The Blue Ribbon Commission recently met in Augusta, Georgia to discuss America’s Nuclear Future, specifically regarding nuclear waste and it’s disposal. Clemson’s SEA was there and submitted comments to the Commission at the Marriott Hotel and Suites, along the banks of the Savannah River. Less than thirty miles from the meeting is the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, which was built in 1951 and today separates, handles and stores nuclear materials. They also develop and deploy technologies to treat nuclear and hazardous wastes from the Cold War. South Carolina has long been a repository for nuclear wastes of all kinds.
Our delegation included other students from the Palmetto Environmental Action Coalition, our state network, and our comments encouraged the Commission not to bring anymore waste to South Carolina, and use our innovation and creativity to deal with the large amounts of waste we already have. Clemson’s Environmental Engineering and Earth Science department is on the cutting edge of research on uranium disposal and risk analysis of the nuclear lifecycle, among other nuclear topics.
Nuclear energy is a large part of South Carolina’s history and with the Keowee Toxaway plant just miles upstream from Clemson, it is important that we as students and community members inform ourselves about nuclear energy, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It provides electricity, yes, but it also creates one of the most toxic and persistent materials known to man: plutonium. This material stays in the environment for hundreds of thousands of years at a hazardous level. (It’s half life is 24,000 years, and it remains hazardous for many, many half lives). Plutonium is also a component in nuclear weapons. Currently, the high level waste from nuclear power generation remains on-site at the plant. However, now that Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been taken off the table as a potential repository, the government, DOE and others are looking for a new location to store this material. Transporting this material thousands of miles across the US on public highways is not a walk in the park either.
Many see nuclear power as a transition or bridge fuel to wean our society off of fossil fuels and to more clean and renewable energies, that produce less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (CO2 is actually one of the least potent greenhouse gases. We should also worry about methane and nitrous oxide which are also contributing to the greenhouse effect, warming our atmosphere. But I digress 
The most glaring problem to using nuclear power as a transitional fuel is cost. The cost of one new reactor is in the ball park of 8-10 BILLION dollars. Additionally, no private investors will even touch these projects, as they count them as too risky, and they worry about not getting a return on their investments. So, the only way nuclear power is feasible, is through loan guarantees from the government. Yep, that means yours and my tax dollars. At a time when we are trying to trim spending and so many institutions are finding their budgets smaller than they’d like, should we really spend billions of dollars on a nuclear power renaissance? (Note: I am reading Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman, and he quotes, ” …the average cost of saving a kilowatt-hour through efficiency is 1.7 cents per KW/hr; the cost of generating any new KW/hr of electricity today would be over 10 cents per kilowatt-hour — so the cost savings generated through energy efficiency are spectacular.” )
Many of you are probably like me and never really considered nuclear power before: is it safe? is it cost effective? is it dangerous? is it a good investment? When I was in elementary school in Anderson, we used to take a field trip each year to the World of Energy at Keowee Toxaway and learn about nuclear power. It all seemed very friendly and benign. When I was in graduate school however, I began to learn more about nuclear energy and decided to be less complicit about it’s presence in my state. I’m not asking you to take my position, I am only asking you to educate yourself and your friends and family and decide for yourselves whether or not a nuclear renaissance is the right answer to our energy dilemmas.
Seems to me that more jobs would ultimately be created though investing in energy efficiency, which is also cheaper, than building specialized new nuclear plants. But regardless of that issue, I for one, do not want more hazardous waste brought to my homeplace for fellow South Carolinians to live near.
Never fear! SEA is taking a big group this year and are excited to get to Asheville and meet up with other students just like us, who are ready for revolution! The clean energy revolution, that is. We are working together to build a clean and just society where our air and water are clean, people are treated with the respect they deserve and communities are empowered to make their towns and cities livable and sustainable. Our generation is the one making this shift and we need YOU to join us. If you are interested in attending, please email hgarret@clemson.edu. Also, if you’d like to help me and be a recruitment coordinator for Clemson, please email me and let me know! 
