Sneaking New Nukes Into War Spending

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http://counterpunch.com/katz05272010.html


The House Appropriations Committee is preparing to vote on loan guarantees for three new nuclear power plants.

These guarantees have been tacked on to emergency spending provisions for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The three reactors have prompted strong opposition from people living near the sites. Two are proposed for South Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico. One is proposed for Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, just forty miles from our nation's capital.

(there is already one at Calvert Cliffs)

As shown by the Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS.ORG), Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR.org), Beyond Nuclear (BeyondNuclear.org), Taxpayers for Common Sense and many more environmental and taxpayer organizations, there are serious financial, licensing, ecological, health, safety and other unresolved issues facing all of these projects.

And this is all happening as the horror in the Gulf of Mexico rages on without apparent end.

If the Deepwater Horizon has taught us anything, it might be that official limits on corporate liability are a sure sign of a technology being overstretched.

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Indeed, we cannot begin to conceive of the loss of life, or the irreversible ecological damage, that could be done by a reactor disaster in the United States.

It is no accident that after more than a half-century, private insurers will not step forward to accept liability for a such a catastrophe.

These loan guarantees are also a sure sign that private investors won't fund these plants without the taxpayers on the hook to pick up the real bill.

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Dangerous radioactive leaks and serious structural problems now plague Vermont Yankee, Davis-Besse, Indian Point and many other elderly reactors, including the two now operating at South Texas and the two more in operation at Calvert Cliffs.

Massive delays and skyrocketing overruns have struck the "new generation" French reactor being built in Finland, a design now being proposed for Maryland's Calvert Cliffs site.
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(stars are mine)

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no more nuke plants EVER