nuclear energy not safe during war time

Often when I hear politicians and nuclear power advocates talk about clean or green energy they’ll throw nuclear energy into the mix. I don’t believe that nuclear energy is clean or green. The assumption is made that new design elements can be incorporated to make new reactors more resistant to meltdowns, terror attacks and any other list of things that can go wrong, but what I don’t hear in the discussion is what would happen if the U.S. or any other country that builds and uses nuclear energy were to get into a war with another country that incorporated bombing campaigns against reactors and power generating facilities. I don’t think that a reactor could be designed to withstand repeated wartime bombing. Many of the countries seeking or building nuclear energy facilities now have very unstable governments and poor relations with their neighbors making the possibility of war quite high. Another threat that’s not brought into the discussion is the unlikely but very possible event of a meteorite striking a country like France that generates most of it’s electricity from nuclear or any other country for that matter that has a large number of nuclear reactors. The results would be disastrous for the whole world. Other threats include large earthquakes etc. Transporting the waste also is an ever present danger. What happens when a solar array or wind farm gets bombed in wartime etc….not much!….the power goes out for a while and you spend a few weeks or months putting up new arrays and wind towers. How long does it take to rebuild a nuclear power facility…..Years…that’s a long time for a country or region to be without power, especially in the winter. But…oh yeah, first you have to clean up the reactor site…how long does that take? These are issues you won’t here nuclear power advocates talking about. It’s very similiar to the clean coal discussion that fails to mention the mountaintop removal that goes on in mining the coal and the cost and fuel usage in transporting the coal to market also the cost of “cleaning up” the land and water at the mining site which costs millions and takes years….but you can’t put back 200 year old trees, rich topsoil back etc. What makes oil and coal so cost competative is the amount of subsidies both industries have received over the years including military expenditures to protect and support countries around the world with large oil deposits and often have non-democratic governments who we would otherwise shun or even possibly lobby to reform through peaceful diplomacy, instead were forced through our oil addictions to pat them on the back and tell them that we don’t have issues with the way they treat their people….smacks of hypocrisy. Solar energy and wind energy is relatively free by comparison and there is enough for all, after the initial investment you simply wait for the payoff. Obviously oil, nuclear and coal will be around for a while but strong measures and public awareness will start the trend away from these more dangerous technologies. I don’t believe that biofuels are an anwswer, studies are showing biofuels to be more damging than oil because of land use and disruption of food supplies through increased demand which puts upward pressure on food prices, contributes to deforestation and fuel and fertilizer use which also increases greenhouse gases.

Third world countries like Haiti could greatly benefit from solar/wind power. Most of the country of Haiti has been deforested through the practice of cutting trees for firewood for cooking. Aid groups etc. could easily distribute and install solar panels for the purpose of generating the low amount of energy that is needed for cooking, These could be installed on individual homes or at communal neighborhood cooking centers eliminating further need to gather firewood for cooking leading to eventual reforestation and stopping further loss of topsoil. This also could possibly lead to the re-establishment of a tourist industry in Haiti providing needed income for it’s citizens.