Thirty years ago this country's nuclear program came to a halt after the disasterous accident and meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility in Pennsylvania. Since then we are still debating how to safely store in perpetuity countless tons of high level radioactive waste that is the legacy of this program that once promised "energy too cheap to meter," but resulted in massive cost-overuns and environmental hazards. So why has the nuclear option returned to the table as we look for alternatives to carbon emitting climate changing fossil fuels? What forgotten lessons of the 1970s do we need to remember?
Locus Focus host Barbara Bernstein is joined by Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy & Environmental Research, for a discussion about why nuclear power is no better an idea now than it was thirty years. We also talk about who is promoting nuclear power and why.
Arjun Makhijani is President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland. He earned his Ph.D. in engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 1972, specializing in nuclear fusion.
A recognized authority on energy issues and nuclear issues in particular, Dr. Makhijani is the author and co-author of numerous reports and books on topics such as nuclear defense systems, radioactive waste storage and disposal, nuclear testing, disposition of fissile materials, energy efficiency, and ozone depletion. He is the principal editor of Nuclear Wastelands: a Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects, published by MIT Press in July 1995, and subsequently nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Dr. Makhijani has served as a consultant to numerous organizations including the Tennessee Valley Authority, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and several agencies of the United Nations.
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