I meant to link to this excellent op-ed in the Columbia Missourian about nuclear energy a few months back - right about the time many were drawing conclusions from the Fukishima disaster in Japan a year later. It has some significance for me, since it comes from the perspective of Columbia, where research has been conducted for years on the subject, with a nuclear plant nearby in Callaway county, where lawmakers and business leaders have tried to resurrect the industry in recent years.
As Republican business types clamor for more growth, nuclear remains a part of the equation, because, quite frankly, there are few energy sources left to power our rise from human energy. We've about cooked up all the cheap, easy to get energy, and what's left will cook us just prospecting for it.
The talking heads this morning called for new pipelines and more growth as the only path to solving our problems, which apparently are all economic in nature. Ultimately, nuclear will have to power that growth, because little effort is being given to develop alternatives. My problem with nuclear has always been, "What do we do with the waste?"
Today, we're seeing that answer. One of the oldest "storage facilities" for spent nuclear fuel, read: waste, is leaking. Badly. Yes, we're not supposed to worry because it could take years to make it into our groundwater. You get that? Years! No matter that we're all toast, at that point.
Really, it doesn't matter, because we're already tainting our ground water with the chemicals used in fracking. We'll soon be drinking so much toxin we'll be able to save electricity at night due to our glow.
I wish I could say I was kidding. The recent meteor sensations have left us questioning whether or not we should be spending more money on watching the skies. I say we're doing a fantastic job of destroying the earth already.
