Nuclear energy is not all bad, and it’s complicated to ban

Editor,

Joachim Oberst’s recent letter to the Daily Lobo demonstrated an admirable skill with prose and a remarkable ignorance regarding nuclear power and the Egyptian-style revolution he calls for.

In his letter, Oberst paints a moving picture about the consequences of nuclear energy, but pretty pictures do not make a convincing argument. He calls for the end of nuclear energy without understanding the ramifications of that call.

Japan relies on nuclear energy for 30 percent of its electricity, while countries like France use it for nearly 90 percent of their energy.
What are these countries to do if they quit using nuclear energy? What alternatives do they have that are not costly in these economic times? Furthermore, is there even reason for such panic?

The International Atomic Energy Agency uses a seven-point scale to categorize nuclear accidents, with seven being the most severe. In all of nuclear history, there have only been two events above Level 5, with Japan poised to be the third.

Three. That’s it. In nearly 60 years of using nuclear reactors, we have only had three serious or major accidents.

Yet here we are going strong. More people have died in plane crashes than in nuclear accidents, but I don’t see cries for revolts against the government if they refuse to destroy all airplanes. Perhaps if every nuclear reactor on the planet suffered a sudden and complete catastrophic incident then the “end of history,” as Oberst puts it, would occur, but that only means that we should not neglect nuclear reactors the way Japan did.

The lesson to be learned from Fukushima is that we should make sure that all possible safety measures are enacted with regards to nuclear power.
Oberst’s suggestion that we should engage in revolution that would claim more lives than a nuclear power accident is far from a rational course of action and fails to address the issues raised by Fukushima.

Kyle Farris
UNM student