Reply #243: Are you familiar with the Santa Susannah disaster in Simi Valley in S. California?

[JDPriestly]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory

In October 2006, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Advisory Panel, made up of independent scientists and researchers from around the United States, concluded that contamination at the facility resulted in between 0 and 1,800 cancer deaths (the average estimate was 300 deaths). The report also concluded that the SRE meltdown caused the release of more than 458 times the amount of radiation released at Three Mile Island.<1>

We are more sophisticated today. And today we have the money and political organization to insure the safety of these facilities. But will our grandchildren have the money and political organization to spend on safeguarding nuclear sites and waste 100 years from now? That's the question. We take a very high standard of living for granted. Should we lose the ability to maintain that standard of living, we would lose the ability to safely maintain the nuclear sites and the nuclear waste. That is the problem. We are gambling with the futures of our grandchildren and their grandchildren when we go nuclear. We cannot do that.

People talk about the problems of leaving our national debt to our grandchildren. Leaving a national safety hazard to our grandchildren, leaving nuclear sites and materials for them to clean up, would be much, much worse. We cannot go nuclear. We just cannot afford it. Our grandchildren cannot afford it.