25 April 2007

One more potential accident

The U.S. has just made an agreement where Japan will build the first nuclear power plant in the country in 30 years. Supposedly, according to Samuel Bodman (our energy secretary), Japan is capable of making the safest reactors.

I've always been against nuclear power. I think it might have something to do with my near-obsession with Chernobyl (who's anniversary is tomorrow - watch for my post), but I have a feeling it goes a lot further than that. I remember reading somewhere that there are thousands of near-accidents at U.S. plants that go unreported. It's not inconceivable that something catastrophic will happen due to one of these.

There's also no perfect way to get rid of nuclear waste, which sticks around for thousands and thousands of years. There's no telling what long-term affects the waste will ultimately have, but I can assure you it won't be good.

The main reason I'm against Nuclear power: It's unnecessary. The money our government is investing in this project could very well be invested instead in clean energy. We all know that clean energy is the way to go, but for one reason or another our leaders are ignoring it. It would be better for the US to go ahead and put all our resources into clean energy instead of being behind the times.

2 comments:

JoeC said...

Not to mention people like Homer Simpson work at those places...

Ashley said...

Funnily enough, I was actually thinking of the Simpsons the whole time I was writing that post.