Nuclear power? Think again, Dick
EDITORIAL
Westport (Conn.) Minuteman
November 20, 2003

Westport and Weston escaped the brunt of last week's wind storms without major power failures. We were lucky.

But ever since the blackout last summer that turned out the lights in much of the Northeast, electricity generation and transmission has been much on our minds.

Of particular concern has been the thought that facilities such as the Indian Point power plant in New York could be prime targets for the terrorist lunatics said to be exploring ways to top the death and destruction caused by the 9/11 attacks.

So it was interesting to hear state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal respond to a question about electricity needs at a recent meeting of the Westport/Weston Y's Men.

Given Blumenthal's recent legal battle to shut down an underwater power line off New Haven, and vehement local opposition to above-ground transmission lines, just what does the attorney general have in mind to meet our growing electricity needs, a questioner wanted to know.

To his credit, Blumenthal answered that nuclear power might be a possibility, if the plants could be rendered absolutely safe, and if the resulting nuclear waste could be safely transported to a single national storage facility - outside Connecticut, of course.

It was among the only times since the 1979 movie "The China Syndrome" scared everybody silly about nuclear power that an important state official - especially one, like Blumenthal, who has been mentioned for higher office - has said anything remotely nice, at least in public, about nuclear energy.

Blumenthal didn't get very specific, and the discussion quickly moved on to other topics.

And while Blumenthal should be applauded for his candor in addressing, if only briefly, this serious issue, it's clear from recent statements by opponents of nuclear energy that such power plants could never be made safe enough to satisfy them, especially now that terrorism is a concern.

Opponents of nuclear power, and of more conventional power- generation methods that depend on oil and gas, often cite wind power as a clean, viable alternative, if only government and big business devote enough research money to these proposals.

But a recent experiment by a private company that set up a system for wind-generated electricity off Nantucket indicated that this method will face opposition, too.

Practical windmills, you see, aren't the quaint wooden structures surrounded by forests of tulips we read about in Holland. Instead, they're ugly metal contraptions that look like larger versions of something your kid could build from an Erector Set. And you need a bunch of them to generate meaningful amounts of electricity.

The neighbors are not amused.

Solar power is employed by some area homeowners to supplement "regular" sources of electricity, but the technology isn't there yet to solve the storage and transmission hurdles - or to eliminate cloudy days.

We could get used to building campfires for cooking, of course - they were good enough for our ancestors. Trouble is, a campfire can't power up a computer.

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