Nuclear Power Remedy Myth

"Several of the nation's most prominent environmentalists have gone public with the message that nuclear power, long taboo among environmental advocates, should be reconsidered as a remedy for global warming," the New York Times' Felicity Barringer reports. And while environmentalists who support nuclear power as a supposedly "emission-free" alternative to fossil fuels are not representative of the larger movement, the buzz about them is mushrooming. "Their numbers are still small, but they represent growing cracks in what had been a virtually solid wall of opposition to nuclear power among most mainstream environmental groups," writes the Times.

Make no mistake - nuclear power has not become any safer or cleaner. Nuclear plants still pose a huge threat to the communities in which they are located and highly radioactive spent fuel has yet to be dealt with adequately. "It's not that something new and important and good had happened with nuclear, it's that something new and important and bad has happened with climate change," Stewart Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and a new devotee of nuclear energy, told the Times.

In fact, the only thing that the nuclear power industry has been working to clean up is its image. The first quarter issue of PR Watch, now available online, examines the industry's use of public relations to quell safety concerns and undermine grassroots efforts to shut down nuclear plants. Over the past several years, PR Watch has seen a marked increase in industry efforts to change the public's perception of nuclear power.

The Bush administration has also gotten in on the act of promoting nuclear power - while, true to form, avoiding the global warming issue. "President Bush has proposed reducing oil imports by increasing the use of nuclear power, which he said in a recent speech was 'one of the most promising sources of energy.' There is a problem, though: reactors make electricity, not oil. And oil does not make much electricity," the New York Times' Matthew Wald wrote recently. "Could a few dozen more reactors, in addition to the 103 running now, cut into oil's share of the energy market? 'Indirectly, but very indirectly,' said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, a nonprofit group that studies the economics of oil. People who think nuclear power is a way to reduce oil imports are 'confusing several issues,' he said."

Taken from PR Watch