A note of apology In mid July I responded to a New York Times letter by Geoffrey Rothwell. In the letter, he advocates nuclear power as a way to solve our political, global and environmental problems with fossil fuels. I was so incensed, I answered with an article in this space which was extraordinarily sarcastic. Mr. Rothwell took exception to my arguments and my sarcasm.
I have apologized to him in private and now in public for the meanness of my personal response, but I still don;t agree with his contention that "There are political problems with spent nuclear fuel, but the technical problems have been solved". To that end I have sent him the following letter.
Geoffrey,
I have spent some time studying information on nuclear waste. In terms of the safety issue I think we are on different tracks. When you say the technical difficulties have been solved, I think you must mean the problems of containment have been overcome. My concern is with the material itself. I believe we cannot consider ourselves safe, whether from Nuclear Power waste or nuclear weapons waste until we can neutralize the material itself, without waiting for the natural half life to expire.
I have read descriptions of containment facilities and find none of them can project faultless containment as far out as the actual half life. Indeed, that is no doubt why the Yucca Flats proposal has been made. An entire mountain, not man made, will be used for containment. Even Yucca Flats is only considered a temporary storage facility and it has not been given final approval. But even if it is approved a recontainment process will inevitably be needed.
In the meantime, I assume that advocates are hoping for breakthroughs in containment materials. But are these not more dream than reality. The difficulties in storage pale beside the difficulties of security both in the storage places and transportation.
How do we continue to create and store an inherently dangerous product that cannot be neatralized on the hope that eventually, we'll figure out a way?
I fervently believe we should launch an all-out political and financial effort to develop alternate sources of energy, both for transportation and the creation of electric power. I believe a healthy future is one free from the pollution of fossil fuels as well as the dangers inherent in nuclear energy.
Melvyn Polatchek
I am publishing this letter in my blog today. Feel free to disagree. I will publish anything you have to say on the subject.
1:28:38 PM 
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