Physicians for Social Responsibility: Our Energy Future Must Revolve Around the Renewables

Dear WNCPSR colleague,

> This guest commentary was printed prominently on the editorial page of
> the 11/5 Asheville Citizen Times, as related to our priority of
> working to promote a sustainable world:
>
> "Our energy future must revolve around the renewables"
>
> We need more citizens and fewer profiteers influencing clean energy
> and climate legislation, due to threats from melting of earth's polar
> ice and permafrost, extreme weather events, rising ocean levels,
> worsening air quality, and pest-borne and waterborne diseases. Despite
> the contrarians' voices, we must act quickly and decisively to
> stabilize greenhouse gas pollution, employing the most cost-effective,
> cleanest and fastest approaches.
>
> Western NC Physicians for Social Responsibility calls for
> strengthening proposed climate legislation.
>
> We must reduce dependence on coal. Electricity from coal generates
> roughly half our nation's electricity at an unacceptable cost. Coal
> mining devastates the environment of Appalachia. Coal combustion
> contributes approximately a third of the nation's CO2 air pollution.
> This creates unacceptable toxic emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide,
> nitrogen oxides & particulate matter, resulting in severe damage to
> bodies, provoking heart attacks, asthma, respiratory diseases and
> cancer. The Clean Air Task Force reported particulate matter
> pollution from coal plants causes as many as 24,000 adult deaths
> annually.
>
> Recent proposals for "clean coal", "carbon capture and sequestration",
> an unproven technology, impractical until at least 2030, would delay
> efforts at ameliorating dangerous climate change, risk contamination
> of ground water and soil, be very expensive and divert investment
> resources away from solar, wind, and other clean renewable energy
> solutions.
>
> PSR supports an immediate moratorium on the construction of new
> coal-fired power plants such as Cliffside. Additionally, we seek
> legislation bringing all existing coal plants under stringent
> regulation for toxic emissions, under New Source Performance
> Standards.
>
> Regarding nuclear power, proposed legislation must prohibit unlimited
> loan guarantees or additional subsidies for constructing new reactors,
> as they are very expensive, risky investments. Electricity produced
> by them would cost two to three times more than renewable energy and
> efficiency measures, with the $8 billion costs per reactor still
> escalating. While the nuclear industry is clamoring for unlimited
> billions of taxpayer guaranteed dollars in loans and payment in
> advance from rate payers, the Congressional Budget Office estimates at
> least half of all new reactor projects will never be completed.
>
> Despite industry's misleading publicity about its safety, nuclear
> energy also pollutes the environment from mining uranium to management
> of its radioactive waste. Uranium miners experience high rates of lung
> cancer. Children living close to nuclear reactors in the U. S. and
> elsewhere have increased incidences of leukemia cases and cancers.
>
> Adding to more than 58,000 metric tons of spent fuel that has already
> accumulated at reactor sites around the U.S., enormous quantities of
> radioactive waste are added annually. There is currently no permanent
> solution to management of this waste. Reprocessing is not a workable
> solution. It endangers public health and is extremely expensive and
> inefficient. As for U. S. plans to increase France's ownership of our
> nuclear facilities, that country's celebrated La Hague nuclear
> reprocessing plant annually discharges 100,000,000 gallons of liquid
> radioactive waste into the English Channel, contaminating waters as
> far as the Arctic, according to Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear.
> Children living near that site also experience increased cancer rates.
>
> Nuclear reactors also require large quantities of water for cooling.
> During increasingly frequent droughts, they may be forced to shut
> down, as happened in France. Reactors discharge hotter water during
> heat waves, which can be harmful to river ecosystems.
>
> Furthermore, new nuclear reactors cannot be built rapidly enough to
> alleviate climate change. Each new reactor would require more than 10
> years to construct, much longer than efficiency and renewable
> projects, which can be deployed in the near term at less cost and have
> immediate beneficial impact.
>
> We should consider Van Jones' push for an energy revolution through
> massively employing jobless citizens in green jobs that would create
> needed products and services, while simultaneously boosting our
> economy.
>
> Legislation for dealing with climate change requires prompt and
> decisive action through sound investments in economical, expedient,
> and truly green technologies in order to moderate the looming public
> health crisis. Contrary to pronouncements from the Administration and
> Congress, and given the immediacy of this crisis, we must not waste
> time and limited resources on new nuclear reactors or coal-fired
> plants, which are expensive, slow to construct, and polluting. Instead
> we must invest in green jobs, energy efficiency, and carbon-free,
> nonpolluting renewable energies.
>
> Lewis E. Patrie, MD, is Chair of Western North Carolina Physicians for
> Social Responsibility
> He lives in Asheville