Remember that those financed by Big Tobacco said “smoking causing cancer is unproven and highly questionable.”
That’s what big money can do to protect profits—hire people with degrees to sell out and protect those profits. Meanwhile, millions of Americans believed smoking was not harmful and ended up dead.
Now Big Fossil Fuel is doing the same—funding so-called environmental groups to spread fear about nuclear power so they can keep making trillions of dollars worldwide. Again, they do not care about your health, nor the beauty of nature, nor our children’s future.
All they want is billions and billions of dollars more in the pockets of their CEOs and fat-cat investors. If you are thinking “Koch brothers,” you are right on target. (According to Forbes, the Koch brothers made $115 billion in 2006.)
Here’s an example for all you Sierra Club supporters. In 2012, Time magazine caught the Sierra Club “secretly” (according to Time) taking $26 million from Chesapeake Energy, a natural gas corporation.
The Sierra Club campaigns endlessly against nuclear plants. Think there could be a connection? When a nuclear plant closes, the natural gas industry is the big winner, especially if renewables get built to replace lost clean nuclear electricity.
Think of renewables as fossil fuel plants in disguise, because when the wind isn’t blowing, and the sun isn’t shining (like at night), some energy has to take their place and that something, is almost always coal, oil, or natural gas.
The “capacity factor” for solar is around 20 percent and wind is about 40 percent. That means they put out 20 percent and 40 percent of their advertised full power.
But something has to keep electricity flowing to our homes and factories when renewables are “off duty,” and that something is mostly earth-warming, unhealthy fossil fuel, including natural gas.
To understand how you are being deceived, read Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes’s book, Merchants of Doubt. She shows how industry uses a few “scientists-for-sale” to confuse the public and keep the money rolling into industries poisoning our people and killing our only planet.
Beware citizens. It’s the age we live in when money is king and all other concerns ranging from our children to polar bears aren’t even in the equation. Δ
William Gloege submits a lot of opinion pieces about nuclear power and Diablo Canyon from Santa Maria. Send comments through the editor at clanham@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Volunteers 2018.
Gloeges claim that solar power is useless at night is idiotic. Has he not heard of batteries?
Gloeges claim that solar power is useless at night is idiotic. Has he not heard of batteries? It is reckless, deceptive and irresponsible anti-environmental propaganda like his that makes it more important than ever that people who care about our world support the Sierra Club and other organizations that try to prevent environmental crimes and disasters.
There are MANY reasons PG@E is eager to close down Diablo. Here is one of them:
PG&E and the federal government have NO viable plan or facility–on the Central Coast or elsewhere–for permanent storage of the MILLIONS of pounds of highly toxic radioactive waste piling up at the Diablo plant. Every month the old, inefficient plant operates, TONS more radioactive waste is added to the highly vulnerable, temporary storage field north of the nuclear reactors.
There is NO denying the FACT that by all nuclear industry standards and regulations, Diablo does not have a safe and reliable facility for permanent storage of the toxic waste. In fact, there is NO ACCEPTED PLAN whatsoever on what to ultimately do with the waste. The long term cost of storing and monitoring the waste at Diablo in the current facility is staggering and, as it is now, will far exceed the cost of building every single elementary school, university, hospital, fire department and police station on the entire Central Coast. It is an expanding bill that will weigh heavily upon generation upon generation of Central Coast residents. And each day the plant remains open, the bill escalates at an alarming rate.
And, as PG&E officials have stated repeatedly, it makes no financial sense to keep the plant running. Furthermore, hundreds of people will be employed in the long process of decommissioning the plant in a safe manner. The Central Coast should look forward to being at the forefront and a leader in the proper and safe decommissioning of abandoned nuclear plants and dealing with nearby radioactive waste sites.
The Sierra Club’s work is so vital at this time in history, that even fossil fuel moguls are seeing the wisdom in supporting the club’s work to protect the environment and slow climate change. We ALL have to think about what kind of world we are passing on to our children. Stock piling millions upon millions of pounds of highly toxic radioactive waste in vulnerable temporary storage facilities is a major concern and something that does not yet have an acceptable solution.
Gloeges is either ignorant or is purposely misleading the public about deaths and devastation caused by nuclear plant accidents. Here’s a small sampling of evidence that proves he is either blatantly lying or has no idea of what he is talking about:
https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-de…
RightWord is an active writer for sure. But respectfully he or she needs to read on energy comparisons. Studies (in books) show comparisons of actual injuries and fatalities from generation of energy by various means like hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear)
Nuclear is always so tiny its almost non-existant. The trouble nuclear haters get into is using fatalities they can IMAGINE, in place of actual fatalities. Again they need more education on supposedly terrible nuclear accidents. In the vast majority of accidents no one has been injured or killed: Fukushima, Three Mile Island, etc. Only Chernobyl killed people – about as many killed by burning fossil fuel world wide in one hour. To learn all details about any nuclear mishap go to the UNSCEAR organization with the U. N. This is a group of scientists tasked with investigating any incidents at nuclear plants world wide. Get education. Its so much better than just shooting off our mouths about something we just KNOW is true. We know it so surely we dont need to go to the trouble of study of incidents.
Hey RIGHTWORD. Whats your name? Publish it like I do.
William Gloege
Santa Maria, CA