Modular nuclear reactors
[ https://thestarphoenix.com/opinion/lett ... tor-dec-14 ]
Jim Pulfer December 14, 2019
Small scale, modular nuclear reactors for the next generation. How incredibly cuddly, something to pop in the stove and warm the family perhaps? Just a dab of Saskatchewan uranium to banish the evils of carbon, you say? Slayer of climate change? Perhaps.
Its proponents think so, and, why, after all, should we be suspicious? Their track record is unblemished to date: grotesque genetic deformities near the Bikini Atolls; spikes in thyroid cancer in the wake of Three Mile Island; irradiated moss thousands of kilometres from Chernobyl, rendering reindeer meat unsafe; and Fukushima, irradiating the entire Pacific basin.
Yet, such experts now propose an understated, new and improved version of nuclear power. So far, their capacity to correctly predict its unintended consequences is demonstrably laughable. Yet their marketeers, perception managers, desperate mining executives and deluded power hungry politicians see it as the new panacea.
Beware and be clear: even if every claim the proponents make turns out to be true, here is one that will not: They have no plans for cleaning up their rubbish because the cost is prohibitive. Don’t fall for the canard of nuclear power yet again.
Mrs. Merkel is unequivocal: her science advisers told her the unvarnished truth about Fukushima. She was horrified. Germany would immediately decommission nuclear plants. The entire nation would erect solar panels on their rooftops. In less than a year, the excess power generated replaced a planned nuclear plant, required to meet a French contract.
Nuclear is not needed.
Jim Pulfer
Saskatoon