the idea of building new nuclear power plants, which have banned from Wisconsin since 1983, our canaries could start croaking any day. Coal miners used to take canaries into the mines to warn them of danger. Canaries were highly sensitive to poisonous buildups of carbon monoxide. When the canaries started toppling over with little Xs over their eyes, miners knew to scramble for their lives.

Surprisingly, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has embraced a task force recommendation to modify the ban on new nuclear plants approved by voters statewide 25 years ago. When we hear somebody suggesting we reconsider our prescient decision to curtail nuclear power, it’s usually some cartoon villain like Mr. Burns on “The Simpsons” or Vice President Dick Cheney.

Doyle sounded almost Cheneyian when he suggested those who refused to consider nuclear power were burying their heads in the sand. Doyle said his Task Force on Global Warming took a responsible step by suggesting that Wisconsin begin to consider new nuclear power plants “without the hurdles that the current law puts up where it can’t even be really thought about.”

Terrorism Has Multiplied Every Danger

It’s certainly true that our world has changed a lot since voters approved the ban on new nuclear plants 25 years ago. But what Doyle didn’t say was that the most dramatic changes have made proliferation of nuclear power even more frightening.

When Wisconsin voters approved the nuclear moratorium in 1983, the world did not yet have the example of the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986. But that cataclysmic event sure made us look smart.

The largest release of radioactivity from a nuclear power plant in history turned an area of the Ukraine once considered the breadbasket of the Soviet Union into a wasteland that now goes by far grimmer nicknames such as the “Dead Zone” and the “Zone of Alienation.”

Not only that, but the plume of radioactive fallout, 30 to 40 times that released by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, eventually drifted over most of Europe and even eastern parts of North America.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization estimated in 2005 that nearly 10,000 additional cancer deaths may have resulted.

The other major world event since 1983, of course, was 9/11. Along with everything else that changed after that momentous event was increased awareness of all the deadly dangers around us. That is made even more frightening because of one thing that absolutely has not changed in the quarter of a century since

Wisconsin approved the moratorium on new nuclear plants.

As Wisconsin wisely decreed in 1983, new nuclear plants should not be built until there is a national or international disposal site where the deadly, radioactive waste the plants generate can be safely stored.

Guess what? Twenty-five years later, there still isn’t. The Bush administration has attempted to turn Yucca Mountain in Nevada into a nuclear waste dump, but legal battles and geological questions make the site increasingly unlikely.

As difficult as it’s been to secure a disposal site, that’s just the beginning. The idea of transporting deadly, nuclear waste from all over the country, through our towns and cities and countryside, certainly would require far more careful planning and competence than the current administration has ever demonstrated.

The development of nuclear power always has required a shocking human arrogance and lack of concern about the near impossibility of protecting future generations from growing stockpiles of radioactive nuclear waste that remain deadly for hundreds of thousands of years.

The age of terrorism has multiplied every danger. The nuclear by-product of plutonium can be easily converted into handy dandy nuclear weapons by sinister movements or whacked-out individuals bent on destroying human life. It’s been so long since we’ve actually had to worry about building new nuclear plants, many people today have never heard of Three Mile Island or the Academy Award winning film, The China Syndrome, or the compelling, non-fiction book by journalist John Fuller, We Almost Lost Detroit.

When Doyle reversed his resistance to considering new nuclear power plants in Wisconsin, the story didn’t even appear on the front page of Milwaukee’s newspaper. It appeared in the business section.

Apparently, editors don’t think the general public cares about nuclear power escaping from the crypt where it’s been buried for the past 25 years. Nukes are a business story, only of interest to those who stand to profit from them.

It’s not surprising to hear Republican presidential candidate John McCain promise millionaire executives 45 new nuclear plants after he gets done personally drilling all of our nation’s beaches for oil. But we’ve counted on Doyle and the Democratic state Senate to protect us from Assembly Republicans, who voted earlier this year to lift the nuclear moratorium.

If Doyle’s gone over to the dark side, we may have to start giving our canaries CPR any day now.

What’s your take? Write: editor@shepex.com or comment on this story online at www.expressmilwaukee.com

Nuked lighting making a comback worldwide. It's like changing from Gold Standard to Fiat currency which is basically credit. We havn't heard of any problems with that have we. SOCIALIST/CAPITALIST bureauratic stupidity. Native cultures thought of generations to come. With billions of people, what dirt piles can the kids play in????

Mr. Pawlak, You are obviously an educated and intelligent man, far surpassing my own cerebral capacity. However, one portion of your rebuttal to McNally's column struck my attention. You reference "twin towers as USA sponsored sabotage" fools, which I can only assume you mean conspiracy theorists. Later you reference more plausible terrorist threats, e.g. black-on-black crimes etc, which I agree with, but it seems contradictory to your earlier statements that the Twin Towers tragedy was pulled off by the same terrorists who drive their SUVs through crowds. Again, I am insufficiently armed to debate you on this issue, but do you see a contradiction? I think there are too many discrepancies in the official reports re: 911. Too many points glossed over such as the lack of debris at the Pentagon or in the PA field. Yeah, I believe Kennedy was shot by a bunch of people. I think there was a host of people who wanted him dead. Yes, I believe the U.S. government would sacrifice 3,000 plus to incite a nation to war. I understand this wasn't the crux of your post, but I'd appreciate if you'd comment on mine. Thanks.

Letters0

TO THE EDITORS, THE SHEPHERD EXPRESS: Being an honest conservative I do read the columns in your paper with the intent of balancing out input from other, much more "right wing", sources. Who knows? Someday, I might find myself or my sources in error and change my views and resultant actions (eg Voting). Yet, Mr. Joel McNally's ongoing parade of ignorance as to almost any subject he discusses has done nothing to encourage my ongoing efforts to view the world and its people in a fair way. In your most recent (August 14-20, 2008) issue Mr. McNally's "Croaking Canaries" presents his considerable (Paraphrased quote) "subtraction from the sub-total of human knowledge" in the areas of terrorism and of nuclear-power engineering. Your readers, editors and (Most specially) Mr. McNally should remember the following. 1. The movie The China Syndrome was fiction and should not be put up as an example for discussion of scientific or engineering topics any more than the radical and unqualified exponents of the "twin towers as USA sponsored sabotage" fools should override the best engineering minds of this and other nations. 2. The Chernobyl (The Ukraine) nuclear disaster was an almost classic example of SOCIALIST engineering, design, lack-of-proper-controls and bureaucratic stupidity considered inferior even at that time. 3. The Three Mile Island incident probably release less radiation than too many of the coal powered power plants do today. 4. I have not read Mr. John Fuller's We Almost Lost Detroit; But, that author's prior dedication to the supernatural and space-aliens (And lack of apparent engineering background) leads me to wonder why anyone would use that as a base-line for a reasoned discussion of nuclear power plants. {We still have Detroit--Damm it!] 5. The engineering of modern nuclear power plants (In such places as Japan and France) do allow of minor fires and, perhaps, very minor radiation leaks----Which have all been quickly and safely contained. 6. The nature of such plants' reactor vessels are now such that I doubt that even a "9/11" style Islamic terrorist attack would crack them and cause a melt-down. 7. The real and acknowledged great terrorist attack targets are oil refineries and, most of all, those ships which move Liquid Petroleum Gas on the seas and into our ports. 8. As a practical matter, the real terrorist threats are: The level of violent Black-on-Black crimes in most urban settings; The growth in power of largely Latino gangs flowing out of Latin-America, through California and into the rest of the USA; And, the instant jihads of such Muslims who suddenly decide to attack "the unbelievers" as Mohammed Taheri-Azar who has been convicted of attempted murder by his driving a sports-utility vehicle into a crowd at the UNC campus OR the highly educated and well paid Muslim doctors who attempted to blow up the Glasgow (Scotland) air port. I do look forward for your many well written (If far "to the left") columns; But, find Mr. McNally's deviation from reality well beyond even my tolerance. Sincerely yours, James Pawlak PS---As usual, please do forward this note to Mr. McNally, along with a book on engineering principles and instructions for self first aid in case of stroke.

Croaking Canaries

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