In the wake of the Fukushima disaster and its impacts on land, sea and air, we redouble our stance against all nuclear development and deployment. The dangers are just too great for all of us and for the ground beneath our feet.
Join us in telling our representatives that we want:
- Termination of all research, development, production and testing of nuclear power and weapons.
- Decommission and cleanup of all current and contaminated nuclear sites, plants, ships and installations.
- Federal funding to montor and report radioactive contmination of the air and ocean, and funding to clean up the Fukushima disaster.
If you live in Oregon, find your congressional representatives here.
Here too is a bit of background...
Most United States nuclear plants were designed for a 30-40 year life and are licensed to operate for 40 years by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The average reactor is 32 years old as of 2014 and while decommissioning can be expensive (from tens of millions to over a billion dollars depending on complexity of the project) our aging plants will have to go through the decontamination and decommissioning process anyway if their licenses are not renewed. And considering the catastrophic alternatives whether they happen next year or in the 25th century, the estimated $100 billion in costs related to the Fukushima disaster, including cleanup and derivative economic impacts on everything from farming to medical expenses and the incalculable impacts on our ecology, decommissioning seems the cheaper alternative.
Germany has already made the commitment for all of its plants, beginning nationwide decommissioning work on a timeline that will extend until the year 2080 and that will bury tons of waste in container in facilities designed last a million years – longer than the human race has existed.
While the science that made nuclear power and weapons possible gives us a profound glimpse into the “mind of God” to quote Einstein, most of the applications beyond glowing watches and medical devices leave something to be desired, to say the least. Same goes for the policies that have made the proliferation of such applications possible.