July 11th, 1998

The Rape Of The Future - For The Sake Of A Few Dollars
By Jackie Giuliano, Ph.D.

Surrounded with so many details about the challenges to our world and our health, the future may seem inaccessible and intangible. Everywhere we turn, we are told to live for today. Buy now, the advertisements say - no interest and payments for a year. Can’t afford it now? Worry about it later, the salesperson says with confidence.

Our elected leaders exhibit the same lack of concern for tomorrow. Most will think about their reelection, to be sure, but few will support legislation that puts controls on corporate destruction of our environment today to save tomorrow.

For example, every year we delay putting controls on industries that produce ozone-destroying chloroflurocarbons, we are pushing ahead resolution of the problem by at least 50 years. You see, it takes 50 years for a molecule of an ozone-destroying chemical to reach the stratosphere where they attack ozone. Letting industries continue to produce these chemicals may be assuring the collapse of this live-giving layer.

Reactor Console at the University of Wisconsin (http://www.engr.wisc.edu/ep/facilities/rxtr.lab/console.htm)

Every day worldwide, 1,800 tons of ozone destroying chloroflurocarbons are released into the atmosphere. We are cashing in our future resources today through corporate greed with governmental support.

Nowhere may our disrespect for the future be more evident than with the nuclear industry. Worldwide, there are about 440 operating nuclear reactors. In the U.S., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has licensed 110 reactors on 72 sites in 32 states. Most of these sites have a critical waste disposal crisis on their hands as radioactive, spent fuel rods pile up.

Did you know that a number of universities have nuclear reactors for training their nuclear engineering students?

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant (from their web site at http://www.nrc.gov/AEOD/pib/states.html)

It is challenging enough to address the problem of the waste itself, but rarely do we talk about the reactors themselves, pieces of machinery that in some cases are over 30 years old. The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1 in California, for example, was started in 1966. Its current licence will expire in 2008. The license of Unit 2 on the same complex will expire in 2010. The San Onofre nuclear plant, opened in 1970 is licensed until 2013. The Crystal River, Florida plant started in 1967 and is up for relicensing in 2016.

Are you getting curious about the similarity of the operational dates and licensing renewal dates in the examples used above? You are right to be curious - and concerned.

Virtually all the reactors in the U.S. were built in the 1960s and nearly all their 40-year licenses will expire within a few years of each other. The nuclear energy industry has been extensively lobbying Congress and the American people with slick, primetime television commercials for years now to lighten the licensing requirements and to lengthen the duration of the licence. People in the nuclear industry are concerned - and they should be - that many of the currently active reactors will not be allowed to operate when their licenses come up for renewal.

Nevada Test Site (from the Bureau of Atomic Tourism at http://www.oz.net/~chrisp/atomic.html)

In fact, many of them could not be built by today’s environmental, engineering, seismic, and safety standards. Many of the sites lie on active earthquake faults, many are built with substandard materials, and many contain outdated technology. These plants, which contain the most toxic materials on the planet - with the exception of germ warfare agents - are getting old.

A golden opportunity may exist as these licenses expire. If we as a people unite with our concerns about the toxicity, unpredictability, and obscenity towards our future children that these facilities represent, maybe we can get them shut down - for good. It will be difficult, to be sure, but it is imperative.

Let’s make each of these sites National Sites of Shame to be closed down, guarded and protected as examples of how we lost sight of our souls and tried to give away our children’s future - for the sake of a few dollars today.

"If we only arrange our life according
to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult,
then that which now still seems to us
the most alien will become what we
most trust and find most faithful."
-- Rainer Maria Rilke

RESOURCES

1. For a listing of the nuclear plants in the U.S., visit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at http://www.nrc.gov/AEOD/pib/states.html

2. Visit the University of Wisconsin’s reactor site at http://www.engr.wisc.edu/ep/facilities/rxtr.lab/console.htm

3. See the technical requirements for license renewal at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/CFR/PART054/part054-0021.html

4. Visit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s reactor information site at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/reactors.html

5. The nuclear control institute is trying to stop the proliferation of nuclear material around the world. Visit them at http://www.nci.org/nci/index.html

6. Learn of the short history of nuclear reactors in the U.S. at http://www.cannon.net/~gonyeau/nuclear/early.htm

7. Visit the Bureau of Atomic Tourism for a tour of our nation’s nuclear legacy at http://www.oz.net/~chrisp/atomic.html

8. Contact your Congress-person and tell them to shut these things down. Find their e-mail addresses at http://www.channel1.com/users/massgop/congmail.htm

9. Explore Joanna Macy’s “Nuclear Guardianship” concept that could save us all at http://www.ratical.com/radiation/NGP/index.html and http://www.ratical.com/radiation/NGP/WUHearings.txt and http://www.nonukes.org/metasec4.htm and http://www.ratical.com/radiation/WorldUraniumHearing/EndNuclearAge.html

10. Read about a conference you probably never knew took place in 1993 called Poison Fire, Sacred Earth at http://www.ratical.com/radiation/WorldUraniumHearing/index.html