“Modern technology…puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy which can be extracted and stored as such… Air is now set upon to yield nitrogen, the earth to yield ore, ore to yield uranium…to yield atomic energy…” — Martin Heidegger, “The Question of Technology,” 1954
A “largely or wholly solar economy can be constructed in the United States with straightforward soft technologies that are now demonstrated and now economic or nearly economic.” — Amory Lovins, Foreign Affairs, 1976
"All of the solar energy technologies that can replace fossil fuels are in hand, some are already economically competitive with conventional sources, and many are rapidly approaching that point.” — Barry Commoner, 1975
“The difference between us and the AEC is that we are not willing to play Russian roulette with human lives… [Relaxing radiation standards will result in a 30% increase in cancer.] There is no morality and there is not a shred of honesty in any of them…This is legalized murder, the only question is how many murders.” — John Gofman, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, 1970
“Our campaign stressing the hazards of nuclear power will supply a rationale for increasing regulation… and add to the cost of the industry…” — Sierra Club Executive Director, Michael McCloskey, 1974
“A nuclear accident could wipe out Cleveland and the survivors would envy the dead.” — Ralph Nader, 1974 Source : Sheldon Novick, The Electric War: The Fight Over Nuclear Power , Sierra Club Books, 1976
[A] million people die in the Northern Hemisphere now, because of plutonium from atmospheric [weapons] testing.” — David Brower
Q: You don't want [the nuclear waste] problem solved until the industry -- A: No, because it'll just try to prolong the industry, and expand the second generation of nuclear plants subsidized by the tax payer. — Ralph Nader, 1997, PBS Frontline, “Nuclear Reaction”
“[O]n every level of human thought radioactive wastes — in association with weapons — were seen as filthy insults against the proper order of things.” — Spencer Weart
''The critics of our society are using nature in the old primitive way: impurities in the physical world or chemical carcinogens in the body are directly traced to immoral forms of economic and political power.'' — Mary Douglas
Unnecessarily dangerous Immoral Dirty
Coal Deaths Widely Recognized in 60s and 70s New York Times, “Public fears over nuclear hazards are increasing,” 1979
“We cannot remain in our laboratories, our hospitals, our offices anymore. I’m learning to teach people through love, not hate…. What I do now is to appeal to their goodness as human beings on the radiation issue. They've got children, they've got bodies. I try to appeal to their emotions… Have the people who build these weapons ever seen a child die of leukemia? I have.” — Helen Caldicott, NYT, 1979
Timeline of Haven (WI) Opposition
1979 1987 2016
Nuclear Energy Institute, 2016
Improved efficiency of U.S. nuclear plants 100 85 Capacity factor (%) 70 55 40 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 2012 2015 Source : U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). 2017. Monthly Energy Review. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/#nuclear.
Cost of nuclear by reactor type 11000 Overnight Capital Cost ($/kW) 8250 5500 2750 0 OCC/kW Fast breeder reactor Fast Breeder Reactor w/o Monju Gas-cooled Boiling water Heavy water Pressurized water Source : Lovering, J. R., Yip, A., & Nordhaus, T. 2016. Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors. Energy Policy , 91 , 371-382. Accessed March 7, 2017. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106
“Imagine the consequences from a fertilizer truck bomb detonated next to a “containment-lite” [molten-salt] reactor… truly a nuclear nightmare.” (2001) — David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists
“Where the danger lies, so too grows the saving power.” — Friedrich Hölderlin
"If we're going to tackle global warming, nuclear is the only way you can create massive amounts of power.” — Sting, 2016
Need 5,000 times more land for solar than for nuclear
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