Frieda Berryhill Writes: More Contamination

Guard our water
Toxic waste trickles toward New Mexico 's water sources
Radioactive debris has been found in canyons that drain into the Rio Grande , but officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory say there's no health risk.

Radioactive debris has been found in canyons that drain into the Rio Grande.

Officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory see no health or ecological risk. (Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles - Reporting from Los Alamos , N.M. - More than 60 years after scientists assembled the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , lethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico.

Nuclear scars: Tainted water runs beneath Nevada desert - The state faces a water crisis and population boom, but radioactive waste from the Nevada Test Site has polluted aquifers.

Years of underground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site have left hundreds of craters filled with radioactive rubble. Above, Yucca Flat. ( U.S. Department of Energy / May 11, 2009) - Over 41 years, the federal government detonated 921 nuclear warheads underground at the Nevada Test Site, 75 miles northeast of Las Vegas . Each explosion deposited a toxic load of radioactivity into the ground and, in some cases, directly into aquifers.

Bechtel Jacobs Co. - The demolition of the west wing of the K-25 plant in Oak Ridge is about one-third complete. Officials say demolition of the east wing may be delayed as the presence of radioactive technetium is more widespread than previously thought.

The good news is ~

Since 2007, there have been applications to license 26 new nuclear reactors in the US. Nine have been canceled or suspended indefinitely in the last 10 months, and 10 have been delayed 1-5 years.

Why? Because, as almost always happens with nuclear plants, they end up being much more expensive than original plans project. In these cases, costs over-runs were triple that of estimates, while the price for natural gas declined, making them even less attractive. And, importantly, energy efficiency programs combined with reduced energy demand because of the recession dramatically reduced the need for new power supplies.

Nuclear looks good to lots of people - and Republicans are demanding strong incentives for it in the Senate Climate Bill - but the history of nuclear is frought with significant cost over-runs, multiple delays and cancellations. It's a fact that nergy efficiency combined with renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are much faster to ramp up and much cheaper.

In short, year seven of the ostensible U.S. nuclear renaissance looks a lot like the 1980s, a decade of no new orders, multiple delays and cancellations, and emerging cheaper alternatives. Maybe our Children and Grandchildren won’t find all this contaminated land left behind by all the “clean” nuclear power plants.

For your spare time! The 15 most toxic places to live

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