COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	STORAGE OF WASTE FROM NUCLEAR PLANTS
C00016 ENDMK
C⊗;
STORAGE OF WASTE FROM NUCLEAR PLANTS
 
"There are several available methods for the safe, long-term
disposal of all nuclear wastes."
 
	"Anti-nuclear activists are trying
to lead the public to believe that
scientists still haven't discovered any
way to safely store the radioactive wastes
produced by nuclear power plants.  These
statements are absolutely untrue.
 
	"First of all, we must understand
the size of the problem.  Each
of the 72 operating nuclear power
plants in the U.S. produces about xxxx
cubic feet of wastes per year requiring
long term storage.  It takes about
500 years before the wastes have
decayed to the point where their total
radioactivity is less than that of
the uranium ore from which the reactor
fuel was made in the first place.  In
fact many ways have been developed to
contain the waste for much longer than
that, since the natural uranium ore
is probably doing some harm even before
it is mined.
 
	"Most methods of waste storage
bury the wastes deep underground in
geologically stable rock formations,
for example salt beds which we know
have been free of ground waters
for hundreds of millions of years,
since otherwise the salt would have
dissolved.
 
	"The problem is that the U.S. Government
has not yet been able to decide what
method to adopt.  Other countries,
such as Sweden, have already made a
choice and are moving ahead with waste
disposal repositories.  An American
Physical Society study group in a 19xx
report confirmed the feasibility of
several of the proposed methods.
 
	"Actually, long term waste storage
is not an emergency problem.  Existing
temporary storage facilities present no
hazard, but they will have to
be enlarged if a decision on permanent
storage is long delayed.
 
	"Unfortunately, the opponents of
nuclear technology are experts in using
the legal system to cause delays and
then using the delay as
an excuse to claim that the problem
is unsolvable.  President Carter has
promised that a method for permanent
waste storage will be selected in 1979.
Let us hope the Government will be
able to keep this promise."
FRANKNESS ABOUT ENERGY
 
	President Carter's two recent speeches about energy unfortunately

did not reach the level of frankness to which we must hope he aspires.

If the energy crisis is the "moral equivalent of war", Carter's
present policy is close to the moral equivalent of Neville Chamberlain's

policy of appeasement.
The trouble is that he evaded issues that cannot be evaded if the

country is to attain energy independence.
 
	1. His first speech ignored nuclear energy completely, and his
second did not indicate to what extent he supports its use to
eliminate the use of oil for the production of electricity.  His
failure to admit the existence of controversy about nuclear energy

and establish a goal of resolving it supports our apprehension
that the current guerrilla warfare over nuclear energy will continue.

Plants will be completed and put into use eventually, but there will

be further delays from lawsuits.
 
	In fact we should set a date for the complete cessation of
using oil and natural gas for electricity generation accepting that

this means the replacement of existing oil-burning plants that cannot be

converted to coal.
 
%Nuclear energy should also be developed for
supplying heat for industrial processes.  It can also be used to
assist the conversion of coal to liquid fuels, since more than twice

as much oil can be obtained from a ton of coal if there is a
non-coal source of the heat needed for the conversion.  Unless
we can be very sure that our supplies of natural gas will last
for at least fifty years, we should also begin to develop nuclear

plants for decomposing water to get the hydrogen that can replace

natural gas.
In case climate studies show that we have to stop putting
so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,
hydrogen power for vehicles also needs to be explored.
Spokesmen for the utilities and the manufacturers of nuclear plants

may find it utopian to speak of expanded applications for nuclear

energy when they are having difficulty keeping present projects
alive, but the need for nuclear power is too great to leave its
defense to the limited public relations skills of the utilities
and reactor manufacturers.
 
	Likewise we must again begin to develop new kinds of reactor.
The Clinch River breeder reactor should be built and prototypes
built of new types of reactor such as the molten salt breeder.
In World War II five approaches to getting fissionable material
were developed simultaneously.  The proponents of one concept should

not have to feel that they must denigrate all others in order
to be supported.
 
	2. More fundamentally, the President ignored the controversy over

whether the energy problem should be solved.  Many leaders of the

environmental movement, including many appointed by
Carter to high government positions, oppose "solving" the energy
problem in any sense that would permit the public to buy
energy freely at whatever price it costs to produce it.
Instead many argue about how much energy people should use and take

for granted the legitimacy of using Government power
to make individuals consume no more than is considered to be
appropriate.
This point of view was
well expressed in a 1974 speech by Russell Train, then Environmental

Protection Administrator saying, "We should seize upon the energy

crisis as a good excuse and great opportunity to make fundamental

changes in our society that we should be making anyway for other
reasons".  Environmental leaders including Amory Lovins and Paul
Ehrlich have expressed similar sentiments.
We believe that in the long run our society can have enough energy

so that everyone can buy whatever he thinks he needs.
Anyone who wants to "make fundamental changes in society" is obliged

to rely on persuasion.
 
	If conservation is put forward as a temporary measure, necessary

while the supply problem is being solved, it will be accepted.
If it is the main measure for dealing with the
energy situation, and the main sources of energy are seen
as running out, it is just a means of prolonging the agony.
Government policies that promise doom in 40 years rather than in 20

will not and should not be supported.  To be blunt,
co-operation with conservation policies, when these
are the only policies offered, is counterproductive.
 
	Carter's synthetic fuel program is much too small.  The five
billion dollar program costs the same as three or four tankfuls
of gas for the country's cars.  A synthetic fuel program that removes

our dependence on foreign oil will be worthwhile if its cost is
more than a hundred times that amount.
 
	The probability of getting useful solar energy would be enhanced

if the proposed schemes were evaluated more scientifically rather

than on the basis of publicity campaigns and other gimmicks.
Demonstration programs that demonstrate a source of energy at tens of

times any competitive cost are rarely useful.
We note that the Energy Department gave its recent award to a
propagandist for solar energy - indeed a propagandist against
other forms of energy - rather than to someone who has made
a technical contribution to the realization of solar energy.
This preference for publicity over progress is another sign that
solar energy is not being pursued with the realism and seriousness

required for solar energy to make a genuine contribution in this
century - if indeed this is possible.
 
	3. Mr. Carter did not work up his courage to the point of discussing

the need for a compromise between advocates of emphasizing production

and advocates of conservation as primary.  In our opinion, real progress

and winning the confidence of the American people, will require a progra
m
that emphasizes production more heavily than most people expect, but

the program Congress will enact will undoubtedly be a compromise.

However, whatever compromise Congress reaches must be made to stick.

It must not be undermined by delays in the Government bureaucracy or

by legal guerrilla warfare.  In particular, when a law is being
interpreted differently from the intention of Congress, Congress must

take corrective action, for example by a resolution clarifying the

meaning of the law.