DATE: Tuesday, August 19, 2008
TIME: 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Bloomsburg University's Kehr Union Ballroom
ADDRESS: 400 East Second Street, Bloomsburg PA 17815
Needless to say, local activists are in revolt. Emails are travelling at warp speed. "Stop the nukes!" protest signs are being built. One of the emails I've received tells me this. "Nuclear power is dangerous and destructive throughout its life-cycle and is not a solution for climate change. This proposal needs to be squashed early in the process."
Actually, nuclear power is relatively safe. It's supported by both presidential candidates. It already provides 78% of the electricity in France, 50% in Sweden and 30% of the European Union. It produces no greenhouse gases, reduces energy dependence and is cheap. It certainly should be part of our combined-solution approach to our energy crisis.
6 comments:
Honestly, that area could use the jobs that building a new plant would generate. Working at the PPL plant is one of the best jobs in the area (My husband worked there while I finished college). While all those people are at the Union complaining about a nuke plant, I wonder if the awful smelling, excessive polluting Alpo plant (that has been there for decades) will be brought up. Nothing could be worse than that place!
yes...yes....a thousand times yes.
europe runs primarily on nuclear power. we need the same level of competiveness. and by becoming one of the first of a new wave of nuclear plants we would be making pennsylvania much more competitive in the years ahead.
plus, building a nuclear plant is a decades-long process which will create thousands of high-skilled, high-paying union-type jobs which will last for a long time.
we need this.
Consigliere, You are right. In several places, I read that consruction of a nuclear energy facility is a very long process. I did not think of all the jobs that would provide.
I'm not opposed to nuclear, and consigliere is on point, but why not build in the areas currently starved for more juice (e.g. northeast New Jersey)? Why drag lines all over the place? Let's build plants where power is needed. Jerseyites likely find nuclear plants as unsightly as their garbage - before they ship it here. Go Nuclear - in Newark!
Anon 4:36, Maybe Newark is a good site, I don't know. I do know these things have to be built near existing high transsmission lines. The power generated has to go somewhere. I see your point about building near a line that travcels 140 miles.
I have no idea where existing nuclear plants are located vis-a-vis high population densities, but the fact remains that Three Mile Island still weighs in people's minds. I would think that PPL and federal regulators want nuclear plants in lower population density areas "just in case."
I agree with that approach.
The Banker
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