[Vision2020] but will the public fall for it

[Glenn Schwaller]

Anti-Nuclear Forces Manufacture
Pseudo-Scandal<http://www.dailytech.com/AntiNuclear+Forces+Manufacture+PseudoScandal/article8546.htm>
Michael Asher <masher at dailytech.com>
Daily Tech - August 22, 2007

 ...but will the public fall for it?

In rural Tennessee lies a small uranium processing plant. In operation since
the 1960s, its primary activity today is converting nuclear warhead material
into a form no longer usable for weapons, but suitable for nuclear power
plants.

Last year, the facility experienced a leak in a transfer line, spilling some
nine gallons of uranium solution onto a floor. The company took appropriate
cleanup measures, and immediately notified the Nuclear Regulatory Committee,
which investigated.

 Their conclusions? Had the leak not drained onto a floor, but into some
sort of bowl-shaped container, the fluid might have been able to amplify its
own weak level of radiation. Had a worker not wearing protective gear been
nearby at that particular moment, they might have received a dangerous, or
even fatal dose. None of these events happened, of course, but even if they
had, the risk to the public at large would still have been zero.

 Zero. None.  Zip.  Nada. Zilch.

 The NRC issued a reprimand to the plant operator, Nuclear Fuel Services
Inc, and ordered the hiring of an outside team of experts for to review all
safety practices. Ordinarily the action would have gone into the public
record immediately. But because NFSI supplies fuel to the U.S. Navy, the DOE
had previously required all documents sealed for further review.

 You might think this is the end of an amazingly boring non-story.  Not so.
A year later, that review finally happened, and the commission decided there
was no national security threat from disclosing the event. And so our
alarmist media learned of it.

 Reaction was swift. "Uncontrolled Nuclear Reaction Possible!" screamed news
stories. "Public Kept in Dark!" "Veil of Secrecy Must Be Lifted!" Papers in
London and Paris even picked up the story, repeating the alarmist calls
verbatim. While some of the more responsible journalists eventually admitted
there was no risk to the public, they usually did so in the final paragraph
of a lengthy story, ensuring most of their readers would not be burdened by
that inconvenient truth.

 Environmental groups were even more shrill. The Sierra Club's anti-nuclear
task force went into immediate overtime, demanding to know why the company
wasn't fined, or even shut down. A SWAT team of Sierra Club activists
descended upon the site, where they promptly organized public meetings for
"concerned citizens," and called for the NRC to hold public hearings to
explain their actions. Combining innuendo and hand-waving, they attempted to
convince area residents their property and very lives were at stake.

 This, ladies and gentlemen, is why clean, cheap, safe nuclear power is dead
on the vine in this country. It's why we still burn millions of tons of coal
each year, despite the horrendous cost in environmental damage and the
thousands of lives lost to coal mining. It's why widespread use of electric
cars will still result in enormous amounts of toxic emissions, and why the
"hydrogen economy" can never be practical.



To those of you who care about the environment, I say this. If you want to
do some good -- go and protest the Sierra Club. Demand more responsible,
biased reporting by your news media. And let your government representatives
know you're too educated to fall for such manipulative fear tactics.

GS
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