Nuclear Reactors - Our future?

It starts almost as a whisper. Strange, cute TV ads from a company you never heard of. Politicians suggesting how we can secure our way of life by making sure we have the energy we need. The president clearing the way for licensing. Investors lining up to get in on the new construction. This background is being built to shape your opinion. Soon you will be told how much better your future is going to be because we are going to build new, modern, wonderful, beneficial nuclear reactors.

When the announcement comes you'll be ready to agree. Since we lost the "free press" over the last 10 or 20 years, there will be little real criticism, little real knowledge of why we need nuclear reactors.

I know why we really need them. My knowing began more than 45 years ago when I visited Spain and lived over a year in Europe. I was shocked to see how others could have different "facts" about things that I just took as reality. Now on a recent visit I was shocked again. Spain is booming! There's a lot to tell, but one thing I saw in many places was a proliferation of windmills.

1. Spain has CLOSED three nuclear plants.
2. Spain plans to close the other five!
3. The nation's president has confirmed that the country's 8 operating plants will be phased out in favour of clean, renewable energy.
4. Across the world the nuclear industry is drowning in debt, controversy and its massive waste issues.
5. Spain joins Sweden, Germany, Italy and Belgium as the fifth European country to abandon nuclear power.
6. For the same investment, wind generates 5 times the jobs and 2.3 times the power as a nuclear reactor.
7. There are other energy sources available, on the drawing boards, or achievable with the right incentives.
   

About 15 years ago we had a booming windmill business in the USA. Individual entrepreneurs were pouring money into "windmill farms". Many of the windmills in the farms were owned one by one, by smaller investors. The government helped spur this growth with tax incentives.

Then overnight this business was CRUSHED. They didn't just take away the tax incentive, they removed it RETROACTIVELY! This caused many people to loose most of their investment and the windmill business crumbled overnight. Now you can't even buy a windmill, the worldwide demand is so high, and other countries, having seen the future we began, have contracted to purchase all the available production. Probably a great opportunity here if the US were actually interested in investing and creating jobs IN the USA.

Our busy new world leaves little time for real thinking and fact gathering. In the past we could use newspapers, and investigative reporters to dig in and find the type of information I indicated above. Today we have a handful of multi-billionaires that own most of the media, and while I don't have reason to think they are conspirators, it is only natural they would hire and promote people that have the same values and opinions as their own. Their values tend to be those that support billionaires making more billions. DUH!!

I don't have a lot of good suggestions on how to fix the endless laundry list of ills for the middle and lower class. (Oh sorry, the new PC is middle INCOME, not Class - hummm?) There are many great agencies of our government that were created to help the citizens of the country. Today the top levels of all these agencies (FDA, USDA, Consumer safety, Transportation, Education, etc) are riddled with proponents for the industry's they were created to monitor and control. The problems that actually reach the press such as the toy recalls, e-coli outbreaks, collapsing bridges and so much more, are only the tip of the iceberg. (For the time being we still HAVE icebergs!)

In my next blog I'll discuss what I believe is the driving force behind the majority of ALL these problems. Thanks for reading.