Judah Freed's Recent Examiner.com Opinion Piece Demands Response

Examiner.com has published an opinion piece by Judah Freed titled McCain and Obama Both Wrong on Nuclear Power that demands a response. It is a terribly biased and ignorant view of nuclear power and energy sources in general. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below to view my comment on that article.

Judah Freed: Your opinion piece is a blatant attempt to scare people though the use of one-sided arguments and emotionally charged words not supported by facts.

For example you want people to think that nuclear waste is a deadly hazard. Can you tell me just how many people have been killed or injured by exposure to the used nuclear fuel that is currently being stored in about 70 secure locations around the United States? Even though that material has been around in slowly growing quantities for more than 50 years, the answer is not one single death or injury.

You mention the Native Americans as if they are uniquely threatened by radioactive materials, but you fail to mention that they are far more directly threatened by the emissions of the coal fired power plants and associated coal mines that currently provide more than 80% of the tribal income to the Navaho Tribe.

You ascribe the support for nuclear energy to greed, but you fail to note that there is greed on the other side as well. Who do you think profits when the energy supplies are artificially restricted by restricting or eliminating nuclear power? Don’t you understand that coal, oil, natural gas, wind, and solar suppliers enjoy the increased prices and increased demand for their products? Can you tell me the last time that a nuclear focused company reported quarterly profits in the tens of BILLIONS – like the oil/natural gas companies?

We do have one thing in common – I think Yucca Mountain is a waste of money. However, for me, that is because I think that there is a much better way to handle the used material. It needs to be eventually recycled since it contains 95-97% of the initial potential energy plus a valuable mixture of rare and valuable fission products.

Rod Adams
Editor, Atomic Insights

Some people in the nuclear advocacy world prefer to simply ignore this kind of commentary, but I think it is worth the time and effort to respond forcefully and frequently. My goal is to not allow any commentary like this to go unchallenged, especially on sites that accept comments. We need to take advantage of the two way nature of modern media outlets to ensure that we make our dissent known and understood.