We Support Lee takes a look back 30 years at the protest at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant:
The Seabrook facility now provides 1,244 MW of emissions-free electricity for New England. It is now owned by FPL, which is Fortune's Most Admired Electric Utility. FPL is a leader in addressing climate change through emissions reduction. FPL participates in the community and with education, doing such things as training Texas students in wind turbine technology.Pretty good record if you ask me.
Comments
Funny that the blogger should mention that "this crowd [the Clamshell Alliance] did not get its wish" in the context of presenting this history lesson.
When I first got started with the anti-nuke movement in 1975, President Nixon had just launched his "Project Independence" to construct 1000 reactors units in the USA by the year 2000. Of the 255 or so units that were ordered only 130 received operating licenses.In fact, there are are only 104 units today with operating licenses. 75 of these reactors contributed to more than $100 billion in cost overruns with no credit to protests or interventions.
The nucleasr industy's megalomanic plan was decimated. That's the history.
No Nukes,
Paul Gunter, Clamshell Alliance [1976-1990]and currently with NIRS.
I will always treasure the memory of the egg tosses on the grounds of the old Cutler plant in South Dade county under the talk stacks of the plant.
It was also the company that first introduced me to nuclear power - Dad talked a lot about Turkey Point and St. Lucie when I was growing up. In 1977 (the year of the protests at Seabrook), when I was choosing my future profession, a career in nuclear was about as popular as a career in computers was ten years later. In other words, it was (and will be) the place to be.
Rod Adams
It is really criminal that unit two did not come on line. Many lives have undoubtedly been lost because of the use of fossil fuels instead, not that any one in the Clamshell alliance would dream of apologizing to these dead.
It may have been more excusable in an earlier time, when the success of the nuclear industry was less well proved, but in modern times - especially given the nature of the issues we face - an anti-nuclear position is not just economically and environmentally foolish - but is downright immoral.
I've made it clear that I was one of the anti-Shoreham activists and I very much morally regret my actions (even if I was not in any way a leader of this inane bit of my youth.)
I think Ruth is doing an outstanding job in pointing out that the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970's bears great moral responsibility for subsequent developments.
All rational people who care about the environment hope that the nuclear industry will be able to make up for lost time.
-NNadir
Seabrook was one of the nuclear plants that the so-called environmentalists used to use justify opposition to coal-fired units that some Northeast utilities planned to bring on line to displace the use of fuel oil, which was often used in plants in that region at that time. They told utilities that investing in nuclear units was a preferred alternative to constructing coal-fired plants. Then those same "environmentalist" groups turned around and stabbed Seabrook in the back by filing motion after motion, delay after delay, to drive it's cost up. A bunch of liars and backstabbers, the lot of them.
Let's let the free market system apply to nuclear power and make the owners provide their own insurance - then let's see where the future of nuclear power lies.
We sit here in 103 sites in the U.S. with pre-deployed potential weapons of mass destruction - the praised Seabrook owners FPL were fined (an "unusual event" for the NRC to take that step) for having seriously compromised security.
The moral righteousness of your bloggers is laughable. The actual damage to our environment from the mining, milling and piling up of the wastes alone calls into question the morality of this industry. It is understandable that people who work in this industry have to do moral backflips to help justify a technology that has to be 99.99% certain in its operation or the compounding misteps can have incredible consequences.
Yes, there have been deaths from the use of coal - we here in the northeast are the "tailpipe" recipients. Had our government used even 1/2 of the impetus that went into the Manhattan Project to develop safe, renewable energy sources, our economy and our health and safety would be much less compromised.
Let's put the responsiblity and lack of morality where it belongs. The profit motive is consummate with nuclear - with safe renewables the profits, as with the energy, would be more dispersed throughout the economy, not in the hands of a few. Let nuclear stand the test of the free market and pay its way, with government subsidies and limits on citizen intervention. I dare say it will do itself in.